“Making Warm Chocolaty Memories”

Written by Ellen Zocher, a Colorado Youth Corps Association AmeriCorps member, with the Los Valles Region:

Building the new trail, still cold and increasingly forlorn

During our first week of work, one of my crewmates noticed this slogan on their hot cocoa packet, and we’ve made fun of it ever since.  Don’t get me wrong,  when you wake up to several feet of snow, and it takes you at least twenty minutes to open all of your food bags because the knots have literally frozen solid, a cup of hot cocoa totally hits the spot.  But to call the memory warm and chocolaty is a stretch.

Today was amazing though, because today our crew actually made a memory that could accurately be described as warm and chocolaty! Although, it wasn’t the hot cocoa that made it warm. It was our first day at the new worksite. We left the old worksite yesterday, due to the four feet of snow that left us a) freezing cold and b) unable to locate the trail we were supposed to be working on.

But when we woke up in Salida this morning, still shaken and exhausted from the events of yesterday, surprise surprise! Four inches of the snow followed us home. So we weren’t the happiest campers as we started work on the new trail, cold and wet once again. It seemed like relief would never come.

Yvonne and Tinkerbell, visiting a now warm and happy Lauren

That was, until a suburban goddess by the name of Yvonne descended onto our worksite, carrying not one, but four thermoses full of hot chocolate, and mugs for all nine of us.  Her act of genuine kindness, along with some licks from Tinkerbell, her fluffy companion, was what finally melted our frozen hearts and got the whole crew looking up again, just as the snow finally started to melt.

This warm chocolaty memory reminds me why I love this work and this crazy place called Colorado. The mountains are cold, but you won’t find warmer people anywhere else.