As I write this right now I am sitting at Starbucks in Triangle, Virginia waiting on Sambo, Whit, Aunt Sally and Grand to arrive at the airport in D.C. and then head a little south to see me! They are coming in for a quick weekend visit to see what I've been doing all summer and see some other Northern Virginia sites (lots of battlefields and Mount Vernon!) Since I've last written I've house sat with my roommate for a Park Ranger who was out of town, leaving us with two precious dogs, a stocked pantry, and phone service, tv, and internet for a week! Then last weekend I went home with my roommate for some more of the same, plus a little pool time, so needless to say I've definitely been spoiled since I made it back from Tulsa. Yesterday the entire office when to King's Dominion (an amusement park like Six Flags) as our end of the summer celebration. They made me ride roller coasters. I hate roller coasters. Well, I guess I don't hate them anymore, but I wore a blindfold on all of them so that I couldn't see what was coming. My roommate, my boss (and fellow Texan), another one of the SCAs from Pittsburg, and another one of the "cave pasties" (that's what us Cultural Resource folks get called since we don't go outside as much) left last night after we got back and I'm definitely sad to see them go and break up our PRWI seasonal group. I still have four more days of work next week before I head back home and fortunately another SCA and a seasonal worker are staying on so I won't be all alone! I'm so so excited to be back close to everyone in TX/OK but I've had a great summer here and am not really looking forward to have to end the great routine of super relaxing week/crazy weekend that I've created here! Somehow I'm sure I'll manage in Tulsa!

Tulsa for a wedding!

A week from Thursday, I flew from Dulles just outside of D.C. to head home to Tulsa for the weekend to go to a Chi O sister’s wedding! I got to Tulsa with just a minor delay in the DFW airport, got picked up by two of my favorites (DP and Laura) and then hit the sack for the night (it was way past my NPS bedtime). On Friday I was reunited with some Tulsa friends during the day—we ate some snowcones and did some shopping. That night we headed to McNellie’s for an everyone-who-is-in-town-for-the-wedding reunion, where I was also reunited with none other than Cassie Beth herself who flew in at 10:30 pm and is now back in Tulsa for good. Saturday was filled with getting stuff out of our warehouse, moving stuff into my new house and Cassie’s new loft, and lunch on the rooftop of El Guapo’s for a friend’s birthday. Saturday night was reserved for wedding activities and it was so fun for everyone to be back together again—it was the first time since graduation! Sunday I packed up and headed back to the airport to go to DFW and Dulles (thank the Lord I got at least a little bit of Texas time to tide me over until I’m back for a few days) and then drive back to the park. This past Tuesday was the all employee meeting and tonight was the volunteer recognition luau—both of which indicate that the summer is coming to a close. Three from our office will leave the 21st, and then a couple will stay on with me until my last day on the 27th. Monday we’ll plan where we take our group work trip, which will probably be next Friday during the day. And tomorrow I get to go with another seasonal and our park superintendent to Glen Echo National Park in Maryland for another appreciation event for all the parks in the National Capitol Region! This weekend and the next will be low key—getting in my last bit of hiking, exploring, and shopping at the outlet mall before the fam gets here to visit! (Also trying to study for the GRE and hoping that Panera’s internet will run fast enough to actually get anything accomplished, i.e. looking for a job!)

Work

So I keep being told that I never speak of what I actually came to Virginia for—to work! Although my blogs might not indicate it, yes, I am still interning for the park, just with some eventful weekends here and there! Last week I just got done with a project I had been working on for about a month. A bunch of old historic architectural drawings and park maps had been left in the basement of headquarters, so I just got finished sorting them, dividing them into groups, and then going through the formal accessioning process of cataloguing and labeling them before they could be put in our museum database and then stored in our collections building. I’ve also been working on transcribing some oral histories of previous park employees, park families, and summer camp counselors to add to the collection. Sometimes we get relatives of park families who want to see old family cemeteries so we take them to those and other times we go search out locations of supposed cemeteries to see if we need to add them to our database with the other 40+ cemetery locations in the park. We’ve also been working on GPSing some of the ruins of a pyrite mine that was here so that maintenance can come along and clear vegetation and better maintain the historic sites. Two weeks ago we went out with the regional archaeologists from headquarters again and found (in addition to a new cemetery) a civil war cannonball (it was this day that I also got my first and hopefully last tick, but don’t even worry because it wasn’t a deer tick so I won’t get lyme disease or anything)! We try to get out in the field a couple or three times a week and other than that we’re doing work around the office. I am still really liking it and am learning a lot—I can’t believe I’m already 2/3 of the way done with my time here! This weekend I was very excited to just relax and lay around (well yesterday I went shopping all day) after three very busy weekends. On Thursday I fly back to Tulsa for a long weekend to go to a Chi O sister’s wedding!!!! After that only a few weekends left before Aunt Sally, Grand, Sam, and Whit visit and then JohnnyBoy heads out here for a cross-country road trip with his favorite daughter!!