Catching Up
With no cell service, no wireless, and communications from a pay phone only, something that I understand can now make one a terrorism suspect, I’ve gotten a land line and am a customer of Internet Montana. Here’s a few notes from the last few days.
May 8, 2006.
We began our training at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel on Saturday afternoon, after a cookout with the front desk staff at our manager’s cabin on Friday night. It’s an eclectic crew, ranging in age from a young woman from Florida who just finished her freshman year to a couple of women and one man who are retired and back for their severalth seasons.
The hotel is reminiscent of the old hotel in The Shining, I keep waiting for Jack Nicholson to walk around the corner with that leering grin. The rooms are spacious and clean, and far above the accommodations we’ve stayed in before in the Park, even if they don’t look to be equivalent in comfort to outside hotels for the same price. The common areas are quite lovely, beautiful etched glass above the desk and on the doors to the dining room and gift shop, a stunning sunroom overlooking the lake, an elegant dining room and dinner menu to match. Housekeeping has just started, so all the chairs are piled up, none of the rooms are made up, it’s a work in progress. Quite a feat, putting this whole park together in a few short weeks after the snow melts to get ready for the guest season. We open on the 19th of May. The computer system is indeed the system from hell; I was being pretty cavalier about saying I couldn’t imagine how we’d spend 10 days in training unless my fellow workers were terminally stupid. Well, I think I’m the stupid one! It’s a complex DOS-based system that is counter-intuitive. Hopefully, by the time we open I’ll have a clue; I don’t right now!
Monday was the highlight to date. Since we need to know other accommodations in the park, since we need to be familiar with the park natural features, and since we need to sell tours and activities, they sent us all on a bus tour around the southern half of the park. I am once again positively enraptured with the place, the diversity of wildlife, the fascinating thermal features, the stunning landscapes and the wonderful air. Of course, the seasons are a little different, it snowed on Sunday night and it is snowing as I write this Monday night. But the snow let up long enough for us to complete our tour. We went to the requisite eruption of Old Faithful ( Included in staff’s favorite guest quotes from seasons past: “What time is Old Faithful’s next erection?), toured a number of geysers, watched wildlife in the Hayden Valley. Our tour guide, one of the regular bus drivers, a/k/a interpretive guides, was young, a self-described college dropout, and incredibly knowledgeable about the Park and its ecology. We learned about native cut-throat trout being threatened by introduced lake trout, the dynamics of the thermal features, bear behaviors, and park history and politics.
Birders in RI and MN, in a short window, I saw buffleheads, white pelicans, sandhill cranes, common goldeneyes, and, the highlight, harlequin ducks surfing the rapids at LeHardy Rapids on the Yellowstone River. The bison here have just calved. Haven’t seen bears yet, but the area I’m living/working in is supposed to be a hotbed of grizzly activity.
May 9, 2006
Welcome to summer in Yellowstone. We had three inches of snow last night, and temperatures down to 11 degrees. This morning was sunny and beautiful, but the pavement was covered with about an inch of ice, and a few inches of snow on top. There were snow squalls throughout the morning, but, by afternoon, it had cleared and we could see across the Lake to the Grand Tetons.
We spent another day in training and I continue to be the dunce of the class. I can ask great questions and see the issues and problems, but am having great difficulty finding my way around this cumbersome reservations system on the computer. No doubt it will all seem quite old hat by the first of June, but for now…well, I’m glad we have a week and a half until we open, time to study and practice.
I spoke with Carol tonight; she, Jim and Roger are looking forward to hitting the road next weekend to come out here with my car. I warned her that they’d better dress warmly. I am looking forward to having the car, as the distances here are so great, and the mileage on the van, not so great. Besides, every time I have to drive somewhere, I have to stow everything. Definitely a high class problem.
