What A Difference A Year Makes
Posted by: Rachel Smith in West Virginia, staff, Reservations Office, ACE Adventure Resort on May 21, 2010
Exactly one year ago this week I was having my first panic attack. After working faithfully for four years at a rafting company in Maine, my boyfriend, Chris, and I were unexpectedly unemployed. I was a wreck. What would we do now?
Four days later I got a response from my resume, "We'd love to have you work for us! We'll contact you soon. - Brandi, ACE Adventures." I was caustically optimistic. Where was ACE again? West Virginia! I hadn't really thought about what was involved in going that far.
This was really far, 1,081 miles far. Where would we live? Where could I buy groceries? Just how "in the hills" were we talking? I quickly did some Internet research. A Walmart only 20 minutes away, well that would help.
The day after Brandi's email we left Maine. We left our very nice apartment to some friends, put basically everything we owned in a storage unit, closed our bank accounts, said some good-byes and left.
Less then 10 days after losing our jobs in Maine, we began working for ACE. We moved into the on-site housing (employee camping) and spent the rest of the summer living out of a tent, keeping our food in a cooler, cooking on a Whisper Lite hiking stove and a grill and carrying water to our campsite in jugs. Honestly it was the best summer of my life.
Just last week, we returned to ACE for our second summer. Our housing has upgraded (an old, revamped broken-down bus) and we finally can find our way around ACE's 1,500 acres without a map.
So now I work in the Reservations Office panic-attack free, looking forward to another season enjoying everything ACE has to offer.
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