Raven 4 Soars off - Camp Highroad in Middleburg, VA

It started with a week of Transition, which entailed a whole lot of running and driving around on my part, tying up loose ends, finishing last minute paperwork, scheduling meetings for my team, and heading to staff meetings all throughout.  I swear that this job wouldn't be possible without some sort of writing utensil on you at all times.  There is so much to know and be aware of, and there simply isn't enough storage in the human brain, or least mine.  My planner has saved my life, and in turn, my team's.

Back to the week, though... My fantastic Assistant Team Leader coordinated the Briefing of our first round with the rest of the team while I took care of all of the business I mentioned above.  When I met up with the team for the presentation rehearsal, I was ecstatic to see that it had gone well, and everyone spoke fairly confidently as they presented individual slides.  The assistant team leader (ATL) did an incredible job, as did the entire team, and I am so appreciative of that.  The team presented the information to the staff, better than in rehearsal; I was so proud.

All that was left to do was travel.  We woke up Saturday morning to pack up the van, and we were off.  The drive is about 2 hours and 30 minutes, which may, in the end, have been 3 hours and some change.  We got a little lost, looking for Middleburg, VA, and for now I'm just gonna go ahead and blame that on the GPS. ;-)

Our sponsor Josh was our main contact and introduction to Camp Highroad, a Christian Adventure Camp for kids.  He gave us our Orientation, a tour of the Camp, which is over 600 acres, where we learned about what our job would be for the next four weeks.  Our main goal would be to prepare the camp for the incoming school groups, boy scouts, etc. that would be staying at the camp in a few weeks, which meant a whole lot of facility maintenance: trail clearning, invasive plant species removal, the cleaning of cabins, and more.  We've also been transporting a lot of brush and branches from the road and camp site, which have been organized into piles along the way.

We're hoping that after we leave, we'll be able to see the Camp in action, when classes are being taught and more kids are here.  A big goal of the program is to get kids outdoors, away from their TV and videogames, so they can grow more comfortable with the environment; give them a chance to experience things they might not ever have an opportunity to, especially kids living in the inner-city, including DC, which is about an hour away from here.  It would be great to see these kids using the cabins and hiking the trails we've worked so hard on.

More to come in later entries, as always!