Life on the High Plains

Another day off and another day to find a hike to go on that wouldn't end in me getting eaten by a grizzly.  I found a flyer the other day on the Upper Geyser Basin trails.  This is in the Old Faithful area.  As many times as I've stopped at Old Faithful I did not realize that there are literally miles of trails and boardwalks to the north of Old Faithful. I started off on the overcrowded boardwalks and quickly came to my first trail.  I wanted to go to Observation Point which on top of a mountain behind Old Faithful.   The trail marker warned of a 200 foot elevation gain which apparently deters the average Old Faithful visitor.  I'm from Colorado and I am only deterred by elevation gains of a thousand feet or more.   These fields of wild flowers were beautiful!   There were other people on the trail, but much of the time I was by myself (with bear spray in hand).   Here's the view from the top.  That's Old...

I spent the afternoon at the Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone.  I hiked the big loop and ended up at Old Faithful just in time to find a good spot to capture the world's most famous geyser. I love how the shots came out with the steam and water from the geyser in front of the clouds in the sky. Happy Skywatch Friday from Yellowstone!

It's that time of the week again.  Time to do laundry and update my blog while I'm waiting for it to finish. Last week I headed south to Coulter Bay at Grand Teton National Park.  I wanted to do the Lake shore Trail.   The trail goes from Visitor Center across an isthmus and onto and island.   The views are spectacular!   The wild flowers are in full bloom which makes it even more beautiful!   It's such a peaceful and serene setting.  It recharges me to be out in nature like this.  I really wish I would have looked into working in the Tetons rather than Yellowstone.  There are so many more people in Yellowstone, many of whom have no respect for the beauty.  The Tetons are much more peaceful and less crowded.   I love the lake shore!    Irv and I did this same hike last year and you can see how much lower the water was in September.   All day I looked for the per...

The best part of being in the beautifully pristine Yellowstone National Park is that amazing things happen if you are patient.  This was the sunset I watched for over an hour the other night.  Just watch how the colors change over time.   Amazing! Happy Skywatch Friday from God's Country!

I joined the Yellowstone employee 100 Mile Hiking Club today.  From now until the end of my contract in September I need to complete 100 miles of hiking.  I've already completed 10 1/2 of those miles.  Whose coming up to help me reach this goal? Once I complete the 100 miles I get a different t-shirt, a sticker and a water bottle. I can do it!

Only 1 1/2 more days until I finally get a day off!  It's been a long stretch of 10 days of very long shifts--some start at 6:55 a.m. and some go until 10:30 at night.  I'm not used to this shift work and I'm not real sure I like it. One thing I know for sure is that I used to get more exercise in before I arrived in Yellowstone.  I'm normally on my feet for 8 hours straight here, but that doesn't translate to very many steps.  I'm trying not to be obsessed about getting my 10K steps per day, but it's hard. When I have a shift that starts late in the morning or early in the afternoon I try to walk down to the marina and back.   The employee campground is in a remote area of Grant Village that the average tourist won't just stumble on.  There's not a whole lot of us up there so it's quite deserted in the morning.  For the first couple weeks I didn't feel it was safe to walk down this road by myself.   This can of bear spray g...

This is undoubtedly my favorite spot on earth! Happy Skywatch Friday!

I'm not without complete connection to the outside world anymore!  My sweet hubbie got me a Dish satellite receiver and had it delivered here last week. On one of my days off I spent about six hours getting the thing up and running.   I had to try it in several different locations until I found a clear path to satellites 110 and 119.    I only have about 30 channels, but now I can tune into CNN and watch all the "fake" Trump news.  I try to bypass this channel most of the time because what I hear about that man makes my blood boil. Anyway I'm connected again and it's been nice the last couple days because it was so cold that I was cooped up inside the trailer with Sophie. I've had a couple people ask me for my address.  It's really exciting to think that for the first time in my life someone might send me a care package.  I've sent a more than my share of care packages to various people over the last 40 years. Here's my mail...

The wireless at the dorm has finally been fixed so I can blog again! Last Friday  was opening day at the campground.   I worked the 1:00-10:00 p.m. shift and we were so busy their entire time.   Grant campground is huge, it has 429 spots so on opening day we brought in 300+ rigs.   Today the rest of those spots will fill up and then we’ll be full for the rest of the summer.   Last year the campground’s occupancy was 99%.   We are severely understaffed in the office so we all have to pull long shifts.  Right now I'm working 10 days straight with one day off before the next round starts.   They’re in the process of hiring a couple extra people so hopefully it won’t be like this for too long.   Saturday was my day off so after sleeping in and lazing around until it got up to 40 degrees  I headed out to Biscuit Basin for a hike to Mystic Falls.   Now, I know better than to hike by myself in bear country so I lingered around until I...