Yom Yisrael, Israel Day

The mishlachat, or delegation of Israeli counselors, stayed up until 3 in the morning on Sunday after an already-busy weekend to put the finishing touches on the "60 Years" museum they created in the dining hall for Israel Day yesterday. The two oldest groups of kids participated in a self-guided tour and filled out an opinion survey based on what they learned in the exhibits. Afterwards, they met in large groups to talk about the content presented at the various stations. It was impressive to say the least. The museum was too large to show all of it here, but below are a few photos to give you an idea.

Fiery Sunrise

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the sun rises very red outside my front door every morning from the smoke that now constantly fills the sky. Today I drove with Nora to Groveland to get pizza and we passed two fire camps alongside the road. One is much smaller and is a staging area for fire trucks and other vehicles where they can go to get refueled and repaired. The other is much larger and looks like something FEMA would set up, with everything from a large field kitchen and outdoor dining area to portable showers inside trailers to rows upon rows of individual tents where firefighters and other rescue personnel are living.

Okay Actually

I thought of three people who are neither married nor having a baby--not as far as I know of, at least. But three is still not that many compared to everyone else I know.

It Seems

...as if I am the absolutely very last person I know who is neither married, nor having a baby, nor some combination of the two.

Just an observation.

The fact that I am living in the woods for the summer with a bunch of unwashed hippies who are all ten years younger than me is probably not helping my situation very much, if at all.

Hmm.

Oh Right, Real Life

Today I was cleaning out a box that I brought with me to camp. It is filled with all kinds of paperwork that I did not have a chance to process before I left Berkeley, and contains everything from old mail that needs to be sorted, recycled, and shredded to far more pertinent things like...my teaching contract for the fall that I realized I'd never signed and returned. Oops.

Real life can be hard to keep up with here at camp, for two reasons: first, it (accurately) seems far away and second, it can be difficult to access what with the one phone line connecting us to the real world as well as the fact that the Internet comes via satellite. So tomorrow I am going to spend some of my time off addressing everything from my expiring health care coverage to my unpaid post office box fees to my recently-unearthed employment paperwork.

Next tasks: finding a new apartment in the East Bay, and considering the possibility that I might actually (gulp) need to become an automobile owner once again.

Fire

On Saturday after I got back to camp from riding into the park, the weather shifted and instead of being hot and sunny like in the picture of my bike and the Yosemite sign, there was a storm. It was very surreal because it never rains in the summer at camp. There was a short but fierce burst of rain, lots of thunder, and even lightning which started a pair of forest fires not far from camp.

The fire has grown and its smoke hangs over us much of the day, most noticeably in the morning when the sun rises red through the thick air. It always smells like a campfire, usually a fun and cozy fragrance in camp but now a reminder that nature is revitalizing itself in a powerful way not far from where we live. Yesterday our camp's director gave the local Department of Forestry office permission to send firefighters into our camp to use the showers and to rest. Four years ago during an even larger fire the firefighters lived in our camp for a short time. I wonder if that will happen again?

Day Off

Saturday was my first day off since arriving at camp almost three weeks ago. So, I was a little bit ready for time to myself. I woke up early, had breakfast, packed myself a big sack lunch, and got on my bicycle to ride into the park.

It took me an hour to ride the eight miles to Camp Mather which was discouraging until the woman at the General Store there--where I stopped for a strawberry milkshake--reminded me that the road from our camp to theirs is a 2% grade uphill the entire way and then I felt better. I rode to Hetch Hetchy, where much of California's water comes from, and then I rode home. The return trip, being mostly downhill, took only about half as long and required very little pedaling. I am glad the hard part was on the way there and not on the way back!

Stopping By For a Visit

Look who I found outside the door to my camp house! I neither screamed nor smashed her with a broom but instead just peacefully took this photograph. I must say, I have made a lot of progress as far as interacting with nature is concerned compared to when I first moved to camp last summer. I clearly recall my first and only trip into the Tuolumne River last June, where only moments after I bravely jumped off the dam at Pipeline a fish swam up to me and touched my leg and I had to get out. See? So co-habitating with a lizard is really not that big of a deal.

Now a lizard *in* my house? That would be a problem but fortunately is not one that has as of yet presented itself.

My Camp House

the view from the porch



looking out from my bedroom to the deck


Not too many exciting photos I know, but first of all my camp house is not that big and also--did I not tell you I connect to the Internet via satellite? This post took 15 minutes to publish! More later when the Earth turns far enough on its axis that I can get a faster connection...

Just A Satellite Away

A week and a half ago I moved to Yosemite for the summer. I live in a little house just up the hill from the Tuolumne River. It is cold at night and hot in the day and my feet are still relatively clean but I know that won't last for long. There are mosquitoes and lizards and I eat with hundreds of other people at every meal. Finally I have figured out when the showers actually have hot water. Perhaps most importantly of all, I passed the swim test and am now allowed to go unaccompanied into the pool.

I am living at a summer camp and working as an educator there for the next ten weeks. It is beautiful here but very remote so email that I get from my colleagues, educators at other camps, makes me laugh: "What's your mobile number? We should talk during rest hour some day and compare notes!" Maybe that works at a camp just outside Cleveland but here in the Sierra Nevada mountains the nearest cell service is an hour away if not more, as is any restaurant or store or movie theater or medical facility of any size. Being here can feel very isolating sometimes.

How then, with only one phone line into camp, am I writing this post? Our Internet access comes to us via satellite, I learned yesterday. Fascinating. So access is very slow and sometimes if too many people are checking their email or actually trying to get work done you can't get online at all...which is why I am writing this at 7:30 in the morning, not even having gotten out of my sleeping bag yet, while most other people are getting ready for breakfast and the Internet is available all for me. So while I feel very distant from the rest of my life, it is somehow reassuring that the outside world is just a satellite away.

And, a Special Note to my teaching colleagues and dear friends whose life is measured by the academic calendar: Happy summer vacation--you made it :)