New Job :) ...pictures will come soon!

I interviewed for the Park Interpreter job at Washoe Lake State Park last Thursday morning in Carson City, and on Friday afternoon, I got a call from Jenny (the supervisor there) and she offered me the job! Of course I said yes and she wanted me to start right away because very soon she will be going on maternity leave and I need to know a LOT before she leaves. Dave and I were eating lunch in Gardnerville after we walked around the Cowboy Poetry festival in Genoa at Mormon Station. I looked at my phone, saw it was Jenny, and couldn't decide if I really wanted to answer the phone! Dave's like, "What are you doing? Answer it!!!"

I am going back and forth doing both jobs until the 20th--which will be my last day at Fort Churchill! So I'm trying to make it as easy on both of them as I can, which is hard, but I am leading a hike on Sunday at Fort Churchill, then doing a park tour on the 15th (for the administrator, the deputy administrator, and the new accountant at the Division office), and helping with a school group that's bringing 140 kids to the park! Other days I will be at Washoe Lake learning as much as I can!

Thursday (yesterday) was my first day at Washoe with Jenny and it was awesome! Crazy, busy, confusing...and I had to leave for an hour for my school visit in Carson City--I did a talk about Fort Churchill for 90 4th graders in one classroom--then I went back to Washoe until 5:30 and headed home!

Jenny had to meet with the region manager, so for the morning, I wrote receipts and filled out forms for the group use area reservations for her three group use areas, went through the park library, and started reading the park's Master Plan. She manages two parks; the second park is Dayton State Park, in Dayton, NV. It's a much smaller park with a campground, trails to a historic mill site, and a group use area.

The second half of the day she showed me how they do deposits. While she was doing the deposit, the phone did not stop ringing--with a lot of crazy questions I couldn't answer yet--and other employees came in and out for various things. I can already see that it's going to be crazy, but it looks like it will be a lot of fun and seems like a very positive, energetic environment! Of course, I will miss Fort Churchill and all the people there, but I'm very excited for the new job!

Wish me luck :)

Procrastinating

I'm procrastinating...so I'll update my blog! I'm getting a portfolio ready for a job interview on Thursday at 9 a.m. It's only an hour and a half away from Yerington (an extra hour away from my current job). It's for a Park Interpreter at Washoe Lake State Park and Dayton State Park. I think it would be SO AWESOME! ...because it's got really cool history (tied to Virginia City and Fort Churchill, and Lake Tahoe, and the Sierra Nevada...), it's really, really pretty, and I like the people who work there.

I'm SO not good at job interviews, but I'm excited for this one, because it would be a fun job to have--not that I don't already have a cool job, but this would be a little greener, and it's a lake instead of all desert. They have a lot of hiking trails, even a paved bike trail.

Anyway, wish me luck :) :) :)

Lutherans in Yerington

After being here for 2 1/2 years, I finally looked at the schedule for the Lutheran church in Yerington. They have Bible studies Wednesday nights, new member classes on Thursdays, a contemporary service at 4:30 on Saturday afternoons, and a traditional service 8 a.m. on Sundays. I've been to two Bible studies so far on Wednesday nights, and one Saturday afternoon church service. I've missed going to church so I'm glad I finally went. I don't know what made me wait so long to find the Lutheran church here in town, but I'm glad I finally did! The people were very nice, welcoming, and so far I really like the Bible study. I work almost every Sunday, so I won't be able to go to the traditional service very often (which I think I would prefer over the contemporary...) but I'm glad I'm able to go in the first place! :)

Guided Hikes and Reporters...

I'm planning a guided hike this Sunday--four miles round-trip. The Public Information Officer got in touch with a reporter who wanted to do a "preview" of the hike. Our volunteer and I had already been planning to walk the trail and talk about what we were going to do, so we invited the reporter and photographer to come with us and it ended up being a really fun day!

Unfortunately the day they showed up the power was out in the whole park so touring Buckland Station didn't really work out...but the rest of the hike was fine because we were outside the whole time. We hiked from the museum to Buckland Station, where my office is. The power was out so the alarms were going off and I couldn't make them stop completely. The reporter wanted to plug in his phone to charge it but he couldn't do that, and the beeping alarm made it so he couldn't have done any recordings anyway.. Neither the reporter or photographer had brought water, but thankfully I had a couple small bottles in the fridge in my office. They wanted to hurry back so they could charge their equipment to get voice-over recordings for their footage so we took a short cut back.

We ended up sitting in the reporter's truck so the phone could charge and we could get the recordings, which worked out pretty well--it was quiet at least! He called me tonight to say the article was finished and I could look at the video link. I think it turned out really well, and you would never know we had technical difficulties that day! Click here for the video!

Just for fun...

I was out with the camera last night just before dark, walking one of the park's trails...thought I'd share a few "just for fun" pictures I took.

Looking up...

Cottonwood stand in the campground.

Waxing Gibbous Moon (looked it up on earthsky.org)

Parks Academy Pictures

I got an e-mail with a bunch of pictures from the Parks Academy...so now I have a few pictures of me talking in front of lots of people and I don't look scared! (in most of them...)

View of the crowd from the front of the room...

Lots of park rangers, park supervisors, park interpreters, maintenance staff and administrators...and I actually think that's me in front, just to the right of the screen. I looked over at my boss and his friend and they were laughing. Later they told me they were laughing because I'm not much taller than the podium...at least I can make people laugh :)

...and me, standing in front of all of them with a microphone! It ended up being a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be and now I know that speaking in front of a group of people that I know and work with won't kill me after all.

Parks Academy: Part Two

Well, my talk at the Parks Academy went way better than I expected it to! It was Wednesday morning, and it started right around 9:45 a.m. I talked for a solid 1/2 hour (I think) and it seemed like people were paying attention...except a few who were laughing because I wasn't quite tall enough to really be seen over the podium...!

I was really, really, really nervous for the first few minutes. Then I had a skit that I added at the last minute--a law enforcement ranger and a misbehaving park visitor. After that it was like someone flipped a switch. The nerves went away and I started having fun. The chocolate chip cookies I passed around helped a little too...

Anyway the rest of the Academy was fun--good presentations and two field trips that were great. We went to Oatman, AZ. It's a historic mining town sort of like Virginia City, NV with not-so-wild burrows walking around the town looking for handouts. Of course, I had to spend $1 on burrow food (compressed alfalfa)--big mistake! They follow you everywhere and if you ignore them, you get head-butted or bitten. One head-butted my knee so I ended up dumping the rest of the food on the ground for whoever wanted to fight over it. Oops....

The 2nd field trip was to Big Bend of the Colorado State Park and a rock art site close by.

...so I guess that I learned speaking in front of a group of 60+ people I work with won't kill me after all :)