First Day Off

Our first day off from our new job was too short. There is so much that we want to do that it gets tough figuring out what to do first.

Of course, you have already seen the moose that was spotted early yesterday morning. About an hour after that bull was spotted, we saw a cow moose in the same general area. We aren't sure if they are related, but there is a cow and calf that is in the area according to one of our coworkers. I didn't get as good a shot of the cow, but here she is:

We went into town to gas up and to make a couple stops for some items we needed and had lunch at one of our favorite Mexican Restaurants, El Abuelito. It was as good as we remembered. We followed that with a stop at DQ in town which is another favorite.

Our afternoon was spent at Schwabacher Landing in the Park, and it also was a reminder of how beautiful this area is at this time of the year. We took these photos:

and a couple walked by that asked us to take a photo of them together, and they reciprocated:

We will be returning several times over the summer.

It's back to work today for two days before getting our regular days off on Thursday and Friday. We can hardly wait for that...

Another Big Business Day

As big as our business day was on Saturday, we beat the sales and did over $10K in sales yesterday. It was another fast paced day, and we are both getting more comfortable with all the procedures. We aren't sure at this point if we can keep up with the pace for 5 days a week. We may decide to cut back to 4 days of 8 hours later. It gets pretty frantic at times during the day. Of course, we have two more people joining the staff this week, so it may make a difference.

While going into the break area to pick up our lunch bag from the refrigerator following our shift at 4:15 PM, there were several Park Rangers looking out the window at the field behind the building, watching a "resident" fox. It lives in the area and is often spotted. Our timing was such that we were able to get a couple shots, even though you can barely see it with the small zoom that our phone cameras have. Look closely in the center of the shots and you can see the fox as a small, light brown figure:

Sorry we couldn't get a closer shot. We will be seeing it again, I'm sure.

Today is Memorial Day and as I went out to our outside storage to get the flag to hang, I spotted a moose about 50 yards from our fifth wheel, just grazing in the woods:

 

 

 

It was a big bull that was in the process of growing a huge rack that will be spectacular in about a month or so. Again, I'm sure we will see more of him over the summer and we will keep our other camera ready that has a better zoom to get closer shots. It was a nice start to our first day off and to start our Memorial Day...

 

 

Excellent Business Day

It was a beautiful day yesterday. It is getting warmer, and the skies are clearing - finally. These shots are of our site at the campground so you can see what we have behind us:

You can see how it would be a great place to spot game. Through these trees is the Gros Ventre River that is also an attraction for wild game. I'm sure we are missing out on some of the game while we are at work. It's a long summer, so I'm sure you will see some shots of game.

It was also the clearest day so far for viewing the Tetons. Josie took these photos on the way to work yesterday:

This last shot is one I took from the back of our building while on break during the day:

The working day wasn't bad either. We had the highest sales day yesterday for the year so far - nearly $10K in business. We spent a lot of time at the registers while also performing other duties, such as; inventory prep, stocking the shelves and organizing the shelves for proper cleanliness and neatness. We were told that the largest sales day last season was $14K. It is hard to believe that we can be that much busier in one day than we were yesterday. Most of the increase will come from tour buses and more kids traveling with their parents after school is out.

One more day - today - and we get our first day off. We are looking forward to it as we have had a super overload of information that we still need to digest...

Learning Curve

Our second day on the job included the introduction to opening procedures. There really isn't anything that we can't do so far, and it just involves repetition and experience before we feel comfortable. It was definitely a day that helped us feel like we can get into the flow of things in a reasonable time frame. Both of us worked the registers, stocked the shelves, prepared inventory and handled all the housekeeping tasks for the store. I guess we can say that we are close to the end of being introduced to all phases of the job.

We start at 8:45 this morning and have one more day after today before getting our first off-day on Memorial Day. If I had to say what we like least about the job it would be the daytime hours. When we worked at the Lodge for three years, we worked the 3 to 11 shift which gave us much more time to enjoy the area. With our daytime hours on this job, the entire day is taken up with working hours. I think we will manage, though.

It looks like we are finally going to get a break in the lousy weather. The forecast for the next week is clear with warming temperatures. We are anxious to take advantage of some time off to catch up on changes in our favorite areas so the better weather is coming at a good time...

First Day Overload

Our first day on the job at the Visitor Center was just about as expected - huge overload. The entire day was spent with our Supervisor, Bridget Bottomley - learning the ins and outs of the entire operation. It is definitely a fast paced environment and there is much to remember. All of our coworkers are nice, fun people to be around. They have told us that it gets easier and most things will become automatic with the passage of time. We hope so.

Following our first day of massive input, all of the work crew went to Dornan's - the neat restaurant/Bar that is up the street from our Visitor Center - and had a couple drinks while getting to know each other better. Josie took this shot of our work crew:

Beginning on the left: Bill (from Chicago), Eileen and ED (from Florida), Sarah (from California), myself, Bridget (our Supervisor from California) and Mary - Bill's Wife. It was a terrific way to kick-off our summer season and meet our crew in an informal environment. All but Josie and I have at least a few days on the job, and Bill and Mary have been coming back for 5 years. It appears from our first day experience that we made a wise choice to work here and that the summer will be fun and rewarding.

The weather showed signs of improvement yesterday as we got some pretty good views of the mountains - finally:

and this shot that was taken from the balcony at Dornan's:

Josie and I start at 7:45 AM today as we will open for the first time. That involves another whole set of procedures to pile on top of what we have already been exposed to. It appears right now that we will have Thursday and Friday as our regular off days, beginning next week.

It is exciting, and we feel like we got off to a great start...

Final Off Day

It was our final free day yesterday before beginning our new job at the Moose Visitor Center. The weather continues to be stuck in a bad pattern as it rained off and on and we had clouds that were heavy at times. Below are a few shots of the Tetons taken while we were out and about during the day:

 

Someday, soon, the clouds will be gone and we will get some great pictures with some clear weather.

Josie did some laundry using the laundromat provided at our campground that is located about 50 yards from our site. It is not the cleanest (or warmest) place to do laundry but we figured that it is still too early for the work crews to be keeping up with that detail. It is very reasonable though. I completed the rest of our paperwork while she did the laundry.

We went into town to go to Kmart and a couple other places, and stopped at one of our favorite lunch spots - Cutty's - for a Philly cheese steak. Yum.

Today is the day we begin our four months working at the Visitor Center. We will start at 8:45 this morning and work till 5 PM. We are excited and a little scared about this experience as it is different from the other jobs we have had. Both of us have had retail experience in the past, so we are hoping for a successful season...

Home for Four Months

We left for Jackson at 8 AM to travel the 120 miles to our home for the next four months in the Gros Ventre Campground within the Grand Teton National Park. The trip was made in the continuing lousy weather although we did get some sun breaks during the trip.

Our route was through Yellowstone and we saw lots of animals - the usual bison, elk and deer - and this shot is of a group of bison that we saw among the geysers:

Our first sighting of the Tetons was shortly after leaving Yellowstone, and you can that the weather was not the best and that clouds enveloped most of the mountains. They still are spectacular:

Our arrival at the Gros Ventre Campground occurred at 11 AM and we parked in front of the office to wait for our meeting with our Superviser at 11:30.

We walked to our site to make sure it was OK, especially for our satellite dish. It was excellent, to say the least.

Our supervisor - Bridget Bottomley - met us and gave us the instructions for our first day at work on Thursday. She also gave us more paperwork to be completed by Thursday and she gave us our badges, uniforms and some reading material. After she left, we set up in our fantastic site, #245:

.
It is difficult to describe how nice the site is as we have nothing behind us except forest and the river. We have no close neighbors and it wasn't long before we had our first visit by wildlife. These whitetail deer calmly walked through the area while we were setting up:

We drove to the Post Office which is located across the street from our Visitor Center where we will be working and set up a P. O. Box for the summer. Our address here will be: PO Box 82, Moose, WY 83012. Simple enough.

As we were settling in for the evening, one of our neighbors and coworkers knocked on our door to introduce herself and to tell us that there was a moose grazing in the woods behind our space. Sure enough, there was a young cow moose walking along in the woods. It was out of sight before we could get a good shot - but there will be more. Animals are constantly coming through this area so we expect to get many shots during the summer.

So far, we are very happy with everything and are looking forward to a great summer...

Final Day at West Yellowstone

The weather was the story again yesterday as there is a low pressure area sitting over the Northwest. It was cold - low of 28 - and cloudy with rain and snow mixed most of the day. We didn't go anywhere special, but walked around the downtown area for a couple hours. It amazed us how all of the shops in town could remain competitive when they all sell the same stuff. It was good exercise and the rain/snow held off for most of our walk. The rest of the day was spent watching a couple movies.

Today is one of the days we have been waiting for. We will drive 120 miles to the Gros Ventre Campground near Jackson and meet with our Supervisor. We will complete all the paperwork and receive our uniforms in addition to checking into our RV site. I couldn't locate a site plan for the campground, but we have space # 245 assigned to us in the employee area. We are just hoping that it isn't full of trees and we can use our satellite dish. We will get that answer today.

There is much to do to be ready to begin work on Thursday, but we are excited and anxious to begin...

Drive Into Yellowstone

The weather was terrible but we chose to take a drive into Yellowstone anyway. We did not want to waste the day, so we took the chance with the weather. It wasn't too awfully bad when we started out at around 10 AM with some light snow flurries.

It wasn't long before we spotted our first elk of the season in a location where we have almost always seen them near the West Entrance to the Park:

Once we got inside the park, we spotted a huge herd of bison that were a fairly good distance from the road:

We later saw many more that were closer, but bison are just about everywhere in Yellowstone.

We continued on north to the Mammoth Hot Springs location where we haven't been as many times as other locations. We stopped in the General Store to check out new items for this year and then proceeded to the small town of Granger at the north entrance to Yellowstone:

One of our coworkers during Spring Training works at a location in the town, but we couldn't remember where.. We drove a short distance north of Granger and spotted this herd of elk that were just grazing in a field:

The weather started to turn sour while we were in Mammoth, so we decided to return home at around 2 PM. As we were driving on the road south of Mammoth, we ran into a snow squall that was like a blizzard:

None of the snow accumulated on the ground, so we made it back to our fifth wheel with no problem. As I mentioned, the weather has been lousy and we are expecting more of the same today. We disconnect our water each night to prevent the hose and water lines from freezing and will do it again one more night tonight.

We have no plan for today, our last in West Yellowstone, so we will figure something out sometime this morning. Whatever we do, it will probably be close to home...

West Yellowstone

Our departure from Missoula was around 8:15 AM as we were in no hurry to drive the 260 miles to West Yellowstone, MT. It was on Interstate highways most of the way, and there were many passes along our route. Snow capped hills and mountains were the norm. This is one shot that was taken along the way yesterday:

 

Our gas mileage was only 8.3 mpg as a result of all the passes. It rained the entire trip and was cold. Yikes! it is only 30 degrees this morning outside our fifth wheel.

We arrived at 1:15 PM and got all settled into our space:

We will be here for three nights and we were given a freeze warning for each of those nights. Our water line has to be disconnected each night before going to bed so that our hose and water connections don't freeze.

This is the final stop before leaving Tuesday AM for Jackson. Josie is not excited about going into Yellowstone, so I guess only one of our days will include a drive through the park. There will be lots of snow, crowds and much of what we have seen in the past, so one trip should suffice for now. This morning we are taking it easy and waiting to see how the weather develops so we can decide on a plan for the day...

Missoula, MT

We made it to Missoula, MT - a 260 mile drive from Colville, WA. It was around 8 AM when we left and the trip, although not that long, took us around 5 hours. There was lots of construction on I-90 and even with the construction, the road is in terrible shape. The worst kind of freeway is one made with concrete as it gets very lumpy as it ages with all the heavy semi truck traffic. Our RV bounces up and down on those old concrete roads. Anyway, we made several stops and basically took our time.

Our space in Missoula is below:

The park is a KOA park which generally have decent amenities. We set up while it rained lightly and the satellite dish was able to get a signal between the two trees that are visible in the above shot.

The weather today should be good for our trip to West Yellowstone which is also a 260 mile drive. We found out that we lost an hour yesterday so it was a bit more difficult getting up this morning to be ready to leave by 8 AM. I think we will come close to that targeted departure time.

We averaged 9.3 mpg yesterday with all the construction and mountain passes which is very good. It should be at least as good today and we are hoping for less construction along the way. See you from West Yellowstone...

Visit Ending

Our final day of the visit to WA was yesterday. We really enjoyed being with Kristine and meeting her nice, new boyfriend, Philo and his 6 year old son, Cameron. The best part of the visit was the discovery that Kristine doesn't (yet) have cancer and is on track to head it off before it becomes a serious problem. If you ever want to misunderstand a diagnosis, that's the kind you hope to misunderstand. This is a beautiful part of Washington and we are glad we had an opportunity to see a good part of it and we now have it on our radar as one place to seriously consider buying some property for summer stays. Time will tell.

I had the truck serviced at the Ford dealership in Spokane and we are ready for travel. It's still hard to believe that the nearest Ford dealer is in Spokane, but that's the way it goes. Fortunately, we don't have to go very often.

We had hamburgers for dinner and said our goodbyes at around 7 PM:

We will miss them.

Our plan today is to make Missoula, MT and just stay the one night tonight. It is only a 260 mile drive, so we will leave around 8 AM in order to miss the Spokane work traffic. We should arrive sometime in the early afternoon. See you from Missoula....

Wheel Problem Solved

The "hard-to-find" stud for the broken RV wheel lug was installed on the new wheel yesterday afternoon. The fifth wheel is now ready for travel once again.

All of the final travel arrangements were completed yesterday for our stay in Jackson this summer. We will meet with our Supervisor on Tuesday the 24th at 11:30 AM to be assigned our space at the Gros Ventre (pronounced gro vont) campground and to complete our paperwork for the season. We will begin work on the 26th and expect to be ready to go by then.

Kristine and Philo were over for  dinner last night and we watched a couple movies before saying goodnight. We will see them once more today while Kristine gives Josie and I a haircut and we will say our farewells for at least the summer. It is comforting to know that the cancer scare is over and that Kristine is on track to get the proper care and has the best attitude about her future.

Once the truck gets serviced today, we will be set to leave tomorrow AM and head for our first stop in Missoula, MT...

More Wheel Woes

We kept our appointment at the Les Schwab Brakes Shop yesterday morning at 8 AM. It was a hassle getting everything organized and put away to tow the RV the 1 1/2 blocks up the street to get the broken lug replaced. The estimate from them was anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour to complete the job:

After waiting in the lobby for over an hour, I went to the RV to check on the progress. The wheel was still off and the broken lug had not yet been replaced. After speaking with the shop manager, I discovered that they have been calling all over Eastern Washington trying to find a match for the broken lug. Evidently, the lug is a unique one for RV's which they don't carry. To make a long story short, they agreed to get one overnighted from a shop in Seattle and come to our site at the Fairgrounds today to install it on the wheel. Sheesh! It is never easy.

Josie did some laundry and I washed the truck in the afternoon. I also washed the bugs off the front of the RV but I'll wait until we get settled in Jackson before washing the rest of the trailer. I also have a service appointment scheduled for the truck for tomorrow at 1:30 in Spokane. That is the closest Ford dealer to us - 70 miles. I thought every town had a Ford dealer.

Kristine and Philo will be over for dinner tonight as we are getting close to our departure for Wyoming...

Scare is Past

We wondered how such a serious event could have such little communication from the doctors and hospital. I didn't believe that such a serious surgical procedure could take place with no instructions on how to prepare. It turns out that Kristine misunderstood the schedule and the diagnosis. She has what is called high level three cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN3). That is the last step for precancerous cells to become cancerous. The visit to the hospital yesterday was for a consultation with her doctor on how to proceed and to discuss her options. It was very good news for all of us. The net of the visit was that she will have the actual surgical procedure in early June to remove the pre-cancerous cells and to ensure there are no cancerous cells in other parts of her body. At this stage, it is a relatively minor procedure and she will be in and out of the hospital in a short amount of time.

It was a long day as we left at around 10 AM to drive to Spokane - 70 miles away. We stopped for breakfast at a nice family restaurant where Philo got breakfast for all of us. Kristine's appointment was for 1 PM and by the time she got out it was near 3 PM. We stopped at an appliance store in Spokane where Kristine and Philo purchased a used washer and dryer which we hauled home for them.

This morning we take our fifth wheel to the Brake Shop in town - 2 blocks from here - to have our wheel lug repaired that was damaged by the flat tire swap. It is a pain in the butt to have to disconnect and drive the 2 blocks for this fix that should not have been required in the first place. At least we are not paying for the work to be done.

There are some items that we need to take care of before leaving on Friday morning. I would like to get the truck serviced and washed - along with washing the fifth wheel - before leaving. I hope I can locate a Ford dealer nearby to have the service done as it is included in our truck purchase.

We are winding down our visit here in Washington and we are very happy about the results...

Hunting Memories

The drive to look at more properties yesterday took us through Rice, WA here I hunted many years ago. My hunting buddies - Ron Butterfield, his son, John and my friend Scott Harrison - and I hunted deer for three seasons at my friend's property in that area. We stayed in the barn on the property of Burt Nokes who owned 300 acres of fantastic deer country. Yesterday, we stopped at the property and I walked up to the door to find out whatever happened to Burt. It turns out that Burt's grandson - Brian Nokes - and his family now live on the property. He told me that Burt just passed away last August at the age of 91. I talked with him for awhile and then took these shots of the property. Starting with the barn where we stayed during our hunts:

We would stand outside the barn in the evenings and watch the deer romp around the open field that was just across the street from the barn:

This last shot is of Burt's house . You can see the barn at the far left with the red roof:

What a nostalgic moment yesterday.

We saw some more terrific properties and along the way we stopped to get this shot of the Columbia River/Lake Roosevelt:

The river is slowly rising for the summer season as the downriver dam releases water. Eventually, the water line will rise to near the tree line.

Today is the day when Kristine has her cancer surgery. We will drive her to the hospital in Spokane and stay with her for the day to make sure all goes well and she has the support she needs to get through this event...

Sweatshirt Recovered

We had a scare yesterday AM when Josie searched for her (WMU) Bronco sweatshirt and couldn't find it. She had worn it the day we traveled north to Northport, WA looking at properties and we stopped for lunch at a nice tavern in Northport. We presumed it was left at the tavern so we drove back up to Northport and, sure enough, it was there and the tavern employees handed it over with no problems. That is a very special sweatshirt that she bought while we were at Austin's football game a couple years ago and means a lot to her.

We took this shot of a cool dummy of Donald Trump (no pun intended) that somebody planted along the side of the road on the rocks:

There are some very enthusiastic Trump supporters in this area.

We drove through more beautiful countryside yesterday and are really getting tuned -in to the possibility of buying some property in this area for summer use of our RV.

Today we will meet Kristine and Philo in Kettle Falls for breakfast and possibly see a few more areas of properties. Actually, we wouldn't buy anything until the day comes when we would sell the house in Glendale, but we would like to have a plan for when that day arrives.

Tomorrow, we will accompany Kristine to the hospital in Spokane where she will have her first operation on her cervical cancer that was discovered a short while ago. Her spirits are high and we hope to comfort her through this phase of her treatment...

New Water Pump

Yesterday morning was spent fixing the remaining problems with our water system. I called the RV repair guy for the area - Mark Jacobs - and he came out to our location at the Fairgrounds within the hour:

It didn't take him long to discover that the water pump was a dead soldier and he replaced it with a new Shurflo pump - probably our 5th or 6th water pump since we purchased the fifth wheel in 2008. I'm not sure why we are so hard on the pumps or why they don't last. I do know that the cost is lower today than it was the last time we replaced it. We also had the water line repaired that was causing us to shut down the water system entirely for one whole day:

We hope we are done with RV repairs for now - except for the lug replacement scheduled for Tuesday AM which is not my financial responsibility.

Kristine and Philo came over for breakfast and we took another nice drive to a different area. It is such beautiful country in this part of Washington. We stopped at the "Kettle Falls" on the way home to satisfy our curiosity of why the city was named Kettle Falls:

Today should be the first day out of the last several that we don't have any issues with the RV. We are ready for a problem free day. We are enjoying our time here with Kristine, Philo and his son, Cameron, although he has been in school each day and has missed our drives around the area. Maybe we can somehow make up for that today...