Savannah's AmeriCorps Adventure : #44 "Collect moments, not things."

       Monday we went to Yosemite again and were able to do our own thing. While most of my team mates went hiking, Maddie and I went back to the Native American museum to read a little more of the history. I loved the museum and I ended up learning a lot. When you go out the back of the museum there is a replica of a Native American village where they have posts up telling you different information regarding how they lived, what they ate, how they made different things. One thing that I found really interesting was that, the hunters in the village would go into these undergrown little houses, called steam houses, and they would have a fire going, and would stay there for 1-3 hours. After the 1-3 hours the would go out to the river and rub dogwood leaves on them or other plants that would "mask" their human smell. They would do this process one or two times, then they would put these deer heads on so that when they would hunt, the deer couldn't smell them and basically go right up to them. After that Maddie and I hiked to mirror lake which was absolutely beautiful. When we got there we saw Morgan so spent the rest of the day there. At mirror lake there's a rock that is towards the center of the lake and your able to walk on the smaller rocks to get out there. When we were getting ready to leave, Amanda walked over to us, after her peaceful afternoon lying in her hammock and hiked back to the van with us.
       On Tuesday we didn't do the regular tree planting events like usual, we instead got to help out at a schools "earth day" event. The event had about 10 different stations where the kids in 3rd-5th grade were able to learn and engage in different "earth" activities. I was in charge of the land animals; which was just different skins (furs) and animal sculls from around the area and would talk about the animal itself and how important it is to protect them so they don't go endangered. After the program we headed to another school to do the same thing for a STEM fair which stand for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. They have the program to have students broaden their mind in different career paths. While we were there we were able to visit other booths. One booth that I went to was the NASA area which had a blow up "observatory" which you went in and they had a 360 degree projector that showed different space images. After the fair, we ended up going out for pizza with our sponsor, Seth.
       Wednesday Maddie and had to stay and work at the camp. We cleaned out some of the supply sheds, moved some of the benches in the dinning area and went around the cabin making sure that all the cabins had everything that they needed in them. Once everyone got back we played basketball for PT then had Amanda's meeting, had dinner and went to bed.
       On Thursday I ended up taking a sick day because my lower back was really hurting (I'm thinking it was from playing basketball). I ended up looking up a lot of different activities for Peer Helper meetings and stretching out. When everyone got back from work we had dinner, cleaned the van then had my peer helper meeting which was a lot of fun. I had everyone tell any kind of story whether it was a time when they were happy or surprised, one from their childhood (really any story). most of the team ended up telling story's of their first pet or a story of when they were younger. I told one of when the whole family went out to the lake during the summer and playing in the water with all the cousins, the fire we had for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and then at night there was a nice warm breeze and you could see every star in the sky that night; even saw a few shooting stars.
       Today (Friday) Maddie and I were in charge of washing dishes which automatically means were staying back to work on camp. We had to go throughout all the tents and used the leaf blower to get all the pine needles and leafs off the decks. When I got done and went back into the tent I looked up and there were about 3-5 bats flying around inside so I quickly went back out on the deck. I stood there for a few minutes just watching the bats fly around the tent and then into the trees. After the coast was clear I darted out through the tent. Other than that we are also on kitchen duty (helping make dinner). Tonight were supposed to have PT and possibly another meeting. Tomorrow Emily, Anthony and are supposed to be going white water rafting for work (with an expert as our guide). I'm really excited but a little nervous! I'll be sure to write about my whole experience tomorrow!

                                                                                                                                ~Savannah

(Sorry the photos aren't in order, this is the way they came up on my laptop)