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| 2007 Mission Travel Grant Recipient |
Christ Presbyterian Church
Copperhill, TN
6/30/07 - 7/7/07
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| While on their mission trip to TN (June 30-July 7), Joann Davis, Youth Program Director of Christ PC, Camp Hill, and 4 youth, Kerri Kearney, Becka Zimmerman, Holly Murray, and Courtney Vranicar, kept a travel blog. Here are some of the excerpts from their trip to The Eagle Ranch on Ice Mountain in Copperhill, TN: |
| July 1: |
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The van ride from Roanoke, VA to Eagle Ranch in TN was rather entertaining and exciting. Courtney brought along a gorilla mask, which the girls took turns wearing. They got quite a few laughs and honks from other people as we were driving! We arrived at Eagle Ranch around 4:30 PM. One of the staff took us through an orientation (and a lerted us to look out for snakes and other creatures -- they have pictures posted of what to watch out for). After settling into our bunk room, we enjoyed a fabulous meal of spaghetti and meat sauce. It is currently raining, so we're just hanging out and relaxing for the evening. Tomorrow we begin our environmental work, which we are looking forward to. That's all for now. |
| July 2: |
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 After breakfast we met with Neil from Eagle Ranch. He is in charge of our group while we do our environmental work. Neil lives in Georgia and is a high school science teacher, who works at Eagle Ranch in the summer. We drove to meet with Steve, a forest ranger leading our group in our work for today and Tuesday. Steve is responsible for 270 miles of trails! Before we could start working on the Watchable Wildlife Trail, Steve gave us a safety talk so that we knew what to do if we encountered a black bear, scorpion, or a variety of snakes. We had to wear hard hats and gloves while we did our work. We split into two groups: Steve, Jim, Becka, and Holly were one.
Neil, Joann, Kerri, and Courtney were another group. In each group, two people used a swing blade and two people used loppers. The trail was quite overgrown and hadn't been worked on in three years. It was our job to cut the overgrowth back from the trail. It was much harder than we anticipated! We broke quite a sweat and were happy when it was time to take a lunch break. When we walked back towards our car for lunch, we were able to see the work we had done and were proud of what we accomplished. It was back to work after lunch. We continued on the trail, but we had to stop several times while Steve used a chainsaw to remove dead trees that had come down and blocked the trail. We stopped working at 3 PM and headed back to the car. Tomorrow, we will go back and finish clearing the trail. There are also bird boxes along the trail that are blocked by growth, so we will be working on that as well tomorrow. We drove back to Eagle Ranch and were excited to take showers! |
| July 3 |
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 At 8:45 AM we met up with Neil, from Eagle Ranch, and departed to finish our work on the trail we were at yesterday. We finished the trail and did some fine tuning to the areas we already cleared. While we were on the trail, there were 2 women hiking who expressed how thankful they were for what we were doing. Steve, the forest ranger, told us the trail probably wouldn't be worked on again for about 5 years. We ate a great lunch (chicken wraps, Doritos, fruit, trail mix, fudge rounds) and then departed to work on a 2nd trail for the afternoon. While driving to the 2nd trail, we saw an Amish man in a horse and buggy,  which was unexpected. Steve told us the Amish moved to the area about 10 years ago. We ended up on a trail that ran along the Hiwassee River. We couldn't believe our eyes when we got to the trail; it was completely overrun with a vine called Kudzu that was imported from Japan. It was everywhere! We did the best we could to cut things back on the trail. Steve was very impressed with how much we accomplished today. Joann was extremely proud of her girls! After completing our work, it was back to Eagle Ranch for showers. |
| July 4: |
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Happy July 4th! Today was a tough day of work for all of us. We went to the Ducktown  Museum, thinking this would be the easiest work day. Boy, were we wrong! Along the road leading to the museum, there are a lot of small pine trees and other growth that nee ded to be cut back about 10 feet from the road. There was also a huge pile of brush left from another group that we had to move to a brush pile. Using saw blades and loppers to remove the trees, we made enormous progress. It was a very hot day and the work was tough. Our guide today was Travis. He commented that he's had groups of 12-15 people who did not accomplish half of what we did. We like to think of our group as small, but mighty! |
| To read and view the complete travel blog, click here. |
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