I have now crossed the country on Interstate 10. We started in Cali way back in March and this week I was on the eastern section of I-10 to it's end in Florida. FYI, it is one boring highway.

This past week was a strange week. Sunday started out good, with a couple of us going to a church in the garden district of New Orleans. Sunday night I shaved almost 2 minutes off our mile and a half run that we do regularly. Overall, a good day. Monday was a typical work day. However, my week changed monday evening. My team leader called me around 8:30, while i was out with some of my team doing laundry. I was informed that I would be going with about 50 others to Charleston SC for the rest of the week, to drive a bunch of vans back down this direction. See, the Charleston campus is closing after this summer, so they no longer need tons of 12-15 passenger vans. Tuesday morning we set off for the 2 day drive there and 2 day drive back. We crammed about 11 people in 12 passenger vans for the 2 day drive down there. I should add here, that i only knew 5 people on this trip. Most of the others were corps members from the Denver campus, and a few from the Perry Point campus. Lets just say that some people from other campus's don't really care about meeting people from the different campus's. The 2 days driving back was much better because we had 2-3 people in each van, and I was with people I knew each time. Plus i got to listen to A LOT of country music, which is not something i get much of with my teammates!
We drove to Jacksonville the first night, then to Charleston the 2nd, then back to Tallahassee the 3rd and got back to New Orleans Friday afternoon. The trip wasnt very well organized, we did a lot of sitting around when we arrived to hotels, or leaving in the mornings, or at the Charleston NCCC campus to get the vans. Overall, it was a long week, and i would have much rather worked on houses and spent an extra few days with my team that I will be leaving for 5 weeks. We did get to walk around downtown Charleston for 2 hours Wednesday night, which was cool. I will be back there in 2 weeks, so i now know a few places that I definitly want to get back to.

This week I get to choose which site I work at, since I don't need to be trained to run certain sites. Americorps members are the "site supervisors" at the different sites for Habitat for Humanity here in St Bernard. The homes being built here are funded by a program called Camp Costal Oupost, which is inturn funded by the United Arab Emerits. . . it all comes down to oil. There are 2 big oil refineries here in St Bernard and Chalmette, so the United Arab Emerits has good ties to this region and views this as a good project to pour more money into. (I thought this was an interesting tidbit). Anyways, back to what we do. The homes being built here go through 5 stages. Flooring, framing, exterior, roofing, and interior. Americorps members are the site supervisors in charge at each site and they lead the different volunteers that come through each week. Members of my team are being trained by these Denver people to run the worksites once they leave next week. Since I am leaving for another project Saturday, I am able to choose what I do.

So other than the awkward road trip, I am doing well. I did have some excitement the week before last, with having to go to the doctor because apparently a pore in my lip had gotten clogged. So I had a small lump on the inside of my lip for, oh almost a month. I got a nice shot to numb my lip and the doctor cut whatever was clogged out. My lip was a nice noticably bigger size for 2 days, but it is normal again now, and that is all that matters.

I hope it's a little cooler and less humid wherever you are than it is here!
Till next time....