Cabin Camp Friday Morning

This morning I had to be up and at 'em by 6:30 to unlock the gate for the trash & recycle people. I was greeted by the site of this box turtle crossing the road, many more fungi and even a few flowers! Tomorrow our first BIG group moves into the Cabin Camp area. I will have 150 people in my area and my coworkers in Cabin Camp 4, John and Cindy, will have 200. Yikes!

Leaf covered forest floor and field of orange. . .

The lovely orange mushrooms start out like this and mature in the following photos.

Purple mushrooms

Right in back of my RV

Bug on the carpet outside the RV this morning. I also was visited by raccoons last night. The trash bucket in the back of my Mule (a gasoline powered golf cart on steroids) was tipped over and bottles I was soaking had been tipped over with telltale paw prints all over! Ha!

Wednesday: Manassas and Flight 93 Memorial

On Wednesday of this week I had to go 30 miles away to NPS HR headquarters to get my PIV card. It comes with the background check done for most of my volunteer work. I made a big day of it. Originally I intended to go to Greenbelt Park and D.C., but traffic out here is really scary so I decided to find a visitor center and plot my travel to D.C. via public transportation another day. (By the way, Greenbelt is an NPS facility where I had originally tried to get a job for the fall, located 12 miles north of the capitol.)

In search of the Virginia VC I accidentally found the NPS VC for the Battle of Bull Run, so I stopped there. Too early for it to be open, I just walked around the battlefield enjoying the many statues and monuments.

More than 5000 people died at the first battle of Bull Run, so that kind of set the tone for the day. Gloom & Doom, but well worth remembering how horrendous war is. I laughed a little, though, as I looked at this sketch of the Henry House after the battle and the contrast of the reconstructed home below. Quite a difference as a lot was added to the "new" house!

Since I had passed it on my way to Prince William, I then made my way back to the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania. It was a little under 3 hours from where I was in Virginia. Sorry to any Republican friends, but I constantly stew about what a narcissistic psychopath Trump is and pray daily that people will wake up and realize how dangerous he is. In my mind, for the last year, I liken him to Hitler and his rise to power without his nation challenging him or his actions. His recent denigration of the Muslim family who lost their war hero son and his contention that Trump himself has "sacrificed" is maddening. Then gleefully accepting the Purple Heart stating, "This was a lot easier!" No shit, Sherlock!

Visiting the Flight 93 Memorial brought home the nature of true sacrifice. Who can visit there without praying that they, too, would act as heroically under similar circumstances? Trump, so you know, those 40 people sacrificed their lives and saved countless others by their actions.

A wall of books of the heroes of September 11, 2011

There are 40 stone panels representing each of the heroes of Flight 93. This one is especially poignant.

The Memorial was beautiful with wildflowers everywhere. It was formerly the site of an abandoned strip mine and the crash site itself a hemlock grove that was incinerated in the crash. Family members were involved in choosing each aspect of the Memorial - a place of renewal. A huge boulder chosen by the families sits atop the filled-in crater that was the crash site.

One of the ways victims' families remember their loved ones is the impression of hemlock bark seen on all the walls of the memorial.

The families also chose to plant the entire site in wildflowers. Trees line the 1.7 mile walk to the Memorial wall and crash site. The walls of the crash site Memorial are impressions of charred hemlock bark as opposed to the lighter colored bark of the living hemlock trees.

Prince William Forest - Getting Settled In

WOW, what humidity!!!! Since I arrived the temperatures have been in the 90's and the humidity makes the air feel thick. Ha ha! I was prepared for a couple of months of this but this area definitely exceeds expectations in that respect.

I am working with other Cabin Hosts, John and Cindy who are absolutely marvelous. AND they like to play cards & board games, so even though we are kind of out here on our own we will probably spend many happy hours together. My camp holds 150 people and theirs holds 200. This weekend we have one big group filling both our camps so our time will be filled with keeping the restrooms stocked with toilet paper and helping with any information requests that might arise.

This is a "craft cabin" where visitors can do . . . crafts! The buildings and the park facilities were built during the 1930s to bring extremely impoverished children from the D.C. inner city out to the country. It was a public service in the guise of "fresh air & sunshine." There were many abandoned, homeless, uneducated, starving children. The staff took care of those needs including nursing the children back to health, giving them immunizations, etc. during a normal 2-week stay. If the children were in extremely poor health they stayed for a whole summer - hopefully, ready to return to the city by autumn.

An example of a sleeping cabin in my camp. My camp has been renovated so it has much nicer windows and restroom facilities than the others.

The dining hall fireplace. The park provides enough firewood for 1 fire per day for each group.

I believe these prayers and the picture of Old Faithful below have been posted ever since the place was built!

Typical 1938 flag raising in the camp.

The kitchen reminds me of church back home. Thank God I don't have to cook for 150! Most groups bring in their own cooks for their stay. If not I guess they do hot dogs over an open fire!

Mushrooms, mushrooms and more mushrooms in this humid forest!

Meanwhile back at my camp (which is on the edge of a baseball field) there are always plenty of deer. Yesterday at 1:00 p.m. there were 4 bucks all in velvet about 75 yards from my camper. Every evening there are between 10-20 grazing happily.

Surprise! As I looked out last night I spied a fox among the deer! I will post a video on Facebook if all goes well.

This morning this little squirrel dashed away as I approached a sleeping cabin, never letting go of his treasured mushroom. I'll post video of him, too on FB later.

Many lizards out basking in the sunshine. One of them is especially pretty - neon blue, but he moves too fast and I have not yet gotten a photo of it.

Last, but not least, this little spotted darling was spying on me as I finished my cabin walk-around early this afternoon. The deer are always curious whether it is at the cabins or back at the RV.