what would YOU do??

Perhaps it is bad luck to talk about jobs that you will be applying for, or maybe it makes you look bad to talk about them and then not get them. But we all do it, so I am going to talk about it...

Here is the situation that lies ahead of us.

In the very soon future there are two GS-11 supervisory ranger jobs that will be coming open that Iffy probably would have a pretty good chance of getting.

One of them is here, but in the east district and would require leaving our cush Basin environs and moving down to the hellishly hot Rio Grande Village area of the park, at river level, (i.e HOT HOT HOT, did I mention it is hot?)

The other one is at (drumroll.....) Guadalupe Mountains, yes, I know that sounds crazy, but it is true.

Here are some pros and cons....

staying here at Big Bend
pros:
-Iffy would get his 11, and some good experience
-there are kids down at Rio Grande Village for Sara to play with in the coming years
-Iffy would get to keep his structural fire qualification
-we would still be in the Big Bend area which I do like better than the Guadalupe area.

cons:
-we would be even more remote then we already are. 10 miles further from Panther Junction and Alpine, and 20 miles further from Terlingua. I would love it if we could move to Panther Junction, but unfortunately the position is supposed to live at RGV.
-it is too freakin hot down there
-we would have to move ourselves, even though it would only be 30 miles, but in a way that's more annoying than a long distance move I think.
-it is hot down there. Can you tell I am not a fan of heat.

Now for Guadalupe.
pros:
-we would be closer to town, yes I KNOW that town is Carlsbad, and yes Carlsbad does suck ALOT. But after you've been living 110 miles from the closest good source of groceries, your perspective changes on things.
-we would actually be 80 miles CLOSER to Odessa at GUMO, so I wouldn't have to switch doctors. We're already driving 250 miles for my prenatal care and pediatric care so if we could knock off some distance that would be good.
-The position is "operations manager" basically it's a district ranger position. He would be running the seasonal show and the EMS and search and rescue program. These programs have been completely languishing under the care of less than thorough employees for who knows how many years, so I think Iffy could really come in and implement some good changes.
-He'd get his 11

cons:
-would we look dumb going back to the same place, even the same house, after only two years??
-we'd be back near Carlsbad
-GUMO totally turned me off to the NPS. It is such a top heavy park and it seems like things are so slow to change there. Too many meetings and not enough stuff getting done. Perhaps Iffy would be banging his head against a wall trying to get things done.
-There are no kids there. Sara and number two would be alone. But then again I often wonder, how many kids whose mom's stay home really are around kids all the time anyways? Even if we lived in a big city, it's not like they would be surrounded by other kids all the time on a daily basis anyway. And this would not be a long term thing anyway. Sara would be about two by the time we moved to either place, so we should theoretically be gone somewhere else by the time she is of school age anyway.
-Iffy would lose his structural fire qualification as GUMO has done away with their structural fire program, most likely due to lack of interest and qualified persons. He really doesn't care that he would lose this, just another feather in his hat that would make him desirable to other parks.

Anyway, Iffy and I are torn. We think that neither one is totally ideal, but either one would be good in their own way. Perhaps we are getting overly excited about the 11, I don't know. Iffy's goal is to go to Black Canyon of the Gunnison as a district ranger, buy a house and call it quits (as far as moving around goes). We like that area alot, and it's not a required occupancy position so we could finally buy a house. And we would be alot closer to our cabin in northern NM.

I often poo-poo GUMO in my head, but I have to remember that there have been plenty of people who have left there and moved onto other bigger better things. The park does not make the ranger, the ranger(s) makes the park, and I think that Iffy would be a much needed good addition to the staff. The chief ranger there seems to be chomping at the bit to get him back, and the chief here has encouraged him to apply for the DR position at RGV because he thinks that he would do a good job, but of course there are no guarantees So, I think that good possibilities do exist for at least one of them.

So what do you think? Is going back to GUMO insane? What do you other parkie wives/girlfriends think? Ask your ranger/fire guy other halves what they think.
So far we've had a fellow ranger friend tell us to take either one.

I am still up in the air.