Afralaska Island

It has become clear to me that nobody really knows what I'm doing this summer... even my closest family. I love my family, and I probably haven't given them enough information to begin with. Also I think that my life kind of blends together for my relatives. When I came back to Okemo apparently my co-workers were playing the 'where in the world is Melissa game.' It's been funny to hear people try to explain to others what I'm going to be doing this summer. Rumors include: Working on an island. Studying native flora/ fauna. Musher. Going to New Zealand. And my personal favorite: going to Africa (Lynn accidentally says this instead of Alaska which confuses everyone). So I'd thought I'd clear some things up:

So to re-cap here is what I've done since graduating college:

Peace Corps Benin
Lodging and Welcome Center at Okemo
Waitress (also in the Ludlow area)
Environmental Educator in Beaumont, California
Wilderness Guide in Wyoming
Environmental Educator in New Hampshire
Back to Okemo....
and now I'm off on my next adventure!

Here is the job announcement I found and replied to:

Tour Attendant / Photographer, 

We offer helicopter/dogsledding tours on the Juneau Icefield. 

Greet guests, load  & unload  from helicopters. introduce guests to mushers, action photos and sales. 

Entry level position: TAPS work directly with guests. Must be personable, enjoy working with people, professional in appearance and manner. Capable of working with helicopters and operating tours in a safe, professional manner. Applicants must be physically fit and capable of lifting 50 pounds on a regularbasis. Employees live and work on a glacier for the summer. The glacier camp has helicopter access only.

We are looking for energetic, enthusiastic folks who are good team players. Must be capable of working well with others in a remote environment. All positions are seasonal. Dates vary depending on the camp you are working in but typically run from May through mid September.

Prior glacier travel experience, extended backpacking, Wilderness medicine skills welcome.

 So there you have it. I have edited the above renouncement and left out some privacy information such as exactly where I'm going to be living/ company name. 

The Three Days of Green

 Some thing that I love are: Breweries, Hiking and Beauty. Not in that particular order and for my birthday I got to experience all three! My birthday lies between two interesting dates on the calendar, April 20th and April 22nd. Now I'm not going to explain 4/20 I expect if you are reading my blog you can go look it up if you don't know. April 22nd is Earth Day. I like to refer to this series of days as 'The Three Days of Green'. April this year is also the month of unemployment for me. Ski season ended early and my job starts late. While some would view this as a negative thing I saw it as an opportunity to take an extended vacation. I've been staying with my family in Vermont, and then I came down to North Carolina and am spending a week or so with my brother Jason and his fiance/ my best friend Lynn. They took me to spend some time in Ashville for my birthday weekend.

I met some really great people in Ashville, going from my last blog post. I spent some time with Rachel and her husband Bryan. While Rachel wasn't a perfect stranger, she's Lynns sister and I've met her before I didn't ever spend enough time to get to know her. Bryan I had never met before. I'm glad that I did, they're both great people. Bryan plays in a band and we went to see him play at the Pisgah Brewery. The reason why I love breweries is because they're 99% of the time laid back places to enjoy craft beer. This unpretentious attitude lends itself to attracting people with the same outlook on life. Overall, it was a great night good beer, good music and good people.

 The next day, on my birthday, we went hiking in the Pisgah National Forest with Lynns cousins and their dog (because what is a hike without a dog?). We looked at the weather and saw that there was an extremely high chance of rain. The hike that was chosen was one that was along a river. The original plan was to go until we wanted to turn around. The river contained swimming holes and beautiful scenery. Unlike when one hikes to a destination such as a waterfall or summit there was no specific place to turn around. This made it perfect for a rainy day. When one is hiking in the rain, even for those who like hiking, there is a fine line between enjoyable adventure and painful endurance. If you leave the car and view the day as a hardship to muscle through, you might as well of stayed home. You have to choose that it is going to be a good day. We all did just that, we all decided to enjoy ourselves. When we began it wasn't raining, but about 15 minutes into the hike the rain started, it was slow and then when we decided to turn around it was a soaking rain. The hike was beautiful. I would come back and camp there. Coming out of the woods we felt good, refreshed, and at peace, we were also soaked. When I go hiking I remember what I love about nature, it gives you much more than just beauty or opportunity for exercise. Wild places have a soothing effect on people. After hundreds of thousands of year of evolution people weren't meant to live in boxes. We weren't meant to keep our lives free of bacteria and movement, we evolved to be outside we adapted to the natural environment not the one that we created for ourselves. Now, I realize that it is extremely difficult to live 'off the land' and that I personally wouldn't want to do it. The developed world is a great place. But there is a piece inside all of us that is wild, and instinctual.

On Sunday Jason took me to see the Blue Ridge Parkway. If you haven't ever been there, it is beautiful, and  when you go you're left without a sense of awe I would question if you had a soul. We ended up parking going on a stroll, I'd be hard-pressed to call it a hike (it was only 1/5th of a mile on mostly boardwalk and pavement), to a waterfall. We then relaxed and watched a couple of guys catch trout out of the pool beneath the falls. They were almost catching good meal-sized ones every time. It must have been a man in his 40's and his father. I'm glad to see others enjoying this natural place. Getting people to care about nature is the first step toward gaining the support to preserve wild places. We then ate lunch at the Pisgah Inn, which is a restaurant that overlooks the Appalachians. After our exhausting weekend Jason, Lynn and I returned back to their apartment and fell asleep. Overall a great way to celebrate The Three Days of Green.

People are Good

It's not an Earth shattering revelation, it is in fact what many others think; people are good. I feel that 99% of people are walking around following their own paths are not out to hurt others, and generally speaking, want good things for others even those they don't know. So why doesn't anyone trust anyone else? How come we've gone from respecting to fearing our neighbors? What happened to goodwill toward our fellow man?

Some would argue that the opposite is true. most people don't care about you. Everyone is only out for themselves. Being uninterested in strangers problems is just human nature to protect ourselves from pain, be that pain emotional or physical. That we're hard wired through millions of years of evolution to be this way, basically we can't help it. I know this is not true 'human nature' and evolution of how people view ourselves is not just an individualistic endeavor. The people of Benin proved to me that you could trust others. I did things there that I would never do in the United States. I was able to have an on-going bar tab at a few places I would eat at, I accepted rides from strangers, and I basically hitch-hiked around a 3rd world country. Don't get me wrong life wasn't without it's frustrations, but people there take your problems as their own and try as hard as they could to realize your goals, and share in your happiness when success was found.

What happened in the west? Now people don't even make eye contact with strangers, let alone talk to them. Is it really so hard to make connections with others without technology getting in the way? There's too much fear in our society. There are commercials about identity theft, doing background checks on your friends and hidden cameras which watch your baby sitters. What happened to trusting people?! Growing up, I never locked the door to our house, my babysitters were the neighbors children, and I would go swimming at the local pond with many other people.

Now people are afraid, and that type of lifestyle in the United States is dying. It makes me very sad to see the society become more and more distrustful of each other, to stop looking at those who live around them as neighbors and more as criminals. I feel that you can trust the vast majority of people on the planet, but the distrust that's been perpetuated in society doesn't help foster this reality.

A new goal that I've set for myself is to trust strangers, to reach out, to prove to the world that 'people are good' isn't just some sort of romantic sentiment, but rather a reality.

Opening Camp

 In April my family and I like to go to camp.There are a few birthdays in the month and it gives us an opportunity to celebrate together. Camp is a place to have fun, be with family and relax. normally by April I have what my dad calls 'a case camp-itus'. Which basically means that I miss it a lot. When I have it in my head that I want to go to camp I can usually convince someone else in my family to go with me. This year my Aunt Monique, cousin Nathan, and Lisa, Greg and Sue. Great food, company and good times were had.

Between

I'm waiting for my new job to start. There was no point in continuing to pay rent and live in Belmont when I wasn't doing anything. This seemed like a waste of $300. It also seemed a little lonely.

I'm very social and I need people around me. There was a time when I got back from the Peace Corps when I lived with my mom and she was the only person I saw, not that she's not fun, but when one person is you're entire social life it's a downer. For weeks on end I was home alone with dogs and I was going crazy. I wanted to go places but I didn't have any reason for going, I also didn't want to pay for the gas to get there. I felt better about life once I started work and I could go and visit with people.

Because of those two reasons I decided to leave Belmont and go live with my Aunt and cousin. I packed up my things and said goodbye to southern Vermont until next winter. Surprisingly everything did fit in my car. I was worried about that. Next time I move though, I'm going to need to do some better packing, Including downsizing the two large boxes that barely fit in my car when it's empty. I really don't buy that many things and when I do I'm replacing something. Other times I donate to the places I've been living. The last place I lived I donated a fry pan, coffee maker and a humidifier. It's very possible that I will go back to this place and I don't need to cart these things around all the time.

And so I've begun an unintended month long vacation. Living with my Aunt puts me closer to the rest of my extended family. My cousin was up with her family and a new baby who I had yet to meet. I also got to play with her four year old. It was great to see my family and hang out. I normally don't get to do those things because I work weekends. I'm also planning on going to Maine and New Hampshire to visit friends, then head down to North Carolina to visit my brother and Lynn. Then up to New York city for a couple of days before I head out to Alaska for my next adventure where I will be back east in September.

This between business is great, helps me wrap my head around leaving one place and beginning a new adventure in a new place. At same time though, I do wish that my jobs lined up a little better. This won't be a problem for another year or so if my plans goes accordingly.