my email to everyone (and now an lj entry as well)
So unexpectedly I'm able to use the internet at our sponsor's house in Ketchikan, AK. We're in town for the weekend (until Sunday) and then we won't be back again until the weekend of the 28th. So I'll try and cram as much information into this email as possible.
So our flight left Sacramento on Thursday, May 5th around 3:00 and we got into Ketchikan around 10pm (they are four hours behind all of you east coasters). We changed planes in Seattle and our plane to Ketchikan was delayed for about an hour. We then had to take a five minute ferry ride from the airport to the actual town of Ketchikan. We spent the night at our sponsor's house and set out for the logging camp in the morning. It turns out that it's a four-hour boat ride from Ketchikan to our camp.
The camp is amazing! Unfortunately I lost most of my earlier pictures, but I'll take all new ones when we go back (more about that later).
It's kind of hard to keep track of the time because it's light outside from 4:30am until 9:30pm and the days sort of run together. As far as actual work is concerned we scrubbed and cleaned three buildings: the shower house, the bunkhouse we are staying in (officially referred to as "The Hilton," really, it was referred to that before we even got there), and the kitchen. Cleaning the first two was relatively painless, except for the fact that we used an entire bottle of bleach. But in the kitchen we washed every single dish and pan in that place and we had to throw away a lot of food (it was from 97 or earlier), mostly spices and canned stuff. We threw a lot of it into the ocean including mini m&ms and some food coloring, made for some pretty interesting water. We also completely gutted a second bunkhouse as in we removed everything from the inside and then tore the plywood off the walls, all that's left is the frames. A few of us redid some of the decking that was dangerous, some of us cleaned out and organized the library (i.e. getting rid of all the romance novels, ripping out carpet, etc.), and we organized the old office building. It's really hard to describe...there are a ton of other little things that we've done around the camp.
This is almost the perfect spike for me. The only thing wrong is the floating factor, hehe. It's weird to describe...I love the beach, but that's because I can touch/see the bottom, not the case here...and today on our way from the camp to town it was really really scary choppy. But the entire camp is filled with tons of old stuff. There's a school building and it's just insane how much stuff was left in there...I go explore in there everyday. It's just like they up and left in the middle of things one day. In the school the games are still on the shelves and the chairs are in a little circle. We've cleaned out a lot of crawlspaces and attics and it seems like people were just working up there when they just disappeared or somethin, it's weird.
So about the camera...so we went out and caught some shrimp. And I was holding it and I wanted someone to take a picture of me, so I was in the process of handing my camera to Jamie when the shrimp jumped and the camera got dropped and broke. So then a teammate of mine had the same camera so I borrowed his and used my memory card. So (this is where it gets really embarrassing), I was on the beach because we were making a huge bonfire of debris and I saw a huge starfish in the water. My teammates were egging me on to go in and get it, so I did, with the digital camera in my pocket, I suck. So I killed his camera as well as our two memory cards. So we get to town and I go to get my camera fixed and I take it out of the case...and it fixed itself...but I did lose all the old pictures, but other people have some of the same pictures so it should be okay.
And I don't know really what else to say. I don't know what you guys want to know about. I haven't really had much time to explore the town so I can't tell you much about it. Postcards will be on the way to most of you next time we come to town. So please ask me questions, whatever you want, about the history of the camp, etc. I don't want to bore all of you.
:-)
So our flight left Sacramento on Thursday, May 5th around 3:00 and we got into Ketchikan around 10pm (they are four hours behind all of you east coasters). We changed planes in Seattle and our plane to Ketchikan was delayed for about an hour. We then had to take a five minute ferry ride from the airport to the actual town of Ketchikan. We spent the night at our sponsor's house and set out for the logging camp in the morning. It turns out that it's a four-hour boat ride from Ketchikan to our camp.
The camp is amazing! Unfortunately I lost most of my earlier pictures, but I'll take all new ones when we go back (more about that later).
It's kind of hard to keep track of the time because it's light outside from 4:30am until 9:30pm and the days sort of run together. As far as actual work is concerned we scrubbed and cleaned three buildings: the shower house, the bunkhouse we are staying in (officially referred to as "The Hilton," really, it was referred to that before we even got there), and the kitchen. Cleaning the first two was relatively painless, except for the fact that we used an entire bottle of bleach. But in the kitchen we washed every single dish and pan in that place and we had to throw away a lot of food (it was from 97 or earlier), mostly spices and canned stuff. We threw a lot of it into the ocean including mini m&ms and some food coloring, made for some pretty interesting water. We also completely gutted a second bunkhouse as in we removed everything from the inside and then tore the plywood off the walls, all that's left is the frames. A few of us redid some of the decking that was dangerous, some of us cleaned out and organized the library (i.e. getting rid of all the romance novels, ripping out carpet, etc.), and we organized the old office building. It's really hard to describe...there are a ton of other little things that we've done around the camp.
This is almost the perfect spike for me. The only thing wrong is the floating factor, hehe. It's weird to describe...I love the beach, but that's because I can touch/see the bottom, not the case here...and today on our way from the camp to town it was really really scary choppy. But the entire camp is filled with tons of old stuff. There's a school building and it's just insane how much stuff was left in there...I go explore in there everyday. It's just like they up and left in the middle of things one day. In the school the games are still on the shelves and the chairs are in a little circle. We've cleaned out a lot of crawlspaces and attics and it seems like people were just working up there when they just disappeared or somethin, it's weird.
So about the camera...so we went out and caught some shrimp. And I was holding it and I wanted someone to take a picture of me, so I was in the process of handing my camera to Jamie when the shrimp jumped and the camera got dropped and broke. So then a teammate of mine had the same camera so I borrowed his and used my memory card. So (this is where it gets really embarrassing), I was on the beach because we were making a huge bonfire of debris and I saw a huge starfish in the water. My teammates were egging me on to go in and get it, so I did, with the digital camera in my pocket, I suck. So I killed his camera as well as our two memory cards. So we get to town and I go to get my camera fixed and I take it out of the case...and it fixed itself...but I did lose all the old pictures, but other people have some of the same pictures so it should be okay.
And I don't know really what else to say. I don't know what you guys want to know about. I haven't really had much time to explore the town so I can't tell you much about it. Postcards will be on the way to most of you next time we come to town. So please ask me questions, whatever you want, about the history of the camp, etc. I don't want to bore all of you.
:-)