Mission accomplished

People keep asking me what it's like, but it's difficult to describe exactly how it feels, sitting here on my (uncomfortable) ACE mattress on my last evening here, having returned to Santa Cruz yesterday from my final project.

Yesterday, when we returned, ACE's head honcho Chris Baker appeared at the house having travelled all the way from Flagstaff (that's the main ACE base), and assembled all 22 of us volunteers to ask us about our views and experiences of ACE California. Upon reflection I found myself feeling indescribably happy to be done: to have finally completed my ten weeks of difficult, gruelling, often boring and sometimes thankless tasks that have constituted my "conservation" experience. I've struggled with the sometimes amateurish work of what you might ironically refer to as the ACE "organisation". I have felt so frustrated, thinking about what I would change about the projects and the way it's all done if only I were in charge.

But I can't deny that I have some brilliant memories, met some great people, seen some really very beautiful places, built up some good arm muscles, worked in some crazy situations, and generally feel that these past ten weeks have been well, well worth it. I wouldn't say that I'm exactly sad that to be leaving tomorrow - not yet, anyway - but I do suspect that getting back home (after my two-week roadtrip with cousins on the East) will be a bit of a strange experience.

I won't miss waking up in the dark at 6am to defrost the ice in the cooking pot in order to make coffee. I won't miss being yelled at by crazy Europeans for passing the logs down the human chain to the roadside too quickly. I won't miss finding cactus needles in my socks (the painful way) or being charged through the teeth for my swollen mosquito bites. I certainly won't miss the endless, mind-numbing monotony of repeating the same simple but physically demanding task over and over again for ten hours a day.

But I will miss being in California. I'll miss the crisp air of the mountains and the marine layer of mist that hangs over the Pacific in the morning. I'll miss being governed by the Terminator, and seeing all the weirdos inside and outside the 7-11 on the corner. I will miss the lovely people I've met from all over the world, whom in all likelihood - let's face it - I'll never see again, and the word games we played to keep our minds from imploding with boredom during the hardest days of project. I will miss the novelty of being the only English person around!

Would I recommend ACE to a friend? Well, cautiously, yes. I guess if I'd known what I was in for from the beginning I probably would have steered well clear, and I suppose that means I'm grateful for my ignorance, because I am so glad to have done it. I guess the toughest things turn out to be the really good things - the important things in life - and as a coward that means I have to not know in advance how tough they're going to be!

I'm not sure if I'll keep writing in this blog as I travel on the East. After all, I think I can say I've won already.

Thanks for following this blog. Unlike lots of people I've met here on ACE, I really do love my life back home, and it means a lot to me to feel like in some way my friends and family are here with me. I miss you lots, and am really looking forward to seeing everybody when I get back.

Until then... word.

p.s. anyone know of any fun job vacancies for December..?

Final ACE weekend off...

So Daylight Savings Time is finally paying me back the one hour I invested back in March. I feel like I used to when I got back from my swimming lesson, put the key back in my locker, and suddenly had 20p in my hand, and thinking of all the things I could do with it.

Well, it looks like I'm spending my bonus time by writing in this blog. I'm pretty sure I'd be better off using it by sleeping in preparation for another week's hard work, but this seems more appealing right now.

Let me first say this: this project really does SUCK. All day, every day, we haul logs up a big bank to the roadside. And stack them. It's a lot like the Yosemite project only this time we're in a sizeable neighbourhood location (rather than in a meadow in a National Park), the logs are heavier, and the bank is steeper. Our supervisor, Kyle, is hard to please and during our work days seems to say nothing to encourage us and is quick to criticise even when everyone is sweating and aching from working so hard. We work from 7am on the dot til 5pm on the dot. Oh yeah, and instead of being too hot for little old English me, it's been freezing. Literally, every night (down to -11c), and some of the days. Three weeks before the ski season begins, and we're camping!

But secondly I'll say this: I love Lake Tahoe. My weekend off has been amazing. I've cycled miles, sorted a load of admin stuff for my post-ACE trip, walked around a lot, sat out by the campfire (in multiple layers of clothing of course), seen some incredible views, and enjoyed the new dynamic of a very different team. Within the crew we have three 18-year-old boys, whom I could very well imagine being some of "my kids" All Saints (except for their American/Dutch accents), as well as representatives from Spain, Italy, Korea and Germany too. Supervisor Kyle is surprisingly fun to hang out with outside of work time. I'm far from at the "core" of this group - there's not one person that I knew before I came out here, and many of them have already been on project together - but I'm very much happy with it being that way, just sitting back, watching, happy to hang out with one or two people or on my own.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of days:


Moonrise over the mountains


Fallen Leaf Lake at twilight


The boys (some of them)


"Inspiration point", overlooking Emerald Bay


Incredibly clear water of Tahoe as viewed from Nevada beach which I cycled to, just across the stateline.

Only four more days of ACE to go!

God bless you, DRob

Sometimes the task of updating my blog towers over me like that of a rental car I've not figured out how to book yet, or the ordeal of unpacking and packing my stuff that I'm yet to tackle since my return to Santa Cruz. You might think this is a good thing - an indicator of how much there is to say; of how many crazy fun experiences I'm having. On the other hand, it could simply be a result of the fact that I don't really feel I have any great insights to share - or at least that my thoughts are too jumbled up to digest them sufficiently to result in any amusing anecdotes or profound reflections. What's most likely to result is either an incoherent stream of consciousness - which might help me to process my experiences but is largely meaningless to anybody else, even my own parents (who probably comprise about 50% of my viewing figures) - or alternatively it will end up as one of those lists of "things I have done recently", the type that Miss Foley used to complain about every week of class 13 when it came to writing our journal.

And I wouldn't like to upset either my mental “Miss Foley” or my literal mother, which makes updating this thing seem (probably unnecessarily) stressful. Ah, woe is me!!! Haha.

Life is good though. I mean, when I think about it, even though I'm tired, it's really very good.

It was strange leaving Catalina: our last breakfast together; digging up my last root; saying goodbye to the small Conservancy community at the Tuesday pot luck (where a beautiful man named Marco, Catalina's school music teacher, persuaded me to play a couple of songs pretty badly on Charlie's guitar). It'll probably feel even stranger tomorrow morning when Amelia and Liz head back to Two Harbors with the new crew and I'm not with them. It had really become a pretty cosy little life for the six of us. We'd become fluent at the “kitchen dance” necessary for all making our breakfast in such a small space every morning. We'd even decorated the walls of the house with our own artwork! And I feel sad that I won't be there ever again. But then I only have to recall that familiar aniseed scent of fennel to remember I'm pretty happy to be moving on as well.

And moving on is always better when it involves a brilliant three-day road trip through some of the most beautiful coastline in the country in a fancy big car. After a six-hour drive to escape Los Angeles and get onto the famous “highway one”, we eventually arrived at Kirk Creek campground, at the southernmost edge of Big Sur. Sitting around the barbecue, drinking a couple of beers in the starlight, the sound of the Pacific waves crashing on the rocks below the camp site, I felt like this might just be the coolest part of my American experience so far.

That night I decided to sleep under the stars. I was slightly unsure about not putting a tent up because I was concerned about the affect of the damp air on the warmth of my down sleeping bag. In fact, it turned out the raccoons that scour the campground for scraps of food were more of a problem. And they're nothing like as cute as in that cartoon that used to be on Live and Kicking on Saturday mornings. As I was just starting to drift off to sleep I was rudely awakened by a raccoon tapping me on the leg to see if I was really asleep. I went to the car to find the tent.

The next day we hit the road again early, taking in the incredible rugged coastline, frequently stopping the car to get a bit closer to the noisy, angry waves that pound the rocks. At one point we found ourselves exploring the beautiful chapel of a small Benedictine monastery where my Jewish friends asked lots of questions that I realised I probably should know the answer to.

That night we cooked steak over the campfire and had another beautiful night, without any raccoons or damp to worry about and just a sky full of shooting stars above our big, open, almost-deserted campground.

Friday we hit the bay town of Monterey where we blew a lot of money on seeing (and not seeing) sea-life. The famous Monterey Aquarium did have some pretty cool sea otters, and an exhibit that makes you wonder how you can have lived on the planet for 25 years without anybody telling you that they make seahorses that grow in the shape of seaweed. The “egg yolk” jellyfish and the huge tuna that randomly shows off its 50kph speeds to the visitors were other highlights.

After exhausting the aquarium for fun we headed to the pier for a three-hour, thirty dollar whale-watching trip during which we saw exactly zero whales, zero dolphins, three seals, and one ten-year-old English girl vomit over the side of the boat.

So we returned to Santa Cruz slightly dejected at our lack of photos of blue whales, but very happy to have been privileged enough to see some other pretty cool bits of nature's stuff. I found that in the house we can now steal wi-fi from some guy named “DRob”, that I've been promoted and now sleep on a bottom bunk (hooray!). Today I went to visit some giant Redwoods at Henry Cowell State Park, which were pretty cool, and even stood right inside a huge hollowed-out-but-still-living-how-hardcore-is-that tree.

Tuesday I'll leave for my final two weeks with ACE, in Lake Tahoe. Rumour has it that the work there sucks even more than my other two projects, but based on previous experience I guess I'll probably manage to have some fun anyway.

Ready to leave the island I think...

I'm sure it would seem perverse to those of you suffering that familiar descent into gloomy English winter that I could be lying here in the hot sunshine on the lawn outside my fancy condo on a desert island, thinking that I can't wait to get out of here.

Perhaps it's just one of those days. We were supposed to be off this project by now, but due to an administrative mix-up we're here for another week. And not that the prospect of another 40 hours of fennel killing time doesn't fill me with delight, but I think we're all just ready for the next thing now.

But maybe I should focus on my achievements instead of my frustrations.

For example, our weekend in Los Angeles. I'm incredibly proud that I managed to negotiate LA traffic in our rental car without crashing even once (as long as you don't count a slight non-incident downtown -I never did understand the logic of trees in car parks). I learned that you probably shouldn't try and drive in a big city without a road map of some sort. I managed to persuade my friends to come with me for a drink in the bar where Mulder first met Kurtzweil in the first Movie. We stayed at a hostel in Venice Beach with all the skaters and weirdos, just like in Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2. I witnessed my first real live bar fight, in a trendy bar in Orange County, where we watched a girl band play embarrassingly bad music.

And as far as my fennel-killing career is concerned, I have survived a temperature-rise into the high 80s over the past couple of days without *too much* complaint (in my opinion anyway). I am growing more tolerant of the swimming pool-flavoured water that comes out of our taps, and more adept at avoiding cactus spines. I have seen a couple of endemic island foxes on the roadside, and eaten lots of fresh venison steak and burgers hunted by our friend Charlie.

Meanwhile, the world outside goes on. Siblings celebrate birthdays. Friends have babies. I find myself apparently the only person in a thousand-mile radius who's ever even heard of the pop star and Brewin family idol whose sudden and shocking death brings me to tears. I am comfortable enough here with these people, in this place, doing this work, but it's not home. To borrow a clumsy-sounding Timor phrase (it probably sounds better in Hebrew), "Yes, I am happy, but I don't feel myself complete". I guess I'm looking forward to looking back on this experience from the place that just fits me better.

Soldiers, pirates and fennel killing

Well, we've finally made it.

I've just finished my surprisingly good cowboy coffee (which I was forced to learn to make after I broke the coffee jug the other day) on the morning of the first of five glorious days off, for which we have worked moderately hard for the past couple of weeks, putting in ten-hour days (or at least that's what the timesheet's going to say), slowly cleansing the island of its dreaded aniseed-scented nemesis one plant at a time.

On the weekend before last's camping trip at Shark harbour - which I am assuming is named after the fin-shaped rock formations and not the local sea life - I had a somewhat humbling encounter with a young Hawaiian named George.

As happens often on this small friendly island, he and his girlfriend Rhi asked Liz and I what it is we do here on Catalina. I enjoy saying "we work for the Conservancy" - it sounds important, and gets us perks like being able to camp and hike wherever we want without a permit, or ride the once-a-day Safari bus to Avalon for free. After describing with a drama similar to that of my last blog post (see below) the near-100 degree heat of our then eight-hour work days, and the physical demands of killing fennel, and just how hard our job is, I politely returned the question: what do you do?

It turns out George had just come back from serving in Iraq. In a very matter-of-fact manner he described working in the 140-degree heat in the desert. When Liz asked what the food was like, and he said that some days they had enough to eat, other times they would go whole days without eating anything at all. He looked out to the ocean, smiled, and noted how nice it was to be back for the time being at least, musing that he would probably be sent out to Afghanistan sometime soon.

Liz engaged him with questions about how the soldiers were received by local Iraqis, and what he thinks about the conflict, and that kind of thing. I just kept quiet and decided I should probably think about George before I started complaining over the coming weeks. I don't think I'd make a very good soldier.

That night I slept ridiculously well in the sand under the stars, warmed by the campfire and lulled by the sound of the waves breaking a few yards away. Only the flies that swarmed over our sleeping bags first thing, with no sense of occasion, failed to recognise just how cool the whole thing was.

The second day of our weekend was pretty badass too. (By the way, "badass" is my new favourite American adjective. You should try it in a sentence, it feels pretty badass to say it.) We got to sample the bright lights of the island's only city, Avalon, where there are all sorts of futuristic things like paved roads and Von's grocery store. We got pizza at this crazy old-movie-themed diner where they have tiny jukeboxes on the tables (a quarter for two songs) and really fascinating magazine articles from the 60s on the walls of the toilets which make people take ages having a wee, we did our food shopping, and then drove the 20-mile, hour and a half drive back to Two Harbors, where Amelia's Dad - possibly one of the coolest Dads ever - who was visiting with a friend on a fishing trip for the weekend took us out on his boat, and I got a seriously badass photo of me diving into the ocean for my Facebook profile picture:

Having mentally prepared myself for more stupidly hot days, I was pleasantly surprised on the Monday that the Santa Ana winds which apparently were responsible for the ridiculous temperatures of the first week's work had dropped, and we found ourselves working in much more bearable conditions. That evening, however, we were landed with the dismal news that we were to change our work patterns: instead of working five eight-our days per week, we were going to be working seven ten-hour days out of the next eight, in order to allow our supervisors the time off to go to a conference on invasive plants (which I imagine is absolutely fascinating, although not in the way that the conference organisers probably think). Don't get me wrong, five days off sounds great, but we had been enjoying so much our afternoons during the week, and I really didn't like the idea of just enduring ridiculously long work days in order to get to that time off.

In fact it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Our breaks became somewhat elongated in order to allow for some quick dips in the ocean, or some quality sunbathing minutes, and we made it to our one-day weekend fairly painlessly. The most traumatic point was probably the day that we woke to find our burly tattooed neighbour Josh, crouching in anguish by his best friend, a huge, soft sixteen-year-old dog who that morning was unable to stand. "I think Bodie's dying," he said sadly. Just before we left for work we watched him carry the helpless dog to his pick-up truck, and then later, as we worked by the roadside, saw him drive past, a shroud covering the body that laid in the bed of the truck.

Our second most traumatic time occurred on the evening before our Saturday off, for last weekend our tiny town of Two Harbors faced an invasion. Seemingly thousands of pirates arrived on our shores, camped out in the fields or slept in their boats, or possibly just under a bush outside the general store, all with bandanas or eye patches, or hooks for hands, or dragging rats on leads. "Buccaneer Day" was quite an experience... and not my kind of experience. At first dressing up like a pirate seemed like a fun idea, and we bought a bottle of rum for the occasion and dressed Timor in a bikini (although I never really understood the pirate link there).

The party, crammed into Two Harbors' only bar, was pretty grotesque. With hindsight I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised: pirates are after all the original "dirty old man". But after being assaulted one too many times by rich middle-aged Californians acting like teenagers on the dance floor I decided to call it a night and head home. Unfortunately the pirates stayed for about three days, and so on Saturday Timor, Asaf and I decided to get the hell out of Two Harbors.

Our five-mile costal hike to watch the sun set over the ocean was well worth it, and walking back in the moonlight was pretty spectacular. Pictures really don't do it justice - but what the hell:

After that it was back to work for just three days, and now it's time to decide what we want to do with our five days. Thankfully the Conservancy has given me permission to drive the Jeep (which makes me feel pretty badass too), so at least we're not totally stranded here in Two Harbors. I've called a meeting at noon so we can figure it all out. Watch this space!

Happy weekend to me...

At the end of the driveway to our group of houses there's a laminated A4 piece of paper, attached by string to a traffic cone, which reads "caution: lazy cat". And sure enough, that mangy cat is always there, permanently lazing around in the middle of the road, ignoring any of the 4x4s or person who passes him by except for those who will give him some attention.

The sign might as well read "caution: lazy island". That's the feeling the place seems to exude this Saturday morning, and indeed each of the afternoons and evenings after we've finished work, when we've wandered down to the beach to put on a snorkel and check out the sea life, or borrowed ocean kayaks from the boy scout camp at emerald bay, or rocked up at the "pot luck" dinner with the island conservancy guys with a plate of stuffed eggs. People just seem to be relaxed and happy wherever we go.

Before you go getting too jealous though, I have to point out that this pace of my post-2.30pm weekday life contrasts dramatically with that of my 5.50am-2.30pm working day.

I don't like waking up in the dark. I guess you'd say that I am more of a "morning" person in general, but there's something wrong about an alarm clock that goes off before 6am. Getting up and ready in a house is a hell of a lot easer than in a campsite though, and the drip coffee machine in the kitchen makes the whole thing taste better too. The 6 of us are out into the jeeps and on the dirt tracks that qualify as "roads" on the island at 6.30am, from where we've watched a couple of spectacular sunrises over the cloud inversions.

Then, after some morning stretching, our fennel-killing tools (pulaskis, cut-o-matics and shovels) in hand, we get to work.

It's usually around 8am that I make my first complaint about the heat, which is at this stage higher than any temperature reached in York or Stockport throughout the whole summer. My jeans cling to my legs and sweat carries sunscreen down my forehead stinging my eyes, and it feels like all my energy is being washed away with it. The temperature then continues to rise throughout the day, probably reaching around 100 degrees at its peak. It's hot enough that even if I were in shorts and t-shirt and lying in the garden I'd probably still think about going inside for some shade and a cool-down, but this island climate doesn't seem to lend itself to growing big shady trees and so there I work, cocooned in heavy jeans, ACE t-shirt, gloves and, if I'm behaving myself, hard hat, in direct sunlight for the whole day.

And the work is physical. For those of you not familiar with fennel's growth tactics - and I would hope that's most people reading this - it likes to hide in cactus, establishing huge roots which often lie horizontally under rocks. Lots of the roadside patches we're "treating" (which sounds very 1984 to me) are on 45-degree-plus inclines and we have to do battle with the weed on this steep, rocky, spiky terrain.

All in all, it makes for a pretty hot, tired, stressed, Jen. I mean, I signed up for this: I knew it was going to be tough at times, and I suppose I do want to be challenged, but sometimes, when I stumble for the third time on a rock and come crashing to the ground bruising my hand yet again, that I find it really hard not to have a huge temper tantrum. Which is kind of silly, when I'm the oldest member of this crew by a couple of years and everyone else seems to be coping just fine. I comfort myself with the knowledge that to be fair, 2 of them are from Israel, and the others have been working in this heat for a while now.

Anyway, I've survived a week of it already, and I do love living here. We've been working well as a team- with the exception perhaps of last night's doomed attempt to walk out to watch the sunset, ending up with us lost in a sea of cactus (and at least one rattlesnake) on a mountain with nothing but moonlight to guide us. I'm loving island life, and looking forward to camping out somewhere tonight and then going to the island's only city, Avalon, tomorrow, where there's a blues festival going on, and then taking a boat trip into the ocean in the evening. I'm enjoying hearing debates and conversation that switches between English and Hebrew depending on whether or not I'm in the room. I love being able to drop a couple of emails to friends and family before I go to bed at night and knowing I'll probably have a reply when I wake up in the morning. I like having Turkish coffee and banana pancakes made for me, and I like bbqing beefburgers on the beach. I love those big orange garibaldi fish (why would you name a fish after a biscuit?) that swim right up to you when you're snorkelling. Yeah, I like Catalina.

Sun, sea, sand and wi-fi!

In case you haven't been able to tell from what I've written so far, since arriving in the USA I've definitely experienced one or two "what the hell am I doing here" moments. Times when, sweating profusely and at the end of my energy levels and dealing with homesickness I've been unable to control the urge to reassure the people on my team that I am actually really quite good at some things - lots of things, actually: things like set theory, and troubleshooting computer problems, and talking to large groups of children. It's just that I'm not very good at this.

But then there are moments like today, sailing out of San Pedro harbour in the brilliant sunshine, leaving the famous LA smog behind and heading for my desert island home for the next 4 weeks, when I wonder how the hell I got this lucky. Admittedly, I am here to do weeding for 40 hours a week (ACE has been nicknamed "American Killing Experience" - presumably by illiterate volunteers. Probably Americans.) and perhaps after my first day's work tomorrow I'll not be feeling quite as spoilt as I do right now, but it's hard to deny it's a pretty cool place to be.

I'm staying with five other people in a lovely USC-owned house in the town of Two Harbours on Catalina Island. We have a kitchen (clean!), a bathroom (clean!), beds with bedsheets, towels provided, and perhaps most importantly, wireless internet. The clear blue ocean, which allegedly boasts some of the best snorkelling and diving in Southern California, is just a few hundred feet from our door. At $65 for a return passenger ticket on the ferry, there really don't seem to be many tourists able to escape the claws of Los Angeles to reach this island, and it seems to be mostly populated by those rich enough to arrive by private yacht. And somehow, I, a redundant youth worker, am here too!

My weekend off in Santa Cruz was pretty cool too. Highlights included:

Spotting an official sign with Arnold Schwarzenegger's name on it at the skate park (and I'm pretty sure it's spelt wrong)

Being watched by this small (but very committed) burrowing rodent as I did my laundry outside the house

Finding there weren't any waves to go and surf in, so blowing the money in a great burger joint instead

But this is where I am right now:

HA!

Back in Santa Cruz for 3 whole days!

It's strange how even though I only spent one whole day in Santa Cruz before leaving for Yosemite, it still feels like home to me. Although really I shouldn't say "still", because I don't think that back then it *did* feel like home. I think it became home to me the moment I walked back into the house yesterday and realised that I was sharing living space not with strangers but with friends - people with whom, over the past 18 days, I'd been camping, labouring, hiking, drinking, surviving bear "incidents", and even having the odd emotional moment.

Yeah, I suppose it's been a good three weeks. There have been times when I've not been sure whether I'm having the time of my life, or just hanging on to sanity by my fingertips, but as I look back now I can see I've got some great memories, and hopefully learnt a fair bit too.

Like, I've learned that the American health system is really expensive. I guess I knew that before -as does most of Britain, which seemed to become uncharacteristically patriotic over Republican attacks on the NHS. But SERIOUSLY, it's bad. I came to experience this first hand as a result of those pesky insects that kept eating my arms and face as we worked on cutting those pines around Wawona meadow.

Now, I'm used to having reasonably bad reactions even just to midge bites, so it wasn't a huge worry for me when my arms started to swell up and go a strange yellow colour - although admittedly I'd never had anything quite that bad before - but when the Park Service workers started to look at me like they'd just realised I had some fatal disease, and others started saying things like "spider bites", I wondered whether I should check it out. Chris exercised his supervisor duties and announced he was taking me to the clinic the next morning, and I thought a nice picturesque drive into the Valley didn't seem like a bad alternative to slaving away in the woods, so I didn't complain.

It wasn't until we were about half an hour into the drive that I noted that I didn't have my wallet with me, and asked would I need anything. Chris looked at me like I was a stupid English girl and said, sure, you'll have to pay something. I explained that yes, I suppose in this case I was a stupid English girl and wasn't used to having to hand over cash at the doctor's.

I couldn't fault the efficiency of the system - five minutes after entering the clinic I was being ushered through to a triage nurse who took my blood pressure, and a couple of minutes later a nurse practitioner came into the room. Very friendly, she asked me where I was from, and what work I was doing ("slave labour eh?" she asked). She glanced at the bites, concluded it was just a local reaction, and wrote a prescription for some Claritin.

I was directed to the receptionist/cashier, and charged $140.

I kid you not.

America, I love you, but you're mental.

Other things I've learned from this time in Yosemite: you can fit 13 people into a small five-seater car. Well, I say "into". As we made our way back from the brilliant Wawona village country barn dance (which the Americans were very disappointed to discover wasn't really a novel concept to any Brit who's been to a Ceilidh) on one of our evenings off, the one vehicle which had driven the mile down the road from our makeshift campground became transport back for any of us who could sit on a knee, or grab onto a towbar, or climb onto a roof. (Don't worry Mum, I was one of the ones inside the car).

I've also learned that bears really do come and get your food if you don't put it into the bearproof boxes in the campgrounds. After two weeks without even seeing one it's easy to start to get complacent, but waking up at five o'clock a couple of nights ago to discover Liz's (one of my co-volunteers) backpack contents strewn on the ground, the bag emptied of its Goldfish crackers and the bottle of Head and Shoulders with little bear teethmarks, and a very shaken up Liz who'd been cowering terrified in her tent for the half hour that the little guy was roaming around outside, I realised that the Park Service guys are probably justified in going on so much about putting your stuff away! Still, it was a pretty funny experience, and we all laughed a lot.

Time for a few pictures I think...

It's hard to get tired of this view!

Along with Alex from Holland and Erle from Estonia, finally making it up to Vernal Falls (over a year after my first abandoned attempt - I was so ill last time I was here!)

Not a posed picture, honest! Cutting trees at Wawona meadow. The fence you can see is what we're trying to protect - the planned burn of the meadow isn't allowed to damage it because it's "historic", so we were emulating what the fire would do, as well as taking away the fuel that could cause it to get out of control.

Our reward after a 5-mile hike up to the top of Chilnualna Falls on one of our first days off.

The night Chris decided spontaneously to get rid of his (admittedly pretty gross) dreads. He wasn't entirely sure about the decision, which he left to fate and flipped a quarter: heads, he loses his head; tails, he keeps his tails. You can see what happened. His friend and debutant hairdresser Brittny was definitely happier about the whole thing than he was.

The day off on which Julie (from Michigan) and I decided to hitch-hike to Tenaya Lake and eventually got a ride with four Mexican/'Friscans all the way to the meadow, where we were rewarded with cheeseburgers and a great day swimming and sunbathing. We were lucky enough to hitch a ride back too, from a lovely couple from Michigan. No hiking but lots of chilling - not a bad day off at all!

Desperate times: short on lunch food on the last couple of days (probably owing to the boys' competitivity when it comes to how many sandwiches you need to make for a day), our Israeli friend Timor eats honey from the bottle.

The whole gang: Chris holding Timor, then Ben, Brittny, Conor, Erle, Liz, me, Julie, Henry and Alex. Good times.

So, I get a couple more days here in Santa Cruz and then on Monday I'm heading off for a whole MONTH with Liz, Timor and a guy called Asaf to Santa Catalina island, just off the coast of LA. But I'll tell you more about that later. I think I'd better go back to the house now - not quite sure for how much longer I can take advantage of free wi-fi in this coffee house where I've only spent $1.65 on an iced coffee.

By the way, Mark, if you're reading this: thank you for your text, it's great to know that school is thinking of me too as I think of you all and wonder how the new year 7s are settling in. I miss you guys!

I really appreciate facebook messages by the way. My English phone is pretty much dead so that's the best way to contact me, and I love hearing from home. Love to you all.

xx

Hanging in there in Yosemite!

How far would you walk for internet?

Personally, I quite like the adventure of leaving our makeshift campground, crossing a stream and walking through woodland, carrying a netbook and a bottle of water, just in order to get to a place with wi-fi. Wilderness meets technological dependance.

Today is my second off-day from project, and I'm lucky enough (well, I consider it lucky anyway) to be not so far from civilization to make the necessary journey to update this blog. The chances are that on my next project I may be in the backcountry somewhere, and then there really will be no chance, but for now I take pleasure in retreating into the comforting arms of news.bbc.co.uk and facebook after a gruelling week's work.

My first project has been cutting down pines that line a meadow. It's hard to communicate here just how incredibly hard, tiring, and mind-numbingly boring each day's work is.

Firstly, though, I suppose I should say that I am staying in the most incredible place. Yosemite, for anyone who's not had the pleasure of visiting, is just beautiful. Here is the view that greets us at 7am each morning when we arrive on site for work:

Pretty nice really. And a few times through each 10-hour day I have to look up and tell myself again that I am incredibly priviliged to be able to be here. But those of you who know me well will know that I sometimes have difficulty sitting though one two-hour film, and so ten hours of the same thing - cutting, carrying, cutting, carrying... in the heat that's caused forest fires throughout California and just down the road from where we're working... it's not easy at all.

The 10-strong ACE crew is a great bunch really, with representatives from America, Holland, Canada, Estonia, and a couple of English kids. We're led by Chris, who celebrated his 22nd birthday a couple of days ago (which makes me feel pretty old!), and who is a typical Californian dude, if you know what I mean. Upon arrival at the campground on the first day we were given very little instruction but were expected to be ready for work within about half an hour of getting to the site, which included making lunch, pitching tents, etc... when I said to Liz, a Canadian volunteer who's already spent three months in Flagstaff with ACE, AZ, that I felt more than a little hassled/rushed, she said "yeah, that's because there's no order". I like a bit of order in my life, but I guess different people operate differently.

Many of the volunteers have been on other projects together and it's easy for me to feel a bit like an outsider, but after talking a bit to a couple of other people I realise that I'm not the only one struggling a bit with the whole thing.

I guess you could put it down to homesickness, or just exhaustion, but I am finding the whole thing kinda difficult. I'm sure it will get better as I get used to the pattern of life with ACE, and later today I'm going rock climbing with some people in the valley which should be a pretty cool day! In fact, I should really get going - there's a lot more I could say but I think I'll just put some pictures up instead.

This was my favourite view on the way to Yosemite. Reminds me why California is so cool.

Here are some of the thousands of trees we cut down (it's partly a firesafe project -they're planning a controlled burn of the meadow and don't want it to spread to this old fence that you can see here.

Me and the other girls on the project - I'm the idiot in the bandana.

Me, Ben (English) and Julie (American)

Our campground for our work days. We don't spend much time here - breakfast at 6am, then after work we go in the river for a swim to cool down and feel slightly human again, and then usually in bed by 9pm through sheer exhaustion!

One of the National Park Service workers at the van.

The view from our off-days campground.

Me, eaten alive by mosquitos. I have to try not to look at myself in the mirror at the moment as I've also recently acquired bites all over my face which look like really bad acne!!!

About to go dark for 3 weeks....

... Yeah, the chances of me finding somewhere to update this blog in Yosemite are slim to none, so as I perch here in the Bad Ass Coffee Co., drinking my Earl Gray tea (English comforts!), uncomfortable in my shorts-and-t-shirt-over-damp-bikini after a very brief evening dip in the Pacific, I'll try and quickly get up to speed here before I leave. Apologies if I sound even less eloquent than last time, but I'm in a rush here because I'm yet to pack at all and today has been one of those days when everything has taken at least an hour longer than I'd like it to!

Yesterday was my day of exploring San Francisco. I decided bike was the best way to get around, especially given that I was alone, and didn't fancy sitting on public transport in the heat of this freakishly hot weather that northern California has been enjoying/suffering for the last few days. I managed to stay in bed til 7am, which isn't bad really considering my body clock was convinced it was 3pm. After calling home and eating some of the hostel breakfast I headed out into the seedy streets that surrounded the hostel, only getting harassed by one homeless person this time (result!) and found my way to the bike hire place.

Armed with my bike and its "hi-tech sat nav", i.e. folded map with scribbled instructions packed into a plastic wallet on the handlebars, I headed for The Bridge. I have some great photos of my journey, but I'm without my laptop at the moment so i can't add them I'm afraid - I'll try to illustrate when I get back from the wilderness. It was bloody hot anyway, and although I enjoy the sunshine, it's quite strange to feel like someone's switched a giant hairdryer onto you whenever you go down a hill. Cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge I was blessed with the cooler Pacific winds, and as I made it across to the other side I decided I might as well do a decent ride. All in all I think I did about 18 miles, which isn't too bad given the heat of the day (although I know it's not exactly LEJOG ;) ), and it was great to get out of the city and around some of the pretty suburban parts of Sausalito and then on to Tiburon. My highlight came just after I had climbed this stupidly steep hill ("it's pretty flat after the bridge" said the bike rental guy... LIES!!) and was greeted by two girls, about 9 years old, at a lemonade stall by the side of the road, with their dad, and a sign saying "collecting money for... our college funds". I bought a Sunkist and asked them which college they were planning on going to. "we don't know yet", they replied. I recommended York.

The ferry ride back to San Francisco was very windy but offered some beautiful views of the bay. I toyed with the idea of cycling over to the Golden Gate Park where Jason Mraz was due to perform, in the hope that he might be doing some of his famous pre-gig busking nearby, but looking at the time realised I probably needed to get moving. I took my bike back, collected my things from the hostel and headed to get the train back to the airport.

The ACE (American Conservation Experience) meeting point was the "Reflection Room" - a strange idea, I guess it's like a prayer room but more San Franciscan - and after everyone for the pick-up had arrived we headed to the parking lot, led by Joel, the manager of the Santa Cruz base.

The van and trailer awaited (very Trek America!) and I rode shotgun because nobody else wanted to, and I chatted to Joel most of the way back to the base. I pointed out that the windscreen, which looked like a fly graveyard, probably could do with a clean. I was conscious of using the English version of the word and when Joel replied by saying something about not wanting to use the blades on it, I found it amusing that Americans see the protection of the front of the car as some kind of military situation. They need the protection of a SHIELD, presumably from the threat of their wiper BLADES. Haha.

Arrival at the house was an experience. I vaguely remembered signing something in the contract about keeping my home clean, and wondered whether anybody else who'd ever lived there had signed anything similar.

The yard for a start is littered with bike parts, broken bits of furniture, bin bags strewn across the driveway, and what looks like a child's car seat. I was shown to my room, which is in a flat below the main house, and realised there was a party already going on. And everyone's invited. Oh, except only if you're an ant. Bits of days-old food and unwashed dishes filled the sides of what is optimistically labelled the "kitchen". The whole place is grimy and unkept beyond belief. The paintwork's clearly never really been attended to by anybody taking it seriously. There are bags and bits of outdoor gear and books and God knows what else taking up all the space in what would otherwise be a reasonably sized living space for the inhabitants.

My bed, one of two top bunks in the room, was adorned generously with a faded lilac folded sheet (no duvet, blanket, or even pillow), a folder full of waiver forms to sign, and a well-used tent which is to be my home-from-home-from-home. Above my bed is a neon light half-shaded by a cracked plastic cover. I took a deep breath. It didn't taste clean.

Greeting our new housemates and colleagues I started to realise this wasn't going to be exactly as I'd expected. They weren't as overwhelmingly thrilled with the experience as I had expected them to be. Projects haven't been quite as romantic or exciting as you might think, and clearly BUNAC either aren't entirely in the loop about the Santa Cruz ACE base, or they've actually missold the experience.

I wasn't the only one feeling a little worried. Bea, an Italian girl in the room opposite, went very quiet and with her still fairly limited English expressed her feelings about the state of the bathroom. When I went to investigate I noticed the motorway of ants running along the rippled wallpaper.

We headed to the store to pick up some bread for breakfast, and then a few of us went down to the (surprisingly chilly) beach for a drink, where I listened to more horror-stories about projects gone wrong, miserable experiences. Except, I realise now that they're not really that miserable. They talk about ACE in a similar way to the way we used to talk about Goodricke college - it was so ridiculously awful that it was funny, and we all just got on with it, and I had the time of my life. And so I'm kind of ok with it all. It's not going to be like Trek America. It's not going to be brilliantly organised and excitement-a-minute and a new National Park every other day. But I'm gonna come back with some funny stories, and a tan, and having learned something about patient endurance. So bring it on.

I'll hopefully post again on 17th September. Until then, happy birthday Mum, Leon, Isaac (and happy new baby time Andie and Rich if the little one pops out early).

Unsure in Santa Cruz

Just a quick one... arrived in Santa Cruz last night, discovered that my first project is going to be 3 WEEKS, not 4-8 days as I had been led to believe all the projects would be. We're leaving tomorrow and arrive back in Santa Cruz on 17th September. This is a pretty daunting prospect, especially to someone as used to being in touch with the world constantly as I am. But at least this project is in Yosemite - apparently lots of the projects the guys have been doing over the past 3 weeks have been not so great, and there's a lot of excitement from those who are on this Yosemite trip to be finally going to the park. I will still get time off, but we'll be in the park, camping - not in Santa Cruz - so not so much surfing unfortunately! Also probably not so much internet, or possibly even phone signal. I suppose it will be good for me though...?

Winning so far in San Francisco

It's just after 8pm and I've been awake for 21 hours, hooray me! This is something of an achievement, as I was anticipating crashing out and possibly just curling up and crying in the lounge of Hostelling International City Center, if I even made it that far.

I've yet to eat since getting off the plane 5-and-a-bit hours ago, and it's looking unlikely now that I will before I go to bed. My entire body is confused and I'm too tired to make decisions as complicated as what food to order. I just about managed to buy a snapple in the 7-11 with some of the dozens of quarters the BART machine gave me in change for my tickets from the airport.

Actually the journey was really quite straightforward. Almost too much so. At Heathrow I pined a bit for the days when visiting an airport was so exciting I wrote poems about it (this was in primary school by the way), and mused about how it sucks that growing up means you stop seeing life for what it really is - whether it's the miracle that Clare has actually got eyes, or the ridiculous marvel of a machine that launches you thousands of feet into the air and half way around the world.

Eleven hours on a plane is really longer than is sensible, though. The slightly too-friendly Irish man next to me introduced himself as "James" at the start of the journey and complained about the lack of legroom, a problem which he dealt with by frequently invading my own space.

I passed the time with British Airways' "High Life" entertainment selections (which meant the theme tune to the early nineties Scottish BBC sitcom of the same name was in my head for much of the day).

First I chose A Beautiful Mind. I had a vhs of it somewhere that I'd been meaning to watch for ages, and so it seemed like something to tick off my "to do" list. Intellectual point no.2 for me. (Point no.1 came with my purchasing the Economist at Heathrow, although I've only read one article in it, about the growing population of Africa and how it might be good, but might be bad... or something like that.).

2 seemed like enough intellectual points for the day, and so my next choice of movie-themed entertainment came in the shape of Zac Effron (and alternately Matthew Perry) in the wonderful "17 Again". When my life feels like such a big unknown at the moment, there's something very comforting about watching a film that's so mind-numbingly predictable. (And I'm convinced that every twenty-something has a secret crush on Zac Effron.)

I interspersed the idiot box with a few wanders around the plane, making sure to make the most of the free British Airways alcoholic beverages and snacks. My favourite part of flying across the Atlantic, however, has to be staring at Greenland.

Greenland is just ridiculously, stupidly desolate, hostile and beautiful. Anybody who starts talking about how perfectly suited the Earth is for mankind to live in it should take a look at Greenland. I know the normal projection of the map exaggerates its size, but it's still pretty damn huge, and there's almost no sign of life at all - not human life. Greenland is just not fussed that humans exist - it's too busy being hardcore with all its glaciers and mountains. According to Wikipedia it has a population about half the size of Stockport, but I reckon they must all be huddled together in a tiny corner like penguins.

Anyway, somehow my flight went, we had a beautifully smooth landing at SFO, and I made it through the ordeal of border control (after an 11-hour flight I find their interrogations so intense they make me so confused that I start to question whether I really do deserve entry into the country... and perhaps I have been involved in espionage... I can't remember... and where was I between 1933 and 1945...?).

Cursing my ridiculously heavy suitcase, I walked from the Civic Center BART stop 5 blocks north on Larkin (see how I'm like American already?), past a whole host of questionable characters with shopping carts full of blankets like you see in the films, and eventually found the hostel. Guy on the desk is v.v. gay and reminds me of one of the characters in Milk- which fits, I suppose, given that we are in San Francisco 'n' all. It's all friendly and nice, and I showered enough to wake myself up and decided to go and brave a walk downtown.

I made it all the way to the Ferry Port, where there was a nice view of Bay Bridge, and then caught the Cable Car back up the iconic steep streets. Somehow managed not to pay for the $5 ride - I think the ticket dude thought I was with this middle-aged couple who waved their passes at him. Ah well.

Righty-ho. I'm expecting my body to switch off very suddenly in the next few minutes, and I've not even made my bed yet. I hope none of my roommates snore.