The New "Whip"

Whip: “Slang for an expensive vehicle, car, automobile. Typically used in the hip hop culture.” – Urban Dictionary

Like the look of this baby? Me too. It’s Maple 4’s new 15-passenger (15P) van and it’s pretty sweet. All vinyl interior, auxiliary cable input to play your iPod, power locking doors and windows with alarm-enabled keychain, double-angle side view mirrors, electronic tire pressure gauge, and a cherry red paint job. Greg says he even wants to hook it up with some used 26” rims off Craigslist. (Is there a policy against this?) I’ve got to tell you I’m pretty excited, as I have been rallying to get our team a new vehicle since we reached 71,400 miles on the odometer of our previous 15P. This bad boy has just over 100 miles and is a 2011 model! I feel spoiled. However, getting this new van is definitely justifiable, as we’re about to drive 10 hours to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the next few days and need to make sure we don’t break down on the side of the road along the way.

The only dilemma is deciding on a good nickname. Suggestions so far include Red Lightning, Steve McQueen’s Speed Machine, and Cliff the Big Red Van (Big Red for short). What do you guys think? Any suggestions? We couldn’t really get a nickname to stick to our old van, so this is a chance to start afresh and show this government vehicle that it’s loved and appreciated. Post your ideas in the comments section. As for this guy, well, R.I.P. man.

Old Van. RIP

We had a good run. Your paint-covered upholstery, uncomfortable seatbelts, lack of shocks, and mind-boggling blind spots will become a thing of legend. May you be sent to the happy place where vans go to die…or be sold for use at airport hotel. Godspeed.

~Darcy

The gust that broke the building’s back

Courtesy Associated Press

There is something about storms that wakes me up the in middle of the night. I’m not sure if it’s the lightning, the thunder, or the water gushing through my open window, but I wake up every time. I didn’t think anything strange about the storm Monday morning. I was getting ready to go back to sleep until I noticed that my alarm was set to go off in five minutes: 5am PT.




View from Darcy’s window

Monday, July 11 is our first day back from summer break. Today, Maple 4 was supposed to debrief about our project with the Vinton Parks and Recreation Department and then have a briefing about our new project. All of that would be delayed.

In a matter of minutes, the storm picked up intensity. Luckily, all corps members made it to the tunnels under the Braille School, leading to no serious injuries. For two and half hours, we sat in humid darkness, listening to the rumbles and roars of the wind and thunder. For two and half hours we wondered what had become of our lives on the surface.

Everyone has their own first impression of what they saw. My first thought? Katamari Damacy. Tornadoes spin everything around and make a mess. This had to be the work of the tornadoes nefarious younger, yet just as destructive, brother: straight line winds.

This tree is two feet in diameter

Everything had been rolled flat. Some trees snapped in half like twigs, other trees shoved straight out of the ground. Some roofs lost a few shingles, others had been picked up and tossed onto the front lawn.

Water gushes from every room in Cottage after the water main is broken

Cottage, the dorm of 30 corps members, four from Maple 4, and the location of our kitchen, took a hard hit. One tree was lobbed straight at it, fracturing the wall, impacting the ceiling, and cracking open a water main. Not a single room was safe from flooding.

Much of Main’s roof was removed in the storm

Main, where many sight-impaired summer campers and Braille School offices are located, had its roof involuntarily removed. The entire roof. Copper, wood, shingles. All of it. Picked up, flipped over, and set down on the front lawn.

Kish and Rosie from Maple Unit clear off the inverted roof so it can be removed

Do you know what we did? We were given the “All Clear” and we started working.




NCCC members clean up debris from storm

Bow saws, hand saws, pulaskis, axes, sledgehammers, hammers, crowbars, pry bars, rakes, chainsaws. We cleaned up trees, branches, twigs, boards, planks, nails, glass, copper, aluminum, bicycle helmets, Frisbees, garage doors, shingles, Styrofoam, and insulation. And that’s just on Monday.

Cedar unit assembles to clean up around Palmer Dormitory

On Tuesday, July 12, our team worked with our friends at the Vinton Parks and Recreation Department to clean up five acres of one of their parks. Five acres that had been covered in trees and roofing from buildings of several hundred yards away. The rest of Vinton was helped by the other 13 teams on campus (5 having left to help with prior obligations to disaster relief in Joplin and Saint Louis, MO).

Maple Unit Leader Jimmy chops with the Pulaski as M4 member Phil saws

One-hundred strapping young folks pushing their way into the town of 5100 to help clean up debris. If only every town were so lucky.

Kappa of Sunshine needs no explanation: “If you wake up one morning and notice it's a particularly beautiful day, you'll know we made it.”

~Phil

10 Things To Do In (and around) Vinton, Iowa

10 Cedar Rapids

Nicknamed “The City of 5 Smells” due to the aroma from the local Quaker Oats and dog food factories, Cedar Rapids is the closest major city to Vinton—a 45 minute drive. We do most of our grocery shopping here at good old Walmart. There are also some chain restaurants in the area like Olive Garden – if never-ending salad and breadsticks is your thing. Maple 4 worked in Cedar Rapids for a few days earlier this year, renovating flood-damaged homes with an organization called Block By Block. Though the city was hit hard by flooding of 2008, it's gradually re-building itself. Here we are with our site supervisor, Bob, from that project:

9 Amana Colonies

A cluster of communities settled by German Pietists in 1855, this area is now a tourism hot-spot. You can try schnitzel at the Ronneberg Restaurant, sip on a bottle of the local Millstream Brewing Company's root bear, or pop into the shops around town to buy knickknacks and fudge. For you 21+ readers, there are also some wineries where you can take tours and get free samples. Don't forget to stop by “Iowa's Biggest Rocking Chair” on your way out of town!

8 Party in the Park

This annual Vinton festival just celebrated its 20th anniversary last weekend. The 3-day event was marked by games, parades, food, music, a 5K race, and fireworks. Some highlights for me were a capella group Tonic Sol Fa, funnel cake, and a pulled beef BBQ sandwich I got from an elusive traveling smokehouse trailer, Smokin' On The Cedar, which makes its way around Vinton during the summer.

7 Mini Golf

How can you go wrong with a rousing game of mini golf at the Skate and Activity Center? Each hole tells you about a different tourist destination in Iowa, like the capitol building in Des Moines, the location where “Field of Dreams” was filmed, and the peculiar prehistoric Iowa effigy mounds.

6 Community Swimming Pool

On a hot summer day in Vinton, Iowa, everybody heads over to the community pool. It gets pretty crowded as you can see in the photo to the left. Part of our project this round was to repaint the pool, so it's neat to see so many people enjoying it.

5 Leon's Malt Shop

It is here that I recently located the ice cream of my childhood. Yes, the fabled FLAVOR BURST of my yesteryear. A Flavor Burst is basically a vanilla soft serve ice cream cone encircled by your flavor of choice. Genius. They used to have this at the local ice cream store in New Egypt, NJ when I was growing up, and I was pretty excited to see it in Vinton.

4 Berry's Lanes

Get your bowl on. This place is pretty much just an old-school 10-pin bowling alley. You can get a soda and burger while you throw a few rounds. Be sure to check out the wall of fame, which features some pretty hilarious shots of top-notch local bowlers from the last century.

3 American Legion Fish Fries

Let me paint a picture for you. Piled high on your plate are 3 or 4 delicious pieces of fried white fish. Then you've got your baked potato AND potato salad (double the starchy-goodness, folks), a slice of Betty Crocker cake (choose from 5 or 6 flavors), and baked beans. All that for only 6 bucks, 5 with the AmeriCorps hook-up. These happen the second Friday of every month, and I've been to 3 already because they're just that amazing.

2 Roller Skating

Not just a middle school hangout anymore, roller skating at the Vinton Skate and Activity Center is a must. Rockin' tunes and a disco ball really put this place over the top on the awesomeness scale. Plus it's under $5 to get in, and you can work off those fish fry pounds. I've also heard that roller skating was invented in Iowa, though I have not been able to verify this via Google.

1 Palace Theater

Definitely numero uno in my book of Things to Do in Vinton, the Palace Theater is where it's at. Though they only show 1 film per week, it's always a recent hit, and it only costs $2. For a dollar more you can see the recent 3D flicks. That's only 1 dollar per D! The theater is beautiful and staffed mostly by volunteers. I would definitely recommend checking this place out if you make it to Vinton.