First Weekend in CO!

Friday, October 16th

Friday was another processing day. We had more meetings regarding rules and procedures in the morning, and then we spent the afternoon getting our physicals at the local hospital. I have a tetnus shot, TB test, vision and hearing tests, drug test, and my vitals checked. Turns out, I'm pretty healthy!

Friday night was pretty low-key. After dinner I just hung out around the dorm playing board games, watching TV, and popping in and out of people's rooms to chat. There are still so many people I want to meet and get to know, so it was nice to just stay in for the night and relax.

Saturday, October 17th

This was a really fun day! We began at 8am by meeting our team leaders and going on a "scavenger hunt" in downtown Denver. We used the LightRail (which is an above ground subway) so we could get a feel for how to use the public transportation in the area, and we walked around the city finding various stops on our map we were given. It was nice to be taken around the city, and we had a gorgeous sunny day for touring.

We had packed a lunch, so we left straight from Denver in the afternoon and met up with our entire Fire Unit (we have 5 teams in our unit - about 12 people per team) at Red Rocks National Park. It was a warm and sunny day, so we hiked a little ways up the trail as a unit and took a group picture! It was really fun! Even though I am still sort of a novice hiker, I continued with a group who wanted to hike higher, and was able to stand on a large rock and see for miles. We could see our campus, as well as the Denver city skyline. It was beautiful!

This is Megan and I at the top of the first stopping point. We are both in the Fire Unit (in fact, my entire hallway of girls are), but we are not on the same team. (Note the sweet AmeriCorps vest Megan is wearing...and how high my belt is!)

Part of the reason why we visited Red Rocks is because there's a giant ampitheatre there that was built during WWII by the former CCC members. Our program, National Civilian Community Corps, is basically a modern version of this group that helped with many projects during WWII. So, in an essence, it's sort of the roots and history behind our program, which was neat to learn about.

Below are a couple pictures of the statue erected in honor of the former CCC.

We returned to campus from Red Rocks and ate dinner. Since we had toured Denver in the morning and felt confident using the bus and rail system, many of us decided to check out the Denver nightlife. Nearly 50 of us boarded a bus at campus and transferred to the LightRail to venture downtown.

Here's Megan and I on the very crowded, very loud bus! We had to document that we actually are attractive outside of our manly uniforms!

Here's the group I travelled with at a bar/restaurant called Croc's. Everyone here is from the Fire Unit, and at one point, someone proposed a toast to it. Pretty soon, we were all yelling "FIRE!" at the top of our lungs until one of the guys realized we probably shouldn't be yelling "fire" in a crowded restaurant! It was a fun night exploring the city!

Sunday, October 18th

Sunday was another exciting adventure day! On our downtown tour of Denver the day before, our team leader had pointed out where we could hop on a bus to head to Boulder, CO if we ever wanted to check it out. After brunch, a group of 7 of us (including Megan and myself) decided to make a day trip out of it, and began walking to the LightRail. We were able to take the rail, then transfer to a bus, which had about a 45 minute drive to Boulder. Roundtrip, it cost $13 -- not bad for a day excursion.

Again, we had a gorgeous day to explore Boulder! We walked about the University of Colorado at Boulder first, and stopped into the gift shop for some souvenirs. Next, we walked up to the Pearl Street "Mall", which is a long strip of shops, restaurants, and cool places to visit. We saw live music, a martial arts show, and even ran into other groups of our NCCC members who were also taking advantage of the day off to explore.

We stopped for a drink (I tried Stella beer for the first time - love it!) and an appetizer at a small restaurant, and then had dinner later at BJ's. BJ's has these awesome desserts called "pazookies" which are warmed cookies in a skillet with ice cream. We split two between the 7 of us -- they were delicious!

We hopped back on the bus from Boulder at 8pm and arrived back to campus a little after 10pm. Tired, Megan and I just laid around our room until bedtime, and then hit the sack.

Monday, October 19th

Today we were up bright and early to sit through 3 hours of driver's safety training. Driving 15 passenger vans is tricky and a huge responsibility (especially because they're government issued), so we had to go through all the rules and reg's.

Afterwards, it was like I was 16 all over again. Anyone who wanted to be "certified" as a driver through NCCC had to take a road test with a staff member. There were 7 of us on my team. So we all piled into our van and spent about 4 hours driving around so that everyone could get practice and be scored by the staff member accompanying us. I didn't think this sounded very exciting, but we actually drove to some really neat places. We visited Columbine High School and saw the memorial of the students and staff who died in the shooting -- it was a pretty heavy excursion. We also visited some scenic places and some mountain look-outs. I was the first driver to go, and it was fine. I have driven a 15-passenger van before, so I wasn't very nervous.

After we got back to campus, Megan, my friend Ashley from Wisconsin, and I decided to try to go run out PT route that we have to be timed on next week. Whoa - running in the "mile high city" is much different than running in Michigan. I couldn't even make it a whole mile. My lungs burned and we hear it takes a while to get used to the elevation. The good news is that once we start training regularly, we are going to get in awesome shape, and I will be able to run for miles over Christmas break!

At 7pm tonight I attended a "Book Club Meeting." Our team leaders have created various clubs that we can participate in within our dorm building so we have things to do in our down time. All we did at the meeting was put the names of recommended books in a hat and draw one out to start reading. We chose "Everything is Illuminated." We are all going to read it during our first SPIKE (which is what they call our trips off campus) and then discuss it when we come back together for our transition week the first of January.

Now I am going to wrap this up and go find something to do! I really wanted to take the time to update this, but it feels weird sitting in my room when I can hear everyone up and about the halls. So, I hope you enjoyed reading and I promise to update more often if possible!