fat ass raccoons!

I am back from an exhilarating three weeks in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas outside of Fresno. Now let me tell you, people think life is tough being in AmeriCorps, working all the time, living in tents and what not, but believe you me, life is GOOD. Sure I slept on the ground for a few weeks, but we lived on a huge beautiful lake with rolling hills covered in grass and stones to frolic through, or look at with the snow covered mountains easily seen in the distance. The lake was a beautiful clean blue lake, a little chilly, but wonderful for swimming (a weird concept for a Wisconsin kid in April, but it was great) and climbing around. The campground was really nice, and no one was there really except for us. They let us live there for the price of just a little bit of labor, and I really mean just a little bit...we spent a few hours each friday using weed whips and garbage pickers to clean up a few different sites and trails, and otherwise had the day free to go hiking. One day a couple of us packed a lunch and several water bottles and set out on an all day hike around the lake. We found a little cove to jump off some of the rocks (carefully) and swim around in, and on our way back found a water fall flowing down the rocks that we followed. I'm telling you, the west coast is winning me over.
We did do some work too. Tuesday through Saturday we worked with the San Joaquin River Conservancy Parkway and Trust (I probably got the name wrong, there are too many components in the name, but its something like that). We worked at three different sites along the river where they planted oak trees, and other native bushes to try and restore the river bed which will prevent fires as well as somehow benefit the salmon that they are trying to return to the San Joaquin River. Our job was to get rid of the weeds around the new plants so they could get sunlight and nutrients from the soil. We also cleared some paths with the weed whips, and had to work on irrigation.....bleh! It wasn't the worst thing, but the irrigation lines got all jumbled and torn up by tractors and were really frustrating to work with, but it was great to work in the peaceful outdoors (my hair is turning nearly whitish blonde, and i have a great tan...great farmers tan).
In gratitude for our hard work, some of the members of the Trust had us over for a barbeque, which was no average barbeque, it was a feast. They grilled salmon, halibut, and tri-tip (i haven't heard of it but it was some of the best beef I've ever had), and had wonderful salad, and fruit salad, and desserts, i mean, you would think we were royalty the way they fed us, but we're just americorps.
Life in the outdoors brought Gold 2 closer together. Sitting at the campsite all the time, we didn't have much to do but sit around the fire eating s'mores and chatting. We often looked at the stars since we were outside the city with no lights to obscure our view. We went canoeing one windy day which was a lot of fun. We made a bumper boats competition for a while, and just relaxed on the water. Some people, down on their luck, made their way into the water. It was extremely windy and two canoes took hard hits and tipped over submerging three of our members. Tough luck, but at least they laughed about it.
One morning we got up at 5 to climb up the hillside and watch the sunrise...on this exciting endeavor we accidentally followed a skunk for a while that did not want to be followed so he sprayed. Caleb got hit, but just slightly enough that after a few showers and hanging his clothes up for a week, enduring several rain falls, he is odor free (well, skunk free, Gold 2 decided showering while camping was sometimes excusable).
Other creatures we encountered were coyotes that liked to howl very loudly in the early morning hours; a tarantula and a scorpion that we found under our tents when we were packing up; very tame squirrels that even climbed onto someone's boot; fat ass raccoons that were clearly campground raccoons since they were twice the size of normal raccoons, very comfortable approaching people (although never quite as comfortable as the squirrels), and could always be spotted in our garbage cans; and the craziest animal siting/hearing was a wild boar of some variety. I was the last one up at the campsite (mind you this was around 10:30 at night, things were usually this wild at Millerton Lake) and I went to the bathroom after watching one of those fat ass raccoons drink our left over dish water. As I was about to return to our site I heard some crazy squealing and snorting and some some dog-sized creature running in a crazy pattern (like a dog after you give it a bath). I stayed still, scared for my life, until it zig-zagged away from me and i sprinted back to the campsite, hopped in my tent, and then spent the night listening to this beast squealing, and I believe preying on other animals. Even though I had to pee in the middle of the night, i did not get out of my tent until morning time.
Crazy as the animals and adventures were, Gold 2 made it out of the woods and probably 50 starbucks coffees later we are back in Sacramento about to head to Colfax California. Stay tuned for further west coast adventures!