I'm still alive!

I'm at camp Aloha now,  with ~45 other staff members,  ready for our kids to arrive tomorrow.  I was at camp Hive for a week, another camp in our foundation, doing Wilderness First Aid training,  CPR training and learning about the ropes courses and climbing towers i will be leading on. Moved over to Aloha a week ago where i have been crazy busy with PreCamp which is all about successful counselling and getting the place ready. It's been so full on since i arrived with lectures and physical work 8am-10pm and i am exhausted.
This place is so beautiful. Vermont is known as the green mountain state, and that sums it up perfectly. There's nothing but trees and mountains and lakes as far as you can see. Not right now though, now i am in the laundromat where there is free wifi! It's a very exciting concept!!
I live in a tent, but the canvas sides are hiked up so it is completely open to the elements - quickly realised you want your bed in the middle of the tent; when it rains here it really rains! But then it is scorching hot half an hour later. I spent a night camping out under the stars a few days ago. You can see Venus and Jupiter really bright! We had a cookout where we built a fire and cooked a stir fry over looking down over the lake. Then we huddled up in sleeping bags and fell asleep to the sound of the lake. It's incredibly peaceful. There's lots of wildlife too, chipmunks everywhere! And there's a herd of deer that live in the woods surrounding one of our ropes courses, a bald eagle lives nearby too!
Today is our first bit of time off, so everyone from all of the camps is here doing laundry and then off to the good 'ol Walmart.
Unfortunately i don't have time to upload any more pictures so i can't share how beautiful it is here, but as soon as i can, there's some amazing things to show you!
Much love from the US of A!!

And so it begins...

I am exhausted; physically and emotionally drained. Saying goodbye to my beautiful family at the airport was so difficult, as I don't know when I will see them again. Though there was one person who seemed ok about me leaving...

The plane was incredible. It was brand new, huge and very flashy. I'm talking windows that tint at the touch of a button, and a screen in the back of the seat in front showing exactly where the plane was on an interactive map.

James, Jaz and I started the journey in style with complimentary cocktails, and done really good food. After a few hours we got bored messaging other people through the seat chat on the tv screens, snuggled up with blankets and pillows and each watched a different movie. 

We finally touched down at Newark airport at 8pm local time - 1am England time! By the time we had passed through customs, picked up our luggage, got the coach to our hostel in New Jersey, attended the orientation to get information about our onward travel and actually got to bed it was 11:40 USA time; 4:40 in the morning if you're still running on UK time  - not bad when you got up at 8! 

Today is Sunday, and I was up bright and early, ready for my 9am pick up. Thankfully 9am local time meant I could get a much needed full night's sleep. Travelling with me are 3 other people from my camp, Ellie who is leading hiking at Aloha, and Argen and Zofia who are at our brother camp, Lanakila. We were driven into the city where we got a coach that is taking us the 6 hours to Vermont. It's an incredible drive. We've seen the Manhattan skyline, driven through the Bronx, and will pass through New Jersey, New York, Conneticut, Massachusettes, New Hampshire and arrive in Lebanon where we will get a ride to Lake Morey and Camps Aloha, Lanakila and Hive in Vermont.

Adventure

I'm off to have an adventure. And you can hear all about it here.