Camp Mendocino

Once again this is a little late but I'm finally getting it posted. Sorry guys. The following happened between the days of Friday November 16th and Sunday November 18th...

The entire Green Squad traveled to Camp Mendocino which is about four hours away from Sacramento and is deep in the redwoods forest. The ride there was a little bit of a challenge for me because I’m not the best person in a car, and we drove down an old dirt road down the side of a mountain that twisted back and forth. When we finally arrived at camp we had to find our bags that were all mixed together. Everyone was issued either a green or red bag that we had to fit everything into, so everyone’s bag looked exactly the same. We finally got our bags and headed to our cabin. The guy’s cabin was on one side of the camp and girls on the other. The cabins were alright but not the best for the cold weather that we had. It was an open cabin which meant there were no windows and no door, only a sheet of plastic to hang over. The bathrooms were the same, which made showering a little bit hard. After unpacking we got a tour of the campus and were introduced to everyone that worked there.
We played a couple of ice breaker type games and then went on a search for one of the last remaining redwood trees in this particular forest, that wasn’t cut down. Before The Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco bought the land it was owned by a logging company that cut down every tree except for like two. The tree was apparently big enough that we could fit our whole team around it stretching our arms out but we some how couldn’t find it. Instead we walked along train tracks and played with lizards we found in the forest. Failing miserably we came back to the flag pole (the main meeting area) and introduced a couple of the other teams to “WHAA”. WHAA is a game that Bonnie introduced to our team that is to hard to explain online but if you have worked at a camp or after school program for a while you might know about. We had some dinner, which was actually some of the best food I had in a while and then headed to the camp fire site. The main fire pit was at the bottom of this amphitheater looking thing that had a stage in the front and a big fire pit in front of the stage. Each group did a skit or a team song in front of everyone else. Our team did an AmeriNext Bus skit (based off of MTV’s Next Bus). It was pretty good, but I would have to say some of the other groups did better. Green Four did a skit on how they all got poison oak, and a couple teams made up some raps.
We woke up pretty early the next morning for PT and then headed to breakfast. After breakfast we got to go to a ropes course. We started off with a ring activity where we had to spin a ring and pass it through the group while we stood in a circle. Then we spent a good portion of the time on this “crossing the river” activity which we couldn’t get. The last hour or so we got to do the “high ropes” portion of the course where we crossed a tight rope that was suspended between two trees. After ropes course we got some lunch and then headed to do our service part of the trip. Our group and another group had to clear brush from around the counselors / staff house and burn it. Since I’m a little bit of a pyro I stayed next to the fire the whole time making sure it didn’t spread to fast and didn’t catch any of the surrounding trees on fire. Mary and I built one of the biggest bon fires I had seen in a while. The rest of the group took saws and cutters and cut down every bush and tree that could bee a potential fire hazard. Having too many trees around one area would make a forest fire spread rapidly. We finished up the day with some dinner and headed back to the bon fire where we listened to James and Anthony play guitar and then Allison play an electric harp. It was the first time I had ever heard an electric harp. She played a song called “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show, which my group has not stopped listening to and singing since. Thanks!
The next morning we woke up, did 30 minutes of PT, packed the van, had some breakfast and headed back to campus.