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SHAWN GREEN RETIRES

As Trails Coordinator for Shenandoah National Park (and in his various previous roles in the Park), Shawn has been a steadfast friend of the PATC for over 30 years. Shawn has helped organize housing for PATC crews, helped coordinate volunteer responses to storms and other emergencies, and helped explain the significant contribution of PATC volunteers to others in the Park Service. Shawn was always available to work with PATC leaders, and to offer words of encouragement when problems seemed to overwhelm the ability of volunteers to tackle the problem.

After his severe back injury a few years ago, Shawn became interested in vocational therapy, and now is moving toward a second career in that field. Shawn will stay active in the Park as a PATC Trail Overseer.

Best wishes to Shawn in his future endeavours, and many thanks for the years of friendship and service.

NEW FLICKR SITE FOR BLUE AND WHITE CREW
Marty Griffith has set up a new photo site for the Blue and White Crew.
The address is http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueandwhitecrew
We'll be adding more photos to the site. If anyone in the crew would like to post photos, please let me know and I'll provide the username and password.

MELANIE ON THE ROAD

Greetings All~

The time has come! I've been talking about it for a long time and some of you may have wondered if I'd ever really do it, but the time if finally here! I am setting out on my journey and for those of you who want to keep up with where I am and what I'm up to, I'm sending this link to my blog:

http://hikermeljourney.blogspot.com/

It feels funny to have a blogspot. It's like a teenager thing to do! I suppose taking a trip across the country, living in a tent and a car is sort of a youngish thing to do too. Well, I'm a youngish 45 and I'm ready to hit the road! I have three exams at PVCC on Tuesday and after that I am done with school until I start at UVA in August.

Before I head out on my big journey west I have another adventure planned: On Thursday, May 1st I'm flying to Winnipeg to meet up with Kurt. From there we're going to drive to Ely, MN to do some trail work with a crew in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for a week. Yes, this is what I do for fun! We will be canoing, backpacking, portaging, and doing trail work. I don't know what kind of work we will be doing, but I'm planning on having a great time : )

I get back to Virginia on the afternoon of May 12th. I'll be home for a couple of days packing my car etc. and then really heading west on May 15th. I am so looking forward to seeing this country and hiking in as many national parks as I can. I have friends and family that I'll be visiting that I haven't seen in a long time. Like my uncle in OR, whom I haven't seen since I was 18 years old (do the math~ that's a very long time!).

Other than my first week, I don't really know when I'll be where. I've never done this sort of thing before and so it's difficult to plan! So, for those of you that I'm planning on visiting I will stay in touch along the way and will give you as much notice as possible as to when I'll be passing through. Please feel free to email me or call me: 540-717-2821. I will at times have limited access to internet and my phone so don't be upset (or worried) if I don't respond immediately!

As far as the blog goes, there's nothing much there yet because I haven't hit the road yet. There's a poem I wrote in December 2006 when I first decided to make this trip. And, there's pictures of Sedona and the Grand Canyon from the trip Kurt and I did in November. It's not part of my official journey, but it was an awesome trip and an awesome hike! Don't let anyone tell you that you can't hike down to the Colorado River and back in a day. It's not a difficult hike. I wouldn't want to do it in July (ask Patrick and Uli about hiking the Grand Canyon in July :) but in November it was great! The worst part was the mule pee!!

Ok, so this is it; I'm off! Blessings to all of you and please stay in touch!!

Namaste'

Love, Melanie~

NEWS FROM BAGHDAD
Captain Erwin is due home in June!
CENTRAL DISTRICT OVERSEER VACANCIES

No current vacancies