Week 51

Day 350: Jul 26, 2015

I was so cold this morning. I ended up sitting on the porch, reading my book in a winter hat, jacket, long pants and had a blanket over me. It was a beautiful day but not what you would expect for the end of July. Today was James' birthday and so we celebrated with a video that we had put together for him and a cake that the kitchen had made specially for him. It was awesome to see his face and the gratitude that shown in his eyes.

Day 351: Jul 27, 2015

Today was my birthday. It was a pretty normal day. I was off, others were working. I went back to sleep after breakfast, watched Harry Potter in the afternoon, made a felted hedgehog after dinner, and sat on the porch after vespers it was nice. The only thing that kind of annoyed me was that a long term staffer is leaving tomorrow. She had her birthday about a week ago and we celebrated with a little party and then have basically have had a party every night to celebrate her “last” whatever. So now she is leaving tomorrow and people basically chose to hang out with her rather than me. I didn't really want a party or anything but it would have been nice to have more than three people hang out with me on the porch. Who knows? Maybe I will get the same treatment when I leave but there are people leaving between now and then that I wanted to hang out with on my birthday. So, that put a little bit of a downer on the day but oh well, I have had worse. It just sucks a little.

Day 352: Jul 28, 2015

We rant through our fire evacuation drill today. It was in the middle of my nap time so I napped right after work and had a later lunch. The actual evac drill was pretty boring on my end. We met up in our designated spots and then since my group was more about doing things after we left the village we got our bags and hung out in the dining hall until everyone was ready. I won a game of Bananagrams while we were waiting but other than that it was not all that interesting.

Day 353: Jul 29, 2015

Not much to report. People are leaving and the village is starting to turn over.

Day 354: Jul 30, 2015

Well, I have booked my hotel and ticket for the shuttle that will take me to the airport when I leave. It is not exactly the way I expected to be leaving this place when I came here and not the way I expected to leave two weeks ago but it will work. Fire update: It was crazy smoky today. So smoky, in fact, that it burned my eyes and made my throat hurt. The windows in the dining hall were open and I could actually see the smoke in the room. I decided that we should probably close the windows there and in our chalet so that the fire alarms wouldn't go off. It was pretty crazy. I love the smell of a camp fire (wildfire is basically the same scent) but not when it is choking me. Because the fire is apparently more active we have been upgraded back to a level 2 evacuation which means that we need to be ready to go at any moment. I packed my bag so at this point I could pretty much be ready to go in 15 minutes. I just need to pack electronics. Hopefully it won't come to that but it feels good to know that I am pretty much packed and everything fits. The new travel mugs came into the bookstore today. They are an image that one of our artists in residence did. We only had 8oz mugs before and that is just too small for me so I asked if we could get a bigger size and luckily I still had enough cash to get one. I now have enough money for the bus plus $2. Good thing I am not here much longer and credit cards are the norm in the real world. To finish the day, I made a dream catcher and a stencil for a t-shirt that says #Igiveashit. It is a play off a hashtag that we made up for our nurse that is #Lindagivesashit. We made the hashtag for her because she is always so enthusiastic about things that are not really that interesting. A few of us talked about wanting to make a shirt to commemorate it and so I decided to just make the stencil rather than talking about it forever. I even tested it out on a shirt I found in potty patrol. Levi tested it out on his calf so now he has #Igiveashit in permanent marker on his calf. It was a pretty awesome day.

Day 355: Jul 31, 2015

I guess my time here is ending earlier than expected.We learned today that we are evacuating. 90% of the remediation guys left today and about 20 villagers headed down with them. I get to leave tomorrow because I am leaving for good and have to pack and clean things out. At least that means I get a “last night” here. I love my mom so much right now. She worked hard all day to figure out how to get me on a sooner flight.

Day 356: Aug 1, 2015

First things first. I am writing this on the 2^nd of August because yesterday was insane. So the night before last (July 31) we met as a village to find out that we were going to leave earlier than the original 1:30pm planned departure. The fire is usually calmer over night because it is cooler and generally wetter then. So we ended up planning on leaving at 5am. Of course, we didn't find that out until 9:30pm and didn't get back to our rooms until an hour later. When you find out that you are evacuating your home in the morning it makes it really hard to sleep. No one in the village got much more than a few hours of actual sleep. I know I laid in bed for over an hour trying to calm down enough to actually sleep and then woke up way earlier than I needed to. So, we all gathered at 5am only to find out that there was debris on the road so we were going to have to standby until the road was clear for us. At this point, all we knew was that some rocks had fallen on the road and they needed to be moved. So we all hung around the area figuring that we would probably leave soon. After an hour or so we headed into Creekside where the coffee cart is and just laid around the room. At 8:45 we had a meeting where we decided that we were going to split off and do some of the duties to prepare the village. As soon as we split off to learn about what we are going to do, I walked past the directors and some forest service people and heard something about leaving in a half hour. We gathered our stuff and headed to the busses. A few folks who were planning on staying were told at the last minute that they were going to evacuate and so they packed a bag in a matter of minutes. Everyone was fairly calm and we caravanned down the mountain. We were led by a forest service truck which was followed by a water truck, two school busses, and 6 pickup trucks. As we drove down the valley the smoke became thicker. We didn't see flames until we were 2/3 of the way down but we turned a corner and suddenly saw a flaming log just off the road. All around us was a view of pure and udder waste land. The fire had spread further than we thought. It had crossed the road, the creek, the valley, and the peaks. We still saw flames and smoke but it was what remained after the fire had passed through. It was incredible. Once we were at the dock the remediation folks headed onto one boat while we got on another. As we headed down the lake we began to see the full extent of what had happened over night. The fire had grown from 1500 acres to over 4000 acres in one night. We could see that the fire had spread past Domke lake, burning down cabins along the way. One of the residents of Domke actually spent the night on his boat in the middle of the lake and watched his cabin and everything in it burn to the ground. The sun was blocked out by the smoke. Ash could be seen in sheets on the water and the light around us was orange. Everyone looked like they had a horrible spray tan. We arrived at the boat dock, said our goodbyes, and headed off to Seattle. There were five of us in a small five passenger car but we had a great time. We stopped at a Thai restaurant for dinner in Seattle and then dropped people off at their destinations. When I heard that Honna was planning on sleeping at the airport I decided to invite her to stay at my hotel with me. We pretty much got to the room and immediately went to bed. It was a long, complicated and taxing day. I think I will continue to write and finish the 365 days by reflecting on this experience as well as the year as a whole.