For the past few days it has been sunny and warm outside, a gift to us for our hard work. We have spent the week clearing brush and trees behind buildings around camp, as well as along the roads. Work has been extremely physically demanding, amounting to 8 hours of strenuous physical labor including splitting firewood, bucking logs with chainsaws, clearing brush with chainsaws, axes and loppers, felling trees and loading it onto the truck for removal. On top of that every night we have an hour of physical training that usually involves running around 3.5 miles up a hill in the dark. In comparison to where we all were when we became a team in October we are hardened athletes, fit in all senses of the word.
We've also had a lot of fun on our off time. Watching movies, going in to town to watch a movie, and going to Seattle... to watch a movie... Now that I think about it, it's mostly been watching movies...
Actually that's not true, last weekend a group of us went to Seattle and had quite an adventure. We took the ferry into town and met a nice crazy guy that showed us how to get to downtown Seattle. He told us all about how everyone on Vashon Island was on heroin and cocaine and that there was "a huge party" at someone's house and if we wanted to go to just "ask around" and we could go if we were "chill enough". When we got to Seattle we went to the Flagship REI and perused their goods for a bit. Most of us have headlamps now because of how dark it gets while moving between cabins and lodges and the like. Then Ron, Ben and I went on a journey for food, and wandered for a good 20 blocks before we found somewhere to eat. After that we went to H&M and purchased some fancy clothes. We also went to the Pike Place Market and wandered about looking at all the shops. Then a homeless man cursed us to hell, and we got back on the bus to go home. The lady on the bus told two of our team mates Warith and Finley that they should have 8 children because they would be beautiful and that they could sell their embryos at any price. She then proceeded to tell us about how she purchased her son (who was mentally handicapped) in embryo form knowing "there was something a little bit wrong with him". She was quite a bizarre lady, as was her adult son, dressed as a girl scout that sat next to me. We rode the ferry back, all in all a good day.
Next time on the adventures of Joey in the corps:
Island swimming
Zombies!
The Others...
-J
Hahahaha, crazy freaking homeless people.
ReplyDeleteHey you are pretty close to Vancouver eh? You should persuade someone to take you to the hockey gold game in reward for all your hard work...that would be the sweetest thing ever (other than living in redwoods of course).
Such adventures!!!! Sounds like you're having an awesome tme as usual! Your going to come back solid muscle, although you were pretty close when you left so I'm not sure how much more muscle you can posiibly build. I guess the drugs help to explain the craziness of the island... Be careful as always! Keep having fun! Miss you!
ReplyDelete-Summer
I hope to God you took a picture of the adult son in a girl scout uniform sitting next to his mother on the bus! If you write and publish a coffee-table book of your AmeriCorps adventures, that pic MUST be on the cover!
ReplyDeleteBTW, have you checked your email? I sent you Christopher's number. Please call him while you are there. Maybe you can get together for a little while. I'm sure it would be fun.
Dad
Seattle is a very popular place for homeless people. Good support services, mild weather, lots of tourists. One guy used to stand at a street corner in Pike Place Market and say, "hey, Miss America," whenever I (or any other female, I suspect) walked by. Be sure and get down to Pioneer Square, also. It's cool.
ReplyDeleteLook out for overuse injuries. They'll come back to haunt you when you get old like me...
Dr. Mom
I assume that by "fancy clothes" you mean something along the line of what Leonidas wore in "300" because I'm sure that every guy there looks like an underwear model by now. Was the adult man dressed as a girl scout selling cookies?
ReplyDelete-Kevin