Date: 2011-03-20
To: Catching-Up
Miles today: 0.0

Well, it¢s been about five months since I finished hiking the 2,179 mile Appalachian Trail. The last few months have been a brilliant roller coaster. I spent my first two months after trail in southside Chicago with my family. I had originally planned to spend the winter there and start paying off my modest student loan debt but the Chicago suburbs and winter got to me after awhile. Not to mention I had a hard time finding work and as a result spent alot of time sitting on my arse. This was pretty hard for me after spending 6 months walking everywhere and having new adventures around every corner. So I took off for Seattle (my self proclaimed home) to try my hand at finding life, work and ease there. I spent 5 weeks couch surfing, catching up with friends, applying for jobs and hiking before I decided that Seattle wasn¢t the right place for me either at this time in my life. At about that time, an old friend of mine named Jake contacted me with a unique job opportunity, work at the Grand Canyon. He had just landed a Management position at the Grand Canyon Recreation Center at the South Rim. I figured that I had two choices, a.) stay in Seattle and work at Trader Joes or Starbucks (the only two jobs that called me back there) and sign a lease that would tie up my entire summer OR b.) move to the Grand Canyon and take a whatever job there for cheap rent and an opportunity to pick up a summer seasonal job for summer 2011.I have been here since the end of January and am currently working as a supervisor for a gift shop on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is literally in my backyard and I am about a 5 minute walk away from Bright Angel trail which drops into the Canyon. I spent my first month here applying feverishly to jobs all over the country to work on trail crews, fire crews, in national parks, on the AT, on the PCT and on and on. I have submitted about 250 applications and heard back from just 2, which I did not get chosen for. Granted, hiring for summer seasonal jobs did not start until this month so there may still be hope for me to land a summer gig. But about a week ago, I decided that unless I get an offer for a job that I absolutely cannot pass up in the next 6 week then i am going to take off and thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail this summer. Crazy I know, but really I was feeling so much anxiety about this job search and finding a place that felt right to me that I had to do alot of soul-searching. Hiking the PCT this summer has been in the back of my head since last fall and when I actually made the conscious decision to hike this year, I felt so much weight lifted off of my shoulders. I went from begging the universe to float a good job my way to hoping that one doesn¢t surface now so that I can spend another summer hiking and living on a trail.This all makes me wonder what is going on in my head and what may happen to my life if I continue living out of a backpack and traveling in lieu of settling somewhere and actually having to make some life choices. Who knew I¢d still be finding my own way and learning to grow up at 30 years old!?!For more updates on me from now on, check out:http://bethontour.wordpress.com/