"Fare thee well" or "Liberation!"

Couldn't decide on the title of this post.

Said goodbye to all my friends on Friday and began my journey home. I am sad to be leaving my friends, anxious to be leaving what I have known as life for the last year, but greatly excited for new journeys and the comfort and people of home.

Jordan and I are taking our time driving from Vicksburg to Cleveland. We spent Friday and Saturday travelling the Natchez Trace (http://www.nps.gov/natr/index.htm) a beautiful historic parkway up through Mississippi and Tennessee. Friday night we found a little hotel in a little Mississippi town to recover from our lack of sleep and prepare ourselves for a week on the road. Saturday we finished the Trace ending up in Nashville, TN where we met up with Jess, one of Jordan's teammates. Jess and her sister Becca showed us around downtown. We had a lovely dinner followed by exceptional live music and dancing at a hole-in-the-wall country bar. Next we headed to Big Bang a dueling piano bar where the musicians know how to perform anything you can throw at them. We were happy to have successfully requested "Wagon Wheel" at both the little bar and the piano bar. Big Hit.

We took off from Nashville yesterday morning and made our way to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg Tennessee at the foot of the Smokies. We arrived pretty late in the evening and accidentally stumbled upon a big park event when asking about camping. Turns out we landed at the park on the one day a year when this one specific species of firefly puts on a big show (http://www.nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/fireflies.htm). We jumped on one of the trolleys heading up the mountain and had a picnic dinner on the side of a mountain stream. As the sun set and the lightning bugs started to appear a thunderstorm abruptly dampened the bug bonanza! The two of us were soaking wet and started to head back to the trolley with hundreds of other disappointed firefly fanatics. We had a change of heart when we saw the long line for the tram and figured we would stick around and give it a little longer. We found a great little vacant side trail and set up our wet blanket and tarp on a stone wall. As soon as we got comfortable the show began. Thousands and thousands of little lanterns started blinking all around us. The light-ups traveled in circles around our spot until slowly but surely all the bugs synched up into one twinkling forest floor. It was quite the spectacle.

By the time we caught our trolley down to the foot of the mountains it was after 11 and we were still homeless for the night. After an exhausting search for affordable hotels we found a cheap and rather icky Red Roof Inn and slept like babies.

This morning we set out to find a better home- and landed on a cute little affordable campsite next to a quaint river in Pigeon Forge. After cooking some delicious soup over the fire, we set out for internet- so Jordan could look at jobs and I could start getting my life together as well. This evening we are planning a winery tour in town and then a relaxing day tomorrow.

We should be in Columbus later on Wednesday and will stay through Friday when we head up to Cleveland. I am looking forward to showing off my city and all my friends and family to Jordan.

Then I will be on a job search until I find something that sparks my interest...

I suppose this is my last post. AmeriCorps is over and I am onto real life. I am definitely going to miss it and am sure my life from here out will be greatly shaped by my experiences.

Thanks for reading and keeping in touch over the last year! I'm looking forward to seeing you all very soon!!

PEACE,

Casey

Purge

This weekend was great Team Leader bonding/celebration/goodbye time. We had a big potluck by the pool on Friday night and I really started to feel the relief of this year ending. Saturday we spent at the movies and playing games together. Yesterday we visited Wade's family at a state park east of Jackson and played on his boats and bikes tubing, knee boarding and skiing. Then we headed to Mellow Mushroom for one last time and all agreed on pizza for probably the first time ever. Finally we came home and all piled into the TV room to watch a movie together.

Today everyone is stuck in their rooms cleaning and packing. I am looking for any distraction- have been cleaning for over two hours and it looks worse than when I started- if that is possible.

Four more days until my life in AmeriCorps is over. I can't believe this has been less than a year- it feels like it has been damn near a lifetime.

I'm nervous about moving on.

Good-Bye #1

Most of my CMs board their shuttles to the airport in 15 minutes... Mixed emotions tonight- mostly nostalgic, sad and proud. Soon- very soon- they will be back in their real lives away from the ameribubble.

I am looking forward to knowing them as people and no longer as corps members...

As we go on...

Today is Graduation.

After a week of Yazoo City Disaster relief, the rest of the corps began returning to campus and we started out-processing. Now here we are at the end. Today is graduation and, after much struggle and determination, all of my corps members will be walking. I am so proud to see them cross the stage. I am also having some severe empty nesting feelings. It is strange trying to process this year. These people are my friends in a way, my peers in a way, but also they are not in a way. It's hard to sort out the mixed feelings- relief, anger, stress, sadness, happiness, pride... I haven't been sleeping well all week.

Last night we had the corps member banquet and I got to hand out the Leadership Award to Michelle. She deserved the recognition. Listening to everyone's speeches and reflections finally got me to the mindset that it is coming to an end. Before last night everything felt like a barreling train headed off the track. Now I am beginning to feel things wrapping up. It's difficult to describe all the thoughts and feelings I have been having this week- and I honestly have been so busy I haven't had any time to attempt to process and deal with them.

But regardless, by tomorrow at noon I will be back to being Casey- no longer team leader of river 4. I will have a few days on campus with the other TLs to close campus and start looking towards the next steps in our lives. Mainly we will spend the time celebrating and soaking in the last few moments we have together.

And soon I will be on the road up towards home.

Yazoo City

Hi Everyone

Update: After returning from the red cross shelter, the team has been assigned to disaster relief in Yazoo City MS. If you aren't familiar, Yazoo City had a GREAT deal of damage from the tornado last month.

Jordan's team was already working in Yazoo, so we have had a team to show us around. Due to an extremely complicated chain of events that I just don't have the time to go into right now, Jordan and I are acting as volunteer and case management with LESM. Many disaster response organizations pulled out this week, turning their case work over to LESM (an organization who only came up to set up a volunteer camp, and at this point does not have the resources, personnel,funding or familiarity with the area to work cases or volunteer management). So, naturally, Jordan and I ended up with a stack of 100+ work orders to sift through and organize. To make things even more complicated, all of the organizations that pulled out sent their volunteers our way. On Friday Jordan and I found work for 100 people (most of whom we had no idea were coming to us for work before they arrived)

This weekend we spent Saturday trying to set up a system for LESM to handle this new job, and today I am catching up on some much needed paperwork and job application...

See you all soon (less than a month until i am free) and send me job ops if you hear of them!!!

Lots of Love,

Casey

Flexibility

Well we have been running the ARC shelter all week. We have 33 residents, all of whom to my knowledge are individuals who have been displaced after a HUD apartment complex was condemned (due to damage from the flooding) last Tuesday.

I have been the ARC supervisor in charge of shelter operations from 12am-8am. It has been quite an experience!

My team has been split up into three 8hour shifts for the week and I haven't seen some of my teammates since we got here. I finally got word that we are being released by the ARC tomorrow and closing down the shelter to head back to Jackson and out-process.

I have NO CLUE where we go or what we do from there, but I suppose I will know on Wednesday. Hoping to head to Nashville with flood relief efforts up there.

Here's to one hectic last week of service.

No matter what our deployment, we will return to campus May 18th to begin my team's AmeriCorps out-processing and soon after I will be bracing myself for some pretty emotional good-byes.

Corinth, MS

Yesterday we returned to campus, cleaned our vans, returned our tools, quickly worked on close-out paperwork and were informed at 5:30pm that we are now on our way to Corinth, MS to run a shelter for the influx of individuals and families displaced by the tornadoes and flooding. We leave today at 10am. It has been quite the week.

I am excited to serve on disaster. I feel like this is what I really wanted to do when I first started the program!

I have no idea what the internet/phone situation will be like up in Corinth but I will try to keep you all posted. If not, I love you all and I will see you soon...

Peace,

Casey