Is Yellowstone Park Really the Land of Oz?

I have less than two weeks to work in Yellowstone Park or the Land of Oz.  Why am I making this comparison?


The most striking similarity is...
I am convinced that two of my managers trained under the Wicked Witch of the West.  They have all of her charm and people skills.

Neither one speaks to the front desk staff unless they have something negative to say.  Have I pointed out that we make $7.75 an hour, minus room and board, we stand on our feet 8 hours a day and work shifts that change daily?  Stop rolling your eyes behind my back.  I know I am repeating myself, but I don't have television and there isn't anything else to occupy my time.

Yesterday, I came close to grabbing one of the managers by the ears and slamming her face into the outdated computer monitor.  I believe we can play Pong on it.  With great effort, and I mean dangerously high blood pressure effort, I controlled myself.

You know what relieves stress when the boss pushes buttons you never even knew you had?  Try this game.  http://whackyourboss.com/.  When I played it, there were 17 ways to "whack" or "off" your boss.  Now they are up to 20 ways.  Can't wait to give the other 3 a try.  It isn't pretty, it's dark and gruesome and I love it.  Don't go there unless that last big red button, hidden in the reptilian part of your brain, has been pushed by your Wicked Witch. 

I feel better now.  Thank you.

To balance the universe, let me share some things that I will miss.

My early morning walks around the Old Faithful geyser basin are therapeutic.  Better than an hour on a psychiatrist's couch.

It must work since my managers are still alive and the rangers haven't hauled me off.

The tourists swamp the area later in the day, but in the morning, they're too busy packing or buying over priced lattes to get out on the walkways.  Thank the gods for that favor. 

This morning, every time I turned around, one of these little chipmunk fellows was staring at me.

Don't let the cute fool you.  They have beady eyes.

There were beautiful little yellow flowers next to the brightly colored rocks next to the rushing river...

Uhhhh....there he is again.

What?  I don't have any food!

I sat my Morning Glory Pool and listened to the birds and the geysers.

The geysers sort of sound like waves pounding on the beach. 

A peaceful sound in the morning.

I did not take this path.

If the Wicked Witch works here, her flying monkeys live down there.

But I did take another path that looked perfectly harmless and found this.

Sorry if you are eating breakfast or dinner right now.

I'm all alone on this path, by the way.

I couldn't resist taking a photo before I made a frantic dash down the boardwalk. 

I was singing my bear songs..."Here I am in the woods...no one knows I'm here...I love the friendly bears...they never shed a tear."  I think I was singing this to the tune of "Blue Skies" an old song that anyone younger than me won't know, but the point was to make a lot of noise so that whatever chewed this carcass would decide to run the other way.

Bears are quite sensitive to poor singing.  They run off and stick their head in a geyser if it's too bad.  It's called "suicide by geyser" I believe.  Happens all the time.

He's back.

Stop staring at me with your little beady eyes.

I know you've seen this on YouTube,  but it can't hurt one bit to see it again.



That always makes me feel better.  How about you?

Until tomorrow, I promise to control myself....if I only had some courage or a brain.  Must visit the Great Oz.  He can tell me what to do.

A Perfect Day in Yellowstone Park

You may all find this hard to believe, but I have nothing to complain about today.  Wait, wait...don't leave me.  I know you all get some kind of perverse pleasure in my suffering, but today was the best day ever in Yellowstone Park.

This is my partner in crime, Ken, from Pennsylvania.  He works at Mammoth Hot Springs in food service.

Not a career he wishes to pursue, by the way.

He said he would rather pick up bison poop if such a job existed.  I feel his pain.

It took me an hour and a half to get to Mammoth.  First there was the mandatory bison jam, then a tourist jam (a bear was chasing elks which was worthy of a tourist jam, but too far away for my camera) and then the half an hour wait in the construction zone.

Finally, we took off in Ken's trusty pick-up truck, looking for adventure and food.  We headed toward Roosevelt because the interesting wildlife lives in the northern part of the park.  That means anything other than bison, the cattle of Yellowstone Park.

Before we left Mammoth, I had to take at least one picture of a baby elk.

The elk are camped out right by the hotel.  It gives the security guys fits as tourists have been known to try to ride them.  Yipee ki yah! 

I'm still looking for that stupid tourist picture that will get me five minutes of fame.

We stopped at Tower Falls which is always impressive.

See the rainbow at the bottom?

Mother Nature was all dressed up today in her jewels. 

A big horn sheep posed for us.

That's an antelope, I swear it is. 

Lord, I need a better camera!

I could wake up to this every morning.

Not in a tent or anything like that.

What I mean is that this would look great from the porch of my summer cottage.  I would be drinking coffee, nibbling on a pastry.....

There is always a bear sighting in this area, so here you go.

Mr. black bear was just ambling down the side of a hill.

We took the northeast exit out of the park and ended up in Cooke City.

Don't you just love Buns N Beds? 

How bout them buns on the biker?

This is one end of Cooke City.

This is the other end of Cooke City.

That's all folks!

What do they do when tourist season is over?

Maybe they have snowmobile races down the center of town.

Maybe they stone the town witch.

Maybe they just get stoned.

This isn't really a waterfall...just snow melting and running down the side of a mountain.

And look!  There are flowers blooming.

More long horn sheep right outside Mammoth.

So that was my day in Yellowstone Park and it was glorious and sunny and relaxing and fun.

Don't you wish you were me?

Come on...be jealous. 

Humor me.

As Groucho Marx said, "Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana." 

It doesn't have to be appropriate. 

Searching for Number One Son in Yellowstone Park

The mission today was to track down the oldest son and see some parts of Yellowstone that I have missed.

Erik son was last seen in the vicinity of Grant Village, which is at the bottom left of Yellowstone Lake.

This son has been known to fall off the radar for months at a time.  But for now, the mama is only 20 miles down the road and she has a car.

I am a mother with a mission.

I stopped at the restaurant where he is assistant dining room manager.  The cute girls at the hostess desk were more than happy to rat him out.  They informed me that he was scheduled to work at 2:00.

With a few hours to kill, I decided to head on down the road to the Lake Hotel.

Now this is a hotel.

It's also the oldest hotel in Yellowstone...built in 1890 I believe.

Can't you see the ladies in their long skirts and the men in their straw hats strolling on the grounds?

And this is the view you get.

At the Old Faithful Inn you get parking lots.

Am I being a traitor?  Heck, yes.

The dining room has windows that look out over Yellowstone Lake.

The Old Faithful Inn dining room looks out over a parking lot. 

Are you starting to see the differences here?

They were having a wedding when I arrived.

Aren't they sweet? 

The Lake Lodge is on the same property.

The lobby is about as lodgey as you can get.

As I drove away, I stopped to take a picture of Yellowstone Lake with the Lake Hotel in the distance.

Another shot of the Lake just because I thought it turned out well.

At last, the mama tracks down her cub.

This is the dining room at Grant Village.

It also has a view of the Lake, not a parking lot.

The hostesses and waiters flocked around me and promised that Erik would be out soon.

It seems he choked on a glass of water at the news I was there.

Here he is looking professional.

It makes a mother proud to see her son working.

I treated myself to a meal at his fine establishment.

It was heaven...a Monte Cristo sandwich followed by ice cream bon bons. 

Yum.

When I got back to Old Faithful, Grizzly son suggested that we go for a hike.  I'm thinking a mile or two.

We hiked to Mallard Lake.

It was 3.5 miles down this trail.  That means 3.5 miles back.  That is 7 miles all together. 

That means my feet hurt, but I feel quite proud of myself.  Until I wake up in the morning.  If I can get up in the morning.

Here I am at Mallard Lake.  I didn't see any mallards, by the way.

And I didn't see any bears, which is an extremely good thing.

Did I mention that it was 3.5 miles uphill?

Ouch, pant, puff, moan and whine. 

I even did some private business in the woods and didn't get my shoes wet.  I would say it was a red letter day. 

Until tomorrow, remember....I forget what I was going to say. 

Guest Blogging in Yellowstone

First of all my faithful, friendly, flighty friends (I love alliteration) you need to check out my guest blog at http://www.somewhinewithcheese.com/.  Oh, alright, let me explain for those of you who aren't in the exclusive blogging community.

Ahem.

Occasionally, bloggers of great taste ask other bloggers of great taste to do a guest post, so that they can take a holiday from the grueling world of posting every day.

So Laurnie, of  "Some Whine With Cheese," wisely asked me to guest post for her, which I did.  Check it out and seriously, become one of Laurnie's followers as she has a quality blog.  Actually, she has a ton of followers, so if you want to spend more time on my blog, I wouldn't complain.

This message is for hubby, but the rest of you can listen if you want.  Hubby....ahhhh.....shuffle, shuffle, I sort of said some bad, or sort of bad, things about you on my guest blog.  I implied that you are a control freak, which sounds like I'm complaining, and actually, being in control isn't bad, and you're so cute when you think you're in control, cause no one really has control, but it's o.k. cause I'm sort of used to it and I'm not plotting anymore how to hide your body in the woods, so if I hurt your feelings you know that I was just trying to be funny and went too far, and really, being in control is good, not in control of me of course, but in control of the car and yourself and things like that, and maybe I'll just shut up now.

I'm sorry and can I still come home?

Now, for some Yellowstone Park information, since Yellowstone is supposed to be my topic.  It didn't rain today!  When I went out this morning, it was foggy.  So foggy, that when Old Faithful erupted, this is how it looked.

I could hear it, sort of like waves on the beach.

Everything looked different in the fog.

I was just hoping that the bison and bears weren't using the fog as a cover to leap out at me.

I felt quite brave, but in reality my head was darting back and forth, imagining all kinds of danger lurking out there.

A Western Blue Bird, posed for me, which I thought was sweet.

So I took several pictures for his portfolio.

Which do you think is his best side?












Remember, the big contest is over Wednesday night.  Don't miss out on your chance to win a bison poo Christmas ornament.  Just tell me why you have to have it.  Come on....you know you want it.  Don't let good taste get in your way.  It's never stopped me.

I even got a comment from the people at http://www.dunganddunger.net/ who make the bison poo items.  They are going to be in Yellowstone this summer displaying some of their finer works of art. 

You all should do your Christmas shopping with them this year.  Don't you want your gifts to be memorable?  Cousin Harvey won't re-gift them to Cousin Marvin cause word gets around about unique items like this.

Tomorrow, I will introduce you to my friend Jacqueline, and there will be some mystery bird pictures.  A bird actually scared me silly, but more about that later.  Until then, remember who loves you.

Yellowstone aka Water World

I'm posting early today for two reasons.  One, I work until 10:45 tonight and just won't feel like talking to any of you, no matter how nice you are, and two, it's RAINING AGAIN! 

Planning a trip to Yellowstone Park?  Don't even think about coming here until July.

Here are the Yellowstone employees making their way to work.

O.K., I didn't take this picture.  I snagged it from the internet.

But it really does look like this.  I'm just not standing out there in the rain waiting for people on bicycles to go by.  Forgive me.

Here's the big news for today. 

I'm about 5 minutes from being famous.  Actually, I'm not going to be famous at all, but I had a brush with it.  Before I left on this adventure, I sent my story to "The Story with Dick Gordon" at NPR.  I love National Public Radio.  I want to write for them, hang out with them, make them all my best friends.

This is Dick Gordon.

Everyone at NPR is handsome/beautiful, intelligent, successful....guess that's why I'm not working there.

I only have 2 out of 3 of the qualifications. 

Anywho....the producer of the show, Christina Smith, called me to see if my story would be of any interest.

I know I won't have a chance if she discovers my fascination with bison poo.

There's no place on NPR for bison poo stories unless it has something to do with saving the environment.

Sorry, got side tracked a little.

But she called and we talked and bonded, at least on my side of the phone, and ......I don't have a chance in Hell of getting on that show.

I checked out their latest stories.  Here's my competition.

A 94 year old woman is running for the U.S. Senate.  When she was 90, she walked across the country to lobby for finance reform.  I walked two hours one day?  Does that count? 

The National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica is for at-risk youth and currently holds rehearsals in the danger zone.  I've walked in the woods where there might be bears and I whistled a little tune.  I could also be considered an at-risk senior citizen.  I could go bonkers anytime.

See what I mean?  I'm a 61 one year old social worker, working the front desk at the Old Faithful Inn who wants to smother her roommate in the night.  Touching, moving, life changing....?  I think not.

I couldn't come up with any epiphany to make the experience more memorable.  I didn't have a vision or hear voices telling me what my true mission in life might be.  I got nada, zilch, crapola. 

I'll let you all know when I get rejected.  At least I have talked to someone from NPR which really doesn't make me feel any better, but let a smile be your umbrella in soggy Yellowstone Park.

Now about that contest I'm having.  Two people.  TWO PEOPLE have responded.  I have no problem dividing the poo and the bookmark between them, but doesn't anyone else want a chance to win these valuable prizes?  Don't even worry about explaining why you want the poo ornament.  Just post a comment saying you want the damn thing. 

Gotta slosh to lunch, so Judy here in Yellowstone Park aka Water World, signing off.

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.