I Set Forth On A Journey!

I worked at the theater for three years.  It was actually a psychic in New Orleans who said I wouldn't be working at Cinemark much longer when I had no intention of quitting.  I have two degrees in archaeology... but I was happy working as an assistant manager of a level-one movie theater in Ohio. Hey, it isn't all bad! Free movies and popcorn, Christmas parties, poster auctions, award shows, special screenings before the movie release, and of course many interesting and fun people to work with!


After I graduated from college, I wondered why I still worked at the theater.  There was nothing keeping me from traveling the world looking for adventure now that school was over. Sometimes, I thought about buying a plane ticket to anywhere and just leaving for a while to spice up my life.


Well, the psychic said that I was just sitting around waiting for something to happen without really trying to do anything myself... which is true... I kept waiting for something amazing to happen! I thought maybe one day an opportunity would just fall into my lap, and well, it kind of did...


All I had to do was sign up to have archaeology jobs sent to my email via ShovelBums. I got tons of emails every couple days about available jobs, but none really seemed that interesting, until I got this email:


 1 Archaeological Technician, AmeriCorps, Great Basin Institute, Nevada. 
Recruiting an archaeological technician to work as part of a two-person team surveying historic and pre-historic cultural resources that will be impacted by the closing of historic mines. Extensive travel is required. Project work is conducted in 15 of Nevada's 17 counties.


Roam around Nevada looking for cultural resources in abandoned mines? If that's not chock-full of adventure, I don't know what is! Plus, I'll get to experience so many things that many people know are out there but never get a chance to see for themselves! Mountain sheep, desert tortoise, Joshua trees...


Of course... there are a couple of... um... interesting details... such as I will be camping in the field for about six days at a time, and I've never been camping! And I will be pooping in the middle of the desert, how do you even begin to deal with that!?!? Did I mention sleeping among rattlesnakes and scorpions!?!? Yikes! But every adventure starts with a trek, I mean, Frodo didn't exactly take a limo to Mordor. I suppose it would have made things pretty dull... 


Still, driving to Nevada is going to be the hard part. Three days in my car with over 128,000 miles that may or may not survive the journey, with a radio that doesn't work, by myself... I shouldn't have read that magazine article in Cosmo! A girl was traveling across the country for a new job when she stopped for the night at a hotel... AND NEVER CHECKED OUT! Her mangled body was found in the woods days later. As if I didn't have enough to worry about! Sheesh! My dad thinks I should buy a gun. He thinks I could use it in the field to shoot rattlesnakes that crawl into my tent, or crazy miners who are hiding in the abandoned mines?? I think I will do more harm to myself probably... 


Well, the job is one week on then one week off from May 10th to September 17th.  I will be living in an Extended Stay Hotel in Reno on my weeks off... maybe take some mini-vacations to Las Vegas, to California, maybe visit my family once or twice... I will miss Reshanne the most of course, she's my twin sister and my other half of an egg.  There's no internet connection in the field, but I will add new posts when I get back from my latest adventure in the Nevada wilderness.