As June 21 approaches, it has become that time of year when Alex and I head to the Sun Dance he attends. We asked for 4 days off and ended up with 6, so we'll be heading to Cherry Creek, South Dakota on Tuesday. Alex will not be dancing this year, but we'll be supporting this year's dancers and reuniting with our Sun Dance friends. We're going to be celebrating Lucio's final (4th) dance to which he's bringing his wife & son from Italy (see the European trip blogs for more on Lucio's family).
We've had spells of sunshine with "scattered thunderstorms" here in YNP, so we're praying for sunshine for the Sun Dance, recognizing that the weather is quite different in SD, 10 hours east of here. It's been cool in SD, as we've been told, so please send your thoughts out for sun for Sun Dance. This is not a rain dance!
Alex has been having fun experiences watching elk, calves, bears, wolves, and tourists. If you want to encourage him to add them to the blog, please email him at cedarandsmoke@gmail.com.
We will be without a computer for the next week, but will update you when we get back!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The best laid plans
When we arrived in YNP, we were told that hitchhiking is legal within the park, or, at the very least, an accepted practice. One woman that I work with hitched every day for 2 weeks from training class at Mammoth the 5 miles to her RV in Gardiner. Her average pick up time is 5 minutes. Other returning park employees recommended making a sign that reads, "Employees," and the destination for quick pick ups. Apparently, 5 employees from Thailand managed to hitch from Mammoth all the way to Livingston, MT and back without trouble. Since all trails don't end where they begin and backpackers often need to get somewhere without a car, hitchhiking seems like a viable option for travelling to or from trail heads without the use of 2 cars. However, Alex and I are hitchhiking failures.
It all started with a good plan to get to the Hoodoos, 4 miles north of Mammoth. To hike out and back would mean a 4 mile hike uphill and an 8 mile total trip, not do-able in an evening. Hitching out to the trail head would result in a pleasant 4 mile stroll downhill, through the Hoodoos, around the upper Hot Spring Terraces, and back into Mammoth. The Hoodoos are weird rock formations, like giant statues not quite formed into discernible shapes, that I have been wanting to walk through since we arrived here in April. Alex and I both worked an early shift on Monday, so we decided to have an early dinner and go for it. I made my sign, " Employees to Bunsen Peak Trail head," and off we went, taking our friend K. and his new hiking stick along. We tried to pick a good spot - the Hot Springs parking lot, where cars would have plenty of room to pull over. I held up the sign and Alex and K. held out their thumbs, me sure that we'd be picked up within a half an hour, and we watched the evening traffic drive by. RVs, cars full of tourists, cars full of gear, cars with one driver and 3 empty seats in the back, couples that wouldn't look at us, despite having an empty back seat. We smiled and waved at the Park Rangers and dump truck drivers, knowing they probably were prohibited from picking us up. Some people smiled at us and waved, but the camping gear in the back seat indicated that they couldn't squeeze the 3 of us in with their gear. So we waited, and waited, and watched the sun drop lower in the sky. Finally, Alex called, "Enough," pointing out that we wouldn't have time to hike the 4 miles back before sundown. I refused to give up so easily, holding my sign out all the way back to the hotel, where T, the bellman, expressed great surprise at our hitchhiking failure, suggesting that we give it one more shot in front of the General Store/gas station. But, alas, by this point our wills were weak and we ran into some friends eating ice cream. Sometimes, the best laid plans change into other plans, so joined our friends for ice cream, went to play on the Fort Yellowstone playground, marvelling at how we used to be able to do pull-ups, swing across the monkey bars, bravely jump from the swings at the highest point of the arc, and I somehow fit on the slides, then we ended the evening in our room watching "Alice in Wonderland." Perhaps it wasn't so bad to fail at hitchhiking after all.
In other news, the scary elk have taken their calves and wandered off and, after 2 days of warm sunshine, it is once again snowing. Ahh, Yellowstone.
It all started with a good plan to get to the Hoodoos, 4 miles north of Mammoth. To hike out and back would mean a 4 mile hike uphill and an 8 mile total trip, not do-able in an evening. Hitching out to the trail head would result in a pleasant 4 mile stroll downhill, through the Hoodoos, around the upper Hot Spring Terraces, and back into Mammoth. The Hoodoos are weird rock formations, like giant statues not quite formed into discernible shapes, that I have been wanting to walk through since we arrived here in April. Alex and I both worked an early shift on Monday, so we decided to have an early dinner and go for it. I made my sign, " Employees to Bunsen Peak Trail head," and off we went, taking our friend K. and his new hiking stick along. We tried to pick a good spot - the Hot Springs parking lot, where cars would have plenty of room to pull over. I held up the sign and Alex and K. held out their thumbs, me sure that we'd be picked up within a half an hour, and we watched the evening traffic drive by. RVs, cars full of tourists, cars full of gear, cars with one driver and 3 empty seats in the back, couples that wouldn't look at us, despite having an empty back seat. We smiled and waved at the Park Rangers and dump truck drivers, knowing they probably were prohibited from picking us up. Some people smiled at us and waved, but the camping gear in the back seat indicated that they couldn't squeeze the 3 of us in with their gear. So we waited, and waited, and watched the sun drop lower in the sky. Finally, Alex called, "Enough," pointing out that we wouldn't have time to hike the 4 miles back before sundown. I refused to give up so easily, holding my sign out all the way back to the hotel, where T, the bellman, expressed great surprise at our hitchhiking failure, suggesting that we give it one more shot in front of the General Store/gas station. But, alas, by this point our wills were weak and we ran into some friends eating ice cream. Sometimes, the best laid plans change into other plans, so joined our friends for ice cream, went to play on the Fort Yellowstone playground, marvelling at how we used to be able to do pull-ups, swing across the monkey bars, bravely jump from the swings at the highest point of the arc, and I somehow fit on the slides, then we ended the evening in our room watching "Alice in Wonderland." Perhaps it wasn't so bad to fail at hitchhiking after all.
In other news, the scary elk have taken their calves and wandered off and, after 2 days of warm sunshine, it is once again snowing. Ahh, Yellowstone.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Parlez vous francais?
Apparently I do.
In an effort to be helpful, which is actually a problem for me (being too helpful), I admitted to the bellhop that, "Je parle un peu de francais." (I speak a little French.) I have suddenly found myself elevated to the status of "the French speaker" at the front desk, the irony being that I really only do speak a little French. I swear the bellhop, Frank, speaks more, but he's not admitting to it. I have only spoken a smattering of French since my 4 years of high school French class: to get hotel rooms and cafe au lait in Paris, rejecting a marriage proposal by a goat farmer from Cote d'Ivoire in Ghana, talking with some French tourists in Costa Rica, and defending the foreign language impaired Americans to an arrogant Frenchman in Costa Rica. C'est tout! (That's all, which, by the way, I said to one guest in an effort to explain that she was checked out.) I am impaired by only remembering present tense and not quite having the entire front desk vocabulary that one would want. ("Are you checking out?" still mystifies me and, "Do you have any pets?" is covered by "Do you have a dog or cat?" (Avez vous un chien ou chat?), as if our French guests have flown from Paris just to treat their dog or cat to the joy of sitting in the car through Yellowstone - I would not recommend bring any pet to Yellowstone as they are prohibited from most of the trails, are not allowed to stay alone at any of the hotels, cabins or campgrounds, and can not be left in a vehicle unattended.) I have learned, however, to ask, "How many keys?" Perhaps I will add "...do you want?" to the end of the question someday (is it "voulez vous?"). I have found that the French are very forgiving, and in fact grateful, to find such a rudimentary French speaker in the heart of the USA, even when telling them that the adorable plush stuffed toy in their room, "Ce n'est pas un gadeaux." (It is not a gift.) Or perhaps this French speaking is an unexpected gift of the front desk after all.
In an effort to be helpful, which is actually a problem for me (being too helpful), I admitted to the bellhop that, "Je parle un peu de francais." (I speak a little French.) I have suddenly found myself elevated to the status of "the French speaker" at the front desk, the irony being that I really only do speak a little French. I swear the bellhop, Frank, speaks more, but he's not admitting to it. I have only spoken a smattering of French since my 4 years of high school French class: to get hotel rooms and cafe au lait in Paris, rejecting a marriage proposal by a goat farmer from Cote d'Ivoire in Ghana, talking with some French tourists in Costa Rica, and defending the foreign language impaired Americans to an arrogant Frenchman in Costa Rica. C'est tout! (That's all, which, by the way, I said to one guest in an effort to explain that she was checked out.) I am impaired by only remembering present tense and not quite having the entire front desk vocabulary that one would want. ("Are you checking out?" still mystifies me and, "Do you have any pets?" is covered by "Do you have a dog or cat?" (Avez vous un chien ou chat?), as if our French guests have flown from Paris just to treat their dog or cat to the joy of sitting in the car through Yellowstone - I would not recommend bring any pet to Yellowstone as they are prohibited from most of the trails, are not allowed to stay alone at any of the hotels, cabins or campgrounds, and can not be left in a vehicle unattended.) I have learned, however, to ask, "How many keys?" Perhaps I will add "...do you want?" to the end of the question someday (is it "voulez vous?"). I have found that the French are very forgiving, and in fact grateful, to find such a rudimentary French speaker in the heart of the USA, even when telling them that the adorable plush stuffed toy in their room, "Ce n'est pas un gadeaux." (It is not a gift.) Or perhaps this French speaking is an unexpected gift of the front desk after all.
View from our window #2
On Thursday morning, I got up at 5:30 AM
, peeked out the window, and left for breakfast at 6 AM.
Alex opened the curtains at 7 AM, just before he headed off to breakfast, to find this, a mother elk with her new calf. If only I'd opened the curtains when I left for breakfast, Alex would have seen the birth! They hung around the corner of our building all day, then wandered off in the middle of the night, reappearing for a brief period today.
This mom is actually a terror to the neighborhood, making it a tad difficult and a little scary to leave our building. This baby was born a day after one was born just outside Juniper dorm (we live in Aspen) and the same day another calf was born behind the Quest telephone building. The moms are very protective of their calves, chasing off anything that may appear to be a threat. At one point, the Quest mom had a woman trapped in between cars parked in the employee parking lot. From our front row seat, we've watched this mom chase tourists down the road and antagonize the security guards. (The poor security guards - by 7 AM Thursday morning, we'd already called them twice for elk troubles at two different locations, but there's only one security guard on duty until 8 AM.) We're very careful to chose our path back to our dorm - we have to eat and go to work at some point. Mom seems to be keeping close tabs on all of the dorm doors in that way that moms seem to be everywhere at once, so we have to be flexible and sometimes change directions abruptly, keeping in mind that this is actually one of the safest places in the park for the baby as the wolves and bears don't come into "civilization" that often.
The baby is just now sleeping on the concrete pad behind the metal storage closet, after having inspected the bicycle (see 1st picture). It's odd to think that I am likely the only person in the entire park who knows where that baby is. Mom is peacefully (for a change) eating grass.
, peeked out the window, and left for breakfast at 6 AM.
Alex opened the curtains at 7 AM, just before he headed off to breakfast, to find this, a mother elk with her new calf. If only I'd opened the curtains when I left for breakfast, Alex would have seen the birth! They hung around the corner of our building all day, then wandered off in the middle of the night, reappearing for a brief period today.This mom is actually a terror to the neighborhood, making it a tad difficult and a little scary to leave our building. This baby was born a day after one was born just outside Juniper dorm (we live in Aspen) and the same day another calf was born behind the Quest telephone building. The moms are very protective of their calves, chasing off anything that may appear to be a threat. At one point, the Quest mom had a woman trapped in between cars parked in the employee parking lot. From our front row seat, we've watched this mom chase tourists down the road and antagonize the security guards. (The poor security guards - by 7 AM Thursday morning, we'd already called them twice for elk troubles at two different locations, but there's only one security guard on duty until 8 AM.) We're very careful to chose our path back to our dorm - we have to eat and go to work at some point. Mom seems to be keeping close tabs on all of the dorm doors in that way that moms seem to be everywhere at once, so we have to be flexible and sometimes change directions abruptly, keeping in mind that this is actually one of the safest places in the park for the baby as the wolves and bears don't come into "civilization" that often.
The baby is just now sleeping on the concrete pad behind the metal storage closet, after having inspected the bicycle (see 1st picture). It's odd to think that I am likely the only person in the entire park who knows where that baby is. Mom is peacefully (for a change) eating grass.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
A Day of Fire
Has it really been May 28 since I've last written? I'm intending to write 2 blogs a week, unless too much excitement happens and I need to write more. Unfortunately, I have been totally down and out with the big, bad bug I caught. I spent last Tuesday and Wednesday (my "weekend" or days off) in bed alternating between coughing fits and comatose sleeping. Thursday also became a no-work day as I was still coughing so much that guest interaction would have been nearly impossible. I was sorely needed on Friday morning, however, as one of our GSAs (Guest Service Agent) was sent to Lake Hotel to help out during their severe staff shortage, shorting us on staff Friday morning. Armed with cough drops (hopefully none of the Xanterra higher ups read this as we're not supposed to eat anything while at the front desk) to keep from coughing on anyone, I successfully went off to work. It wasn't too bad to be there as I enjoy the work and it's not so challenging to make my illness situation worse. Alex & I returned from dinner to take a 3 hour nap. When I woke up at 9:30 PM, I realized I'd been struck with (I still can't believe it) PINK EYE. Yes, the great red and oozing conjunctivitis. After removing the goo from my right eye lid, I called the front desk to find that Bonnie, one of my mangers, was still there! "No, please don't come into work tomorrow, but go to the doctor," she instructed. Ugh. There is only one place that I could have gotten it, which I'm somewhat reluctant to reveal on the internet, but am going to anyway - the EDR (Employee Dining Room). The food service is done very sanitarily, but everytime we go to sit down, I think of my mom, a Food and Beverage Manager who is very particular about the sanctity of sanitary food service. She would not approve! The tables in the dining room are clean at the start of every 2-3 hour dining period, but then not cleaned until the dining period is over. How many people are fed at the MHS EDR? 200? Likely more on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays when new employees come in as they all at some point pass through the MHS EDR. During the middle of the dining period, it is nearly impossible to find a clean table. "How many people have sat here before me?" I wonder. Alex and I made our best efforts to have him bring food to me so I could keep my highly contagious infection out of the dining room, but anyone taking food out of the EDR is promptly treated as a criminal and likely terminated, so, alas, back I trooped to the EDR, infectious eye and all. "How many people will sit here after me?" My new motto is to not only wash my hands before I eat, but wash them promptly after, too.So, that brings us to today. Glorious day - the first day of our weekend. The first day of sunshine. The first day to really travel around the park.
We started the day with our usual great effort to drag ourselves out of bed in order to have breakfast before the EDR closed, only to stumble outside to find a great deal of sunshine. Very mysterious sunshine as the forcast for the next 4 days, something every GSA knows, called for showers. After a great debate over do we go for a hike or do we go for a drive, we determined a hike might be a bit much as we are on the healing end of our colds. A shower and packing of jackets, snacks, cameras later, we hit the road, accompanied by Alex's new co-worker from Bulgaria, Marianna. With undetermined plans, we hit the road heading south towards Norris, to promptly run into a "bear jam" in Swan Lake Flats, about 10 minutes south of MHS. We had difficulty spying the bear among the rolling landscape and now grown up sage brush, but finally sighted her in our binoculars. When she meandered behind a short hill, we thought we would go, but then she appeared again, this time with small black heads popping up from the brush around her. Could it be? Count them... one, two, three, yes, this is the fabled grizzly sow with four cubs. We'd been hearing about this family for a couple of weeks, but hadn't yet seen them. Our lucky day. She finally took her brood into the trees, so we continued our journey south, Marianna snapping photos through the truck window all the way. The scenery is indeed beautiful as we passed through meadows greened by the rain with meandering streams or rushing rivers, bordered by the straight lodgepole pines that dominate the Yellowstone landscape.
When we landed in the Old Faithful area, there was a large crowd already gathered in the Old Faithful viewing area, which typically indicates an eruption is nearing. "5 minutes," we were told. And, "20 minutes," came the word 5 minutes later. So, we waited, watched the spray, then headed for lunch at the local EDR. Could it be better? One could hope, but it was actually exactly the same, minus the windows and with some rearranging of the serving arena. From there, we wandered through the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, the newest of the hotels, to marvel at the splice plate connections of the beams in the lobby, then onto the Old Faithful Inn, the 2nd oldest hotel in the park, just to marvel. From there, we decided to take the 2.8 mile walk through the Upper Geyser Basin, from which we watched Old Faithful erupt 2 additional times. Alex and I are 2 for 2 on seeing the Riverside Geyser erupt. Our timing was nearly perfect 6 years ago, the last time we walked through this geyser basin, although we had to wait about 20 minutes for that eruption to start. This time, we strolled up to Morning Glory Pond, took some pictures, and turned around to see Riverside Geyser erupting. We ran back, only to find out that it erupts for 20 minutes, so there was no need to hurry. The mystery of the trip for me was that the colors of some of the pools seemed to have faded since our trip of 6 years ago. Were they just brighter in my memory? Was it all of the rain and cool weather we've been having? The answer came at the Morning Glory Pond, where the brilliance of the blue center and yellow rim have faded to greens and oranges. My memory hadn't tricked me, as the picture on the plaque beside the pool still proclaimed the bright spectrum of colors of the super hot waters. The pool is cooling, in some part due to natural causes, but mostly because all of the trash thrown into it by the millions of visitors each year is plugging the circulation of the heated water and allowing the pool to cool, causing the thermophiles that live in the pool to change from the blue species to the cooler water colors. There is also a picture of 2 men with a super vac, like the kind used to clean out porta-potties, vacuuming the trash out of the pool, but I guess there is only so much they can do.
Finally, we wandered back to the truck after Marianna bought us ice cream (frozen yogurt for me), and made it back to MHS sunburned and just barely in time for dinner at our home base EDR.
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