Casa Grande, AZ HOT HOT HOT

Hello from Arizona!! We made it here to Casa Grande last Tuesday, a week ago (times flies when youre having fun)! It is about an hour and a half north of Tuscon and an hour south of Phoenix. The work we are doing here is we are building new trails on Casa Grande Mountain.

Our hike up Casa Grande Mountain!

My team on a part of the trail we already built!

Our beautiful view from the mountain, cacti galore!

 So far it’s been pretty hard because I’ve had two projects inside that consist of sitting and not doing too much physical labor! This is a lot of labor. We have to hike about a mile and a half just to get to where we start working. When we get up there, we all take turns pick axing new trail and using a McLeod to flatten it out. I have mostly taken over the job of following behind everyone and making it look pretty and even (if you can imagine with me and my semi-ocd with having things perfect) The two days we had up on the mountain last week its been HOT it was in the high 80s and I was dying! But this week is supposed to be mid 70s so I hope that will help me adjusting to this hard work! I’ve been bringing about 5 water bottles. The first guy to help us on the mountain suggested we drink ¾ of our body weight in ounces, so basically I should be drinking 4 nalgenes worth of water in a day! So I freeze most of them and they stay pretty cold all day.But I haven;t been drinking as much as I should because I refuse to wilder-pee!  We decided we are going to have early work days so we aren’t out in the hot all day, we start at about 7:30 and leave the mountain around 2:30 for our half hour hike down. So it’s nice to have the afternoon to get home and shower and do whatever business needs to get done.

Speaking of our home! We have a pretty good setup! We are living in the city’s aquatic park, which is essentially a large outdoor pool with a large sweet slide! (pictures to come soon) Bad part is, we can’t swim in it L not only is it against AmeriCorps policies but the city doesn’t want to be liable for anything that would happen to us. So that stinks especially when we will be dealing mostly with 90s and 100s by the time we leave Arizona! So we mostly all sleep in this one square room, but some people have been sleeping outside its so nice at night (not me, im very picky with my sleeping situation).

Our tease of a backyard, at least we can sit by it...

Little picnic area where we eat dinner

one side of the square room we live in (my big mess is the air mattress)

Our backyard of fields with kids playing sports all the time!

Also! I finally booked a plane ticket to come home to Maine for Easter weekend! We have Friday the 22nd and Monday the 25^th off for a long weekend, so I took Thursday the 21^st off from work to give me extra time to travel since it will take me all day (or all night in my case) I am going to take a bus up to Phoenix Wednesday night and fly out at 11:50pm and take the red eye to Boston so I can have an extra full day at home! So I’ll get into Boston at 11am and may stay in Boston for the day, or take a bus home and hopefully see some of your lovely faces!!!! Don’t have many plans really, so let me know if you want to see me at some point!
So for this project (im sure I already mentioned this, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat it) we have a whole new team. I only have one person from my old team which I am thankful for because I love her and shes an awesome support for me! But so far this team is fantastic! There are a lot of positive people who like to get things done as I do and aren’t just lazy butts. We have 7 girls (including our awesome team leader) and 3 guys, so its nice that the females have the majority it makes things a little easier to handle! I think I’m going to really like this team, but at the same time I miss my original team but I’m sure theyre having a fantastic time!
We had this past weekend as a three day weekend (Sat, Sun and Mon off), we will have some weeks like that but others we have community builds on some Saturdays and work those Monday’s when we have the community builds. I’m excited because this city is absolutely amazing. They used to have only like 10,000 people but have grown to have 50,000 people not including the snow birds that come from the Midwest and other places. So they are a town that has recently boomed. The people we work with are fantastic and everyone has great connections to make our time here a great time. Also these people are so grateful for our help. I never realized that just by helping to build a trail for a community would have such a large impact. There was one day this week we were in the middle of working and a biker came up behind me and I said “um….the trail kind of ends here!” He was so thankful that we are extended what he was used to doing. It’s going to eventually be a loop that people can get from one end of the mountain to the other. So far one our first day we built 170 ft of trail (we were down 3 people that day too) and 240 the next day (with 2 more people back) so we are off to a great start because apparently we are on a fairly difficult section of the mountain.

So as you can see I am very excited about this project and the work we’re doing! It’s going to be the most work I’ve done in my life but it will be so rewarding. I’m expecting to come home in one month at least 10 lbs lighter and much, much tanner than most of you Mainers! I can’t wait to finally become healthy and in shape all just by doing my job. I will try to post more often this project! We have internet access at our “home” but not enough for skype or watching tv at all, but enough to post!  See some of you in one month!!!!! J

Hola from Denver!

Hello hello! Currently in Denver, we got here last Saturday after a long road trip from Wichita Falls! I say that because we stopped in Amarillo, TX on Friday night.  On Saturday morning we decided to be early risers and make a 7am start. Good thing we did.  We had both a 15 passenger van and a cargo truck.  I was riding in the van when 15 minutes down the highway apparently the accelerator decided to just stop working...so our driver was smart enough to pull over safely on the side of the highway and no one and nothing got hurt thank goodness.  So we were following the truck so the truck pulled over about 1/4 mile ahead of us.  There was no restarting the van so we had to call a tow truck, about an hour later the tow truck came and picked up the van.  Luckily Amarillo was a common place to stop for the night, so 2 teams from a different unit (a bunch of people i didn't know) stopped and picked us up because there were 10 of us and only 5 or 6 can fit in the truck.  They gave us a ride to where the van was taken and we were told it wouldn't be looked at till Tuesday!!! So we piled up in 2 vans and 2 trucks and trucked it back to Denver without our poor van which is still in Amarillo!

So once we got back to Denver (only 2 hours later than we were originally supposed to get in, not too bad) a bunch of us went out downtown because it was one of the only nights we didn't have anything the next day.  On Sunday I took complete advantage of what the city has to offer and I woke up at 8:30 and took the bus to the light rail and took that downtown.  Went to Starbucks for a while and had some breakfast and just used the internet.  Then I wandered down to Walgreens and Barnes and Noble then I treated myself to a delicious lunch at Noodles and Company (they definitely need to get one in Maine if they haven't already)  So it was just amazing to have some time to myself and not rely on anyone else to get around and go where I want.  Especially after more than 2 months of not having any alone time!!!

This week has been pretty busy, within the first 2 days back we had meetings and we debriefed about our project in Wichita Falls.  Then Tuesday we officially switched our teams.  For our third project we switch who we have as a Team Leader as well as team members.  I only have one person from my original team on my new team (sorry if ive already explained this before) and don't really know many of the other people yet! So of course I'm nervous and hate the whole new to everyone experience but it'll be fine!  So I'm excited to get to Arizona, I think I'm finally going to have a chance to meet my goal of losing at least 10 lbs.  We are going to be doing some intense hard work in the heat.  It's inevitable that if I just do my job I'll lose weight!  So we've been spending some time with our new team and so far I'm raelly excited to get to know these people! They all seem like great and I think we'll do really well together.  My team leader seems like she is going to be really great, the past two rounds she has stayed here in Denver and was in the office doing work here, and now gets to go out in the field with us!

So we actually have this whole weekend off which will be nice then Monday we head off to Casa Grande!! We will be stopping in New Mexico on the way.  When we are in Casa Grande we will be living in an "Aquatic Facility" aka a pool, there is one large room in which we all (10) have to share, we'll see how communal living goes, it'll definitely push my boundaries.  This weekend Denver apparently has an excellent St. Patricks Day parade that I hope to go to, I'll be sure to let you know! 

I've been hearing feedback that people really enjoy reading this, so I'm glad to know SOMEONE is reading it!  But please please please send me an email or fbook message if you have any feedback or want to just talk more!!!  I love hearing from everyone!  Here is my new mailing address while I'm in Arizona (Starting Tuesday)

Annie Cavallaro
AmeriCorps NCCC
404 E Florence Blvd.
Casa Grande, AZ 85122

feel free to send me anything!!! I can't explain how amazing it makes me feel to recieve even a silly little card once in a while.  It's nice to know people are still thinking of me!! And I'm trying my best to respond if anything is sent!  Hope to hear from everyone!!! Love! I'll probably post next once we settle in Arizona!

Ranch pictures!

On that last very long post I forgot to tell you guys abour our day going to a ranch!!!  Someone within the United Way community owns a ranch about 45 minutes outside of Wichita Falls and invited us to go out to visit.  When we got there we were able to take turns riding some horses around a little corral for a while.  It was fun because I haven't riden a horse in a veryyyy long time and forgot how fun and exciting it is!!  After that we played some horseshoes, then one of the cowboys that work there took us on a little hayride out onto the property and cows starting crowding around us because we were on their food truck!!  So they started yelling at us and came up and grabbed hay off the truck.  After that we headed down to another part of the property (these people own quite a lot of property) and we shot some shotguns.  I always get nervous when I hold guns and especially when I shoot them.  Then it scares me as to how good of a feeling it is to shoot a gun!!...anyway, after that our supervisors from United Way took us out to eat at a yummy mexican restaurant (I have eaten SO much mexican and BBQ while I've been here in Texas!) I had a delicious quesedilla!  But I forgot to add that into our exciting filled week a week or so ago! 

My team at the Water Gardens in Fort Worth

Me riding a horse!

Longhorn at the ranch!

Shooting a gun!

My team with the Wichita Falls mayor when we at some
BBQ cooked by the Mavericks!

We're all busy packing and cleaning today.  We have to completely clean out this house of everything that exsists in here! It's like we're moving out of a houst but aren't taking anything except our personal belongings!  We are heading out early tomorrow morning and we are going to stop at Palo Duro which is apparently the 2nd largest canyon next to the Grand Canyon.  We were going to spend the night in some cabins there, but things got too complicated and we are just going to drive an hour more after to Amarillo to stay in a hotel.  At Palo Duro we hope to be able to take a horseback riding tour, if not we'll just take some time hiking the canyon and see what it's all about!  and Saturday we should arrive back in Denver and spend a week there debriefing and briefing!

That's all for now!! :)