Orientation Day 1

This morning at 8 am we had our fist day of orientation for AmeriCorps. It was filled with a lot of information and a lot of laughs. Bagels were provided by a local place and they honestly were not that bad....at least the first bites were not bad. After socializing we had to listen to a presentation on bike safety by reading a comic book..."Mr. Sprockman". Since we all get bikes if we choose to want one we had to do bike safety. I like having one because it gets me to and from the pool on a late night. Bike safety was actually helpful since Julia and I are TERRIBLE at traffic circles. Other than that it was all "wear a helmet" and things like that. For lunch we all got to have sandwiches and salad which was so nice. Produce is very expensive here and a good salad is hard to come by. After eating, we all went over bear safety since we all go on hikes every weekend. There was a lot of information and the reminder to never ever run away from a bear. In Sitka, we only have brown bears. There are 3 black bear cubs at fortress of the bear, but those are kept in the facility, away from all hiking trails (god bless). It's also dead salmon season so all the bears are by the rivers, so as long as we stay away from Indian River we are all good. From bear safety we then all were put on teams to do a scavenger hunt, which we all took very seriously. The team I was on biked all over Sitka in an hour and were able to win, meaning that we are all ready for the amazing race. We had to go to different spots all over Sitka, which only has 14 miles of paved road, so we did a lot of running to the Raptor Center, biking through the national park, asking strangers for odd things and then explaining to tourists why we all were running around. Since we had bikes we were able to get around fast and win gift cards to Fisheye Coffee. After orientation we all went home and took naps as they were all well deserved and needed after biking the entire island for free coffee. Later that night I went to Mt. Edgecumbe to go to the potato bar that they have every now and then. It was fun and a nice break from all of the running around. definitely a much needed excursion with another AmeriCorps member. We were able to walk around the campus of the high school which is an old military base. So the buildings are all well preserved and really cool. The rec room at the school also seriously competes with DeSales's Student Union. Weather update: it has been high 60's and I am newly aware of how cold the tops of mountains are.

Have a good day fam,

Ashley