Day 18

From: Shureice
Date: July 18, 2000
Subject: Arrival of the JP's

Today is the day that the JP's come. I'm very anxious to meet these guys, but a little worried, too.

Today we will head down to Shelby to pick them up at the train station. We were to leave at about 4:00, so we could get there at about 5:00.

But before all of this, we went to the JP site to do a little overburden. We left really early, [but] Marco wanted to turn back because he wanted gloves so that he wouldn't blister his hands.

We went back to the museum and looked for a few more things too. We didn't find any gloves until we looked in the glove compartment in the van on the way back.

When we got there, we worked and goofed around a bit — Todd had the best jokes. We did quite a bit of overburden (removing excess layers of sediment from the site), and Marco found a crocodile tooth. I asked to see it with my eyepiece and dropped it. Marco looked for it for about half an hour and wasn't ready to give up even when it was time to leave the site. He was crushed. Not only did I feel bad, but also I felt like a klutz. He didn't talk to Todd or me for a little while.

On the way to lunch we tried to cheer him up and I apologized using one of my weird voices (he hates this) and at lunch he felt a little better. Todd recommended that I apologize without the weird voices, and I did, and he did not completely forgive me, because when we were washing the cars and stuff he was threatening me with tools. I really knew that he had to be okay after this.

At 5:00 Marco, Kathryn Thomas, Todd, Becca and I left for Shelby, to pick up Gabe (Project Exploration Co-founder and Co-captain, a really cool teacher who has trained the JP's for 2 weeks prior to coming to Montana, not to mention being the one responsible for sending me and Marco here this year and the year before), Jack, Denise, and 13 JP's. We joked around a bit and before we knew it we were there.

We made a really cool sign for the new arrivals. When they got there, they got unloaded and we introduced ourselves. I was very happy to see Gabe and Jack. One of the JP's was Makerah, a girl that I knew a while before all the other JP's. She was an SES (Sisters Empowering Sisters) sister like myself.

The JP's had these cool lampshade hats and had this kung fu theme going. This was a really cool group. Then we loaded up and I borrowed one of those hats from a JP named Yolanda, so I could pick a fight with one of them. Hiiiiyahhh!!!

Then we headed to their hotel, unpacked, and were off. Gabe let me borrow a sweater that was not as stifling as the one I had on and had me take the JP boys to John Henry's for pizza. They did not wait to start eating (even though I suggested this). Griffey was just maxin' and Kit (the dashing fellow) from the year before was chilling. I was struggling to wait for the girls to come along before I inhaled the food. The boys were teasing me with their food and finally the girls came and then I blacked out, and when I woke up, all the pizza was gone.

Makerah and I practiced a little skit and showed everyone after dinner. It was a lot of fun. Gabe's humor is still very cool. I left early because I promised Texel we'd go swimming in the pool that night. Zu Zu and I found ourselves painting Hawaiian henna on our hands and feet though. I called my family and then I blacked out again for about eight hours.

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