Where do I begin? It has been two weeks since announcing my retirement and putting a date on when we will no longer be affixed to a single address.  Although I had been discussing, in general, my full-timing plans for years, and a good number of people knew that we had already disposed of our home, my announcement was still met with some surprise by a few.  Then there were the others that asked what took me so long.

Things started out a little slow but have been picking up.  The first thing that happened, quite by surprise, was a call about a volunteer job.  Getting into one of the more sought after positions usually requires the building of a resume by doing some of the less desirable volunteer jobs first.  We started putting applications in with the Corps of Engineers, Texas Parks and Wildlife and National Park System last year in anticipation of it taking awhile to get picked up by one of them.  On the Thursday before making my formal announcement we got a call from the National Park System.  They had a position open starting in August and asked if we were available.  "As a matter of fact, we are"; I said.  "What do you have in mind?".

The volunteer coordinator explained that it was a three month assignment as a campground host on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  Wow, are you kidding me?  That is a job that Cyndee and I had researched more than a year ago and decided it was one of our top five 'dream jobs'.  And this is the very first offer we get!!  I am taking this as nothing but good karma.

We will have a four day on, three day off schedule and our coordinator told us to pick the four days we wanted.  Well alrighty.  Our daily routine will consist of assisting campers occupying one of the 95 sites in the campground.  The campground stays full and has a turn-over of about 20 sites a day.  We'll check the sites to be sure they are ready for the next campers and do rounds a couple of times a day.  The park service is supplying us with a brand new Polaris side-by-side ATV as our transportation while on duty.  We will also be eyes and ears at night while the rangers are gone.  They will give us radios that we can use if the need arises.  One of our "assignments" is to turn the radios in to the rangers at 8:00 am each day we are on duty.  Oh the stress of it all, I don't know how we will manage.

But there is one little detail that probably makes this job not for everybody.  The nearest place that would pass for a grocery store is 85 miles away in Utah.  If you want a full shopping experience such as a Super Walmart then you have to go another 65 miles.  So, a 300 mile round trip for grub; its do-able.  Another 'perk' that the campground offers is that they have a large refrigerator that we will share with the other host couple.  We'll see if we can keep our shopping trips to one a month.

While it may be a haul to buy groceries, the payoff is living in a stunning environment.  Just take a look what will be our front yard.