Allie, A Mile High

No, that't not a reference to anything illegal or indecent. It's a reference to the fact that I'm in the most beautiful place, surrounded by the most beautiful people, and I feel like I'm on the top of the world. 

Entering: Colorado.

It's been a while since I last blogged. In fact, last time I blogged, my plan was to head to Bothell, Washington! Things have definitely changed. Let's rewind about 18 days and I'll give you the highlights reel.

Tuesday 10/8: Plan: Head to Washington! Actual happening: Government shutdown puts all teams on hold. We head to Camp Gray instead for chainsaw training, trail clearing, and some good old outdoor fun.

Camp Gray: Chainsaws, axes, and machetes. Sleep in tents, have campfires, watch the meteor shower on cots with your best friend, chat about life. It doesn't get much better than this. It was a perfect two days.

Return from Camp Gray: Thursday morning 10/10/2013: Happy Birthday to me! Staff meeting 8:30am. Deployment update: We can't head to our original destinations, but teams are allowed to be deployed to disaster zones. A few teams headed to Missouri and Texas, 6 teams headed to Denver, CO! I'm one of the 6 headed to Denver! Depart by 8am Friday morning. Spend birthday making clearance packet, getting team packed/ready, forget to pack self (did that at 1am...oops), and don't have time to celebrate. Team made me a homemade cake (not from a box!) and had lots of hugs. Yay!

Friday 10/11: Depart from campus at 8:30am (not too far from our goal) and head to Texas. There's nothing in North Texas except for really awesome rest stops. Keep it up, TX. 

Saturday 10/12: Enter CO. HOLY GORGEOUS. This place is beautiful. Can I stay? Oh right, I have two months of this. Soak it all in and never let a day go by where you don't appreciate the mountains. (I've kept up with that. It still blows my mind every day. More on that later.)

Sunday/Monday: Explore Denver! We had a nice hotel Sunday night and we have all day to do what we want. Hurray! We're here! I'm sick of the van, and driving! Move in to our extended stay hotel motel on Monday. The conditions are... adequate. I have one working stove burner (out of two), a mini refrigerator that freezes everything (even on the lowest temperature setting), no toaster, and no oven. But it's more than some people have so we'll make it work! It's AmeriCorps, and we can chalk this one up to Life Experience.

Start at JFO on Tuesday 10/15. Work is slow but bearable, realize quickly there isn't time for much else, they want us to work weekends? What about ISPs and NCCC requirements? Talk to POCs, negotiate days off for sanity/mental health reasons and ISP/SLI opportunities.
*ISP = Independent Service Project
*SLI = Service Learning Initiative

That's where I'm at now! We've been working, and it gets better the longer we're there. I'm still working out some things for work in the office, but it's going well. We did an AWESOME ISP yesterday for Make A Difference Day, helping tear down damaged sheds and porches from the floods so the homeowners can rebuild. Their houses are actually total losses as well, which was devastating to see, but they are in high spirits and really just want their neighborhood to be back together again. To see them all working together and helping each other out with their homes was really uplifting. They have lost almost everything, and rebuilding isn't easy, but they don't let it show. They have such a drive to keep moving forward. I helped a woman move and re-plant her marigolds. She said she didn't care about everything else, but the flowers brought beauty to the neighborhood and she wanted something nice to look at, and for others to see. It was such a heavy moment for me to think about that and I really admire her strength.

I've also had awesome interactions with the Denver campus Team Leaders. We work with many of them in the JFO, and one invited another TL and me to share his office with him. It was really generous of him, and I am happy to have a place to settle every day. I've made it over to the Denver campus a couple of times, and their staff has been really supportive of my team and me. I have had positive interactions with their traditional corps TLs, and I'm glad we went out with some of the FEMA Corps TLs from Denver and got to know them. I've had an awesome two weeks and wouldn't trade it for anything.

Oh, and the mountains.
Let me tell you why I love Denver.

My favorite things are mountains, fall, cities, sunshine, snow that doesn't last too long, friendly people, and easy access/walking distance to stores/restaurants/things to do. I have all of that here! I drive to work every day and admire the view. My team now just rolls their eyes at me because I can't stop talking about it. Sometimes, the mountains look like a perfectly painted scenery in the background, like a backdrop to a movie or something. Or even like in the Truman Show and someone placed it there to look perfect, change with the seasons/time of day, and make me believe it's real. Sometimes they look like a watercolor painting, not too much detail but enough color and shape to catch the eye. They are so many kinds of beautiful. And then, I can drive right to Denver. In fact, we're only about 4 miles away, so if I felt ambitious (and like freezing my rear end off), I could walk there. I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to be here, even if it's temporary. If I love it this much, I could even make it permanent if I want to. I'm at a point in my life where the possibilities are endless, and I love it.

I've also attended Pure Barre classes again (something I did in Boston for a while) and I can join the really nice YMCA for $8/month (I'll probably sign up today). There's absolutely nothing that I DON'T like about this place so far.

Off we go!

CTI came to a close about a week and a half ago, and we had our induction ceremony. It was an awesome day for FEMA Corps Class 20, and we had great speakers and really excellent cake. Everyone was ready for FEMA Academy, which was this past week at campus. FEMA Instructors came from all over to teach our corps about specialty positions and make sure they are all certified in their roles. Aside from a few technical glitches, the week went smoothly for the corps. Us TLs were supporting the instructors and preparing to head out on round 1.

That reminds me, it is now round 1. We are all preparing to head out to our first projects, and we've had quite a busy week with project assignments,  preparing clearance packets, and the million other things that we need to do in order to depart. My team is very excited for our trip, and really excited for our assignment. Round 1 lasts until December 22nd-ish (we don't actually know the date, we just guess), and we will return to Vicksburg and then head to our families for Christmas. Well, that is, if a disaster doesn't strike and we end up working through Christmas and don't have a break for the holidays. Anything can happen, disasters are unpredictable and it has happened before. 

So I've kept you in suspense long enough. My team is made up of public assistance specialists, hazard mitigation specialists, and logistics specialists. We have been assigned to FEMA's region 10 office in Bothell, WA to work on mitigation and public assistance projects in the pacific northwest. There are also chances of of working with tribal liasons and some fire planning projects. We are SO EXCITED for this opportunity, and we are really excited to be near Seattle for the next couple of months. Personally, I am also excited to be near my sister! She lives a little south of Bothell, but I should definitely be able to see her some weekends. And my dad! My dad is visiting her at the end of October with my grandmother, so I'll be able to see some family. I am really excited to see everyone. She also invited us over for Thanksgiving, which is super awesome of her and I realized today that I'll be able to witness the first birthday/first cake celebration for one of my nephews :) How awesome is that?!

My biggest challenge right now is planning my travel route. Crazy weather right now in the Dakotas, so the north-then-west route seems like a bad idea (remember, we are in a 15-passenger van!) and then with everything that happened in Colorado, Google Maps says that some roads might be missing. AWESOME. Also, taking a directly east-to-west route across the rockies from Denver to Salt Lake City in a 15p seems like a bad idea (the snow could be bad, and the roads might not be the best). So we could go South, and take routes through the desert in New Mexico and Nevada, or we could go through Arizona and up through California. No matter which route we take its 4-5 days, we are only allowed to drive a max of 10 hours per day and no more than a 12 hour total travel day. Oh, and we can't exceed 65mph in a government vehicle. This could take forever... Any road trip hints for 10 people traveling in an enclosed space together for 100 hours?

The other challenge is that I have spent 11 weeks here. I have made many new friends and I love all of Team Green and I really don't want to leave anyone. Many teams are being deployed to areas where there are also other teams, but I am the only one from here that is going to Washington. Actually, everyone else is in DC, Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Chicago, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia. I'm the furthest away, without other teams nearby. It's exciting, and I know Gulf 2 will have many opportunities to bond and hang out together, but I know I'm going to miss my Team Green friends. I really love being surrounded by these people every day and knowing that we'll be far apart is a bit sad. We just lost 3 of us to Baltimore's campus, but they'll also be near some of our teams. I know I'll always have all of Team Green for support, and I'll always be there to support everyone on Team Green, but I'll still be 2000-3000 miles away from everyone. I'm trying to remain positive and look at the exciting things about this journey, because I know there will be plenty.

Right now, all teams are scheduled to depart on Tuesday, so the rest of today and all of tomorrow will be spent prepping for departure. Bon Voyage, FEMA Corps Class 20! Best of luck to all of our teams, and I'll send as many pictures from G2's road trip as possible.