Starting our new schedule

July 24. 2013

Not a lot to write since last entry.  We could write books about the people we meet and the experiences we have.  Bud had a new experience yesterday.  Someone bought a single scoop of ice cream, paid for it at the fountain and promptly walked across the store and asked for a refund.  WHAT??? Refund on an uneaten ice cream - the floor manager OK'd it.  That is taking customer satisfaction a little too far. 

Went fishing today at our "rock" at the Lake.  Not a good day for fishing - no flies hatching and not a single fish to attempt a strike at Bud's nymph. We came back by the Yellowstone River and observed that no one was catching fish. Water temps are presently unfavorable inside the Park.   OH well - there's always tomorrow.

We saw the end of an accident coming back over from Canyon toward Tower.  Almost to Mt. Washburn - a vehicle of some kind had gone off the side of the road.  They were hoisting a rope down the mountain side attempting a rescue.  Many emergency vehicles were there.  People are so foolish - they drive way too fast and take such dangerous passes.  If it had not been for a cautious driver this morning we may have hit a bison coming straight at us in our lane, on a curve in the shadow of a tree line.  We were going the speed limit, but still we weren't expecting to see that!!
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Update on the aforementioned accident- - a man and his wife were riding separate motorcycles. Coming around an extremely sharp curve , at one of the highest peak mountains in the Park- - she lost control of her cycle and went over the mountainside. From reports from some Rangers she was rescued and flown by helicopter to nearest hospital. Authorities reported that she remained conscious throughout the ordeal and will eventually recover. Specific injuries unknown.

Cute calves are beginning to grow, but they still stay close to there moms.

 This is the spot were we had our picnic today.  So pretty.  We watched as the traffic backed up for about a mile - Bison Jam!!   There are reports that the Park Bison herd is at its largest in several years.  The large bulls are beginning to "snort and paw the ground" and challenge other males to let everyone know that the rut season is almost here .  Such fighting one could never see anywhere else .

One of the twin mule deer in our campground.  We have a family of them - Mom, twins, and three young bucks.  They cut across the dorm front yard many times a day.  Last week the small black bear was standing in back of an RV on our Campus - too close for comfort, I think.

Ever Changing weather ....and schedule.

July 22, 2013

 

It is early and cool in our room this morning.  I'm trying to get a jump on the internet service so perhaps we can get it all posted and downloaded before our busy day begins.

 

Once again our schedules have been changed,  It seems that even though the park visitors are up by 5% this year the business throughout the park is down.  People are staying more outside the park in hotels and motels OR they are camping.  Money seems to be a factor - understandably, reflecting the economy of the country.  We have many visitors to our store from neighboring states and a lot of foreigners as well.  So all but two of the Yellowstone General Stores (YGS) are cutting EVERYONE'S hours back to 24.  This has been especially hard on the international students who put forth a lot of funds to come here.  They were guaranteed 30 hours a week - about half of them were planning to leave on August 9th anyway, but still it had hurt their plans for an extended visit to the US.  They had plans to go to San Francisco for a week.  We sort of like the 6 1/2 hour day and three days off in a row, although we had plans for the $$$, too.  After Labor day, Roosevelt closes and our hours are abbreviated. so hopefully we will pick up a few more hours each day.  A lot of the Tower employees are leaving September 8, so with less employees that equals to more opportunity to work.

 



 One of the perks of being held up in the road construction traffic at the store is the opportunity to see the beautiful mule deer bucks.  They seem to be real buddies right now, but so far we have only seen one female mule deer and with the Rut right around the corner...well, friendships have been severed for less.  We'll see who the dominate one is come August!!

There are three mule deer in this picture.  It took us a few minutes to see the one right underneath the standing tree (far left upper corner).  There is one centered right under him and of course the one in the forefront camo-ed in the midst of the fallen tree branches.

On our days off last week we traveled to West Yellowstone.  We had our picnic lunch ready to go and the drive over was beautiful.  When we got to the Blue Ribbon Fly shop we were told that the streams in the park that we were planning to fish were too warm and it was suggested we drive north out of West Yellowstone on Highway 191 to mile marker 28-29.  It was a beautiful place to fish, but the horse flies were terrible and again we couldn't fish for the swatting at the flies.  We drove on to Big Sky and found a place to pull off and have a picnic.  We thought about coming back to Tower by way of Bozeman in that the distance was about the same continuing north to I-90 and then going east to Livingston and back down to the Park.  But decided the scenery back through to West Yellowstone was not as familiar as the other route.  Boy were we glad we took that route.  A storm came up and there was a mudslide north of Gardiner that shut the road down all night.  Several of our friends got caught in that traffic jam.  One couple stayed put and got back here around 12:30AM the next morning.  One car decided to turn around and come back down Hwy 191 (the route we took) but the storm had knocked down an electrical wire and it was across the highway.  They were delayed there until after midnight as well.  Whew!! we dodged the bullet on that one!!  That storm also produced a lightening strike on Electric Mountain outside of Gardiner that caused a pretty significant  fire on the mountain.

On Friday we had an unexpected day off and decided we would go to Cody, WY.  We asked Jean, one of the girls from Taiwan to go with us.  The Taiwanese are very interested in the history of the Western US and Jean especially likes museums.  We only had about 3-4 hours there because our dorm was having a bonfire at 8PM (with S'mores) so our day was a little rushed even though we started the trip at 7:30 AM.  We had a really good time.  As we were leaving I told Jean I had a sculpture to show her and asked if she knew of Sacagawea.  She told me yes that she had seen her in a movie.  I thought for a moment and then asked "Did that movie happen to be "Night at the Museum"? she sheepishly looked at me and said,  "Yes". I laughed and said "I love that Movie, too."  We both had a big laugh.

 Sweet Jean from Taiwan - she is very smart and a good worker.  She and all the girls from Taiwan will be with us until September 18.

She is a a quiet girl, but loves to have a good time.  None of these girls are big as a minute and they eat like lumberjacks!!

Some kind person offered to take this picture of us.  It is a treasure. 

Saw "the Griz" on the way back from Cody.  He was very near the road in Hayden Valley.

 

Again, we have been blessed beyond measure to be here, in good health and to see so many sights.

Brief Update

July 13, 2013

#1.  Our business is picking up.  Guess the weekend crowd and the lack of week-end construction.  We both had a big day of sales yesterday.

#2  Our cook was fired yesterday.  The kitchen and EDR are always a mystery to us.  Never know who might show up to cook - hope we don't have to volunteer - LOL

#3  The weather is beautiful.  Cool nights (upper 30's and low 40's) and warm days (mostly mid 70's and breezy.)

#4 Work Noon-6:30 today through Tuesday - not a bad schedule.  Everyone's hours are being cut back to 6 1/2 each day.

#5  Yesterday a customer came in frantic.  "Call the Ranger", she said.  "There's a black bear on the roof of the bathroom!"  Soooo????  What can the Ranger do???  The bear was off the roof and down the hill before the lady turned around to go back outside.  Funny - what a show he put on for the lucky folks who were at the right place at the right time.

Still loving what we do and enjoying making new friends.

Making Dreams Come True

July 12, 2013

We've had a busy week, but have had a lot of fun, too.  Our traffic flow through the store does not compare to the traffic jams we have outside the store.  The road construction is really eating into our sales in the store.  Sometimes the traffic is lined up for 20-40 minutes and when they finally start to move, most people are ready to go on to bigger and better sights in the park.  Can't say that I blame them....if they come in the store they stand the chance of having to wait another 20-40 minutes to continue on through more construction.  YUK!!!

Wednesday was our day off and we took two of the Taiwanese girls with us to some of the sights.  They had hitch-hiked the day before to Canyon holding a sign that read "Employees of the Park".  They were picked up by another park employee and after visiting with their friends at Canyon, they were fortunate enough to run into two of our employees who brought them back to Tower. Being unfamiliar with our country, they are unaware of the many dangers of hitchhiking ----they also think the bison are cute and sweet and we have had to school them about the dangers of the animals, too.

We took them back to Canyon.  We had to mail some things and they had not seen all of the interesting spots there.  We took them to the Visitor's Center  and then to Artist Point for them to view the Lower Falls. The Lower Falls is probably the single most photographed area in Yellowstone other than Old Faithful.  From there we drove to Lake.  Clara, one of the girls said she had always dreamed of having a picnic on the lake.  So we took our lunches, found a picnic table and had a picnic.  Clara said her dream had come true.  That was a highlight of our day...making her dream come true.  From there we drove to Old Faithful and only had to wait 15 minutes before the geyser went off.  It was a pretty big eruption and the girls got lots of pictures.  Phoebe, our other little friend gets car sick so she slept a lot during our travels from each destination to another.  They are lovely ladies - each 22 years old - and are so thankful and respectful of anything anyone does for them.  They enjoyed the lake more than anything - the picnic, the view and of course getting their feet wet.

We rested the day after our adventures with the girls.  We had planned to go fishing but were too tired.  We are saving the fishing for a full day off when we can get up early and make a day of it.  Our schedule has been changed again.  We have our normal Wednesday and Thursday off and will work Noon-6:30 the rest of this schedule then changes over to the early schedule (7-2:30pm) for a week.  Everyone's hours have been cut back 1 hour.  Seems we are all working a 6 1/2 hour schedule now.  There is still trouble brewing in the kitchen - personality conflicts.

Other than the beautiful buck deer we saw during the chapel services on Sunday, our animal viewing has been limited to Bison and one lone coyote.

Artist Point in the Grang Canyon of Yellowstone

Our sweet friends at Artist Point

The young bison calves are so sweet and never wander far from mother's side.

A very green Hayden Valley this year. 

Or new friend Clara from Taiwan.   Sweet girl and very confident.  She works at the Fountain. 

This is Phoebe.  She is not big as a minute and loves everything.  Happy little lady.

 Phoebe and Clara walked down to the beach from our picnic spot.  They had a great time - us, too.  When we asked what was the best part of the day for them they both agreed the picnic and going to the lake.



This is a shot of the girls coming back up from the lake.  They are both beautiful young women.

Beautiful Old Faithful.

New Friends

July 10, 2013

We are off today and are taking our new young friends from Taiwan with us to Old Faithful.  They have no transportation, so on some of our days off we will take them around the park.  They are so sweet.  We love to tell them facts about Yellowstone - they all act so surprised at everything we say, then cover their mouths with their hands, giggle and say in unison "Really?".  They are so cute.  Their names are Phoebe, Clara, Sandy and Jean.  All are Finance/Business students and are very smart.  All the kids from Taiwan and Columbia are so happy.  The young man from the UK doesn't appear to be as glad to be here as everyone else.  Hope to get to know him better.

Our kitchen situation has changed - again!!  We still have the head chef and Sam, from the UK has become the 2nd line cook.  He has no experience but is willing to learn.  His specialty so far is grilled cheese sandwiches and soup - what can I say???????  We have some young girls who are working in the kitchen also.  They have grilled chicken and hamburgers so far.  AND all of them have spaghetti and pasta down real good!!  Haven't heard any more about the Norovirus except 150 employees on the park and 50 guest had it.  We were lucky I guess.  The Xantera employees were the sickest I believe - they actually dealt with the bus group that stayed in their hotels who brought it into the park.

We have had a good week.  Our late schedule was changed and instead of working from 1;-9:30PM we are working from Noon-6:30PM last week and this week.  It cuts our time by one hour each day - but everyone is taking turns in rotating their schedule.  On the 4th of July the road construction ended for several days and our customer count increased tremendously. We have thunderstorms that knocked out tall but one of our registers and credit card machines temporarily.  The store was so   crowded you could hardly move.  It was stuffy and people were in no hurry to leave because of the hail and rain.  Transactions done in the midst of the power failure were lost and the customers had already left the store.  I guess that is part of the "Yellowstone Shopping Experience".

Our nights have really cooled down with the rains occurring in the afternoons.  We have lows in the upper 30's and lower 40's in the morning until about noon, then it rises to the low 70's.  Pretty ideal actually!!  We understand that it has been rainy and humid in Tennessee - so sorry we're missing that.  HaHa!!

Wished I had my camera yesterday.  A mother deer with her two spotted fawns were across the street from the store  She stood posed with the little ones nursing,---then the silly tourist started approaching her and she ran off.  The small fawns got separated from her but after a few seconds she jumped the fence and led them behind our store.   It was raining and I had to go out to our trailer for more coats. I watched her for a few minutes and then she left with her babies.



When I posted on July 4th, I mentioned the bison with the gimpy right leg passing us while we were posting on the internet.  There were motorcyclist approaching him and he got caught between cars and motorcycles.  He was not happy-----he headed straight for the bikers and they hopped off their cycles and hid behind the cars that were close to them.  After a few minutes he took a sharp left and headed up the hill - bad leg and all.  Here are the two pictures we took of him.

Happy 4th of July

Before you read this - let me apologize for the pictures showing up right in the middle of the dialogue.  We are up on a hill trying to get internet service and right in the middle of downloading the pictures a huge bison who is crippled is walking by our car.  Traffic stopped and idiots, I mean people began to gather.  Bubba got anxious and became a little undecided as to what to do next and I lost my train of thought11


Got up early to start our day and thought we would check on the Soda Butte Creek to see if if it had cleared enough to make fishing worth the effort.  Still a little murky and no hatches were going on so we cut that fishing trip short and decided to go on to Slough Creek. (pronounced sloo creek)

On the way back through Lamar Valley we saw something that few visitors get to see.....a black female wolf was walking down the road and came within 20 feet of our car.  (They usually don't come this near to humans especially at 10:00 in the morning.)  Ginny saw the wolf coming so we stopped to take the pictures.  Summer season is the toughest part of the wolf's life.  They are shedding their winter coat and are looking for food...this is not easy for the wolf.  This maybe why the wolf looks so "scraggly".  We had lunch with the Wolf expert of the park and he says we saw a two-year old female and that her looks are normal for this time of year.

We stopped at Slough Creek and tried our hand at fishing there because the damsel flies wee swarming in huge numbers.  However, huge biting flies were attacking us to the point we couldn't stay.  So we headed back for our 4th of July celebration at the EDR.

Our lunch was great.  Steaks grilled to order.  The best steak we have had anywhere in a long time.  The were so tender you could cut them with a fork.  We had a wonderful salad bar with potato salad and fresh fruit salad.  Our dessert was made from scratch cream cheese cake with blueberries, whipped cream and topped with fresh whole strawberries.  To say the least we had a feast!!

We have all been given 4th of July shirts to wear today and this weekend to work.  They are really neat!!

It's Hotter than we thought

July 3, 2013

Trying to catch up while Bud is  looking for some new work shoes.  We are in Bozeman today, even though the drive here is spectacular, we are getting a little bored with spending our off days driving to the same place each week. 

Seems like summer has arrived with a vengeance and it is terribly hot.  Even though the temperature has been in the mid to upper 80's it is almost unbearable.  The store is attempting to run the air conditioning, but honestly is it is cooler with the doors open.  At least there is a breeze.  Road construction came to a halt today until Sunday night.  Hoping that will produce a lot of customers over the week-end.  We were busier the past few days than in June, so maybe that is a good sign.

We are here in Bozeman not only looking for shoes for Bud but also to purchase cotton sheets.  We brought flannel sheets with us thinking that the nights would be cold and we would enjoy the comfort of flannel. NOT!!  So we ended up at our favorite store - As Caleb use to call it "Paradise" (WalMart) and did a little sheet shopping along with a few other things.

We thought they had boosted our internet service, but it is as slow as ever.  So I'm taking advantage of the tree shaded parking lot at TJ Maxx and trying to catch up.

We lost another one of our cooks this morning.  He got tired of the #1 cook bossing him and calling him names, so HR moved him to West Yellowstone.  He is a nice guy and we hope that he does better over there.  One of the other cook's (the sort of mama bear over the Employee Dining Room - EDR we call it) Vikki, lost her mother on Sunday.  She could not make the arrangements to go home so she took a few days off.  Her mother was terminal and they had said their goodbye's before Vikki came out to work.  So it is a mystery as to who will cook and what we will eat.  So far it has been OK but we both have lost a few pound, not necessarily from the food but from the work and the heat.

We will be heading out of Bozeman in the next few minutes so I will try and download a few picture before loosing the 4G networking.   (Tomorrow is the 4th and we will have a cook out at lunch - steaks we understand.  I will try to take pictures of some of our new friends.)


These first three pictures are out of sequence.  We actually saw the little cub on our way back to the dormitory.  Bless his little heart he has been separated from his mother.  We can only guess that he is in her way right now.  It is the mating season for the black bear and often times the mother will abandon the baby because she wants to mate and doesn't want the baby to be killed by a big make bear.

He was licking some paper.  We think he is hungry.  He has been seen by a few of our employees in the area over the past several day.

The Ranger had the traffic stopped for almost 2 miles tryin gto shew the baby cub away.   The Ranger was clapping his hands and throwing rocks at it trying to get it  to move from the road.  If you look closely at the bottom left of this picture, the cub is hiding behind the tall tree near the orange netting.

 We took a ride through Lamar Valley last week and saw this very handsome fellow

 

 

 These are some of the horse at Roosevelt that are used for Horse back riding and for the Chuck Wagon dinner

 

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 This is our resident Bison - guess you might call him the construction mascot.

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