Oregon
My journey into seasonal life began in the summer of 2019. I was approaching my senior year of college as a Creative Writing major at the University of Iowa, and after just spending the previous summer studying abroad in Ireland, I was seeking another adventure to fuel my creative…
My journey into the hospitality/seasonal job industry started back in 2016. Sweating on a Toyota car lot washing cars, I texted my friend who had spent the past two years living the dream in Alaska. I simply asked “Hey man, I’m tired of this Atlanta heat. Just curious, is…
How can I not do it? How can I not explore, live, work, and play in this diverse country of ours? How can I not meet some of the best people I have ever met in my life? How can I not escape the comfort bubble and challenge myself?…
I had already had my reckoning with the “real world.” I had invested tons of time and energy into graduating near the top of my class in one of the hardest majors at a top tier school. I was so burnt out, I couldn’t fathom jumping straight into the…
Four years ago, CoolWorks changed my life with my very first seasonal job, so much that here I am still in love with working seasonal jobs in the National Parks, and I never want to go back to the life that I had before. These experiences have given me…
I gained so much more from this job than I could have ever hoped to when I applied. I could never have anticipated the ways these experiences would change me. I so enjoyed meeting the people I worked with, exploring the Park and learning about how to function in…
“Great!”, I thought. This is just the change I need, I will do this for a few years or so, get fulfilled and then back to a so-called normal life. Well, going on eighteen years later I am still at it.
I always felt there was something big waiting for me just around the corner, and three seasons ago, that something big finally materialized. I quit my job as a dental office manager, sold my house and took my show on the road.
A mosquito bite almost ended my life at sixteen years old. It transferred a virus that infected the fluid surrounding my brain, causing it to swell and squeeze it, leaving me in a coma for four days and with the complications of a brain-damaging stroke. It mainly affected my…