Field Notes: The Media School Travel Blog

Today we got up at a crisp 8 a.m. to ensure we had enough time to pack up our belongings and clean the house, as we had to check out of our house on Johns Island. The morning consisted of hastily eating Honey Bunches of Oats and frantically throwing sheets into the washing machine.

We managed to leave on time and get to our first stop, Fort Sumter, a few minutes early. We were welcomed by my absolute favorite park ranger, Paula. We took cute pictures with the rangers out by the water, and some of us were sworn in as junior park rangers.

We then went up to the conference room to show the park rangers our videos. There were a few minor grammatical errors in our captions, but other than that the rangers really enjoyed the content we made for them. The main video I worked on during this trip was about visitor safety at Fort Sumter, and I was extremely proud and pleased with the final product. More importantly, I was thrilled that the rangers enjoyed it so much.

After saying our final goodbyes to Fort Sumter (and Paula), we headed out to the cars and piled in for our drive back up to Congaree. During this drive, I had the best nap of my life. It was the end of a long week, and it was wonderful to reward myself with a fat nap.

When my eyes fluttered opened, I saw the Congaree sign. We were all excited to be back where we started, and were amazed that only a week had passed. We had a glorious reunion with Ranger Greg and Ranger Jon, who were eager to see what we created. We showed them videos on hiking safety, controlled fires and the Fireflies Festival. They were really happy with how the videos turned out, and as a reward Greg gifted us limited-edition National Park Service volunteer medals from the NPS centennial celebration in 2016. We took a final picture with Greg and Jon outside of the Harry Hampton Visitor Center and said farewell to the men of Congaree.

We began our three-hour drive back to Asheville. My car had a great ride back, listening to all of the best musical soundtracks. My favorite part of the drive back was our stop at Dunkin Donuts.

Finally, we arrived back in Asheville and decided to grab dinner at Mod Pizza, where we got some free garlic bread. As I enjoyed my pineapple pizza, I looked around the table and was so thankful that I got to have this experience with these people. We returned to our cabin to have a team meeting and make final edits.

Today was a special day because we got to see our hard work pay off. Seeing the gratitude on the park rangers’ faces made the stressful nights of editing well worth it. This trip has been incredibly memorable and refreshing, and I’m sad for it to end but look forward to seeing how the parks use our work and how our friendships continue to grow.