Advertisement
Published: November 16th 2008
Things are continuing to go well here in Alamosa, although I have admit I've been a bit homesick lately. Most of the time I'm pretty busy which helps with missing DC, but I'm very much looking forward to coming home for a break at Christmas. I've had the chance to meet some new friends outside of La Puente over the past few weeks, which has been a great help. It's nice to be able to spend time with people outside of those you work and live with. A couple weekends ago, my housemate Kevin and I went on a retreat with the Campus Ministry group from Adams State College. This was where I met most of the new people, and it was awesome serving as a semi-retreat leader. I really think that being involved more in campus ministry/my faith here in Alamosa was something I was missing so far in my experience, but that weekend helped me start to see that I needed it back. It was also really interesting to see how they do things differently than back at GW. The retreat was located at a lodge at the base of some beautiful mountains (surprise, surprise...). And, the people who
ran the lodge even had llamas!!!
Halloween also occurred since I wrote last, and I posted some pictures of all of our awesome costumes. As an aspiring gardener, this year I chose to dress up as a carrot!
One of the more exciting occurrences of last weeks was the election!! I don't want to get too involved in discussing my politics, but I'm quite excited with our new choice in president. The changes he his planning for health care, the low-income/middle class, and education make me hopeful for the future. Maybe his optimism will actually help to get something done...
On the Saturday before the election, I was actually able see Obama!!!! He had a rally in Pueblo, CO, and I drove up with a group of friends to see him speak. It was so awesome to be in such a huge crowd in support of him 3 days before the election. Despite the fact that we stood out in the sun for 4 hours waiting to see him, it was definitely worth it. He didn't say too many things that we hadn't heard before but was asking for one final push to get people to vote
on Tuesday. My favorite part had to be when he spoke about paying for those who serve our country - either in the military or other forms of public service - to go to school! AKA paying Americorps volunteers more money! Yay! Michelle also spoke, and I think she's going to make a kick-ass first lady. One of my friends who went with us actually got to shake Obama's hand at the end of the rally, and I think she almost peed herself. She shoved her way up to the front and was the last person he shook hands with! Afterwards, we fought our way back out through the protesters and the crazies...it felt like I was back at home :-) . We had dinner at this cute Irish pub, and it was so nice to be in a bit of a city after spending so much time in Alamosa.
This past week has been absolutely crazy at the food bank. We are planning on giving out about 400 boxes of Thanksgiving food, including turkeys, to those in need in the Valley. Part of the struggle has been selecting families to nominate for food boxes. While we would love
to give one to everyone, we don't have the resources. So, my coworkers and I have been trying to choose families from our database of 1,500 clients. After choosing them, we then have to contact them to with the information about when and where they need to pick up the boxes. With half of the families' phones being disconnected, we've had to mail notes out to everyone. The phones have been ringing off the hook with RSVPs! On top of all this, I've been coordinating food drives and working with Muck, the food bank director, to purchase the remaining amount of food for the boxes. We have been very lucky in the past few weeks to receive numerous donations, including enough to buy all of the turkeys we need. However, it seems like we're just always needing more! I guess people are always going to need to eat... This coming Saturday is the day that we're assembling all of the boxes and asking the families to come pick them up. All of us at the food bank are very much looking forward to that day so that we get a bit of a break before Christmas. It's going to be
Halloween costumes!!!
Brandy the grape and Ben as mask-less Zorroa crazy day, but what I have really enjoyed so far is that all of the volunteers and other La Puente employees are so wonderful at pitching in when anyone needs help. I wouldn't have been able to complete my last food drive without everyone's help picking up the food. Even on a Saturday morning, so many of the volunteers were willing to help! I think we all figure we're in this year-long thing together, and we're all going to need each others' help at some point.
Amidst a hectic week, Friday night and Saturday offered a much deserved break. On Friday night, all of the volunteers and some La Puente staff gathered for a lovely fiesta at Milagros (La Puente's coffee house) to celebrate the eradication (hopefully) of all of the bed bugs at the shelter. Now, for those of you who thought that bed bugs were just part of a cute rhyme that you're parents told you when you were a kid, boy were you wrong! Bed bugs are very real and very gross, tiny little bugs that hide in the nooks and crannies of beds. And, as anyone of the shelter staff can tell you, they
are very hard to get rid of. To spare you the gross details, basically we have been caulking, cleaning, and spraying all of the beds in the shelter over the past few weeks to try to, once and for all, get rid of the bed bugs. Friday night, the Margie, the shelter director, hosted a lovely dinner party for us all complete with bed bug antennas for everyone to wear!
Saturday a big group of us went up to Salida, CO to go for a hike and hang out in the town. We started off on what we thought was a trail leading to Agnes Vaille Falls, but after hiking for a little while, decided we hadn't driven far enough down the road. Despite taking the wrong trail, it was a beautiful hike on a beautiful day. We were wandering along these huge rock faces, right up near the snow-capped mountains. Once we got back to the cars, we drove just a little bit farther and found the trail-head for the Falls. It was quite steep and pretty rocky, but the end result was AWESOME!!! The water from the falls and in the creek was starting to melt, so
there was all sorts of ice crystals and icicles hanging from the rocks. Up near the base of the falls was a huge mound of snow that hadn't yet melted from our snow storm last week. All of us were so happy to be out in nature again that it was definitely a great break from Alamosa. After hiking back down, we drove a little farther down the dirt road to St. Elmo, one of the nation's best-preserved ghost towns. It was pretty neat to see, but actually still seemed to have people living there... not quite as ghostly as we were hoping. Finally, arriving in Salida, we ate a most delicious lunch at Amici's pizza parlor. I had an amazing pesto pizza and washed it down with one of their microbrews (which I have to say may be one of my other favorite parts of Colorado - the large amount of microbrews everywhere!). After lunch, we wandered around the town, and all of us decided we want to move there. It's exactly what you would think of a sterotypical mountain town - old brick buildings, cute little shops, a public park along the river, and tons of bike-riders! I
loved it! Some of us are already planning on going back to do some Christmas shopping.
As I close, I know I have another busy week ahead. And as I'm looking forward to the Thanksgiving outreach being over, I'm also counting down the days until the one and only BILLY FETTWEIS comes to visit!!!!! I am so excited to see someone from home! I don't know what we're going to do yet, but I'm working up plans to show Billy the best of the valley that I've found so far... and don't worry Joanna, I'll be putting him to work too ;-)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.091s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.056s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Rosemary
non-member comment
Obama, microbrews and ghost towns. Colorado sounds so SWEET! Enjoy your upcoming visitors and I can't wait to see you over break!