Living in a Dust Bowl

June 11, 2013

GOOD MORNING FROM YELLOWSTONE,

Waking up to another beautiful but cool day.  These are probably some of the shortest nights we have in our year.  The sunsets around 9:30 PM and at 5:15 AM our room is beginning to lighten up .  The air is so cool coming into our room, but we don't complain because by mid-afternoon it get just a little warm up on the second floor.

We worked yesterday - a very slow day for customer service.  Bud still doesn't have a security log-in and password, so he is watching me (really?) and hopefully we are both learning by each transaction I make , whether good or bad.   There is some merchandise that is marked incorrectly and we have to override it in the register.  Of course, any discounts take time, too so honestly to have a slow customer day is good in that we can slow down and both learn at the same time how to do process each transaction.  But as for Bud, just standing around talking to customers and restocking gets pretty boring and I actually think he gets more tired than I do with not a lot to do in the store.

We are truly enjoying our experience.  The people we work with are just great.  Mostly there are retired couples here, but we have a few single ladies and men - some widowed, some divorced, some young college kids (some of the kids are from Columbia) and some school teachers on summer break, but the relationship between  all of us is great!!  Bud told the school teacher from Texas that he and I do everything together and she has had so much fun teasing us about that.  She loves to laugh and have fun and really is a character - you just can't help but love her.  One of our Floor Managers and his wife are from Iowa.  She is our facility co-ordinator and bless her heart, trying to keep the dust off the shelves and floor is a huge job.  She is a retired Pediatric Surgery Nurse, so we enjoy spending time when she is in my sales area talking "shop"  about the medical field of today.

The road outside of the store is torn down to dirt for about 5 miles.  So people traveling are delayed about 15-20 minutes either way by a flagman from 7AM - 9PM.  They make the road one-way during the day and shut it down completely at 11PM-7AM at night.  The dust and dirt just fly in the air, in the store, in your eyes....you just feel like you're choking all the time.  We have 4 bottles of water yesterday in a 4 hour period just to keep from coughing, but if the doors are shut it gets way too hot.  So we drink water, dust shelves, try to guard the clothing from too much dust accumulating and put on a welcoming face, because we are the only stop in that area and people need refreshment and after all that is why we're here ---- to meet, greet and serve.  There is a big water truck that sprays the road several times a day but when the wind is blowing hard, it dries quickly - but it is a temporary relief.  We had a wonderful rain last night, so we're hoping the road got pretty saturated and maybe the dust will be better today.

Doing laundry this morning.  We have 3 washers and 3 dryers and it is suggested that we sign up for a time.  So I signed up for 1 1/2 hours this AM.  One of our washers is new - Woo Hoo.  It is a nice laundry room and across the hall from it is a library with so many books to borrow from.  When people finish their books they can leave them, so there is quite a collection.  I finished one on the way out here traveling and finished another last night so they will become a part of the collection here.

Breakfast served from 6:15-8AM so I' getting dressed next and then the day begins.  Off tomorrow and looking forward to doing a little traveling.  There are black bear and grizzle bear within a mile of us - tomorrow evening we're hunting  "the Grizz" and maybe even see a wolf up in Lamar Valley.

Pictures didn't download this AM - Will try again...another day, another time.