On April 25th, I hopped on the lightrail at 3pm to head to the abduction site at Hayden Flour Mill. The first group of kids I met were from Corona, all wearing handmade tie-dye Rescue shirts and all willing to befriend a lone Rescuer on the lightrail. When I got to the abduction site, I met up with Scott and the other Schools for Schools kids. They were all busy volunteering, so I grabbed a piece of rope and started my own little group of soldiers. The girl that grabbed onto the rope behind me was Ada, and she quickly became my rescue buddy. We marched down Mill Ave, down University, over the bridge, down Palm Walk. Walking over the bridge was amazing...seeing the mile-long long of Rescuers, waving to cars, and hearing their honks of support.
When we got to the SRC field (our LRA camp), Ada and I built our humble little camp next to the Schools for Schools kids and waited. And waited. We went to Chuckbox for dinner, we wrote our letters, we played frisbee. And then Steve-O came to rescue us at 8:30! He gave an awkward talk, applauding us for staying out here overnight...and then he left. Right away. I'm thankful that he rescued us, but he could've put a little more effort into the movement. All the excitement from being rescued so quickly caused an impromptu dance party, and a good fourth of the Rescuers started a huge mosh-pit/ train/wave/ whatever we felt like doing. It was so much fun, but the Roadies eventually shut off the music and told us to go call Albuquerque moguls. At 9:30, we got the Rescue Rider talk...very few of us had heard of this part of the event and were totally unprepared. The two Phoenix Roadies and whoever else wanted to tag along were headed to Albuquerque...an 8 hour drive. I had nothing with me besides my cell phone, some markers, and a sheet. But I hopped into an SUV with 6 strangers and we caravaned with 10 other people to Albuquerque.
The 16 Phoenix Rescue Riders got to Albuquerque at 8:30 am to see a pretty hopeless situation. There were about 50 Rescuers left in the park, 4 Tucson Rescue Riders, and a very infuriated Parks and Recs guy who claimed we had misrepresented our event to him. Sleeping in his park is prohibited, and so the Albuquerque kids were not allowed to sleep the night before. The Parks and Recs guy threw in the towel when the media got there, screaming about how he was going to lose his job over this and he ordered us out of the park. There are about 70 of us at this point, so we decide to make the 2 mile march to the City Hall. So we walked, holding out city signs and screaming at the cars that passed by.
We got to City Hall and almost immediately, everyone pulled out their sleeping bags and got ready for a much needed nap. And then we saw the Parks and Recs guy creeping around...apparently he had followed our whole march and then alerted the police that we were camping in front of the City Hall.
The police told us that gathering in front of the Hall was only allowed during business hours, and, being a Sunday, we weren't allowed. The cops were being very understanding, however, and told us that they would allow us to move to the sidewalk in the side of the building, under a few conditions. First, we had to keep the sidewalk completely clear, which meant we were all sitting flush against the wall on our stuff, not allowed to stretch our legs out or hold up our signs. Second, we could not have our sleeping bags or pillows in sight. Which not only meant that we couldn't sleep, but that we had to freeze our asses off. The third condition is that we make no noise at all, and the fourth condition is that we be gone by dark. One cop threatened the Albuquerque Roadie with jail if even one of us broke a rule. She was a nervous wreck for the rest of the day.
So we sat. and we froze. and we slept for 5 minute intervals on our neighbors shoulders before being yelled at. We called our moguls. The creepy Parks and Recs guy called the media to tell them to watch for us getting arrested.
The cops finally stopped watching us around 12, so we moved into the sun and curled up to go to sleep (still no sleeping bags or pillows, but sidewalk naps are better than nothing). We held up our signs and talked to people passing by. We kept calling the mayor. Turns out that he was scheduled to come rescue us the night of April 25th at the park, but stood us up. He didn't answer our calls all day, and even some of his councilmen stopped by to talk to us and try to get him to come to us, but he wasn't having any of it. We even told him that all he had to do was give a statement over the phone, and he said no. We were camped right outside of his office, and he was ignoring us. Finally, by the end of the day, he blantantly told us to stop bothering him, he was not going to come out to see us.
At this point, we give up on him. We don't want him anyways, if he's such an asshole. So we concentrate on celebrities. We got a professional boxer to come by, but he wasn't famous enough to count. We figured out that Korn and Devil Wears Prada were in town, but Korn doesn't send the right message and DWP aren't famous enough. We tried to contact The Shins, who are from Albuquerque, but couldn't get through.
By 7:30, there are 25 of us left....only 4 people from the original Albuquerque group, everyone else is from Arizona. The IC headquarters has put us first on a list to receive a US senator in the morning, but that still means we need to stay another night. And we aren't allowed to sleep anywhere. One of the Albuquerque guys told us of a vacant house his parents owned, and gave us permission to sleep there. Everyone was so grateful...how many other cities got SHOWERS??? The bad news was that about half of the Arizona team had to return home. My SUV (8 people) and the Tucson crew were leaving Sunday night. Another Phoenix car was leaving Monday morning. We wished our teams good luck, we cried, we hugged, and we loaded up the SUV to come back home.
We got in at 3:30am, and I was literally so dehydrated and sleep-deprived that I could barely walk. I'm not sure how I made it home, as I could barely see. I fell into bed (no shower...ha), and slept through my alarm the next morning, waking up only a few hours ago to see that I had slept through 3 appointments today....good thing they weren't important. I'm really grateful that I didn't attempt to come home Tuesday morning and go straight to my job interview. Now at least I have 24 hours to rest up, get clean, re-learn all my native Arizona fishes and animal skulls, and get healthy....because it seems like 36 hours (it seems like so much longer!) of very little sleep, super cold temperatures with not enough clothes, junk food and dehydration is exactly the way to rekindle nasty viruses that one is trying to get over.
The first thing I did after waking up was check Twitter...Albuquerque got rescued this morning! They are headed to Wichita right now, and I am insanely jealous. I actually feel pretty depressed that I can't go, like I'm missing out on something huge. And I totally am. If I get cut from the hiring process tomorrow, I really want to head out to Wichita...even though all the friends I made are back in Arizona, and I'd have to start from scratch. And find some extra money laying around.
But hopefully, all the cities will be rescued by the time I have to make that decision.
I just really don't understand how there can be 7 cities left. How can people not care? How did the mayor of Albuquerque say no to us? It literally would've taken 10 minutes of his time, and he said no. It was a very interesting experience to be on that side of apathy. To just sit around and wait for someone to care...it's awful.
Being a part of this movement has been unforgettable, and I will be eternally grateful to the girl that stood behind me as I was saying "noo...i can't go to Albuquerque, I didn't feed my cats and I don't even have a sweatshirt with me..." She tapped me on the shoulder, gave me her sweatshirt and said "your cats will be fine. GO. you will never regret it."
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