9, 8, 7...... The countdown begins in earnest..........

Our time in Yellowstone is rapidly drawing to a close.  The general store is boarded up, the post office is closed, our propane station has one more day to go and the visitors center (the rangers) closes on the 30th.  But we still remain.  Why they would allow the campground to remain open when all the support services are gone is beyond me.  Starting tomorrow we will be closing some of our camping loops so we can gradually cut off campers.

Our grizzly has returned in earnest, as well.  I guess he wants his home back and can tell when things slow down.  We have been waking up to elk bugling lately.  One of the bull elk chased some campers the other day and even forced one of the camp hosts to back up his car.  In the spring the cows are super aggressive and now the bulls are having their turn.   Hormones in action..........

We have been trying to get in all the road trips we wanted to take while here.  A couple of weeks ago we went through the Lamar Valley and then did the Beartooth Pass.  It passes through the Beartooth Corridor, which has 20 peaks of 12,000 foot elevation or more.  The road is the highest in Wyoming at 10.947 and Montana at 10,350 and it is the highest elevation road in the North Rockies.  It has its own web site http://www.beartoothhighway.com/    That us where all my statistics came from..... I wouldn't want anyone to think I remember things like that.  It is a popular drive for motorcyclists and we had hoped to take ours, but the cold weather hit too soon, so we took the pickup.

On first day of our last weekend we drove south through the Tetons to Jackson for lunch.  WOW the fall colors were amazing.  There are aspens all through that area and they are in full fall dress.  They are just yellow and when the sun shines they are fluorescent.  There are lots of vine maple and others,  which I can't name, but it was spectacular.  Originally we had been debating which way to head, I am glad we headed south.

On the 2nd day we headed north.  I wanted to go through the Lamar Valley one more time.  The previous time we had seen a wolf, so I had hoped to see more wildlife.  We saw the usual elk and buffalo, but this time we did see some pronghorn antelope.  Dunraven Pass, part of the Yellowstone Loop road, was closed at the time because of a new fire in the Park, so we decided to take Chief Joseph Highway to Cody.

The Chief Joseph Highway is a road that goes through Cooke City but cuts off before you hit the Beartooth.  It appeared to be a short cut to Cody.  This road follows the route of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce as they tried to escape to Canada.  Most of the road is open range so watching for cattle was our prime objective.  Why do they always want the grass right on the edge of the road when there is 1,000's of acres available?  This highway was a great deal more challenging than originally thought.  I was not a short cut by any means.  It was high with steep switchbacks (my personal favorite) and while we were on our way to the summit the clouds rolled in and temperatures dropped.  So we were driving in white fog and watching the temperature gauge drop to 34.  Our main concern was ice.  In one way the fog was a gift since it prevented me from seeing just how steep the drop off was at the edge of the road..... and why is it always on MY side.   My hands get sweaty just thinking about it.

When I started this posting we were 9 days from leaving, now as I finish it we are only 4 days away.  I have two more shifts, Bill has one and everyone works a half day on Sunday.  The campground manager is hosting a breakfast and an evening hot dog roast on Sunday.  Monday morning we turn our uniforms and IDs and then we are free to leave.  Everyone is busy cleaning RVs, trucks and reorganizing so they can head out first thing Monday.  Our weather has been perfect...now that our summer is almost over....75 during the day and in the 30's at night.

Some of the folks are heading back to their houses, others are moving on to other working positions.  The couple living in a 5th wheel next to us have accepted jobs at a campground in San Jose.  I had no idea San Jose even had a campground.  We have couples heading to Arkansas, North Carolina, Florida, California, Arizona, even Michigan.  We have met some great folks from all over the US.

So, now we head back to Washington for vehicle, 5th Wheel and personal (doctors and dentists) maintenance.  After that our plan is to look toward warmer climates...... but the one good thing about this life is that we are home wherever we are............

The last photo shows the posts that have been installed along side all of the roads here in Yellowstone.  It is to help the snow plow drivers know where the edge of the road is located.  Check out the height of these poles, that will give you some idea of the expected snow level..... 

WHERE'S THE EXIT!!!!!!

Hope all is well with everyone and maybe we will be able to visit with some of you soon!!!!!!

Love to all  

Bill and Cathy

33 Days and a wake up.................

Today, August 31, we woke up to snow!!  Enough snow to give us taste of what is to come.  Hopefully we will be gone before then.  The weather has been cold and wet for about a week now.  Everyone is beginning to count days, so it is not just us.

We celebrated "Christmas in Yellowstone" on August 25th.  The legend is that in the early 1900's a freak snow storm stranded a group of travelers and their stagecoaches at the Old Faithful Inn.  To pass the time they decided to celebrate Christmas.  So every year the park decorates for Christmas in August.  Our registration building was decorated inside and out.  We had a Christmas ham dinner (I brought the green bean casserole), we exchanged presents ($10 limit), and even had Mr and Mrs Claus join us.  Some of our co-workers drove through the campground, in the back of the company pickup, and sang carols.  It is my understanding the guests enjoyed it.......  they would not have been so receptive had I been singing.

We were going to celebrate "New Years in Yellowstone" today but it has been postponed because of the weather.  One of the camp hosts is going to have an ice cream social.  Which should be perfect in August, however this year is the exception.  It is too cold to enjoy ice cream outside. Brrrrrr

The last week or so the campers have been fewer.  Evidently, school has started in a lot of areas so families are back at home----thank heaven.  However, we have been told to expect the next wave after Labor Day.  The retirees will be back and we will be full once again.  What I find fascinating is the number of people staying in tents.  At least, half of our guests are in tents and with the rain, cold and snow it looks plain miserable to me.

It is hard to believe it is the first of September all ready.  Most of the facilities in Yellowstone start closing now.  We close the morning of Oct 3.  Unfortunately, the concessionaire that runs the gas/propane station and the general store is scheduled to close Sept 20 .... oh and the post office closes then too!!!   So we will have to keep our propane use down and load up on groceries.  Our other choice is to go to West Yellowstone ... 50 + miles away.

The picture of Old Faithful was taken from inside the new Visitor Center.  It opened on August 25.  We saw it for the first time today.

The horse pictures are from the Cody area.  These are wild mustangs.  We had a great time trying to get close enough to get a photo.  They are located 12 - 27 miles east of Cody in a place called the "McCullough Peaks Herd Management Area".  It is around 109,000 acres and their goal is to maintain a herd of 100 wild horses.  This is a high desert area so they need plenty of space.  You can drive out there on a dirt track, which is what we did, and we managed to find them.  It was amazing !

Time to enjoy fall!!!!  Love to everyone!

53 Days to go....

Mule deer outside our window

Since our last posting our forest fire "Beach Fire" has been extinguished.  The fire fighters have moved on.  They had made a small city over in the Fishing Bridge area with yurts, trailers, huge commercial vans and people.  It was quite an amazing sight.


Outside of bad weather the last couple of weeks have been pretty low key.  Xanterra ( the company we work for) gave out free tickets to the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, so we spent a day in the museum.  I had been there before but it is a great spot.  If you are ever in Cody be sure to take some time to visit.  You could easily spend 2 days there.  We were only there one day but it was fun.  We had lunch and ate on their outdoor patio.  It was glorious, no mosquitoes.  In fact, I think sitting on the patio and enjoying the sun was probably the most relaxing part of the trip.

Mule deer behind our neighbors RV

There was a bear attack outside the park near Cooke City early this month.  One man was killed and a couple of other folks injured.  Then, here in Yellowstone, they had to euthanize a black bear that had become a problem in the back country camping areas.  I can tell you that, now when we tell the guests our "bear speech"  they actually listen.  They aren't so quick to ignore us.  The lack of common sense of these folks when it comes to the animals is amazing.  For all the injuries we hear about, it is a wonder more are not attacked.  I have seen them chase a grizzly bear into the woods, with their kids right behind, just to take a photo.  It is fascinating..

Wild Bill at Wild Bill's Museum

Last week we had some excitement with the fugitives from AZ.  On Sunday night (we had worked the morning shift) one of our co workers came to warn us about the fact that the fugitives had been sighted in Yellowstone.  Since there is no TV service, we don't get the news and were totally unaware of these folks.  So we started searching the internet and what we found was disconcerting.  That night at the campground there was a huge law enforcement presence.  There were rangers and US marshal's going through the campground and talking to the campers.  According to the rumors, they had used the pay phone outside of our registration office.  We all had pictures of them posted on our computer monitors the following day.  The photos looked like any one of hundred folks we check in daily.  We were glad to hear the reports that one had been captured and the other two had moved on.  I think we will keep the shotgun handy for the time being.

The park has been setting attendance records both in June and July.  Our co-workers who have been here in prior years say this is the busiest they have seen.  GREAT!!!  And this weekend the park has its "Fee Free Weekend".  I can hardly wait to see the number of cranky people we have to turn away.  This is a "heads up" for anyone heading to Yellowstone.  Make reservations...................

On the road from Cody to Yellowstone

The weather lately has been rain, thunderstorms, hail and more thunderstorms.  A normal day includes at least 4 power outages and 4 phone lines outages.... this makes for a very bad day trying to work on the computer system.  This old system has problems on a day without outages.


Last night however, we were able to watch a few shooting stars from the Perseid meteor shower.  We were too tired to stay up until the "optimum viewing" time.  That was to be about 3AM.  But we did manage to see about 10 small ones.  Tonight we work until 10PM, so we will check it out after work.

Sunset on Lake Yellowstone

Hope you all are enjoying your summer...  be sure to look up tonight maybe you will see a shooting star.

78 Days....

Our days have been filled mainly with work and our war against the mosquitoes.  We did have a bit of cooler weather.  The hope was this would decrease the amount of them, that it did.  However, the ones that remain are wiser and more aggressive than before... I guess they are just hardier.  Of course, they have been living off of us for over a month now.  At times I feel like they are there even when they are not.... perhaps they are driving us nuts.  Bill just had one bite him on the eyelid...he is cursing them soundly.  His lid is all swollen, and all I can do is laugh.

We are also, losing the battle with pine pollen.  Just the vast amount of it makes a healthy person prone to allergies.  When it rains it leaves giant yellow puddles.  One would think we had been painting the roads with all the yellow circles left when the rain disappears.

Today, however, I think I might have the cure for the mosquitoes..... forest fire.  Yes, we have a forest fire across the lake from where we are located.  It has been named the Beach Fire.  It was discovered on July 18 but until today we had never known of it.  About 4PM today we went to the helipad by our 5th wheel and we could see the clouds of smoke and orange flames.  The winds have now brought all that smoke to our camping site.  We can no longer see the lake but my guess is that the mosquitoes should be discouraged by this as well.  So, maybe this could be the finis for our bug story.  The fire is another issue.  Because it is so close to a couple of campgrounds they will fight this one.  At times they let some of the fires burn themselves out, especially if they are in the back country.

We have been having a lot of thunderstorms that go through the area in about 5 minutes, but they usually bring some hefty doses of lightning.  This raises havoc with our computer system at work.  At home this is inconvenient but I am learning how to reset the microwave clock real quickly.

The lines of campers has not diminished.  In fact it seems to get even longer.  All of the Xanterra campgrounds take reservations and we have been full since opening.  And yet every day I bet we turn away 100 people who have no reservations and are surprised they need them.   They see people leaving and don't seem to understand that they can not have the spot that someone has just vacated.  It is a battle every day to be polite but not just grab them by the throat and yell in their faces.  One group, 5 families from the Netherlands, came here to the US, rented motor homes, and planned to spend a couple weeks in Yellowstone for their parents 50th anniversary.  And NO reservations, we had to turn them away.  It was sad but what can you do?

The grizzly that was frequenting our campground has returned.  He was in one of the camping loops yesterday and the rangers used an air horn and a gun with either blanks or bean bags to scare him off.  He was last seen swimming in the lake trying to get away from all these noisy people.

The pictures are of our guest for lunch at McDonald's in West Yellowstone (raven), the Hamilton Store at Old Faithful and the Beach Fire from our camping area.

We hope you are all enjoying your summer!

Love from your bug bitten, sneezing, wheezing and ever friendly guest service agents in Yellowstone!

88 days and counting.........

 It has been a week of extremes here.  One day it is warm and the next cold and stormy.  Luckily our Tuesday, Wednesday weekend was reasonable weather.  On Tuesday we drove down to Bozeman about 300 miles round trip for a Costco run.  Luckily there was a Target, PetSmart, Radio Shack and Great Clips all in the same mall area.  We were able to do all our shopping in basically one stop.  Unfortunately, we forgot "the list" so a number of things will have to be purchased next time.  How did the pioneers do it??  I can't imagine only getting to "town" a couple of times a year.

I got my first "Great Clips' haircut.  It is shorter than I had wanted, but I guess a $12 haircut is a $12 haircut.   I shouldn't need another one for about 6 months.  It will take that long for my hair to come back.  Bill has been kind.  His only suggestion was to try and push the wee bit of hair I have in the back over the nick I am now sporting.

We had a terrific ride yesterday through the Firehole area.  There is a small swimming hole that was packed with folks.  It was a perfect day for taking a dip.

Evidently our grizzly has returned to the campground.  We heard yesterday that he had been spotted near the entrance to the campground.  It is amazing to me the number of tents we have camping in this area.  We have to tell them that they can leave nothing out at their campsite, everything must be in their hard sided vehicles. AND when they bed down for the night, they should have nothing but themselves and their sleeping bags in the tent.  No water (especially water bottles), no lip balm NOTHING.  Just hearing that would be enough to send me to a motel....... 

Today, it is back to work for us and we have been told that the "bigwigs" (whoever they are) will be doing an inspection.  Let's hope they have done their inspecting and are on their way back to Mammoth before our shift starts at 2:30.  Bill is hoping they ask him how he likes working here... and I would like to avoid that conversation.  Bill has a countdown calendar going... 88 days before we leave Grant.  This is a lot more work that we had envisioned...  with an archaic computer system that makes everything harder.   But at least on our days off, once we get our chores done, we have a beautiful area to explore.

We have also discovered we have allergies....  in fact everyone here has allergies.  There is so much pollen in the air keeping the vehicles clear of the yellow stuff is impossible.  My new bedtime friend is Benedryl ( or its generic equal).  Everyone is sniffing, snorting and coughing.  One would think the H1N1 has revisited us in Wyoming, but it is just the pollen.  One gal in West Yellowstone told me that this is the worst she has seen it in years....  wouldn't you know it!!!  We get to set records where ever we go.  

The mosquitoes are still here despite the daily killings of hundreds by Bill.  The cooler temps slowed them down some but today they are back with a vengeance.  Bill has his spray and both swatters at the ready.

The pictures are from the Firehole river and lake area, plus my usual buffalo and a "space age" elk with a radio collar.

Love to you all..............

Working in Yellowstone

June 19th was an exciting day.  After work, 5 of us were sitting on a log outside the campground registration office.  We had clocked out and were just visiting and bemoaning our general lack of skills with the computer system.  We stood up and were getting ready to head back our vehicles when down the road, through the campground, came a grizzly.  He sauntered down the road about 30' from where we were standing.  It goes without saying that not one of us had a camera.  It was surreal, I don't think it even registered that it was a real live bear until he started to speed up and head away from us.  I still can't quite believe it.   Then we drove down to the post office to pick up our mail and .... there he was again.  We called the park rangers and they came and chased him away.  So in one day we have had 2 grizzly sightings....even if we think it was the same bear.

Grizzlies are very common here.  I, also, understand that the grizzly bears of Yellowstone can be smaller than the brown or black bears.  Yikes....  The one we saw was on the smaller side but I sure wouldn't want to see anything bigger.

Well, we survived the June 21st opening at Grant campground.  We totally filled the campground.  It was an exhausting day.  Bill started at 10AM and the line of cars stretched a 1/4 mile down the road.  When I arrived at 2:00 the line was over a 1/2 mile long.  We had to drive down the left hand side of the road just to get to the building so we could go to work.  It was crazy.  That day we checked in 427 campers, setting a Yellowstone record.  The previous record was set in 2009, at the Grant campground, and it was 299 campers.  We have been full everyday since, with about 250 campers leaving and new ones coming in daily.  This job has kept us much more busy than we, or any other of the Guest Service Agents (GSA) thought possible.  There is always a line of folks waiting to check in or something......

One morning the grizzly watched a camper fix fried fish for his family's breakfast.  It unnerved the camper completely, but the bear just watched and moved on to the lake to do his own fishing.  Because our grizzly has not yet given up his residence near our campground and likes to give the guests a fright, all the trails from the campground have been closed.  One evening 3 kids showed up at the window about 8:30 pm asking how they could find the trail to the amphitheater, the oldest was about 12 and the younger ones were about 7 and 8.   They wanted to go to the ranger talk that started at 9 o'clock.  There was about 6 of us working at the time and we all said the trail was closed and they needed to get their parents to drive them to the amphitheater.  They said their folks were watching their campfire, so they headed back toward the campground.  There are no lights up here at night, the road shoulders are narrow and with our grizzly still roaming about none of us felt it was safe for them to be walking the roads (its over a mile) to the amphitheater.  Anyway, we closed up at about 10:30 pm and headed home.  On the way back there were quite a few cars coming back from the ranger talk and then on the side of the road, we saw those 3 kids, with one weak flashlight, and NO PARENT, walking home.  We couldn't believe it.  We all wanted to go back and shake their parents.

On Tuesday, June 29 we took the Can Am down to through the Grand Teton National Park and had lunch in Jackson Hole.  I remember when Jackson Hole was a small town and the town square only had one antelope antler arch.  It now as 4 arches and lots of town.  We came back through Teton Village, which is a skiing area in the winter.  It is only about 10 miles from town.  We thought that was a much better place to stay and explore the park.  On the way home we got to see our first moose and a deer.  There was a black storm cloud that followed us home but we made it before the storm hit.

The storm hit about 10 pm here.  It broke our flag pole and pole light.  It knocked the power out for a time and then our surge protector kept turning off our power.  We were cursing the $400 surge protector all night, because we had to unplug and go without power.  Bill was trying to figure out how we were going return the dang thing.  In the morning, he went out with his voltage meter and discovered we had 140 volts coming through the power pole.  YIKES!!!!  Everyone up here in the workers resident camping area unplugged their electricity and we called the managers.  Evidently the storm knocked down a bunch of trees and the electric folks were working on it all ready.  The whole park was affected.  It was our day off so we went to W Yellowstone for groceries and by 7 PM we were back up and running here.   The campground had to use a generator to get the computers going... and were very limited in what they could do.  Thank heavens we weren't working that day.

We now have one more wild creature that has invaded our part of the park.....MOSQUITOES.  Large, hungry and swarms of mosquitoes.  Bill has bought lots of repellent that the mosquitoes seem to enjoy.   He is armed with two swatters, one for each hand, and is ready for battle.  The veteran GSA's tell us this mosquito invasion is temporary and should only last about 4 weeks.  I am not questioning that estimation, I am just hoping they are right. 

Today, July 1st, it is back to work for us.  We hope everyone is enjoying some wonderful summer weather.  The forecast here is for temps in the 90s through Friday but Saturday only getting as high as 45 with the nighttime temp in the low 30s.  The temperatures are always in the low 40s here at night but the swings during the days are amazing.  Love to you all.....