Matt McCabe
ECOEE Journal

Day 7 - Saturday Aug. 22, 2009

After one full week and another 5a.m. wake up @ Horn Field Campus: I have never been so excited to start a morning with a game of “ Giants, Wizards, and Elves”. Our competitive natures became very apparent after the first few minutes of domination by the giants teams! (Sean, Pete, and many of the bigger students and Jeff).
This was a great way to get the blood flowing and have some fun before taking on the backcountry food rations. Also before taking on this task, Christine reaffirmed the purpose of this food preparation task by reminding us of the first rule of LNT: proper planning. We then proceeded to pack anywhere from 35-45 lbs of food per person into our individual duffel bags. Ron did a great job of facilitator of the day during this process. You could really see his priorities are as he helped each of us to prepare our rations; and waited till the end to finish his. This act of selflessness is a great model of expedition behavior.
Needless to say packing a few hundred pounds of food and seasoning left the lodge in quite a disaster. We did a great job of cleaning afterwards. However, this just reminded me how important cleanliness will be on the road. With 13 people its easy to create a big mess, and create a lousy learning environment. The more proactive we are toward cleanliness and cleaning up after ourselves, the more productive we will be.
Yesterday we also made progress on repairing the canoes and preparing the trailers. After a long day, and Jeff falling asleep during chow circle, I think we are all ready for a quick debrief and a early night. The preparation is almost complete, I am more excited than ever to be on ECOEE 09’ with all of my new friends. One Love - Matt McCabe