To start with, I have finished working with the company: Aubertine and Currier in Watertown, NY. I returned to work in the beginning of March after a multi-month lay-off starting in December, but had been contemplating a change in careers for a while now. I gave them a 3 week notice and had to wrap up a bunch of projects / get things settled for my departure. I have worked for them for almost three years now and was getting pretty settled in but the work I was doing didn’t really agree with my ambitions or self-fulfillment so I decided it was time for a change. Land surveying is a great profession and it’s a very real possibility that I will return to it someday but for right now I’m ready to see some of what life has to offer outside of Upstate NY. I have been offered an intern position working with the National Park Service in Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui. The position is actually through the SCA (Student Conservation Association) which is a truly spectacular agency (http://www.thesca.org/). I have been working with them to set this internship up and everything has been real smooth and easy with their help. Basically the SCA is hired by federal and private agencies to help people gain experience through internships. It works great. I filled out a long application listing my interests, activities, education, and work experience, then applied for different internships around the country that I was interested in. The SCA weeds through and picks out the top candidates to send off their information to the intern coordinator at the agency (the NPS in my case). There is a short phone interview and then you find out if you are invited into the position. The whole process took place for me over a span of about 2 months, and really was no hassle at all. I really got lucky with such a sought-after location like Hawaii and I’m very excited to get started.
These last several weeks since letting my employers know that I’m leaving have been pretty busy. I’m trying to consolidate my whole apartment and move out of Watertown a truckload at a time. Oh yeah, that reminds me of another change. I no longer drive around the little Toyota Corolla but now own a nice 2002 Chevy Silverado. It has the towing package and extended cab so it’s perfect for me. I can tow my boat or camper if I decide to buy one, haul all my gear, and haul around canoes/kayaks easily… far surpassing the limitations of the small Corolla.
My new internship at Haleakala N.P. is interpretive: I will be giving tours, staffing the visitors center/summit, giving a presentation or two and similar activities. The really cool thing, I hear, is visiting the summit of the volcano early in the morning and watching the sunrise. It’s supposed to be spectacular; I will be staffing that area during those times as well. I have read all about the park on the government website (http://www.nps.gov/hale/index.htm) and every section of it sounds amazing. The totally different eco-systems found around the park at different elevations make this park unique and appealing. My station will be at the top, just over 10,000 feet high in elevation… quite the climb for a small island, I can’t wait to see the view from top. The park also has numerous hiking/camping opportunities that I plan on exploring in depth.
This change from land surveying to interpretive services with the NPS is the first step in a plan I have to transition into a new job/lifestyle that hopefully ends in full-time employment with one of the many excellent government agencies that protect our national resources and share their beauty with the public.
Ok, enough about my life changes, my sister graduated from boot camp! Kelly had joined the Navy and just recently graduated from boot camp. She has been happily telling me about San Diego where the navy flew her for school/training in her new job – sonar technician. She has some great stories already and I’m excited for her and can’t wait to see where she ends up with this naval journey.
Over this winter, while I was layed off, and my arm was recovering, I made 2 trips down to Florida to spend time with my parents while they traveled around the south with their motorhome. The first time I flew down and back and spent 10 days with mom and dad exploring the everglades and …
The second trip: my parents had driven back to NY to see my sister off to boot camp, I decided to drive back south with them and we stopped in NC to see my Aunt, Uncle, and two cousins which was an awesome time. We left there and continued onto Florida where we spent a week exploring northern FL this time and ended up in Pensacola, camped at the National Seashore. It was a beautiful trip and I’m happy my parents were gracious enough to let me live/vacation with them for a good chunk of this winter. These Florida trips can be found and described in detail over the past few months within my dad’s blog: http://www.relaxedrush.blogspot.com/
The last item I wanted to write about today was a hiking trip I took a few weekends back with two of my best friends: Matt and Caitlin who live in Speculator in the Adirondacks. The three of us and my other good friend Brian spent the day Saturday relaxing and grilling at their cabin all day. Sunday the three of us headed out to explore a few waterfalls we read about in an informative hiking guide for Hamilton County that Caitlin had. The falls were on Groff Creek and can be found outside the town of Wells. The day was perfect, sun shining, temp in the high 50s low 60s… great for hiking through snow. I was under the impression, based on snow levels here in Watertown, that there would be little to none where we would be hiking… I was wrong. Turns out, there was still about a foot of snow on the ground that we had to crunch through when we couldn’t walk on top of the crust. This made for a longer hike but I still enjoyed it. We crunched our way along what seemed a couple miles, and spent the morning/early afternoon exploring above and under these rushing waterfalls. The melt and runoff waters really make small streams into huge rivers and I love this time of year in NY for that. Streams take on a whole new look and if you return later in the year (Summer) its like visiting a different place because the rapids could look completely different.
In the plans: I have a couple trips planned for May so far. The first being a trip to the Catskills to climb the final two fire tower mountains that I need in southern NY. A couple friends from PA are driving up and I’ll meet up with them and camp a night or two while hiking these mountains. Secondly, Matt + Caitlin and I have been talking about making a trip to northern PA, in the Scranton area, to hike an 8 mile loop that passes by 21 waterfalls! The largest reportedly being near 100 foot drop. It sounds like a great place to camp a night and hike around to see all of the falls.
I plan on keeping my blog up-to-date throughout my journeys (much better than I have recently). Thanks for following along. If anybody ever has questions about some of these trips such as location, difficulty, etc. please contact me and I can point you in the right direction and give you additional info.
ps. I will replace the 3 waterfall videos at the bottom of my page with the three I took from Groff Creek when I get to a place with faster internet connection!
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