Charlotte, Camping

Sorry I've neglected you for a few weeks! I've been super busy with work and being social too! Last weekend I visited my friend Shannon from Siena in Charlotte. She is going to Charlotte School of Law and also just recently moved there. She has an awesome apartment on the outside of the city with a roommate who furnished the entire place, pays rent, but never sleeps there. Talk about a deal! Charlotte is a cool city, though it's smaller than I thought it would be. It seemed really clean to me and reminded me of Stamford, CT in the way that it has a lot of 'young professionals' working and socializing there. We hung out with some of her friends from law school and everyone was really nice. The second day we kind of bummed around her apartment and ended up checking out a raw oyster bar down the road from where she lives. We had some delicious sea food! All in all it was a great trip, and it's so easy to get to from Charleston that I will definitely go back!

There was little time to relax in between leaving Charlotte and my next adventure. I spent that Sunday night watching the Steelers beat the Chargers and packing for the woods! Americorps sponsored a retreat for the Americorps VISTA people from all of South Carolina, which only consists of 22 Charleston people and about the same number of people from the Spartenberg area. So, at 7:45 Monday morning, me and twelve of my fellow VISTAS drove the 4.5 hours up to YMCA camp Greenville on the NC/SC border. The ride wasn't too bad- we rented two big vans so I slept most of the way. The camp- well it was interesting. We slept in cabins with bunk beds. The weather was actually COLD- a feeling I had almost forgotten! haha. The retreat was not too bad, although I would have enjoyed having some more down time. There were three speakers who I thought were actually pretty effective. One was on how to hold an effective meeting, one was on Marketing and the last was on Fundraising. It was cool to network with other VISTAs as well. Throughout the three days we did some team building exercises and did a ropes course. My favorite part of the trip was the last day. My friends Will, Michelle, Ashley, Jen and I went off the beaten trail and hiked through the woods. We had heard from a camp employee that there was an Awesome water fall, and we found it! To me, the hike felt like 5 miles, but the others said it was probably only about one! It was tough though!! So worth it once we actually got to the water fall. It was absolutely breath taking! It was cool to see the leaves turn too, it finally felt like autumn. I forgot how much I love the leaves and the autumn air- and that feeling of "new beginnings" that is often associated with autumn. It was refreshing to breath in that autumn air but I was happy to get leave on Wednesday. And work was happy to have me back!

The first picture is the crew in a cave taking a breather on the way to the waterfall. Underneath that is a picture of the pretty leaves. The water fall itself is to the right and right next to this is "pretty place". I thought it looked cool with the cross and you could see for miles!