These awesome photos were taken by my even more awesome friend, Nate. Did I mention he's awesome?
Work this
morning with Cristina, Maggie, and Emily wasn’t very hard. The shift seemed to
kind of drag a little toward the end of it since we weren’t very busy, but
other than that it was fine. It definitely felt nice when three o’clock came
around, though. I was originally scheduled to have all morning shifts this
week, but Maggie asked me if I’d switch shifts with her tomorrow. There’s
another softball game tomorrow evening, and Maggie’s on the team, so I said I’d
switch with her so she could have the evening off to go play. Now I’m working
at three tomorrow with Nate, James and Jen, which will be nice. The morning
shift is usually easier, but it’ll still be nice to sleep a little later
tomorrow. It feels like I haven’t been able to do that in a while.
So this morning at work I figured out
that my crazy adventure in this park is now exactly halfway over. This has
already been the best summer of my life, and there are times when I wish I
could slow down time so that I could stay longer. I went into this adventure
knowing that it was temporary, which was part of the reason why I chose to do
it. I wanted to get out on my own for a while, but the thought of permanently
leaving San Antonio was out of the question. As I was getting ready to leave, I
had to keep reminding myself that it was temporary, and I’d be back home in
October.
I’m not
really sure how to feel about the fact that my time here in this park is half
over. Having dinner with Nate in the EDR just now, I thought about the fact
that we’ve all become a sort of family here. The thought of having to say
goodbye to Nate, Cristina, Tanner, Jesse, and everyone else really sucks. The
hikes I’ve taken, raft trips I’ve been on, wildlife I’ve seen, and kayaking and
cliff jumping I’ve done has all been amazing, but my favorite thing I’ve done
here so far is make these great friends.
At the same
time, I have both my real family and my “zoo family” back home in SA that it
seems like an eternity since I’ve seen. When I hear about the new babies at the
zoo or see pictures of zoo camp events, a piece of me can’t help but think that
I should be there. I know that most of me would rather be here, but I still
miss that awesome zoo, and the people and animals in it. Because of that, I
think that when October rolls around, I’ll be ready to return to the city I
always have and always will call home. For now, let’s see if I can make the
second half of this adventure even better than the first.
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