Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Day 39 - Justin Morris

Location: Lander, Wyoming (Day 2)

A person who lives in this beautiful city may not appreciate just how majestic it is. As the sun rose on our day, the base of the rockies become a pillar, appearing as if the Rocky Mountains were holding the sun up into the sky for all to see. Tony, our leader of the day, got us in gear and moving in the morning for the anxiously anticipated day in Lander. We had an early appointment with the National Outdoor Leadership School, better known as NOLS. The school was founded on the ideals of the god father of our own program. Paul Pezoldt is who I’m referring to. We wrapped up our morning at Lander City Park and headed into town for our busy day. We met with Any Basset, a field instructor for NOLS who gave us the keys to helping finish our 10 day trip plan, Some interesting things we learned were that every NASA astronaut since 1999 was a NOLS graduate at one time as well as NOLS tracks their carbon footprint not only in the back country, but also in the front country with an incredibly detailed emissions and sustainability chart. They do a bang up job on practicing what they preach.

Around lunch time we left NOLS HQ, grabbed some BLT’s courtesy of Sarah (The Palin) Heller and headed into NOLS gear shop for a much needed Sierras gear buy. Afterwards, we spent the rest of the afternoon taking care of our personal business and sprinting around Lander like the tourists we are. Some of us took showers at the local recreation center, we completely took over a laundry mat, and visited local shops for gifts and more gear. This was all much needed and put us in extremely high spirits. As one van arrived back to the park, we began setting up base camp for our last night in Lander before Yellowstone and awaited the van that went to do a food buy to arrive as well. Eventually everything was settled and meat loaf was on the stove. (Thank you again Sarah!) We ate the meal that reminded this guy of a home cooked meal from mi’ madre. After we cleaned up the aftermath of dinner, we slowly made our way into the circle where we handle all our in house business and eventually ended after some time. Some of us hopped in the vans sniffing for some free wi-fi and others dove into their sleeping bags. Tomorrow we make way for Yellowstone, where another page in ECOEE 2011 will be one for the history books. Keep it real ECOEE followers.

Go where your heart takes you, and let your moral compass do the rest.

-Justin Morris

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