First Weekend Exploring

For my first "weekend" off my Saturday fell on friday, and Sunday on Saturday. Didn't make much difference to me, I was looking forward to getting out and exploring.

First business of my time off was to drive to Page to visit with the HR folks at Forever Resorts. They run the Lodge at the North Rim, where I had already secured a job for the summer, but I had applied for a different position coordinating the interpretation programs for the Lodge to ensure they meet National Park Service expectations and complement, not duplicate any existing NPS programs. I got the job and will be heading into the North Rim in mid to late April. Woohoo!

After getting that business out of the way I skipped over to Lake Powell for the night. Waking up this morning to a gorgeous sunrise just started the day off right. the remainder of the day was spend visiting a couple of BLM offices to get hiking maps, brochures etc., then finally it was time to get out and hike. The closest place I could find to hike that was on the way home was the Toadstools. What a great way to spend a couple of hours walking in the sun.

Towards the end of my hike the wind picked up and I found out first hand how the process of erosion works! I was sandblasted all the way back to the RV, then sideswiped by winds all the way home. It's still very windy now, maybe the windiest it has been since i got here last Sunday. The RV is rockin and rollin like I'm still moving, even though I'm parked!

View more pictures at: my Picasa album

When Does “Some” become an Obsession?

I’m almost finished packing up the RV to get on the road. Carrying my accommodation with me is going to be a great benefit, but being much smaller quarters then I’m used to required many difficult decisions. To take, or not to take? has been the question applied to everything I own. The big items were easy, places found for them on a “where will it go?” basis: kayak mounted rooftop, and bicycle on a rack behind. Car, not able to be towed, had to be sold. Smaller but needworthy items were categorized, multiples scrutinized, and just a few of each selected. Goodwill has benefited well from me in these past months.

It’s the smallest of the items that has given me the most problems. What harm could come from taking a few extra books, CDs, etc? Extra t-shirts and socks will always come in handy.

But therein lies my obsession: Socks!

I have a couple of small drawers for ‘personals’, one contains underwear, gloves, ear muffs, etc. The other is crammed full to the rim with socks: warm wool socks for winter, long socks, short socks, black socks for under dark pants, light socks for under light, silk and wool liner socks, my treasured bamboo toesocks for hiking liners, mini socks for tennis shoes and sandals, even a pair of Santa socks for Christmas! I haven’t counted them. I wouldn’t dare. The fact remains, the drawer is barely closeable. I just went through them again, and can’t part with any. I may have need of every pair. I can’t possibly cull them any smaller.

As I forced the drawer closed one last time I made a pact with myself: I just won’t buy any more socks. But the thing that always draws me when I’m shopping is socks. I love to feel them, I love the colors and textures. I almost always look at the sizing chart to see if they would fit, even though I know I don’t need more socks. My REI dividend came this week. No prizes for guessing that one of the first things I checked on REI’s site was the current price of bamboo toesocks, size small!

Maybe I should just get a bigger RV……

The Waiting Game

I expected to be in Arizona by now, but plans change.

The good news is that I have secured a summer job, starting early May at the Grand Canyon. I've been fielding a couple of other offers too, but think I really would like to spend the season on the North Rim of the Canyon. I found the job through a great website www.coolworks.com. They list seasonal jobs, mainly in the outdoors hospitality industry. It's a very busy time of year for summer seasonal workers, and their website is hopping right now with new job postings every day, and a social networking subsite that is full of other folks like me that are going through the application, acceptance/rejection, consideration of multiple apps and opportunities, phase. For those of us that have accepted an offer, the chat room is full of "63 days", "I wish May would come" comments. I have been pleasantly surprised to "meet" a mixture of other likeminded folks that have either been doing the seasonal thing a while, and are willing to share their expertise, and other newbies like myself, that constantly seek every tiny gem of information. Some are heading to the same place as I for the summer, and I look forward to meeting them all for real in May.

To occupy myself until May I'm going to volunteer in a National Park office in northern Az. I had hoped to leave for there before now, but the application process was delayed by the Federal background investigation process, my trip overseas, and now the (probably well deserved) vacation plans of the NPS Ranger in charge of coordinating the volunteers there. He will be back in a couple of weeks, and I intend to be there, ready and willing, when he returns.

Getting out to Az will be exciting. I have loved my previous hiking trips in northern Az, and looking forward to some new adventures there soon. Obviously I'm going to be heading back in to colder weather again, but it appears that the worst of winter is over, even there, and in fact the Az Strip had warmer temperatures than Tampa this past Monday. Cool should make for some good day hiking, and hopefully a couple of overnight backpacks before too long.