Sometimes your fondest memories are the big accomplishments, like closing off an illegal trail head with an excessively large tree; or finally getting down that darn tree that was hung up all afternoon with the help of the Freetown Fire Department. And yes, these two moments were very significant, especially in our goal to shut down miles of illegal motorcycle trail. But for me, it was the minor accomplishment of creating possibly my favorite ice cream flavor (and I’m sure many of my crew members’ that sticks out as my favorite.
It started one evening in the middle of the hitch when we stopped at the gas station on the way back to base camp. It was Josh’s birthday so we bought a half gallon of ice cream and handfuls of assorted candies and cookies to mix in, as a way to celebrate. This first night the ice cream was really good, but each subsequent night we honed the flavor, by doing the most obvious thing, adding more. We added more candy and more cookies. But it wasn’t until our final night that we hit jackpot; we added brownie batter. And man oh man did this grand finale ice cream hit the spot. We huddled around our mixing pot shoveling in bite after bite until it was more of a soup consistency than ice cream. Even that didn’t stop us, instead we continued to slurp, giggle, and laugh in a way I thought only children could.
Now this may still seem a bit strange as to why this event is something I chose to share. Truly, my aim is not to glorify our consumption of ice cream and candy. For me the creation of this ice cream incapsulates a lot of things that we struggled on this past hitch like working together and really collaborating, communicating our likes and dislikes, laughing at our mistakes and moving on, and recognizing and congratulating a job well done. To me, it was very special to be a part of this event, especially since it occurred after hours of service and struggles day in and day out for nearly 10 days straight at that point.