Round 4, Part 1: North Bend, WA

Blue 7 has been blessed with a variety of different projects over the course of 10 months. For our fourth and final round in the program, we've been given a split-round project, meaning that we will be spending the first 3 weeks in North Bend, and then we will be traveling down through Sacramento and to Oakland, CA.

With one week down, on our three week project, Blue 7 has been busy.

We began our travels to North Bend, WA on May 20th. We spent the night in a hotel, with Wifi and TV (!) and had our first Chinese food meal together...We all felt the heavy meal for days.

After two days of travel, we began our first work day on Tuesday May 22nd. We had a short orientation and tour of key places in the city, but Mountains to Sound was really quick to put us to work. With only three weeks to have the team, I'm sure they were eager for us to get some things done. We started work with pulling blackberry at the trail head of the Little Mount Si Trail. It was two days of pulling blackberry in the pouring rain. It rained from Monday through Wednesday pretty much nonstop. AmeriCorps sets us up with rain gear, but the problem was keeping our hands warm and dry enough to work.

We were lucky to have dry weather on both Thursday and Friday! We spent two days cutting back the brush on trails so hikers wouldn't get slapped with plants while hiking through the woods. We were able to hike the Little Mount Si Trail as well as the Tiger Mountain Trail while brushing the path. Both were absolutely beautiful and provided us with endless amounts of visual stimulation while we worked. It felt great to think about how much work we completed while conquering the trails each day. The sore feet, calves, and upper backs were only symbols of our dedication to completing the trails.

I've been really proud of Blue 7 since we left Sacramento. It seems like we've finally gotten the hang of functioning as a family inside and outside of work. It is obvious that we care about each other whether it's Anna cooking personal quesadillas for the whole team, Heather coming around with coffee refills for all the half empty mugs, Jackie carrying Andrew's bags while he helps Anna down the mountain, Lisabeth heading to the grocery store so we can all get our ice cream fix, Julie sitting down and going through Math with Anna, or Tommy cooking out for us on the back porch. 

We take care of each other.