Westward Ho!

Dear Internet,

I’m writing to you from the road again. ERT has ended and Will and I are on our way West.

The last few weeks in Montana were pretty good - solid, regular weeks of building fences and bridges and watching “Modern Family” together on the evenings we were at Fleecer. Then eighteen of us said goodbye to eleven who remained behind at Fleecer - hugs and tears all around - and drove back to St Louis. We took two days for the drive, arriving late on Saturday. We had Sunday off and did all of our exit paperwork, finished our last time sheets, and checked in our fire gear on Monday. And it was over.

The last project: a snowmobile bridge at
Independence Creek.

It’s a little hard to believe, even here in the middle of Kansas, watching St Louis disappear at 70 mph. ERT was such an all-consuming thing - it was my whole life - that it’ll be weird adjusting to not having it. I can say with certainty that it changed me, in more ways than I can list. Still, I’ll try: I’m a little more outdoorsy now; I’m more willing to and capable of camping or hiking than I used to be. My body is stronger. I don’t think showers are a daily necessity anymore - more like a luxury.

Most of these changes are positive; lessons learned. I’ve learned several hard skills: running a saw, building fences and bridges, identifying plants, being knowledgable enough to control a fire or assist with disaster recovery, and so on. I think the biggest lessons I’ve learned, though, have to do with working with people. I’m not always good at it. I’m uncertain as a leader and sometimes tend to voice something that’s going on in my head without putting it into context, so it comes off as inconsiderate. And I hate being wrong or not knowing something that I feel I should know, so I get defensive

These are things that I need to work on. I’ve had an idea about what these issues are for a while, but working so closely with 35 people all year helped a lot to really clearly identify them. Hopefully I can work on these issues over the next year in a new setting.

Speaking of which... we’re on our way! There was a little tug of sadness, I admit, when Will and I rolled out of Soulard at 6am today. Once we were outside of the city, though, I knew that I was ready to go. We’re heading to Denver today, to stay with Lucas from ERT and his girlfriend, Sarah.

Tomorrow (Thursday), we’ll drive down to the Grand Canyon, where we’ll camp and hike around on Friday. The weather is supposed to be pretty rainy, so knock on some wood for us! On Saturday, we’ll drive up to Fleecer, and Sunday make the 90-minute drive to Helena, where we’ll move all my stuff in. Then I’ll drop Will off back at Fleecer - he and another ERT guy, Andrew, are planning to bike to San Francisco from there! I’m super jealous but hopefully there will be lots of photos so I can live vicariously through them. And on Monday, I start my new job in Helena!

Our trip!

As much as I’ll miss ERT (and am dreading winter in Montana), there are two big things I’m looking forward to for this year: first of all, having some more control over my own life. Sometimes I think it’s good for me to have to do things like walk up mountains carrying a heavy tool. It’s good for me. But, many times throughout this year, I did not want to walk up the mountain. Now I get to only walk up mountains when I feel like it (which might be more often than it used to be, see the “I’m more outdoorsy now” paragraph, above). That will be nice.

Also, I’m looking forward to having a little more free time and structure to pursue some things I’m interested in. In college, I had structure but no free time. I knew what my schedule would be, but all the free moments were filled with volunteer activities or thesis research or sleep. In ERT, I had free time but very little structure. We usually had weekends off, but not always, and the exceptions were relatively unpredictable. It was very difficult to plan anything more than twelve hours in advance.

This year, I will have a regular work week and free time in the evenings and weekends. There are lots of things I’d like to do in this free time, depending on if I can afford them (at a decreased living stipend and increased rent every month - womp womp). I’d like to get into canning, and audition for local musicals, and take voice lessons, and practice my guitar, and work in a community garden. This fall I’ll also be re-taking the LSAT and the GRE and applying to law schools (Berkeley is my dream school... I’m not sure how realistic my hopes are there, but we’ll find out I guess!) Hopefully I’ll also find time to visit ERT at Fleecer, and go to Glacier and Yellowstone Parks, and to go see friends in Fargo, Seattle, Portland, and Eugene. If I can do half of these things I guess I’ll be pretty pleased!

Anyway, I guess that’s all for now. You’ll hear from me again when I’m in Helena - ta ta for now from the Land of Oz, and Westward Ho!

xoxo Liz

A week to go!?

Dear Internet,

List of things I can’t believe:

1. I only have a week left of ERT.
2. I’ve already been in Montana for over a month.
3. I haven’t posted since then... whoops.

It's good to be back at lovely Fleecer!

Neighbors.

Montana has been awesome, as expected. Since we’ve been here, I’ve been doing a variety of jobs - trail work, fencing, cutting firewood, even building a ski jump at Maverick Mountain. I’ve mostly stayed at Fleecer Station, our base camp, except for one week spent in Lima, MT (tearing down the wrong fence and reconstructing it the next day... it happens).

In Lima, MT. The mountains turn red in the evening.

I spent three days in Helena (which is only about an hour and a half’s drive from Butte) for my VISTA orientation. It was cool to see the place I will live - I even got to visit my future office - and I think will help with the transition from ERT to VISTA. It was pretty basic stuff we covered - our rights and roles as VISTAs, what poverty is and means, etc. There are five or six VISTAs serving in Helena out of I think 41 who were there for training. The rest serve in other parts of Helena - Billings, Butte, Missoula, Bozeman, and other smaller towns. There were some very interesting people there, so it should be fun to serve for them - though in a totally different capacity than I’m now used to in ERT.

As a group we spent one week near Elk Horn Hot Springs for our graduation ceremony. The crew that was hired in January as permanent Joplin staff (until this December, anyway) was there, so it was cool to meet them. We had two days off to hang out and to travel to Lemhi Pass to graduate. It was a nice ceremony, with time to reflect on the year and awards handed out to people who had done exceptionally well. It was, however, a bit premature as we still had two weeks to go in the program - but that was the time that everyone could be there, so that’s that.

At graduation, after we received our Year 18 shirts, designed
by two members of the team.

We have had several Sundays off and have done a few very cool things: the Montana Folk Festival and Evel Knievel Days in Butte, hikes up Red Mountain and Sawtooth Mountains, and a day spent in Helena to scope out the city a little better than I did when I was there for orientation. I even found an house with a really nice live-in landlord/handyman that I think will work out for the next year.

At the Folk Festival in Butte.

Hike up Red Mountain.

At the top: recreating our shirtless picture from Mount Fleecer
last fall.

The ridgeline on top of Red Mountain.

Anyway, moral of the story is that Montana has been going really well. There are lots of things that I will miss next year and lots of things I won’t. With only one week left - we’ll depart for St Louis this coming Friday - the transition is becoming real to me. I start as a VISTA on the 27th of August - that’s two weeks from now, roughly.

Evel Knievel Days in Butte.

Hiking up Sawtooth Mountain.

View of Sawtooth Lake from the top.

One of the historical sites we passed one day during work:
a group of kilns used for producing charcoal to smelt iron
just down the valley.

Twin Lakes, another site we passed during work.

I’ll miss this sense of community. I’ll miss 35 people being around me at all times, even though they drive me bananas sometimes. I’ll miss the ease we all have with one another. I’ll miss the freedom of working outside all the time and leaving my work at “the office.” I’ll miss campfires and the feeling of being really tired at the end of the day. I’ll miss seeing new places and learning new skills all the time. I’ll miss chainsawing. I won’t miss the control that the program has over my life. I won’t miss some of the petty politics that goes on. I won’t miss never having a spare moment or an Internet connection.

It’s been a great year and a tough year for me, and I’ve done things I never thought I would do. I’ve learned to build fences and bridges, to use a saw, to build a trail; mostly, though, I think I’ve learned a lot about the way I interact with people and how to do it better. Hopefully that can help me a lot in the future.

Here’s to one bittersweet week left of ERT.

xoxo Liz