Fort Collins - Environment

It's Day Six of our incredible spring break in Fort Collins, Colorado and I can honestly say that after four years at Mizzou, this has been one of the most memorable experiences of my college career thus far. From hiking in the Rockies to cleaning up fish trenches to rock climbing, each day has been unbelievable.

After our 6:30 a.m. wake up call this morning and trying to wake up Karin, we all had breakfast, packed our PB&J lunches and loaded our two vans (yes, it's still a black van vs. red van battle) for an hour-long drive to a greenhouse in the Rocky Mountain National Park. It shouldn't surprise anyone that when we found out our trip coordinator Maelly wouldn't be joining us for the day, we were all pretty upset. But Maelly's awesome coworker, Isabel (who taught us how to rock climb yesterday) was with us for the day to help at the greenhouse.

All 13 of us squeezed into the greenhouse and as a team, we helped plant more than 2,000 tiny green seedlings into "cone-tainers". Not to brag, but we totally broke the record for most plants potted in a day. We learned that the plants we were working with were going to be placed along a road that runs through the Rockies. It was a great feeling knowing that we were helping out the environment in a way that will affect so many people that enjoy the outdoors as much as we do.

After a few hours in the greenhouse, we headed up with Isabel higher into the mountains. I have to say, Colorado is the place of my dreams. When we first saw the mountains upon entering Colorado, my heart skipped a beat, and I got the exact same feeling today. We drove up Bear Lake Road to a height of about 10,000 feet. I don't care what anyone says, the view we saw today was worth more than any beach in the world. And we may or may not have had a snowball fight while we were up there.

We headed back down the mountain and (thankfully) went to the rec center to shower. Isabel had us over for dinner tonight, which might have brought tears to Dylan's eyes because he wasn't able to do the dishes tonight. I think we all were a bit sad that we weren't going to be making dinner together anymore for the rest of the trip, but we still had a great time at Isabel's place with her housemates and wonderful yellow lab, Tango.

This group of Eagles keeps getting closer and feels more like a family each day of the trip. We already have plans for living in a 12-person house after the trip, so I'd say we're pretty close-knit. At this point, we have so many jokes together that I don't think we can have a normal conversation. We stay up late talking about anything and everything, but mainly how Kaitlyn had the most embarrassing moment one time of walking around with an unzipped boot (I know, right?).

As the trip winds down with only one more day of service left, I'm feeling pretty sad about not sleeping in a room of 11 other Eagles after tomorrow. But then again, we still have another night of Tanner and Dylan whispering to each other before we all go to bed, so what's there to be sad about? In the words of my fellow Eagles, we fly together.

–Anna