Blazing trails everywhere: DC, Mason Neck State Park, and Head Quarters

  

Abe and I.



Saying what up to Barack



Greetings from Lorton, VA.  This state is absolutely gorgeous.  We are really enjoying ourselves here so far.  Last long Memorial Day weekend I had some visitors from home.  It was really nice seeing 4 of my friends I haven't seen since February.  We spent the weekend hanging out and catching up.  I couldn't have been happier with the weekend.  It was really nice to see familiar faces.  Leaving them left me pretty sad, but the Monday of Memorial Day helped a lot.  I went into DC most of my team.  We thought there would be no other way to celebrate Memorial Day than in our nations capitol city.  We went to every monument in the Monument Mall.  I met Abe Lincoln, who is huge.  We did a lot of touristy things, since there were a few of us who haven't been to DC before.  As we left the Lincoln Memorial, we ran into a Memorial Day parade.  Who would have thought on such an important day that Washington DC would have a parade! We sure didn't.  We enjoyed the parade in the blazing heat.  Kris Allen (American Idol) was in the parade and I decided to yell at him and tell him I voted for him on Idol.  He pointed at me.  Happy Memorial Day to me.

Tuesday was back to work for us all.  Trail blazing is really hard.  I learned how to use the Ditch Witch which is a large piece of equipment that helps create the trail, take out roots, and get large stumps of down trees out of the way.  I felt pretty bad-a using such witch.  We unfortunately got it stuck in a ditch the same day.  Oops, whatever.  Wednesday was followed by the same ol same ol.  Benching parts of the trail, clearing brush, etc. 



Hangin at Head Quarters



Thursday was an exciting day for River 10.  We are so close to DC (obviously) and that is where the National Headquarters for AmeriCorps is located.  We were asked to go to headquarters and learn the behind the scenes work of NCCC and the entire program.  We spent the entire day in the office doing question and answers with the director, head recruiting agents, media reps, and anyone who wanted to come in and say hi to us.  They praised us up and down for the work we are doing and told us that it is nice to see the people they work so hard for.  It really was an interesting day to learn the in's and out's of AmeriCorps.  After we spent about 5 hours with the head of our program, we went to the Holocaust Museum.  This Museum was amazing.  It really was an eye opening few hours walking through this amazing place.  We all really took our time going through the museum to see everything that happened during the Holocaust.  Pretty emotional end to the day.  This day was great.  We really enjoyed going to head quarters and seeing our program's directors and head people.  It was nice to get some questions answered by the people themselves.  I really love DC and being in the city.

Friday was kind of a dull day.  Woke up to an overcast sky.  None of us really wanted to do anything.  We had PT at 6am which I have created Friday to be "Friday Funday" so we don't really do strenuous PT for this day.  Every other day of PT is pretty hard still because I am a drill sargent.  Wok on this day was tough.  We had Thursday pretty much off from trail blazing so we were not motivated.  Mother nature must have known because after lunch it rained, HARD.  We left work early and it literally flooded.  It was insane.  We rented a movie for the night for the team.  I am pretty sure most of us were in bed by 10pm.



River 10 with our park sign


Saturday we had our community engagement day at the park.  It was National Trails Day so we helped out with their bay cleaning day.  It was short lived, so we were done by 11am.  Most of us napped and hung out all day until we had an ISP at night.  We were firework marshalls for a near by festival.  We got to sit on a golf course and have a front row seat to a great display of fireworks.  No complaints here.

That's it for this week in Lorton.  Pretty basic week, blazed some more trail, did some PT, and went to the National Head Quarters for our entire program, NO BIG DEAL. 
I hope all is well where ever you may be reading this.  I miss everyone, especially that witty ALMOST 10 year old at home!  Until next time.

World War II Memorial...found the best place on Earth!