Well, we've been here almost a month now and finally feeling that we have figured out the system. Just to review, we work at the visitor center collecting fees and answering questions (this is the part of our job where I have to be nice to people). We have also adopted a hiking trail that's about one and a half miles long. When we started working on this it was overgrown, had some washouts, and was rough. We spent several hours cutting back brush and filling in holes and washouts.
We were supplied with rakes, shovels and loppers to cut the brush back. We also have the use of a Polaris and Holly does a nice job of driving it over the trail (and some rocks). We're very proud of the trail now and feel good about all the work we have put into it.
After cutting all the brush we had to load it up and haul it out to a dumpster. Now I know you are all saying "Oh that sounds so hard poor baby" let me tell you, out in the desert everything has some thing that will scratch you or stab you. Some of these had thorns that are between one to four inches long and sharp. I had on leather palm gloves and was still bleeding all over the place. OK, maybe not all over but I did have some nasty scratches.
We have basically finished the major work on the trail. We've trimmed, filled and pulled the drag over it to smooth it out. We've gone through and aligned all of the rocks that line it and added some. We had a request from our volunteer coordinator Manny to add a cutoff to the visitor center. We're so good at this that it only took us about two hours to grade it, add some fill and line it with rocks. I can hardly wait to see how Holly adds this to our resume... "experienced at trail reclamation" sounds good to me.
We also pick up litter in the park and down on the beach. Believe me there's a lot of beach here. I thought that we should just drive back and forth on the beach and pick up the trash with the grabbers they supplied us with. But noooooo, Holly thinks we should get out and walk to pick it up. Man, that is a lot of walking. So our first day on litter duty we go down to the beach, park the Polaris and start walking. Holly goes one way I go the other. It isn't long and I have half a bag of trash, I turn around to see how Holly is doing and there she is sitting down on the beach. Now she says she was picking up a bunch of broken glass but I think she was resting.
Last month they had a potluck with the volunteers and some of the park staff. It was nice to meet and visit with everyone. Holly made deviled eggs and her pudding dessert (we didn't tell anyone what we really call it). There was some really good food there. They are planning another one for this month, I can hardly wait. In case anyone is wondering what our dogs do when we are working, just take a look to the right. That's right, they sit and worry about us all the time we are gone.
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The picture to the left is a Cholla and is very large...this is a very small tip of it. The other night it got a little cold. Holly got up in the morning and woke me up to tell we didn't have any water. The water hose froze. I thought about disconnecting it the night before but I thought they were kidding when they said it was going to get down to 30. It warmed up to 50 in a couple of hours and the hose thawed out. We just used the water in our tank until then. I can hardly wait for winter here. That's all for now see ya all next month.
