Rain,Snow, Clouds, Sun, and Even a Rainbow…

Today is Friday, our last day of work and play before the journey back home tomorrow. We have spent this week in a number of stations. As far as work goes, we have aided visitors in finding parking, directed them to their desired location, informed them of how to get around using the shuttle buses, reminded them to consider their safety, and even became photographers.

Personally, I served in one of the mixed car and RV parking lots, walked the rim trail, and stood at an intersection to answer general questions. My personal favorite was standing at the intersection of the visitors’ center and one of the main parking lots. It is a high traffic area that many visitors reach shortly after arriving. I enjoyed this location the best because I could have more personalized conversations with park guest as to what they wanted to accomplish with their time in the park.

Many times I felt like a tour guide, offering the most up to date information on the views, routes, and the most efficient way to spend one’s time.  The most rewarding thing about providing this service to the park’s guests was when they would get excited just from me telling them what they were going to see, and their thanks they shared when they passed back by me later. In this way I could clearly see the way that I was impacting each and every one of their days.

Fun and learning on this trip definitely blended together. The majority of our free time activities allowed us to learn more about the Grand Canyon and the National Park Service as a whole. We were taught about how the canyon formed, the geology within the canyon, the struggles of preservation, but what I found most interesting was learning about the canyon’s previous inhabitants. Yesterday, we were privileged to see the private archives of the Grand Canyon; we even got a private tour of some of the items. We were shown ancient pottery and tools of the Native American tribes that lived in the canyon, bones of the creatures that roamed, and even part of a pelt from a giant sloth, still in tact, and still soft to the touch (although they wouldn’t let me touch it). 

Today, our learning adventure was a fossil walk. This was really cool because we were first taught about the creatures that are commonly found in the canyon, and then we got to find the fossils nearby in the rocks. It was an eye opening experience realizing the trained eye it takes to spot a fossil. To all of us when we first started searching it all just looked like rocks. Eventually, we were all able to spot at least a few types of fossils.

Overall, I am glad that I have been able to come and gain a variety of experiences at the Grand Canyon this spring break. I feel like I have learned so much about not only the Grand Canyon, but also the National Park Service as a whole. I am very pleased that I got to see the Grand Canyon in the variety of conditions we underwent this week. Through rain, snow, clouds, sun, and even a rainbow, it all came together to be a great trip.