how about our journey here to durango, colorado...
it was my first travel day with the whole cast. it was fun and went by quick (like UWP in general). we had a bunch of rest stops and a long lunch break in Ouray, Colorado. soon thereafter we arrived to our next city: Durango.
host code: SHOPPING
so when we were allocated to our new host families here, i found out that sarah (denver) and yunjie (china) were assigned as my roommates. in addition to that, my hostcode (something used to identify our host families at the pick up time) was SHOPPING. my first thought was: ahhhh man! i have two girl roommates and my host family code is SHOPPING? really? something must have gotten mixed up!
but i was warmly met by my host mom, Connie Imig. she is a very nice lady who is extremely artistic. she has a passion for photography and now for decorative tiles. she creates, fires, paints, and lays all her tile work. again - very impressive. when we arrived home, we met the mister of the house: Dick. Dick is a CPA and is not your typical accountant - he is very entertaining and extraverted - something that is direly necessary when you are hosting 3 UWP kids! the house is located near main street in durango and is a quaint 2 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms. sarah and yunjie got the guest bedroom, which left me no choice but to sleep in the 'shack' in the backyard. the shack is a complete understatement actually. this converted shed is Connie's art tile studio with a small loft that over looks a small stream with tons of flowers surrounding it. it is beautiful. i almost feel like Ralph Waldo Emerson, just not as poetic. it's as if i'm living in an art gallery or museum. i need to be careful of my suitcase sprawl - which is usually a crazy happening as i already discovered in snowmass.community impact: trail building
for our community impact (CI) today, nearly the whole cast was sent towards the mesa mountain near the fort lewis college side of town to do trail building. we were dropped off in a small neighborhood and we were told that we would hike to the top of the mesa. oh boy. time to enjoy the outdoors. hiking. this could be fun. at the bottom we all gathered and met our leaders. we were working with a non-profit organization called Trails 2000. each cast member received a tool (giant branch trimmers, an axe with a hoe end, or a metal rake-like end with a broad bottom). we started up the mountain. about a solid hour of huffing and puffing, we made it to the top (well, most of the cast did). after we enjoyed the views, we got to work. wait, what? we just hiked to the top of the mountain and now gotta do trail work? yep. ah man. it was something i never had done before and was strangely gratifying. maybe its because i (and most people who hike) take trail maintenance for granted. really, it doesn't stay perfect all the time. that's where we came in as a cast and "lopped," "mcClouded," and "polaskyed" the trail down the mountain.
after a super long day, my roommates and i were picked up by Dick in his NEV - Neighborhood Electric Vehicle. think: golf cart with seatbelts, license plates and is insured. we cruised around the city a bit and went to the city cemetery with a stunning over-the-city view. we also saw bambi the dear, too. and then came home to another great dinner and wrapped the evening up with a fire pit session. the Imig's had some guests over too; one of which worked with Dick and was going back to university of denver for another master's degree. (ugggh! more school makes me shudder.) later in the night i learned that the host code was arbitrarily assigned to each family. so really, if we had a free day, we wouldn't necessarily go SHOPPING like i thought we might, but i think i have enough confidence to say i would go shopping with my roommates and host family if it came down to that because they are all such interesting people.
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