Woolman: Mendocino "Wilderness Week"

Monday was an early start for our five hour drive to Jughandle. I had to move seats three times! The first time I was unfortunately sitting on a metal bar hidden underneath the comfy looking cover. Maria was kind enough to switch when we got to the house of "Yarn lady" - part of a detour due to a lady giving away 35 balls of yarn. We were speculating what sort ofperson she would gbe and why she had 35 balls of yarn to spare. We concluded she wouyld most definately be a cat lady with nik-naks covering th house and a collection of Gnomes in the garden.

 Alas she was a dog lady and rather alot younger than we had imagined, she was rather unprepared as she was in a bath robe and passed over the yarn swiftly - we assume the yarn was aleft over from a family member.

  From then until the "Switzerland of America" I sat in the middle seat. We stopped in Switzerland for lunch. We all disowned the cold sweetpotato and onion burritos (which wern't as nice as they sound) we crossed the street and went to Fosters Freeze - mmmmm fast food! the 15 of us filled all of the tables in there. For the rest of the journey I sat in what would have been a luxorious seat had our car not been over stuffed with our things and a giant zip lock back full of yarn.

  Napped for half an hour.

  Woke up to beeps from cars attempting to pass our two vans on blind corners. We were in an immense forest which was thick and foggy and dark beneath really really tall tree's. It was so magical and for once I appreciated the vertical rain - it seemes to make everything more beautiful.

We were faced with an massive red Victorian mansion when we arrived it was absolute luxury compared to our cabins. We very swiftly left for the beach after arriving - none of us could wait to go to the beaches we had passed. It took us five minutes to walk to the beach. There was a lonely pelican on the beach. 

We climbed rocks stupidly with out shoes on making it rather painful) My feet met the Pacific for the first time.

  We watched the waves and hoped to spot a whale - I REALLY WANT TO SEE A WHALE!!

  We began doing evening counsel which is like epilougue but more talkative. Sleeping in a dorm room with everyone was such good fun - for us all to be able to chat in the dark is a good way to make connections. Teachers opted for their own rooms with double beds as an alternative to sleeping on the floor of the dorm to keep us quite - sensible! 

TUESDAY morning a woman came to do work share with us. We weeded two tiers if the garden. It was ridiculous how hard everyone had worked, the garden looked amaxing. In the afternoon the weather turned drizzly. We went to Fort Bragg to visit Glass Beach. It was the old dumping site for the town and all the rubbish had been washed away but the glass. It had been worn away and smoothed down. We collected some with the idea of making some jewlery.It was high tide and the drizzle was now a down pour We got drenched and there wasnt much glass other than down in a little cove which was almost unreachable. We jumped down leaving a very unlikely possibility of getting back up. But we made it our succesfully. 

On WEDNESDAY we met Helene who does the educational outreach in Jughandle. Dorothy (head of Woolman) had warned us about Helene's way of communicating. She is used to teaching 11 year olds, and doesn't adjust when talking to anyone else. She even spoke to the teachers in the same way! We potted 500 Redwood trees - mixing the soil in a bath tub and the potting the trees in a very particular way - which Helene more often than not corrected. 

The weather was really nice so we set out on a five mile hike up the biggest ecological staircase in the world! It sounds really daunting but I managed to do it without panting and at the front  of the pack the whole way! The incline was very gradual! 

THURSDAY 

Helene stood us up! She was meant to come and do more with us but she didn't show! We went and improvised - Maria, Maggie and I steralised pots so that no bacteria would kill any new things planted in them - we discussed the obsurdity of Quaker Business method (being three of four Quakers in the group). Did some plotting on attending Californian spring quarterly in May, Yay for Quaker events!

Ended early Helene still wasn't there - ate lunch - Helene arrived wearing a rather odd hat comented on in horror.

  We went to the Mendocino bluffs and some people got hit by a wave. Then we went shopping. I bought knitting needles for all that yarn, Ruthie taught me how to knit - scarves will be shipped home soon for all that bad weather you're having :D

FRIDAY

As we hadn't made up enough work share hours to pay for our stay due to Helene's disappearing act one of the care takers got us to weed another tier of the herb garden. We travelled back toward campus. Had lunch in a park in Yarn Lady's town.

When we got back we went into Nevada City for the first time after dinner to see some old bearded guys playing country music - they dedicated a activist song to us students. On returning to campus we all cramed into the Rachel's cabin for a dance party (there are two Rachels in the cabin - one of whom has now changed their namejughandle ecological staircase  to Jesze to stop confusion).

SATURDAY we were given the morning off. It was gooooooooooooooood! I slept in. In the afternoon the internes had arranged a scavenger hunt for us in Nevada City. It was really thorough, although at my groups second destination we were given the worng clue resulting in us doing the whole thing in the wrong order. But walking around Nevada City wasn't bad. That night the whole school attended the monthly Contra Dance in Nevada City. It was a really good time but by the end we were tired so left early.

On SUNDAY morning I had all intention of going to Meeting, it doesn't take much effort as it's on campus! Never the less I slept right through it. In the afternoon we went shopping in Grass Valley most of the cafes were closed but the used and unusual book shop was open - got frozen yogurt again :D

Coming next . . . a fortnight of inspiring classes before SERVICE TRIPS! x