Last day melancholy

Jeff, Joanna, Tim, and Steve (photographer)
blazing the Great Eastern Trail through
Twin Falls State Park.  November 2011.

Today is my last day at my job.  Tomorrow starts the hiking chapter of my life, even though we don't leave for the Great Eastern Trail for a couple of months.

For the last year I have been working as the Great Eastern Trail VISTA here in Mullens, West Virginia.  It's more than volunteering with less pay than a job.  It gave me a chance to move to southern West Virginia and learn more than I ever knew I wanted to learn about landowner issues, indemnity, and shootin' guns.

I'm sitting in my abandoned office at the Mullens Opportunity Center.  When I started my year here, there were three others in the office with me.  It's been mostly just mine since March. Even the plant died months ago.  There's a plastic duck with the number 21 on it that hangs from the ceiling.  This has been a positive place for me, and I leave it today.

There are a lot of things I look forward to about hiking the Great Eastern Trail, but most of all I am looking forward to making it back here, to Mullens.  I can't wait to poke my head into the MOC next spring and seeing who is around.  I hope to meet up with all of you then.  Thanks for a truly fantastic year, and thanks for helping me get so much done.  It wouldn't have happened without our volunteers.