Hey everyone,
Gosh it has been forever since I have blogged and I have really missed it, and now I am just that much farther behind in catching up on everything. Well after spending a year and three and a half months in Phoenix, AZ I finally left. After I got back from my six-week road trip at the end of September 2018 it was just a really rough time for me. While I was on the trip I had some car issues that I was able to temporarily fix so I could get back to Phoenix. Once I got back I had the shop I was working for do some major fixes and repairs to my car which took three weeks and $2,800.00….I have had mixed emotions about this job as time has gone on…..I’ll try and share the frustrations as well as the blessings as I do some catching up in my blogging. So for starters with my car things could have been a lot worse…..I had access to the company truck if I needed to run to the grocery store, not having the money upfront to put into my car I was able to make payments on the repairs and have my car back on the road to use. The reason it took three weeks to fix is that it took over a week to just get the right bracket I needed that helps hold your transmission to the frame, along with the motor mounts which I had to have replaced, the arms and an oil leak. Having to drop the transmission while the car is sitting on the ground on jacks and putting it back in is a pain in the butt for the mechanic and time-consuming……so frustration number one is our shop not having a lift…..even though one was purchased at the Richie Brothers auction but was never put in so, therefore, more labor went into the job which cost me more money even though I also got a 10% employee discount.
By this time the holidays were approaching and the holidays are always hard for me. I was invited by a couple of friends to spend Christmas with them, but I just did not want to. Christmas is for families and I just felt I would be the third wheel and feel out of place. I did have a Thanksgiving dinner with my friend Susanna and Endel which was nice. For Christmas, the shop was going to be closed for a few days so I made plans and reservations to go to Las Vegas, but at the last minute I caught a terrible cold and my head was hurting so badly I just could not even make the 4-hour drive, so I stayed home and nursed my cold through Christmas and New Years and then I was all well. The weird thing was I had not been sick in the last couple of years and out of the blue I catch this crud which took two weeks to get over and now here I am 5 months later and have not been sick again. There was a reason, I will never know that I was not to make that trip.
So I got through the holidays and the new year 2019 started…..I was feeling really down and depressed. I just was not happy working at the shop, things were going downhill and very frustrating. I no longer knew really what my job was any more or even what I would be doing each day. There were weeks I was working 25-30 hours a week. I needed to be working 40 hours a week, I was barely making my bills and my debt to the shop was getting paid very, very slowly. I was on an active search for a new job…..nothing was really popping out at me that seemed like a good match. I went on one job interview that I thought would be good, but that was a joke. I had to take some random, abstract test and if I passed it then I got an interview….well I did not pass it. So as February rolled around things were gearing up in Phoenix for the Spring Training games that would start the end of February. I got on the Delaware North job website and was looking at jobs (this is the same company I worked for at the Grand Canyon), well lo and behold there was a cash room position at the Maryvale Sports Complex for the Milwaukee Brewers just 10 minutes down the road. I applied for it and in just a couple of days, I was called in for an interview and hired on the spot. I was so excited because I would be making a few dollars more an hour than I was at the shop, it was part-time so it would fill in the empty holes that had sprung up working at the shop and it would get me away from the heavy depression and unhappiness that was going on at the shop. Those 5 weeks working at the ballpark was just what I needed and I had an awesome time. I will write more about my time and experience there on a separate blog post. In the meantime, I was still looking for something long term after the spring training season ended and with only one week left I was on the Delaware North job website again and ran across a position for a Cash Auditor at Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National Park. I right away applied and within two weeks I received a phone call and had a phone interview with the HR department and then the General Manager. I was hired on the spot and was asked to get to Kings Canyon as soon as I could. So within 5 days, I had my motor home ready to go, new tires on my car dolly, my car loaded up and left Phoenix behind. I took three days to travel, stopping the last night at the KOA in Visalia to see and visit my friend Chris who had been living in her travel trailer for several months helping out family in the area and it happened that she was pulling out the next morning to head for Southern California, then Arizona and on to South Dakota. I was really glad I got to see her. The next morning I made the last leg of my journey up to Kings Canyon on April 10th.
Over The Hill With Sherry 