Ticks, Torches, and Tannenbaums

After a 5 hour flight and a 3 hour drive, we got to camp on Saturday evening. It is SO much colder here than I thought it would be! I definitely didn't bring enough warm clothes or blankets, so I spent my first night freezing to death. Other than that, it has been great. Most of the staff here (about more than half) are international, so I've met some great friends from Germany, Scotland, the Ukraine and England! My friends from Germany taught me how to say, "Hi, my name is Kim. How are you? I'm hungry, let's eat spaghetti, now!" We also sang "Oh Christmas Tree" and everyone laughed. They are a lot of fun and everyone is always really excited to learn new things or try "American" foods. One of the girls "can't wait to go to Target and the Dairy Queen." It's really funny.




The camp is very rustic, so all of our "cabins" have no electricity or plumbing. The campsites here go by "units" and there are many different types. For the first two training weeks, I'm staying in a yurt! It's strange...but cool! There are also tepees, platform tents and cabins, so we will switch around every week depending on what age group we are with. The camp is on 600 acres and is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I could spend hours every night just watching all the fireflies or sitting by the river. During the day it's been around a high of 75 and down in the 50s at night and since I got another blanket it has been so wonderful.







We are currently going through small trainings and cleaning up the camp. Tomorrow we start Leave No Trace training where we learn more about living outdoors without making an impact and we are also trained to teach others. I also start my Level 1 Ropes training on Tuesday. Here we only have a zip series with a cargo net and Jacob's Ladder, in addition to a low course. I'm pretty excited about the training. I wouldn't normally be, but literally all the international staff here make everything so much more new and fun to me. Nothing seems repetitive because it is so new to them, so they are very excited and have a lot of questions. This has been the biggest blessing for me!




Here, they go a whole year without using the camp so there is A LOT more work and cleaning that needs to be done. It surprised me how many things got so dirty just sitting around. I couldn't help but think about Bill Hooks during our clean up...he would go insane here. There are only 2 rangers for the ENTIRE property and camp maintenance. Since the winter here was very warm, there are TONS of TICKS! I had one on my leg the first day and another girl had one as well. The rest of the international staff is convinced they will all die if they get a tick. They spent our hour off-time Googling pictures and facts on Lyme Disease...it was hilarious. They also randomly say, "quick, check! Is there a tick on my neck?!" I'm excited about getting to know even more about them as the summer goes on, they are so interesting! One of the girls needs a "torch" (flashlight) and most of us can't wait to go to WalMart so we can get things we forgot at home.




Thanks for taking the time to check up on my life. I'm going to go to dinner and then learn some more salsa dancing from our office assitant who is from Columbia. As they would say in Germany "Tschüss" (bye)!!




If you would like to write me: