Lightning Strikes in Yellowstone Park

Yellowstone Park threw in some new weather today.  I had forgotten about hail, but Mother Nature didn't. 

O.K., the hail wasn't this big.

It did pile up, though, in a very short period of time.

The lights dimmed briefly at the Old Faithful Inn, where I was bored out of my mind cheerfully waiting on customers.

We heard later that a guest was walking around the Old Faithful geyser basin and was struck by lightning.  Several people around him felt the effects also. 

There were ambulances and a care flight and I missed it all.

You know that I'm afraid of bears.  Now I'm afraid of lightning.  Worse case scenario...I'm being chased by a bear when a storm blows in and lightning is all around me.  Unless the bear is standing up, ready to attack, and the lightning gets him first, I'm seeing a double calamity.  Death by bear and electrocution. 

Other than the weather drama, it was just another working day at Old Faithful.  I worked the 9:30 to 6:00 shift today. 

You might be thinking that this is really a wonderful job, and I just don't know when I have it off well.  "Off well" is a phrase hubby used one night when he was half asleep and thought he was being profound.  He meant to huffily retort that I didn't know when I had it so well off, and he came out with "off well," and I guess you had to be there.

Let me show you just a small slice of my day.  I get my 35 minute lunch break and stand the rest of the shift.  I have ankles the size of watermelons now.  Here's my trip to lunch.

This is a horrible picture, but somehow reflects the cheer of the Old Faithful Inn.

I walk down this dark dreary hall, where there are guest rooms, by the way.  They should have braille numbers on the doors cause you sure can't see your hand in front of your face.

Or the mice.

Then, I gingerly walk down these steps.

They are much darker than this.

You can see the bottom of the steps in the background.

I walk through some kind of housekeeping area or secret torture chamber rented by the CIA.

I walk out the door to this.

Guest rooms look out on this also.

What charm, what ambiance...what a pile of mud!

I tiptoe through the mud puddles to the entrance of the employee dining room.

Charming so far?

It always looks better in my pictures, but the dining room is trashed.

The really elegant part is the dish area where everyone stacks their trays and dumps their food scraps.

You should thank me that I didn't take any close ups.

Just imagine all of the leftover food dumped into one trash can. 

This is part of the Yellowstone Park weight loss program.  Go in there first before you eat, gag, and run for fresh air.

Just wanted to share in case you were jealous.

It's 8:30 p.m. now, I'm in my cell dorm, roomy is snoring and snorting away, and I have to work at 6:15 in the morning.  What's not to love about this? 

I'm thinking a lot about the movie, "The Shawshank Redemption."  If I start digging a hole now in the wall of my dorm, I could possible escape in a month or two.  Oh that's right!  Hubby is coming to take me away!

Until tomorrow, Judy reporting from Yellowstone Park.