Meg Senior Project - Culminating Adventure

 The last day of senior project really did creep up on us. Today we really focused on finishing everything up. We woke up pretty early to get a head start on the day. We worked here in Concord for about 3 hours, finalizing the trips itinerary to polish up our plan so that we are ready to leave on the 6th. After we finished all of the planning we dove into finishing our reflection papers. We then headed to school for some outdoors time, we both went on a run around the ski hill/railtrail. Beautiful day, the grass was so green it seemed saturated. It does not seem real that our last day of SP is done!  Hours logged today: 4 Hours total logged: 56 

 Today today today…. What did we do. We’ll, I got to school around noon time. After I arrived, I met up with nat where we grinded out our essays for SP and refined our lists. After a bit of work we headed up to our PA tennis courts and got active. We played for a long time before coming to an end and working out. Dinner came around, we munched, then headed home. At home we talked with our parents about the whole plan even further. Productive day!  Hours today: 5  Total hours: 53 

Yesterday I worked for a while on researching ingredients and constructing the backcountry and front country food lists. I woke up and it started raining so I hunkered down and dove into work. I am starting to feel a bit intimidated by the fact that our departure date is in the near future and this is really happening. After the rain cleared away. I got out on the lake and went for a sail, my first sail since ocean and boy was it amazing. Sailing in a 1 mast laser thats 9 feet long is a a lot different than sailing a 131 foot schooner! The next few days we will finalize our trip.   Hours logged: 5 hours  Hours logged in total: 48 hours 

  Meg Patrick  May 22 Weekly reflection #2 This week went by a bit slower than the previous week. As I sat down to write this reflection, I tried to think of what I learned this week and whether or not there were surprises or expectations. What I realized was that this week was not at all what I had expected. In terms of our senior project, not much has changed. We got some more work done in the mornings, went on some nice hikes, got active and golfed, walked, and progressed our ideas on the logistics of our trip. What I have just realized is that this week tested my emotional state regarding leaving proctor. I kept getting in mindsets where I felt like I just wanted to escape and that proctor felt so small. I honestly couldn't articulate what these emotions were but I was frustrated and sad. I am now sitting down and reflecting on the week while my three good friends of four years sit next to me and I now recognize what those feelings were. I subconsciously was pushing away a...

 Today was a great Friday. We woke up and had some yogurt to fuel our bodies for our bulkhead hike. We got to school and did some work before leaving for the hike, we wanted to wait for the fog to clear up. Hiking to the top was a bit strenuous but not horrible. Didn’t take us too long. When we got to the top the fog was still looking over the trees and we couldn’t see much. The trees had this weird effect where they looked like they were shaking. We then trekked on to find balanced rock and ultimately failed. But when we walked back to bulkhead the fog cleared and it was beautiful. Great day!  Hours logged today: 5 hours  Total hours logged: 47 hours 

 Today we set in stone our border crossing documents. We met with annie to further our knowledge on what we need to do to cross and we got our documents lined up. We also started to brainstorm lists that we are going to construct such as food planning, folders with all of our documents, and gear lists. Along with this planning we decided what we are doing for express fest. Although it was raining most of the day we got out for a walk in the woods in the morning for some outdoor time. It feels very reassuring to have our documents for crossing the border all lined up. Now we need a good nights rest for a hike tomorrow!  Hours logged today: 5  Total hours: 42 

 Wow! Here we are again, another day of senior project in the books. Today we woke up early and headed to school for some work. We couldn’t hike because of our early game, so we sat outside in the sun for a bit. We worked for a while on some final planning of nights on our trip. Then we met with Annie to go over some tid bit things like gas and international phone coverage. Important things! We are really starting to come together! Tomorrow we will  Hours logged today: 4  Total hours: 38 

 Today we switched up our outdoor activity with 9 holes of golf. We joined Chappy, Jack, Quin, and Annabelle. It was a beautiful day for golf, everything was a bold green after the down poor yesterday. Our golfing skills were below average but that didn't keep us away, we definitely took some chunks out of the grass. We golfed for a while before heading back to school for lacrosse. Tonight was a leap forward for our work. We came back from school early and sat at the dinner table for some more planning. Our trip is really coming together, exiting!  Hours logged today: 5 hours  total hours logged: 34 hours 

 Today was a nice chill start to our week. We woke up and did Oak hill in concord, a nice hike to wake us up. It was quite humid but we persevered and kept hiking. We finally got to the fire tower and we climbed up to look over the concord area. We spotted the first newt of the summer season, a very special thing from my childhood. The newt added a nice spark to the beginning of my day. After our hike we headed to school where we started more planning and finished up our application for the Scott Pond prize. We met with Pete to help us look over some things, always great to talk with Pete. The rest of our day we swam and went on a nice stroll around PA. Really trying to soak up our final days on campus. Overall, good day!  Hours today: 6 hours  Total hours logged: 29 hours 

  Our first week of senior project set the tone for our final weeks at proctor. With lots of activities and indulging in our surroundings, we have been able to keep ourselves busy along with some driven honest work. A nice balance. Our first day we were a little bit shocked by the reality of planning our road trip. Having trouble finding where to start, how broad we should make our plans, and what parts to start planning as the concrete to our itinerary. We gathered our things and met with Annie who quickly taught us what we needed to learn for planning our trip so we could dive in on our own. One of our struggles with our first few days was keeping  \focus for the amount of hours of planning we actually need to log each day. We figured that some days should be more focused on planning and some should be focused on getting outside and indulging in our surroundings, this approach to our days helps us with our focus. The days when we got outside were crucial to our week. Not onl...

 Today we took a break from the heat and the black flies to sit down and get some work done. We woke up early to have some breakfast and fuel our brains for some focus and planning time. We worked more on the details regarding crossing the border to Canada, some difficulties but were making it work. We ate some lunch and then kept planning our nights regarding what campgrounds were staying in and where we will park our car before going backpacking. We found two campgrounds right near the river, perfect for the warm summer weather! Later in the evening after our win against Tilton we spent an hour at elbow pond indulging in the beautiful water that surrounds Proctor.  Hours logged today: 4 1/2 Hours total: 23

 Today we really packed it in! Starting off the morning in concord with eggs to fill out bellies for our long journey ahead of us. We then packed our backpacks with what we needed for the day, because today we didn’t use any gas. Today we biked 21 miles from Boscowen to PA. It felt so rewarding pulling up to proctor (although very tiring as well) on the sole power of our legs and the wheels of a bike. Overall it wasn’t too strenuous however between mile 11 and 16 we really questioned it all. It took us about 3 and a half hours although we did stop a couple times. After we got to proctor we ate lunch and boy did that hit the spot. We also did about an hour of work today. After lacrosse we topped our day off with a visit to elbow to cool ourselves. Such a luxury being able to access that spot!  Hours logged today: 4 1/2 Hours logged total: 18 1/2 

 Today was quite the day. After a long nights rest and weary eyes, we packed our backpacks with snacks and water eager to get up some elevation. Ciaran, another hiker senior project senior joined us. We got to the trail head and got rolling, it started off pretty chill, not too strenuous. As we chatted and our feet took us farther and farther the rocks started becoming steeper and steeper. After about an hour and a half we got to the top of the mountain at the chairlift. At the top of the mountain I got the surprise that my water bottle had fallen out. Bummer. I told Natalie to keep our eyes peeled on the way down and we came across the bottle resting on a rock! Phew! We then headed back to proctor hungry and winded for some hardy lunch. After lunch we did about an hour and a half of more planning. Overall good day!  Hours logged today: 4  Hours total: 14

Today we started our day with a trip to Gibsons book store to get a grasp on some topographic maps and trail maps. We found one book that has Nova Scotia and the chic choc mountains, right where we will be heading! We then drove to Proctor to type away and further our planning in the dining hall. We ran into some struggles with the Canadian border, for we discovered to our delight that being 18 means you still are a minor in the provinces we can realistically cross at. A bit of a curve ball for us, however we called and researched and figured it out. It is official, we have in our itinerary: "CROSS CANADIAN BORDER". We then ate some lunch to fill our bellies and prepare us for more focus and planning. We did another couple of hours after lunch before we wrapped up for the day. Today we planned where we are going to backpack in the Chic chocs, where we want to camp the 3rd night, our backpacking route, and we also found a very engaging beautiful day hike in Acadia.  Pictured b...

 Before we headed up to PA my dad insisted on teaching us how to change a tire. When we are driving up to Nova Scotia, it is crucial to know how to change a tire. A life lesson we will carry with us long after highschool. (We hope we wont have to use this knowledge on our journey!) We followed the day with some rest, eager to start planning our adventure and indulge. This morning we had a hardy breakfast to sharpen our minds before we dove into our first session of planning. With lack of structure and many of ideas, our first hour wasn't the most efficient. However, we had to start somewhere. We then set out for a hike to the cabin to work our restless legs. Although it was buggy, we ventured our way up and back down in an hour and it was beautiful. Full circle moment from freshman year! After the hike we sat down with our mentor Annie for some realistic efficient planning, we did this for about 2 hours, we booked our first campsite! Blackwoods campground in Nova Scotia will be our...