Give 'em the Pickle!

Give ‘em the Pickle!

So it has been a week or so and I think I have settled back down to life in the mountains. Today was a beautiful, warm spring day. Cooper had fun playing out in the meadow. It was all fun and games until she found something very old and very gross to eat just outside our building. Muy yucky. Sigh, dogs huh?

Not much has happened since I last wrote but yesterday, on my day off (comp time baby woot!) Bob Owens and I went to W. Yellowstone for VUA (Visitor Use Assistant) training. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it’d be. There is road construction from Norris to Madison (the northern loop of the park) with at least half hour delays so we elected to take the southern route (the northern loop to west is shorter and the southern is longer) but with the construction, it would have probably been one half dozen of another, something I tell people as well! ;P

We learned quite a bit about the role of the fee booth and that there was actual legislation passed that gives us the right and the power to collect fees. Though each park gets to set their own fees, we are legally allowed to do it. We watched a video, which was slightly amusing, on what to say to difficult people. There are, we learned, magic words to use: I’m sorry… and …for you? It was pretty standard information, but good ways on how to deal with troublesome guests/visitors/tourists etc…

Then we watched another really funny video called Give ‘em the Pickle and the story is of this man who owned a restaurant and he received a complaint one day from a customer who wrote in saying how he has always loved the restaurant and enjoyed their pickles as they are the best pickles he had ever had. Upon asking the waitress for another pickle she charged him for it, something he had never experienced in his long time of patronizing that establishment. Well, the man in the video said that had become the battle cry, Give ‘em the pickle! Which means really, give the customer that small thing to make them happy. It doesn’t cost you much and it just might mean a repeat customer. The analogy I came up with is our maps. Technically we are supposed to charge fifty cents per extra map per car. Honestly… no. They make for good souvenirs and they are something people like to keep and, now that I have watched the video, it is our pickle.

Maybe you had to have been there.

This past weekend was fun, it was a fee free weekend for all national parks. Now, you might think we had a ton of people come through but, surprisingly-no. I did, however, have three people declare their love for me. They were all men… and married. Naturally I doubted the veracity of their declarations of adoration, especially since, come Monday, they’d have to pay.

But all national parks are going to be free the third weekend of June, July and August so that would be a perfect time to head up to Yosemite if you don’t have a pass ahem mom ahem. And sorry dad, but you’re too young for the senior pass, so don’t ask.

And once more, I nearly forgot something. On our way to the VUA training, we came across a herd of buffalo with calves. They were sooo cute!!! As you will see by the pictures. They reminded me of cow calves and how they are so much cuter than the adults. I also saw a bald eagle sitting in a nest, and, on our way back, 3 big horn rams where they were not supposed to be. Way cool. I didn’t get to get a picture of the eagle or the rams but I did see them.

We had a few days of thunder showers where everything just got drenched. Coops had to be shoved outside to do her business. She hates the rain! But it did make things look lovely!

Oh, and if you are planning on coming, just gotta let me know. In my building, there is an empty 2 bedroom apartment above me that we have set up for visitors. They have sheets and everything so those who visit have someplace comfortable to stay. Hey, beats a hotel by a mile!

We are going to have a goodbye party for Candace and Ryan who are leaving East to go to South. Ryan is getting a better job and Candace just might be able to get a supervisor’s position in South as the current one might be retiring. This means then, that her winter position is going to be open. I have already told my boss I would love to have it. Haha, could you imagine me in the kind of winter wonderland they have up here?

This would mean shoveling snow everyday, taking a snow-machine down to Pahaska Teepee where the cars will be parked so we could go into town to do our shopping. They will plow up to Pahaksa but no further, thus the snowmobiles.

It’ be and adventure but a cool one. Literally.

Anyway, that is all the news I have on this front. Oh, I am going to crack open a couple bottles of mead so I’ll let you know how the found it.

The First Few Days

Cooper and I left Sacramento on 6-10 about 2:30 in the morning and, yawning headed east on our flight towards Yellowstone. She had been quite annoying while I had been packing the car, not too sure if she was going with me or not. She knew Mommy was up to something and became excited and highly suspicious when I put her pillow, her favorite toy and her food in the car. She just wasn’t sure what it was about. But, so long as she is with her mommy she is fine and dandy…. Mostly.

The sun had not yet begun to rise over the eastern sky when we encountered road construction from Colfax, CA to the Nevada border. I was heartily glad that we had then left as early as we had, I shudder to think about traversing that stretch of road while many others were on it as well. About 5 Am we hit the Nevada border and sped as quickly as we could through Reno. In the late morning we hit Mills City, NV. Coops and I stopped to get some food and gas. Last year, on our way east, we had stopped there and I had won $40 from the nickel slots. I got some diet coke and, because there wasn’t any real food, grabbed something to munch on and on we continued.

We took stopped at the Bowawe rest stop in Nevada where coops and I had stayed the night on our first trip to Yellowstone. It was good to get out of the car and empty our bladders. Within fifteen minutes we were back in the car and heading east again. The afternoon saw up getting into Utah. Coops and I stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats rest stop. We went beyond the “pet only” area and went onto the salt itself where I unhooked Coops and let her run around. And she did. I let her run around for half an hour while I took pictures of her having fun. But the road was calling and I didn’t want to spend too much time out of the car.

The late afternoon, early evening had us arriving in Salt Lake City and Coops and I, who had not yet had a proper meal, were getting hungry. We stopped at a Del Taco (now I wish we had waited for a carl’s jr.) and shared a lunch. I didn’t really want to get off the freeway about the city since people were starting to get off of work and the weather had turned lousy. But we made it through the tangled web of off ramps in and about the city and finally got to the point where the freeway once more reduced to two lanes.

We crossed into Idaho an hour or two later and, as I was tired, but not so tired where I couldn’t drive for a bit more, I decided Idaho would be a good place to rest for the night. But, in true Oates style, I passed by rest stop after rest stop after rest stop telling myself I was fine, I could go a bit longer and well… I did. I wanted to get past Pocatello, ID and once I passed that I decided then I would rest for the night. I also felt that it would be retarded to stop when it was still quite light outside. My sister agreed.

Cooper and I stopped at the rest stop in Blackfoot, ID. It is a nice rest stop and inside there was a large map that conveniently showed where all the rest stops in the state were. As I was getting off of I 15 and getting onto 20, I needed to figure out where a good place to rest for the evening was. As it turned out, there were no more rest stops between where I was and where I wanted to go. So, at 7 PM MST, Coops and I bunked down and tried to get some sleep.

Granted, she had a much easier time sleeping than I did seeing as she is much smaller and had her bed with her. But, as she had slept all day I think she took guard duty most of the night. At least, each time I woke she was wide awake. It could be that the things that had woken me up were the same things that had awaken her as well. I let her out a couple of time so she could run around (she tried to tell me she had to pee, which wasn’t always the case) and I have to admit to being quite surly about it. Anyone who knows me knows that I get cranky when I am tired.

I didn’t sleep well but at one point my phone began to buzz at me to wake up. Taking the same queue I had taken when leaving Sac, I had set the alarm for 2. The rest stop conveniently had vending machines and I was able to have my first hit of caffeine in the form of a cold bottle of diet coke. After I strapped cooper into her seat belt, we headed down the road. We turned onto 20 and hit the Montana border and followed it until the forest boundary gave way to Wyoming. Cooper and I arrived at the west entrance of Yellowstone at 4:40 AM and got to watch the sun rise as we headed east towards our destination.

We hit the east entrance about 7 where our timing must have been just immaculate as Dennis, the boss, was just coming down to open up for the day. He gave me some keys he thought would open the apartment. I drove up the building and tried them. Of course they didn’t work so Coops and I walked down to the office and traded in those two keys for the entire box of keys. And, of course, none of those, upon trying them worked. We went back down to the office and Dennis sent us to go and speak to Candace who had given him the keys. She told me where to look, I told Dennis and sure enough… there they were. I spent the next hour unpacking the car and getting stuff into the apartment.

We met our next door neighbor, Sue who showed us a moose cow just behind our building. I saw 4 bulls and 3 cows in and around our building that morning. Not a bad way to start your day! Despite my fatigue and a deep desire to just sleep I forced myself to go into Cody, Wy (the closest town to us) to buy groceries. I went straight through town and headed to Albertson’s (seeing as I prefer that to the grocery department at the wal-mart). And then it was home we went. Food put away cooper and I just relaxed.

I spent the next day putting away the clothes I hadn’t put away the day before, cleaning dishes that had not been used in far too long and basically setting up house and reading. Saturday I would start work. A little before 7 I walked out my front door and found a buffalo taking up the road. He seemed unconcerned that he had made me 10 minutes late to work because he was standing there, where I needed to go. Saturday was a day of training-well, rather, re-training. There were a few differences from last year but it seems as if I had not forgotten what and how to do what to do.

Sunday and Monday were long days as we are working 9 hour shifts. Long days. Tuesday Cooper and I slept in. I read the sixth Harry Potter book. At one point Sue found Cooper and I enjoying the outdoors in the front yard and asked me if I would like to go to Pahaska Teepee for dinner that evening. Nancy, another seasonal was going to get done at 6 and we were planning on leaving at 6:30. Candace and her fiancé Ryan met the three of us there and we had a nice time chatting. I had a bison burger and it was quite yummy. It’d have been better had it been seasoned but… alas. It was, however, very juicy and I will definitely be pleased to order it again. After dinner we went to look for the fox who had become habituated to the residents of Pahaska. A mama fo had some kits. She is almost tame, probably from the number of people who willingly feed her. Her kits, however, never came out from their den. But she was a really pretty red headed fox. We came home and I stayed up until I finished reading the 7th Harry Potter book

And one Wednesday we went up to Lakes Sylvan and Eleanor seeing as there is still snow up there. Coops loves the snow and I wanted her to have a little time in the snow before it went away all together for the summer. She seemed to enjoy herself and even walked into the water of Lake Eleanor itself! That water had to be cold, there was still snowmelt feeding it. But we are back home and I have laundry and dishes to do. A chicken is boiling so I will have yummy chicken and potato soup to eat over the next few days.

Tomorrow I get to go up to Mammoth and do all the paperwork and hiring stuff I got to do last year. This includes my NPS ID card and proof that I am legal to work inside the US. Good thing I have a Social Security card seeing as how my passport is expired.

But this is all I have to report for now.

Much love,

ehm

I have completely forgotten in the previous stuff! I saw a grizzly bear on Monday! I was done for the day and about to head home when I saw a ton of cars pulled over to the side of the road. Well... I know that this can mean only one thing: Bear.

And, because people were blocking traffic, a definite no-no, I dropped my bag and went out to both get people moving and to take a gander at it meself. It was a grizzly about 2-2.5 years old, not very big not very old. It was a twany golden brown and yes, I do have a picture of it! I can't believe I forgot to grab it to post!

I shall try and do that sometime tomorrow, add the picture of the bear. You can tell it's a bear but it was across the river and my camera isn't exactly the best for taking close up shots of animals a 1/4 of a mile away.

But ya, wicked cool!

Finally!!

So yes, the time is finally come and I am once more heading to Yellowstone.  I will still have email and there will actually be blog updates.  But then, when I am not someplace cool then what's the point huh?

So... for those of you too lazy to look for it, here is my contact info:

Emily McKeighen

1 North Fork Highway

Cody, WY 82414

Party line phone number for the seasonal housing:

307-587-9875

Just make sure you ask for me when you call.

And if you are planning on heading my way to visit, do call first.  :)

Love you,

emily