Tower of the Americas

San Antonio's version of a space needle.

Tamalada

Part of my AmeriCorps NCCC requirements for graduation are to complete 80 hours of independent service hours (ISP’s) in addition to the 1700 hours of service we complete as a team working for our project sponsors.  This past round my team was able to complete close to 25 of those hours.

We spent a day volunteering at a local high school Tamalada.  The students were attempting to set a world record for most tamales made in a day.  Students from neighborhood elementary and middle schools also came to made a few tamales as well.  Here are some pictures from the day.

Big Lou's

My teammates and I demolished a 42 inch pizza this past round.  We made a stop at Big Lou's in San Antonio and filled our bellies with a delicious pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  I personally stuffed my face and finished a single slice.  No small feat when a single slice is equivalent to a 10 inch pizza.

Sea World

Have I told you guys my sponsors this past round were awesome?  Well, they definitely should win an award of some kind.

Mark and Peggy were constantly bringing us treats and surprises.  The one that's going to take the cake was a free, behind the scenes, trip to Sea World.  No joke, you guys, it was amazing.

We went on a Wednesday when the park was closed to visitors, so we had the entire place to ourselves.  Well, minus a few workers who were being busy bees working away.  We had a tour guide who took us around and was so knowledgeable about the park and the animals.  It was freezing out, but I was so interested in everything I didn't even notice.

Our first stop for the day was the Killer Whale tank.  There were trainers busy working with 2 of the whales and one came over an chatted with us.  He brought the whale he was working with over and did some fun tricks for us.  He also stayed and chatted with us and answered our questions for 20 minutes or so, another trainer came over and chatted as well.  He had been there for 18 years, since the park opened!  Our tour guide told us later that never happens, that the trainers took time to come over and talk with us.

Next up was the penguin tank.  We got lucky on our timing and they were feeding when we were around so it was fun to see that.

The other big highlight from the front of the park was the Bottle Nose Dolphin area.  The dolphins are in an open tank and visitors can try to pet them.  Since we had a smaller group and there was no one else around many of my team members were able to touch them.  I didn't get that lucky, but I did get splashed!

The behind the scenes portion of the tour was awesome.  We got to check out a tank of sting rays.  Our guide let us put our hand in the water and sting rays then would swim right underneath and touch us.  There was a tank of baby sharks and our guide caught one and put it in a smaller tank so we could tough it, too.  It felt almost like a fine sandpaper.

Sting Rays

Here is our tour guide catching the shark!

Some other fun pictures from the day.

After our tour, Mark took the whole team out to lunch at a fun Tex-Mex place.  Laura and Melinda even got serenaded!  They definitely spoiled us this round.

End of the Round

Round 1 is finished!  My team made it through.  Our last week was a lot of fun, albeit a little scattered.

Monday, Melinda and I were able to help our decorating the big white house for an event that was held on the property.  Melinda is a HUGE Christmas fan so this was a highlight for both of us.

Tuesday we were spoiled and got the day off to go to Sea World.

Wednesday we did some independent service hours at a Tamalada.

Thursday I did some trail scouting with Max and Ben.  It was fun to wander around in the woods again looking for neat places for a mountain bike trail.

On Friday Max and  I were in charge of helping Mark, Peggy, and those on the Land Heritage Institute board get ready for the Holiday Heritage Fair the next day.  We hooked up trailers, got the hay rides ready, set up some tables.  One of the neatest things was helping set up the Chuck Wagon.  We pulled it out of the barn, and I mean we literally pulled it out.  Max and Mark rolled the wheels and I pulled from the front.  I got to climb inside and pull things out and set up the canopy on top.

Saturday was our last day of work and the 2nd annual Holiday Heritage Fair.  We woke up and were bummed to find it was pretty cold and looked like rain.  We just bundled up and got to work.  Nick and I were in charge of driving to the closer intersections and putting up signs, it took us the few hours before the event started.  Once people arrived we had a few scattered tasks each.  A few of us helped with kids games for awhile.  They had a "cow" set up and we had fun pretending to rope it.  Then it was my turn to sit by myself at the front gate and direct people in.  It was awfully cold and I was glad I had a truck to sit in the back of when it started drizzling.  I also had Daisy, our dog friend who comes to visit hang out with me.

Morbid side story:  While I was at the front gate, Daisy wandered into the road and got swiped by a truck.  I think she may have broken a leg.  She hobbled home.

Sunday we knew our time was dwindling so we tried to get some more fun stuff in.  A few of us took a truck and went to Tower of the Americas in downtown San Antonio.  It's basically a space needle, we took an elevator up and walked around.  Not sure if it was worth the $10, but fun nonetheless.  Then we had a going away dinner at Mark's office downtown.  He's President of an architecture business and has the coolest office.

Monday was full of packing and cleaning after a 5 hour service project at Haven for Hope, a local homeless shelter in San Antonio.  We worked in the kitchen making and serving breakfast.  I was in the dish area for awhile and the people were so nice.  I got so many thank you's when I took their trays to clean them.

Tuesday we took off for Lubbock for the night.  Full day of driving.  Wednesday we headed to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Pretty neat place, I was able to wander around downtown for a bit and got some sweet new mittens.  Had team dinner at a neat place called Atomic Grill.  Thursday we drove back to Denver and it was fun to see Paul and all of my friends from training.  We had enough money left over were were able to go to a nice restaurant and celebrate the end of the round.  Wahoo.

Friday we had a day of meetings and that brings me to today, Saturday.  The day I come back to Minnesota for Christmas Break.

My shuttle left campus at 5 this morning.  I arrived at the airport and sailed through security by 6 am.  That leaves me plenty of downtime until my 9 am flight to take advantage of this free wifi and update this blog!

Sorry posting has been so sparse, but as you can see, I'm a busy woman!

This Weeks Update

I am back to trail crew this week.  This morning we spent some time scouting out a mountain bike trail to add to the existing Medina River Greenway Tail System.  Where we are in Texas is awfully flat so it was difficult finding a fun path for biking, but we did our best.

  

In the afternoon I was sent out to our first trail to do some more work.  The path is cleared, but not exactly level.  My job was to use the tractor with a plow attachment on the back to break up the land for another tool to come in that will be able to do the job.

Yes, they trusted me out alone in the woods with this big tractor.  Are they nuts?!

Oh, and in other news, Texas was freezing today.  No, we don’t have snow, but I wanted a fuzzy pair of mittens all day long.

Cowboy Boots

I am the proud new owner of a beautiful pair of cowboy boots.  This past weekend the ladies on the team headed to a Hat and Boot store to get ourselves some new kicks.  We all gravitated to the same pair and three of us ended up walking out of the store with matching boots.  We may have spent close to an entire paycheck on them, but they sure are beautiful.

Oh, and saying I spent almost an entire paycheck on them doesn’t seem so bad when I remember that I make three times less than minimum wage.

Jack in the Box

I had my first Jack in the Box experience this past weekend.  The food was your average fast food quality but the ordering experience was something else.

Has anyone else heard of automated ordering?  Where did this come from? 

I navigated my way through the touch screen ordering system, slid my $2 into the slot, and next thing I knew a worker had my cheeseburger ready for me.

I wonder if it will catch on?!

This Week's Project

This round Sun 3 is working simultaneously on two projects.  Part of the group is trail building, what I was doing last week.  The other part of the group is working on building the deck for the house we're living in.

This week I was on construction crew.  Joe, the site supervisor the the construction crew is a Texas native, and a Native American at that.  He is full of interesting stories and we have quite a few story breaks in our days.  It's really interesting to hear a bit more about his culture and life in Texas.  It's also fun to learn a bit about construction!

Below are Ben, my team mate and Joe discussing the next step in the deck construction process.

My Team Leader, Nick, working on something.  We've been spending our days on ladders.

Texans are awfully proud of Texas.  I don't get it.

 We're getting there.  At the end of today we had all of the beams up on the roof.

Believe it or not, but I was actually up on this ladder with a nail gun nailing in beams most of the week.    

This week I learned all about framing, beams, supports, and hip joints.  Come July when I am jobless let me know if you need anything built!

My Digs

This round Sun 3 has been blessed with top notch living conditions.  Qualifications for this include a dishwasher, on site laundry, more than one sleeping area and more than one shower for the entire team.

The only drawback is the lack of real beds, and that is easily manageable.  Below you will see my lovely cot and sleeping bag. It's not too terribly uncomfortable, it just squeaks a bit when I move around.

Well, I guess there is another drawback.  Recently my TL Nick and I seem to have become allergic to our housing.  We've both gotten kicked in the rear end by allergies and are finding it quite annoying.  It's also irritating my lugs a bit and making my asthma kick in a bit.  Good thing I got an inhaler refill before I arrived in Texas.  The other day we made a trip to the Wal-Mart allergy medication aisle and picked up some allergy buster nasal spray.  Holy moley, it's an all natural spray made with chiles and my nose BURNS when I use it.  It works though, clears my sinuses right out.

Sun 3's Private Concert

Last night after dinner, Sun 3, my team received quite the musical show.  Jim Chestnut, one of our Site Supervisors at Land Heritage Institute, happens to be quite the country music legend.  He's been grammy nominated!  Sorry for the bad picture, but he's the one in the middle behind the microphone.  On the left is one of Jim's friends who plays the mandolin and is a radio producer in San Antonio.  On the right is the cutest old man who has performed with the likes of Willie Nelson and other big names in country music.

Jim played us a few of his songs.  We heard some real cowboy songs and they told us a little about Texas history.  Overall it was a fun night for Sun 3.

My Next Project

Oklahoma here I come.  After Christmas break I will be back in Denver for a week and then headed east to Oklahoma.  

My team will become Certified Type 2 Wild land Firefighters and will work with the U.S. Forest Service at Ouachita National Forest.  We'll be living in boy scout cabins!  I'm so darned excited.  This is also where we will be for our 4th round project.

The closest city to us will be Poteau, Oklahoma which comes in at a whopping 8,500 people.  Never fear, there is a Wal-Mart.  Starbucks, not so much.  

I don't have too much more information right now.  I'll let you know as I get more.  Paul is headed to northern Texas to work with the United Way.  He's happy about it.

Best Weekend Ever

I was spoiled this past weekend.  Way spoiled.  Janet and Bob picked me up Saturday afternoon after our team Starbucks run and whisked me away to Paul and Sonja's.  

I was able to have a good home cooked meal and sleep in a real bed.  Funny how my standards have changed since I've been in AmeriCorps.  

Sunday we headed to Max's Wine Dive and I had an excellent lunch which boasted my first taste of Texas fried chicken.  Delicious.  

After lunch we headed to The Witte Museum.  The museum itself isn't very large but there were a few neat exhibits.  Janet and I were on opposite ends of the spectrum for our interest in the textiles exhibit.  I've always been interested in clothing through the ages, Janet just breezed right through it. 

This quilt, aptly named "The Crazy Quilt" reminded me of Grandma Butch.  I'm sure any of you who have seen her Crazy Quilts will agree it's a pretty good replica.  

Sunday evening came all to fast and I headed back to Land Heritage Institute.  Of course, Janet and Bob are amazing and left me with a wonderful care package.  The chocolate won't last long but I'm excited to read the books they gave me.

Longhorns

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we have 32 Longhorns that reside in the fields behind our bunk house.  These are purebred Texas Cattlemen's Longhorns, or something like that.

Because they are purebred it is important that other cattle don't get mixed in with them and muddle up the blood lines.

Well, that is exactly what happened this past week.  A few cows from a nearby ranch went rogue and got into LHI's pens.  To make it easier to catch the other cows, and be sure no blood line crossing happened, Peggy rounded up the Longhorns and kept them in the smaller pen behind our house while the rogue cows were rounded up.

Peggy has conditioned the Longhorns to make rounding them up quite simple.  She drives a vehicle over to the pen by our house, honks the horn twice, then yells "hup, hup" a few times.  The Longhorns hear it and know when they come there will be a snack waiting for them.

I took advantage of the fact that the cows were rounded up to get some fun pictures.  I even helped Peggy feed the Longhorns while they were rounded up by driving the truck through their pen while she unloaded food for them.  That was an experience.  I was afraid I was going to hit one with the truck!

Thanksgiving

We had an Ameri-Thanksgiving here at the Land Heritage Institute yesterday.

One of our site supervisors, Jim, joined us and brought with him a turkey.  I was very grateful for that, as I am not quite ready to tackle making an actual turkey.  Although watching Leigh do it last year was fun.

Peggy, another site supervisor, dropped off stuffing and two pies.  Peggy and Mark are married and are the ones in charge of LHI.  Peggy is a great cook, and we've gotten to be beneficiaries of her skill multiple times.  One of my team members is allergic to milk and eggs which makes cooking interesting sometimes, but Peggy is awesome and finds ways to make great food without those ingredients.

My teammate, Laura, and I were in charge of the other sides which consisted of mashed potatoes (!!yum!!), vegetables, salad, etc.  Pretty darn tasty if I do say so myself.  I even had two slices of Peggy's pecan pie, it was so delicious.

After dinner we still had sunny skies and warm weather here in San Antonio so I grabbed my book and headed down a trail near our house to a blind to spend some time reading.  I didn't see any animals, but Mark has told me that the best time for spotting animals is just before sun rise.  Maybe someday I will be ambitious enough to get over there that early.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving at home.  Mom, you might have to make that blackberry pie again when I'm home.  It sounds delicious.  Only three more weeks and I'll be back.