Solo Trip to Grand Canyon

One of the things I most appreciate about my new career with the National Park Service is the opportunity for learning and development.  Though I loved working for the Peace Corps, training opportunities were pretty rare given the fact that the five-year rule caused so much turnover among staff.  Guess there's not much point in investing in the long-term development of your employees if they're cycled out so quickly.  

The National Park Service offers a five-part training series for new permanent employees.  Three of those portions are online, but the other two include a 10-day course at the Grand Canyon and a four-day course in Washington, D.C.  I was so thrilled when I learned about this because I'm the kind of person who loves training and big group experiences (I realized at training that not all people do!).  

Thanks to Tori and the help of my parents, I was able to be away from home for nearly two weeks.  The training was excellent and made me think a lot about long-term goals with the agency.  And of course, outside of the training, it was pretty amazing to spend time with 47 other adults.  Beautiful hikes, good conversations, and snowy adventures were had by all!

In preparation for my big solo trip, I downloaded books and podcasts and planned on doing voluminous amount of reading, writing, and learning.  I definitely learned a great deal related to my work, but I didn't read one page of my book and I didn't write one blog post.  So it was a bit of a fail in that respect, but mostly because I was busy socializing and enjoying my adult time in other ways.

Hopefully Tori will get a permanent job with the National Park Service at some point (she's on a term contract right now) and then I can repay the favor.