25 Jul Samsquanch was here

It all started with Sasquatch. My supervisor, Cathy Peterson, hands me a doll size version of Sasquatch at the beginning of camp preparation. Summer camps start next week with two groups of around thirty middle-school aged youth here at the Lewis and Clark NHP. To prepare, I have been working with Cathy all week. Cathy Peterson has a colorful language coupled with a sweet aura and gifted with the ability to juggle multiple projects at once. She lives in a quaint farm where she grows a bounty of vegetables and cares for  an assortment of animals. She makes analogies using said animals. She wakes up an hour before work to relax with coffee in bed. She makes silly jokes and little judgements. Her nurturing nature allows for a comfortable ease around her. She has quickly become a strong female figure in my life. The summer camps, apparently, were her idea after having a conversation with her 9-year-old daughter about how camps should be. As a result, camps will be filled with arts and crafts, fun “choice” time, kayaking, and swimming ~ a preteen dream. To conclude our preparations, we took a hike along the “fort to sea” trail which extends from our park to the ocean. A lovely 6-mile hike that is home to a temperate rainforest that leads to rolling hills full of wildflowers to swamps that are home to dragonflies and finally to the Pacific Ocean. We embark speaking business but quickly it is apparent that the hike is open to comfortable chit-chat. As it turns out, Cathy was raised in the Bay area of California (my home the past couple of years) and her parents seem to have met in the city I hold responsible for my upbringing — Covina! I am looking forward to spending the next few weeks in this dream with all the kids. I also look forward to learning to exude the airy warmth characteristic of Cathy. It is still unclear where Sasquatch will fit into it all.