Guns, Germs, and Brackberries!

Hello from small-town Washington, where I will be doing Americorps for the next 10 1/2 months in a local high school, living in a trailer and buying groceries with food stamps.

Mom and I roadtripped out here, leaving last Wednesday the 9th, arriving Friday afternoon. The trip was long (Wyoming sucks!), but we had fun. I am now obsessed with and extremely dependent on my new GPS. When we arrived in town Friday, my first shock was finding out that my "home" was in fact a trailer, a fact which the realtor had conveniently not told me. However, I suspect it's because trailers are pretty common around here, and mine is comparatively pretty nice. I like to think of it as a cozy log cabin or a large, fancy dorm room. The other major shock about it was it's lack of cleanliness, and seeing as how we had paid a cleaning fee already, this was not a welcome observation. My mom and I had to spend some quality time cleaning the filth that the previous tenants had left...the toilet was especially fun. Anyway, I will post pictures of it when I have consistent internet access. Either way, it's in a great location right down the street from the "Hub" of Morton, so I can't complain about that.

The culture shock when I first arrived was pretty intense. Basically it seems that I have landed in conservative Christian country, where people don't like immigrants, and where sweet old ladies wield loaded guns (not that I've witnessed this, but the owner of the Bed and Breakfast where my mom and I stayed told us about sitting beside her door holding her gun when she heard potential intruders outside). So that is something to be aware of....

Other highlights have included:

*The SPECTACULAR view of Mount Rainier, one of the highest peaks in the US

*Buying a cabinet stand from a guy named Otis at a garage sale....and after realizing it wouldn't fit in the car, Otis offering to put it in his truck and delivering it to my house. Love that small-town hospitality...And Otis told me all about his diabetes along the way

*Sitting in the parking lot at the grocery store and watching high school girls spend 10 minutes wrapping a truck in plastic saran wrap, take pictures of it, then leave.

*The thousands of creepy looks and comments I've received from the men here...

*Finding out I had fresh brackberries right outside my home!! I picked a bunch yesterday, it was a thrill.

So those are the details about the start of my adventure....more to come soon!