North Dakota

The Bay Bridge-Tunnel



Hey everyone!

Its been awhile but just so you know i had a great time at the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia we were there for three weeks and burned six times. I had a great time even though we didn't burn tons of times. We did lots of fire prep work and met some great people along with learning tons of new information about fire.
Right now i am in North Dakota with the crew helping the refuges with all of the flooding that is going on right now. We were told thursday night that we were driving out friday morning to head over here, so we have been on overtime this entire weekend. Heres some pictures from Virginia.

Lots of smoke

Waiting for the heat to die down so we can get close.

Just puting out some fire and laying a wet line

Phragmities are very invasive and burn like hell

we got the marsh master stuck

I bought hotdogs for everyone to roast on the fire

Burning on the super cold VA beach

We used a helicopter for our first burn

"Wild Ponies"

House Pictures

Roy HS Districts basketball game (65 miles away)
My room

The Kitchen

The Great Montana Adventure

My car tops out at 111 mph, it still has acceleration but the computer just shuts the engine down. The fact that I can do that and not worry about cops, cars, or basically anything makes MT a great state. I got to my Bunkhouse and the Sand Creek office (4 miles south of the Missouri river) today around 3:00pm and its in the middle of BF nowhere. All I have been doing today is arranging my stuff and just talking with my two other teammates; AmberBeth and Derrick, they are from Minnesota/Iowa and North Dakota respectively. I just found out that I (we) are on an engine crew and not a handcrew. I was kind of looking forward to being on a handcrew but engine is going to be just as cool if not better and more interesting. This week has been lots of sitting in offices waiting for paperwork to be ready and then filling out the paperwork. But it hasn’t been horrible because the people are awesome and are fun to work/talk with. During our first week here we earned 6 hours of comp time. While we are not on a detail/fire instead of earning over time we earn comp time which means they give us the hours we work over time and can use it as vacation anytime we want. Now if we save up our hours until the end we will get a check filled out for those hours…but the boss doesn’t like people saving up more than 80 hours and will force us to take two weeks vacation so they don’t have to pay us. Today I only worked two hours because my crew boss was taking the day off and said It would just be better if we used our 6 hours of comp time to make the day easier. Jim (my crew boss) said that we will be racking up plenty more than 80 hours of comp time so we should just use it whenever we want. Tonight we are going to the Roy, MT high school basketball districts, which is the excitement that I have for this three day weekend. I may also head into Lewistown for a couple of hours to check out the internet cafes in town. Oh and I have a roommate, his name is Nick and he is the fourth person on our crew. AND I found out that my first detail will be at THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP in Suffolk, VA. If you don’t remember my past experience with wildfire it was at the same place. I did not have the best experience last time but this round should be much better since I like everyone I am going with and we will be burning the place seeing lots of fire. The other great part of this is that we will be staying in the Hilton again. Here are a couple of pictures from my trip and of the bunkhouse:

The Living Room

Our house from the front

In the middle of hwy 191

My sexy car

The End of a very fun 10 months of my life

Well AmeriCorps is now over, we graduated yesterday and i was home late last night. Its definitely weird not being with everyone anymore and its only the first day. It was a great part of my life and it is sad to be away from everyone knowing that i most likely wont see many people ever again. I don't know what else to write, so here is the year in numbers.

The year in #’s

Sickness:

5 cases of poison ivy

1 case of poison oak

1 random rash on abs

1 random splotchy rash on arms

1 rash covering entire left bicep

4 colds

5 shots of cortisone

3 pill packs

2 tubes of anti-rash cream

Useless Costs:

3.5 TV series watched

(Freaks & Geeks, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, How I Met Your Mother, Pushing Daisies)

Broken Stuff:

1 laptop screen

1.5 cameras

1 USB

1 pair of flip-flops

AmeriCorps:

15 States Visited

350 Starting AmeriCorps Members

280 Finishing AmeriCorps Members

130 projects supported

325,000 hours completed on projects

$6.3 million value of projects worked on

10,000 volunteers coordinated

40,000 people assisted in disaster areas

6,500 students tutored or mentored

50,000 meals served

330 tons of debris removed

58 tons of invasive plant species and underbrush removed

This is my last post for awhile, but whenever i do something fun, exciting, or interesting i will either write about it or post some pictures. If you want to get an email every time i post a new entry tell me.

Prom Night with all of my non-dates

I am Rocky

The awesome guys of 1084

My amazingly awesome sweet team

On fire this last week

PS. I went on my second fire and first Prescribed burn this last tuesday, it was so awesome to see fire and feel the heat.

Almost to the End

This last project has been long and the end can’t come any sooner. The housing has been very nice and Toledo is a pretty good city. I can’t say the project has really been my favorite but at least it has been organized and the sponsors have always had some sort of work for us. We were originally supposed to head back to the Point on the 28^th of October but we got extended three days and won’t be heading back until the 31^st (Halloween), their reasoning behind that was so all of the teams including the teams in the Gulf will all get back at the same time instead of everyone coming in at different times of the week.

During the last two weeks back at the point we will be doing final inspections of houses, vans, and all equipment. There is a lot of scheduled team times for all of the time they couldn’t think of another meeting to add to the schedule. I am definitely ready to start something new and be done with AmeriCorps. I have applied to seven Fire Crews around the country and hopefully I will get accepted onto one of those crews which will last 3-6 months. Those jobs all start around the beginning of January so I have applied to a couple places around Vancouver and Portland for the month or so that I am home. Hopefully I will have a couple jobs while I am home, Well that’s it for now, there will probably be only one more post while I am in AmeriCorps, but when ever I do something new I will tell you guys something about it.

Some More Pics

resting on some bushes that we have been pulling out for the last two days

Kelsey and I sealing the Shade Gardens paths

a picture of all the SOS kids

Long Time No Post

MY COMPUTER IS BACK TOGETHER AND WORKING AMAZINGLY!!!!!

Some Pictures from my project in Toledo

Our backyard pool

our kitchen

the living room

my room

the field we work in for The Nature Conservancy