New York City Tour Guide!

While Dave pursues his kombucha passion out in Walla Walla, I have been busy tour guiding in my hometown: NYC.  The idea came to me in 2008.  I was working at Tent & Trails, an outdoor gear store downtown and a tour guide came in to get outfitted for some upcoming world travels.  He explained to me the pros of his job (he worked on the double-decker buses) including the variety of people he met each day and how he was able to take time off in the winter.  

“This is TIMES SQUARE! Next stop Empire State Building.” Working the double-deckers.

 

Three years later, after graduating from college, the idea was still bouncing around my head.  In a way it bothered me that, despite growing up in New York, there were many places and sights I had never seen, both on and off the tourist track.  As my friends headed off to grad school or career-track jobs, I returned home to Brooklyn and began to learn about tourism.  It was definitely a challenge to enter an industry without prior knowledge, experience or contacts and I got off to a slow start.  The first order of operations was to pass the Sightseeing Guide licensing exam given by the Department of Consumer Affairs.  I was able to find a prep class offered by one of the double-decker companies but sadly it was canceled after just two sessions due to the approach of the low season.  In the end, self-guided walking tours, guidebooks and other NYC literature served as my main sources of information and I was able to pass the test after six weeks of studying.  There were 150 multiple choice questions—what were they like?  Check out the examples in this NPR article.

Patchin Place: A stop on my original Greenwich Village walking tour.

 

But then winter arrived (along with chances to travel and visit friends all over North America) and my professional progress stalled.  With the warm weather in March and April came the job opportunities and I was finally able to start working full time in the business.  New York receives 50 million visitors a year and I was determined to get in on a piece of the action showing them around.

My Lower East Side food tour stops by Streit’s Matzoh where the Rabbi shows us the World War 2-era baking facilities.

 

As a tour guide in New York, it is rare to receive 40 hours a week from any one company.  Instead, many guides work as independent contractors, piecing together their schedule from multiple employers.  I started off working for a walking tour company, leading groups through Lower Manhattan and Greenwich Village.  From there I diversified, getting involved with a bike tour company, charter buses and “over-the-road” trips where I accompany school children to destinations like Philadelphia and D.C.   

Working hard—escorting a 6^th grade class through Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary.

 

I’ve since added the double-deckers to my resume as well as the occasional private walking, food and/or Spanish tour.  All in all, tour guiding has been a rewarding, diverse, challenging, and fun experience.  I am not sure of the direction I will choose next, but I know that the skills that I’ve honed in the past year will continue to benefit me.  Public speaking, presentation, improvising under pressure and logistics planning—these are all part of my job every day.   

And now, to bring Dave back into the equation: a rare recording of the legendary “Brothers Unite” handshake.

Washington Heights

Hard to believe it's been a month and a half since Kingswood. That means it has also been a month and a half since brothers have formally united.

It was my responsibility to write a post about camp-- that will still come, though Ray and I will get together to reflect and cowrite that one when the time comes. It's time to move on, towards Fall. I'm currently rolling in my second to last semester in college. Whitman has been an incredible place for me, but with my two off campus studies experiences I haven't had a full year in Walla Walla since I was a freshman. I'm excited for that to change.

It has been amazing being back here. There is an energy on campus-- a brightness and excitement-- that keeps me motivated and engaged. Classes have been fine, but at this point in my college career my focus is really shifting towards that daunting post collegiate netherworld in which Ray currently admirably toils.

I aspire to own and operate my own company, Amaku Cultures, handcrafting and bottling local//organic//raw kombucha, a sparkling, lightly fermented tea rich in probiotics, antioxidants and enzymes. Since the summer after freshman year I've known that this is what I wanted to do. Now, as I rapidly approach the finish line of my contemporary academic career, the challenge is to figure out how to get there. No longer is this an abstract vision from which I am safely distanced by years of school. It's finally time.

Fun summer concept label, "Organic * Raw * Probiotic * Swag"

I've taken this year as a chance to beta launch the company, including setting up a Facebook Page and running targeted Facebook ads in the Whitman community. Friends and family, like the Amaku Cultures page! 

To continue the type of experiential learning I discovered in Philadelphia, I applied to the brand new Whitman Community Fellows program and, after an extensive process, managed to land a job working as a Junior Advisor at the Walla Walla Small Business Development Center! The perfect position! I get to see what goes into taking a business from an idea to a reality, and, correspondingly, do that for my own business. 

Here are the 2012 Whitman Community Fellows with Mayor Barrow and Whitman President Bridges! 

----

Ray turned twenty three this past weekend. Strange. Twenty three seems seriously up there, especially when considering how twenty three appeared to me just a few years ago. So old. 

Life's moving on, rolling forward! All heights here in Washington. More posts to come soon!

Brothers UNITE!

Three cases of Kombucha bottled 9/29

Brothers Hiking at Kingswood

One of the roles Dave and I fill at Kingswood Camp is Master Fisher/Hiker or, in latin, outdoorsmanius extraordinairus.  On one of the first days of the session, I was sent with a group of campers up Mt. Adams, the second highest peak in the Northeast after Mt. Washington.  Like Washington, Adams boasts the meteorological maxim of "The Worst Weather in America" and in true form, our ascent was quite similar to the Washington epic that Dave, Adam and I survived earlier in the summer. 

Trudging along in white-out conditions at around 4,500 ft.

When sporadic rain showers and dropping temperatures didn't deter us, we quickly lost almost all visibility in the complete fog.  Then, as we approached the summit, the freezing rain picked up and quickly completed its phase change to all-out hail.  We breezed by the summit without even stopping in search of an Appalachian Mountain Hut we knew to be nearby for shelter.  But on the descent the weather relented and we finally got a few spectacular, albeit ephemeral views. 

The valleys of the White Mountains appear behind a canopy of clouds.

Group shot!  The background disappeared in the time it took me to put the camera on a timer and run over...

The following week, Dave and I were thrilled to be assigned Kingswood's most challenging hike, the 3-day.  For this trip, we headed up to the furthest reaches of the White Mountains, the North Woods.  Despite the fact that my brother and I have each been backpacking for over half a decade, this was to be our first ever overnight trip together. 

Brothers Unite! To do dishes.

Dave takes in the views from Roger's Ledge in the early morning.

We had a great group.  I'm amazed that they put up with the double dose of McGaughey Brothers.

Can't complain.

3-Day conquered, on to the next one.

Our final outdoor adventure as a tandem took place the following day after the North Woods hike.  Dave and I teamed up with legendary angler Nate White for a fishing excursion to the world-famous destination Indian Pond.  After helping the campers and launching all the canoes, we counselors got to take a few casts of our own. 

2nd Session's Fisherman Greats: Dave, Ray and Nate

Smooching my prize of the day

Dave switches is up to fly-fishing

Viva the outdoors, Viva Kingswood!

Road Trippin' With My Two Favorite Allies

On the road again! The brothers set sail from a spectacular Cousin’s Reunion in Cape Cod north to beautiful Piermont, NH to pick up our summer counselor recruit Adam, a great friend of mine from school and head out into the hills. 

Adam joins the team

The Plan: a week backpacking throughout the New Hampshire White Mountains. 

The First Stop: the summit of Mt. Washington. 

As we arrived at Kingswood, our summertime home away from home, we received a rather rude and unexpected weather report. 

The Weather: thunderstorms, Monday-Friday with highs in the low 70’s.

Weather be darned, we said! We’ve hiked in the rain before. Heck, we went to school in the Rockies. We’ve hiked in worse. Well, not all of us. As a matter of fact the summit of Mt. Washington would be Adam’s first peak ever. As I said, weather be darned!

The weather, however, was not to be so easily darned. With dark skies covering the sunset and rain forecasted throughout the night, we revised our First Stop to swing by our aunt Mary Lou’s house in Littleton, NH. I believe Mary Lou is officially our first cousin once-removed but she feels a lot more like our aunt. And, with storms brewing on our horizon and an imminent trip to Spain brewing on hers, she took us in at a moments notice so we could start our trip with shelter. Mary Lou’s lovely hillside home was a much better base-camp than the gravely side of a Mt. Washington mountain road.

The Brothers surprise Mary Lou, our unexpecting aunt, with an inconveniently timed visit!

Early up and early out. Washington here we come. 

Mt. Washington: four hours up, including 25 minutes at the Lake of the Clouds hut for a brief respite from the horizontal rain. On our way up we encountered clouds, torrential rain, hail, white-out fog, blistering winds, a significant temperature decrease and a fleeting moment of sunlight, all of which combined to produce a summit with a 32 degree windchill, lightning to the east and west and the spectacular view of ten feet in every direction.

Amazing views....NOT.

Hiking Phase Two: Brother’s New Knits

Unclear what's going on here..

Hiking Mt. Wash – success. Hiking one more step – a wash. 

After a second surprise trip to visit Mary Lou, this on the eve of her departure, we decided, freezing and drenched as we were, to retire our hiking boots and satisfy our urge to conquer with whole new challenges of guile, grit, commitment, and a delicate attention to detail. Thrift stores, anyone?

After a grueling four town – five thrift store ascent through treacherous Northern New Hampshire, we stopped to conquer the biggest mountains yet—massive decked out burgers and fries at a hamburger joint in Lincoln. If we had learned anything hiking it was that grizzled mountainmen like us can only survive on the barbaric paleodiet of our ancestors. With guacamole on the side. And a beer to wash it down.

Hiking Phase 3: Enjoying the View

After a wonderful excursion through the White Mountains, we headed down to explore a city with a longstanding sports alliance with New York.

Bahston.

Baaaahhston.

Boston.

Enough of the woods. Back to the concrete forests to visit Ray’s great high school friend Nick Murray and more Huntington allies—Caleb and Mima!

Sorry no photo of Nick.  But Adam's faces continue to amuse us.

After an eventful night visiting Nick we made our way over to Caleb and Mima’s to see their mystical playhouse home. While there we pitched the only tent of the whole trip…on their roof...

Camping out...Boston style