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.