Post Script

Everyone is now home safe and sound! Hallelujah! But we are all still recovering from it and still telling the story of the trip. There are two more videos that I didn't have a chance to upload until we got back and a few important photos of our work and "free day."

Here is a picture of our finished deck!

We visited the Baker Ranch outside of Alturas on Saturday for the June Jamboree, an annual fundraiser for the Modoc County Library. The Baker Ranch is amazing! The 10 acres have been developed into an amazing museum and playground. First, scattered across the property are recreations of stores and buildings from the early mining days of the 1800s. There was a barbershop, an assayers office, a general store, a sherrif's office and jail, a blacksmith and a number of others. All looked authentic on the outside and inside, vast collections of antiques recreate the look and feel of the period. One of my favorites was this recreation of a general store run by some of the early Chinese immigrants. Many of the buildings were "occupied" by wax figures like the one in this picture...dressed in period clothing. In addition to the antiques, there was an aviary with ducks, geese and peacocks, and there was a huge pond with an island on which one could ride a paddle boat. The event inlcuded live music, a BBQ lunch, and all the people watching you could want. It was a fun day and, as Alexa put it, a Winthrop first!

Next is a video that Hannon made on Wednesday that gives a good update on our work and a really nice tour of Blue Lake Camp. I couldn't upload it right away because of its length.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GjQcU6H1Q0

Then, on Thursday, the annual Boys Bet took place. David and Alexa have recreated the elements in this video for all to enjoy. The loser of the bet wears the now famous grey dress in the boys skit during the Talent No Talent show at the end of Workcamp. I am sure photos of this years wearer of the dress will be posted on the web soon enough. Meanwhile, enjoy this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rHFOev-sb4

In all, it was a great Workcamp! We are all a little tired and glad to be home. But mostly, we are grateful for the opportunity to do meaningful work and the bonds we forged with each other, with our hosts in Alturas, and with the Great Spirit present in the lake...the trees...and each other.

Friday

We just had a fabulous potluck dinner at the Federated Community Church in Alturas. It was a thank you dinner for our work this week! And yes, as of today, we have finished all the work projects!!! I will post a picture of the finished deck tomorrow. We are weary but so satisfied with our work and time together. Everyone has been fully engaged in work and play. What more could we want? I dove into the lake today...my first dip...to wash off the week of work. No, I have showered other days, but I felt a dip in the lake was somehow a fitting ending to the work week. It was chilly and refreshing! Gabe and David swam across the lake this afternoon! The lake has been an amazing source of pleasure and renewal this week!

So, in addition to these posts, I have had a video camera and have intended some video blog entries. However, uploading theme here has been hard. So, I uploaded them to youtube and am putting the links here for you to enjoy. There is one more, but I don't have time to upload it. My laptop battery is almost dead and I am probably going to get thrown out of the Motel 8 parking lot any minute where I am borrowing wifi access. So...enjoy these for now...more to come!

Adam

Sunday--Blue Lake Tour with David and Gabe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKBoVz9AqvE

Tuesday--Sita and Lea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afO5-HxJV_k

Wednesday

Coming to workcamp I had no idea what to expect. I had an image of the place but wasn’t attached to it enough to be disappointed as to the differences in its beauty. I wasn’t quite prepared for the sleeping and working conditions but adjusted slowly. Now, half way through our time, I feel completely settled in to life here at Blue Lake. I am used to the weather and the schedules of work and play. We’re accomplishing a lot with the deck building and I feel like I’m learning a lot about construction along with enjoying working together. It’s also really interesting how close you can come to feel to people by spending this length of time so tightly knit. Everyone feels like a sort of family now and it’s fun to interact and learn more about each other.

Brianna

A picture from our celebration

of Gabe's birthday on Tuesday!

Monday

Our work-group started on the toilet-bathhouse-staffroom deck project and got some good work done on the first day. These are two identical new buildings located end-to-end that need a 4 foot wide deck along in front of them. It will be 55 feet long with stairs at one end and a ramp at the other. So, the first step was to figure out where the concrete piers (that support the beam on the outside of the deck) should be placed. Adam and I worked that through and marked the spots for the 10 piers. Then the digging of the holes began and soon all the work-crews were at it. We got all the piers in line and level and called it a day about 3 in the afternoon. Tomorrow, hopefully the beams and the ledgers will be in place and we can get started hanging the joists. The crews are all hard and enthusiastic workers and know how to have fun and support each other! Blue Lake is a beautiful place at 6000ft in the Warner Mountains.

Terry

Dear Family and Friends,

After a delicious pancake breakfast made by David’s Angels, we started what we came up to Blue Lake Camp: WORK. We were split into groups that were assigned various jobs. David, Brianna, and Lea painted an enclosure for the new water heater. Hannon, Michael, Terry, and Adam started work on the deck for the bathhouse. Gabe, Sita, Alexa, and I cleared brush and mowed the grass around the cabins.

After finishing the work we were given some free time. I was interested to see how cold Blue Lake actually was. Gabe and David were already in the water and said it wasn’t that bad so I decided to give it a try. On my first step in my heart was already racing from the coldness. Needless to say, I took a pretty short swim.

Right now, I’m wondering what we’re going to do tonight. We might play some volleyball and have a game night.

-Alex Stuetz

Sunday

Hey family and friends,

After spending the night at the Federated Community Church in Modoc County, we attended the Church’s morning service. Since the population of the entire County is only around 9,000 citizens, their congregation was significantly smaller than ours. There were some cool things about the service. First, the service started at eleven o’clock so we got to sleep in. Another neat thing was that they used an acoustic guitar in the service and we got to request our favorite songs; Gabe and I requested “Lord of the Dance.” After the service, we got to talk to some of the church members.

In the afternoon, we got our first glimpse of Blue Lake. The water of the lake was cold so we didn’t get to go swimming, but the entire area is gorgeous. We spent the afternoon hanging out in the rustic lodge and playing Aqua Pong. Gabe and David made a video tour, so check it out the beautiful lake for yourself.

Later in the evening around dusk, we went for a walk around the lake as the sun was setting. As we walked, we admired the light on the lake and discussed possibilities for the Guy’s Bet. For those of you don’t know, the Guys Bet is a tradition where all non-freshmen bros agree on a competition and the loser has to wear a hideous dress in the annual Talent/No Talent Show. We didn’t reach a definite bet but several possibilities were seeing who could go the longest speaking in the third person and an obstacle course. It’s getting chilly here and I’m having an increasingly difficult time typing as my fingers freeze, so that’s all for now.

Peace, Michael

P.S. Shoutout to my dad! Happy fathers day!

Group Photo

We have arrived!

We have arrived in Alturas safely after a 7 hour drive. The mix CDs that everyone made circulated the vehicles and made the trip go quickly. Some songs are now stuck in our minds a are being sung as we sit down to a pasta dinner! We are glad to have landed. Rev. Ben greeted us warmly and will be our host here. Tomorrow we worship here then set out for Blue Lake Camp.