Ashley's July Update

Outdoor adventures was the theme of this month & man were we all ready for it. At the beginning we were able to go and explore the little piece of trail that runs from Point Marion to West Virginia. It was great just getting outside and seeing this mile & a 1/2 piece of trail that I hear so much about & then to go on and explore on the West Virginia side, the Mon River trail. Some of us decided to take a few comp days as well to go with some of our fellow coworkers from Trail Town on the Great Allegheny Passage from Rockwood, PA to Cumberland, MD. That little adventure was well worth it. It was a total of about 43 miles and I was surprisingly not as sore as I had thought I was going to be. As part of SCA training we also took a little trip up to Pittsburgh and had a kayak lesson from Exkursions. It was GREAT! I had never paddled in a big city like that, so that experience went down in the books.

For a majority of this month I have been making weekly visits to the borough building to work from there. It has been helpful too to be able to go to the borough manager Art for any questions that I might have, especially ones about the river that came up from our next adventure. For a good portion of the 3rd week in July Laura and myself were assisting an intern from the PA Fish & Boat Commission with project he was working on. We 'had' to go paddling for a few of those days too, man, what a rough job. We were just stoked to finally get out on the Mon and see it from that point of view. We paddled the section from Point Marion to Greensboro and focused on gathering GPS points and points of interest along the river as well.

I have been also been going down to Point Marion every Saturday morning to assist with the Park Commissions volunteers with park maintenance and clean up. There have been about 3-5 of us each time and we usually try and support the local restaurant, the Riverside Diner, each time before we head out to start the hard work. One of the reasons I am working with the park is because it was mentioned at the town assessment that it is one of the towns main interest, since it is going to be the main trail head/entrance to Point Marion once the trails get connected. Another idea mentioned at the town assessment was obtaining some historic photos and blow them up to put on some of the window displays in the downtown area. We are still working on actually finding photos that would be good enough quality to be blown up. Speaking of the town assessment, we are also in the planning of putting together the 2nd get together for the action team for August 6th. We will be discussing the next step & inform them of the projects we have been working on since we last met.

Overall, I am thankful we are trying to overlook this heatwave up here by getting outside and enjoying the outdoors, even if! It makes for a better time had all around!