"Work" here is a strange thing. Here, work means waking up at 5 am and making lunch in the cold, empty morning. Eating my breakfast of eggs and cereal and marginally wilted fruit along the way, huddled on a log with the rest of the crew. Work is the bump- bump- bump of the van rumbling along a long dirt road at 8 in the morning, and the gentle strain of swinging on a daypack, a gallon of water and lunch within. Work then becomes the day, long and grand, experienced through the shock of a tool in hand and thick plastic of our eye protection.
Work here is a strange thing. A word that once meant folding clothes and desperately watching the clock takes on a meaning entirely different in emotion and proportion. Work is, to be clear, exhaustion; it is cold, heat, soreness, and work. But here, nestled high in the rocky mountains it is also soaring views and alpine breaths; it is unconstrained laughter and meaningful conversations over the thunking of tools. And at the end of the day, the body relaxed in the quiet satisfaction of true exertion is the road, long and beautiful and so entirely American, seen through the window of the van holding a family comfortable, half-asleep, and so entirely at home.