Another spike comes and goes

River 7 in front of future Volunteer Housing

Tomorrow morning River 7 will be leaving Hattiesburg, MS and heading back to campus in Vicksburg, MS to prepare for our 4th and FINAL project. It seems as though these Spikes are going by quicker and quick despite getting longer which means this last 6 week Spike will fly by.
For the last round I will be heading to Nashville, Tennessee along with a composite team of various other AmeriCorps  members who applied to work with the State Park System in Tennessee.  However this project is only 4 weeks, and I will meet up with River 7 in Memphis Tennessee for the remaining 2 weeks.
Transition period prior to the last Spike is a mere week, teams will be departing next Tuesday (April 5th).

Due to some technical difficulties with my USB cord I can't get any pictures off my phone of the sweet zoo and carnival we went to while in Hattiesburg.  Also I experienced my first crawfish boil today (No I did not suck out the heads) which was up there with some of the most "southern" things I've experienced.  As always the south is full of hospitality and love to have huge cookouts with lots of food (and beer).

Despite the unpacking, traveling, van cleaning, and debrief I will endure tomorrow I am looking forward to seeing my "Amerifriends" and meeting up with my temporary composite team.  Working with Recover, Rebuild, Restore Southern Mississippi (R3SM) was a pleasure, I even learned a few new construction tricks that are bound to come in handy some day.

North to South

Well these past few weeks went by quick... prior to leaving Virginia my blog post was published on the Virginia State Park website and I was fortunate enough to see my Grandparents again despite their drive back from Florida and all over Virginia within a week, so that meant a lot to me.

After surviving another two day van ride, River 7 safely arrived in the much much warmer Hattiesburg, Mississippi to work with non-profit R3SM.  We are currently restoring an old brothel house transforming it into volunteer housing for future teams that will work with R3SM.  Fortunately we've had lots of construction experience working with Phoenix of New Orleans allowing our sheet rock and insulation skills to be well above par. 

I used up all my vacation days to head down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras (well worth it) so I've had the last week off which was awesome.  Here are some minutes of my first Mardi Gras experience:

Truly a remarkable experience to say the least....