The Spot Between the Fish and the Vegetables



Terps Helping Turtles is a go! The team got on the road around 8:30am yesterday and began our journey stocked to the teeth with snacks. Nelson and Sabrina took the wheel(s) for the first leg of the trip, and the cars jammed out to everything from K-pop to classical. Conversation topics ranged from arguments over the moral existence of altruism to a debate over whether 2000s music would be classified in the "oldies" genre.

Since our normal visitor center lunch stop was closed, we took a short detour to lake near Gaston, North Carolina. The nearby paper mill produced odors of the most unique quality- so distinct, in fact, that two participants in two separate vehicles narrowed down the smell to one location: the spot at the Great Wall supermarket in between the fish aisle and the vegetables. Lunch on the lake was beautiful, but our enjoyment was cut short by a height chart on a nearby children's playground. According to the sign, Hannah was 5.5ft. She's actually 6'3''. It was a travesty. Anyway, after lunch we embarked once again on a journey through the bowels of North Carolina, and a few sketchy turns and Confederate flags later, we were seeing signs for Topsail, North Carolina!

We got to the house and immediately realized that we had stumbled upon a Pinterest fanatics dream home. Teal, beached themed decor covered the walls, and coastal-themed sculptures sat perfectly arranged on the furniture. Some participants took a short trip to the beach (which is one row of houses away) to enjoy the gorgeous weather, and then enjoyed some hearty spaghetti and "espicy meatballs" (Xie 2018).

The extended post dinner reflection was humbling and brought the group closer together, and we turned in for the night excited for our first day of volunteering! We're excited to keep you all posted on our adventures for the rest of the week.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TURTLES!!! And THE Most Inspiring Person on the Planet

Image
Rise and shine! We woke up early this morning to get a jump-start on our service experience. After a quick breakfast of Honey Nut Cheerios (not sponsored) and oatmeal, we headed out to the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center. We met up with some of the volunteers to figure out what we would be doing for the day. With a very warm welcome, the Sunday volunteers explained some of the tasks we would be doing. Four members of our group ventured into Sick Bay to care for the more critical sea turtles, while the rest of us filed into Sea Turtle Bay to care for the other residents of the hospital. Donald and I were in Sea Turtle Bay: we walked in to see large tanks containing Loggerhead, Green, and Kemp's Ridley sea turtles. The largest tank was home to Snooki, a 350-pound Loggerhead, who Donald and I had the pleasure of meeting last year. A few volunteers introduced us to some of the sea turtles, and then we jumped right into volunteering tasks. We started by using C
Read more

Deep Down, We Are All Essentially Turtles.

Image
Day 3 started very gloomily with the skies being dark and cloudly. We left the house at 7:15 A.M. as it was pouring down rain. However, when we arrived at the Turtle Hospital, we immediately felt our day brighten up! The volunteers were welcoming as always, although unfortunately the turtles seemed agitated by the incoming thunderstorms.  Both of us were assigned to work at Turtle Bay today since we both had a chance to work in Sick Bay in prior days. We are starting to become accustomed to the routine - at 8 A.M. we were ready to feed the turtles, of course feeding the pills first and making sure stray food did not clog the pipes. After feeding, we were responsible for cleaning the tanks by scrubbing the tanks (and the turtles!) and making sure the tanks were sanitized using a Clorox towel. Afterward, we went outside to clean the fishy and stinky nets and buckets used in Turtle Bay and Sick Bay - once we were done with them, they smelled good as new! We luckily also got to clean t
Read more