Horses, Chevy Cars and Chainsaws

So you know by now that I'm working as a Reservations Sales Agent so that I can live in Yellowstone for a couple of months. I've never worked at a job where I answer people's questions all day long before. At first I didn't know if I'd be able to stand it! But because I love the Park so much, most of the time I am happy and excited to help people plan their trips. Of course, the occasional funny callers make the day more juicy...

Caller #1

In addition to booking rooms and cabins in the Park, we also book dinner reservations at the fancier dining rooms, and activities such as horseback riding, bus tours, guided fishing boat tours, old west cookout reservations, and stagecoach rides to name a few. (Makes you want to come visit, eh?) Anywho, we have 3 rules that we have to pass along to anyone who wishes to horseback ride in Yellowstone:

1) Everyone must be at least 4 feet tall

2) be at least 8 years old

3) and weigh 240lbs or less.

So, I get a friendly man who calls, and it goes like this:

Friendly Man: "Yes, I just have a quick question for you. I'm signed up for horseback riding 2 weeks from now when I'll be in Yellowstone..."

Me: "Great!"

Friendly Man: "Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. My question is... well... what if a person... depending on the day... is a few pounds over or a few pounds under 240lbs?... You know, what if that day I'm over 240 by a couple of pounds... will the wrangler not let me on the horse?" He chuckles nervously...

Me: I chuckle back. "Not to worry - it's not like the wranglers have a scale there to weigh you or something like that! You will be just fine. As long as you're close to 240, it will be great."

Friendly Man: Laughs. "Ok, great. Thanks so much!"

WELL... it turns out that I mention this to a couple of my fellow reservationists over dinner that night in passing, and they all look at me silently for a moment. "What?" I ask. They go on to inform me that the wranglers indeed DO have a scale to weigh people that are in question. "Oh no!!!" I exclaim. I must've missed that piece of information during training. Guess the wranglers just don't fool around here in Wyoming.

I hope the friendly man laid off the extra cookie the day before the horseback ride.

Caller #2

A man from California calls to book a room for one night this summer.

...

Me: "Well, I have one room available that night, and it is at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, which is right on Yellowstone Lake. The room has 2 queen beds, a full bath, and is located on the frontside of the hotel. The rate with taxes and fees for the night would be $244.91."

Cali Man: "That sounds good. But what does 'frontside room' mean?"

Me: "That just means it is on the side of the hotel that faces the lake. Though, we have to say that none of the rooms on the frontside specifically have a view overlooking the lake because there are some trees in front of the hotel."

Cali Man: "No problem. I'll just bring my chainsaw."

Me: "Perfect!"

Caller #3

An older-sounding man calls, and has endured a long wait time on the phone that day to ask only one specific question. I can hear the anxiety in his voice...

Worried Man: "Hi. I have one question for you. I'm supposed to come out to Yellowstone in 4 days, and I'll be driving out there. I had everything all set, and then my friend told me that I need to rent an SUV to drive into Yellowstone. He told me I can't drive my Chevy Impala in the Park. Is that true? Can you tell me honestly? Do I have to rent an SUV?"

Now, I don't know too much about cars, but I happen to know EXACTLY what a Chevy Impala is... because my Dad owned a baby blue one in the early nineties, and happened to drive me and my date to my high school Winter Ball in it. (Thank you, Dad! ;-D) I also know that the Impala has a long back end, and he may be worried about it dragging, should he need to go up a steep incline. But I have been on all of the roads throughout the park and know that none of the inclines are that steep.

Me: Reassuringly, "You absolutely can drive your Impala in the Park. All of the roads here are paved, and you will be just fine."

Worried Man does not yet sound convinced. "But my friend says I can't. He says I have to drive an SUV."

Maybe this guy needs a new friend.

Me: "Right now I am actually looking out into the parking lot here, in Mammoth Hot Springs, and I see cars and trucks of all different shapes and sizes, RV's, and even motorcycles and bicycles. You can definitely bring your Impala here."

Worried Man: "Ok, thank you... thank you so much!" He sounds relieved.

Guess the visual helped.

:)

12 miles of Heaven

Twice now I have spent my days off walking from Mammoth Hot Springs, WY into the middle of the town of Gardiner, MT and then back again. Rountrip it's 12 miles, and it's not so hard as it sounds. The path into town is an old stagecoach road. There's not too many things I like more in life than just walking. I feel like I could walk and walk forever.






Okay - hold up. Let's focus for a minute.

Do you remember Bert, The Chimney Sweep from Mary Poppins?




Ok, good. Remember the chalk drawings on the sidewalk that he and Mary jumped into? And how they would come out the other side in the middle of a beautiful land?




Yes, I thought you would remember.

Well, that's how I often feel here. Like I jumped into one of Bert's chalk drawings. It's so beautiful here that it's hard for me to believe it's real.

Okay, just needed to get that off my chest.

Let's continue...


There's Gardiner in the distance!






The sun shines through the trees...


A pond in the middle of a canyon...


Me! Around mile 9. A little tired, but content as can be.




Wildflowers...











Amen.

I cannot blog about Yellowstone without mentioning...

OLD FAITHFUL!!!

Of course. And the Old Faithful Inn. A little history for you. The Inn was finished and opened in 1904. It's architect, Robert Reamer, was only 29 years old when he was hired to design the hotel. It is the largest log cabin hotel in the world, and is still standing today. Reamer wanted the structure to look like it could have come out of the ground itself, and compliment the beautiful nature around it.

Here are some views of the inside of the hotel. You can see each individual log in it's own beauty...




The magnificent railings...


made out of beautiful tree limbs...


I am obsessed with this red door...


And the back of the door...


And even the intricate little mechanisms that make it what it is...


Now onto the clock that predicts the time at which the geiser will erupt. "Old Faithful" was rightly given its name because it erupts approximately every 90 minutes.


If you're a total nerd, you can watch it live, courtesy of the National Park Service:

www.nps.gov/archive/yell/oldfaithfulcam.htm

But if you don't have that much time on your hands, here is a still before...


And after!

TA-DA!

Elk Baby Mommas

These signs were hanging by the exit door of my dorm the other day...



Apparently, some people just weren't getting it...



On this particular day, I witnessed for the first time in my life the actual raw maternal instinct of an animal. An elk had given birth just the day before to a cute little calf. By Day 2 of it's life, Momma Elk is in cray cray mode, and charging any human that comes within 30 feet of her. Not many people enjoy being charged by an elk at 7 in the morning (or anytime of the day for that matter), and so the earnest Yellowstone Park Rangers barricade the area around our dorm to prevent further charges.

By early evening, Baby Elk is content and chilling in a corner with Momma, just below our window. (The screen of our window does not come out, so I had to take a picture through the screen.)


Everyone looks quiet and peaceful.

In about 20 minutes, however, Momma Elk begins charging the ranger who is standing guard to make sure none of the tourists walk beyond the barricaded area. She does not like him "nearby" and continuously backs him into a brick wall every time the ranger tries to move away. Cathleen and I continuously watch from our window and laugh. But only, of course, because the ranger is laughing about it, too. :)

Flash forward a few days, and I am on my last reservation call of the day with... a New Yorker. This particular lady has kindly kept me 15 minutes overtime at the end of the day with her very specific questions about all of the lodging options in the park. At one point, she almost books the suite (which runs $500 for the night) because it is the only room in the Park with a TV. Alas. Her questions continue...

NY Lady: "So like, is this Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel...is it like a motel...like you drive up to it and it's run down?"

Me: "No, actually it's a beautiful hotel with a lobby that has a fireplace, and a pianist that plays for 5 hours each night."

...

Somehow she still doesn't sound convinced.

At this point I happen to look over my right shoulder and gaze out the second floor window, looking forward to getting outside into the beautiful weather soon, when I see a woman running for her life down the road - and a momma elk chasing after her! Wow! Now this is different! The woman is clearly distraught, and as a last resort, runs herself into thicket of bushes, yanks off one of her shoes and throws it at the elk. The helpful shoe hits the elk in the neck, and causes the it to wobble in confusion to the opposite side of the street. In the meantime, a red Jeep Cherokee drives along the same road, in between the woman and the elk. The woman flags down the jeep, gets the driver to roll down his window to exchange quick words with him and proceeds to jump into the jeep, victoriously escaping the elk - minus one shoe.

A few minutes later, NY Lady continues...

"I'm looking online here right now, and I see that some of these rooms have a view. Like it says you can see elk from the windows..."

Me: "Yes, that's very true. In fact, I was a little distracted earlier because I just saw an elk chasing a woman down the street!"

I laugh, but NY Lady is silent... for once. ;)

The cabin

Sometimes there's nothing better than jumping in a car and driving down a road, not knowing where it will lead. Especially when you're in Wyoming and it's really cold outside on a weeknight.

And so, that's just what myself, Cathleen and Dustin did one night...


We drive into Montana and head on up a mountain road. We decide to keep driving until we reach the end of it. At the end of the road is a state park, and just next to the entrance of the park is this abandoned cabin by a raging river...




The cabin looks to be about 100 years old...


The power of the current is awesome...


Through conversation Cathleen and I realize that we had each silently decided in our own minds who had lived there, and what their story was!

I pictured a older man who built the cabin himself, and lived there alone as a hermit to try to escape the memory of his lost love. (Oh, so tragic.;)

Cathleen cheerfully pictured a happy family living there, sitting by a warm fire. She wondered why they would have left. Perhaps to go live in the city, or maybe a rift in the marriage caused them to leave.

What do you picture?

Ever wonder what's at the end of a rainbow?

Well, after 3 decades of wondering, I finally have the answer!

Monday evening started to look like a washout. The rain was falling hard already at 6:30pm, and it was cold, too. But sometimes in weather, just as in life, some of the most beautiful things happen after a storm...



A double rainbow - right over my dorm!



It is so large, it doesn't fit into my little lens...



Then, with excitement, I realize that because I am on top of a mountain, I will finally be able to look down into the valley and see with my own eyes what lies at the end of a rainbow!!...

...

...



An RV!

Back Country Camping!

No Yellowstone experience is complete without camping in the back country. My coworkers/friends and I decide to give it a whirl. Being the outdoor amateurs that we all are, we decide it is best to first make a visit to the Back Country Office, here in Mammoth Hot Springs. There, we meet Ranger Jim, who is full of insider knowledge and is very helpful. He suggests a 2.6 mile hike into a campsite that he thinks will be doable for us.

Of course, no back country camping trip is allowed without first viewing a 20 minute video of preventing bear attacks. Sigh. It's hard to do anything here without being reminded of the worst case scenario. Guess it's best to be safe than sorry! Ranger Jim only has our best interests at heart anyway. So, after 20 minutes of watching actors react calmly to a grizzly bear attacking them in several different situations, we feel ready (and a little more scared) to venture into the back country of Yellowstone.

(I realize that I didn't take any pictures of myself on this camping trip! Oh well. There's nice pictures of everyone else.)

With gear on our backs (and probably a little too much gear) we merrily go on our way...


Justin's tree-branch-gear-holder. Looked like Tom Sawyer!...


I was so excited to see some riders on horseback along the way...


Headin' on down the trail...


Some buffalo along the way...


Dustin finds the skeleton of an elk's head...


And promptly adds it to the antler art of campers gone by...

Notice my addition of the tp roll on the upper right corner. I think it makes it just a little more arty. I could totally see this at MOMA.

Justin creates a swing from the food pole with rope and a tree branch...


Aww...roomie Cathleen enjoys the swing...


Beautiful view...


A picture of a mountain before sunset...


And the same mountain after sunset...


I am happy to report that none of us get eaten by a bear. Hooray!

In all seriousness, though, I don't mean to make any of you worry! I feel that I need to make a disclaimer about all of my bear references. In reality, there are 400 bears in this park, which spans 2.2 million acres. Since the opening of the Park in 1872, as Danny so kindly informed me, only 5 people have been killed by bears here. (And I use the word "only" in the utmost respect to those 5 people who lost their lives.) In fact, that bus driver on the first day was right when he said it is seven times more likely to get struck by lightning in the Park than be attacked by a bear. I learned that last Tuesday, 9 people were struck by lightning on the boardwalk next to Old Faithful - just 4 hours after I was there! Goodness gracious. Luckily, everyone survived. I think it's best to enjoy each day we have, not take it for granted, and love life now! We can never predict what will happen, but we can enjoy now.