Well I have been here a week and I am beginning to lose track of what day it is. I have to check my watch every once in a while to remind me what day it is. I talked to the other workers about this and they said the same thing. The days sort of get forgotten when you start getting into a routine of working a shift and have rotating days off. Today I woke up with a good amount of snow coming down and it was really big flakes and almost no wind. So it gave the world a snow globe kind of look. The cars were getting covered quickly but the snow was not sticking to the ground yet. I decided that I would do my laundry this morning as I did not want to travel in that weather. So after breakfast I gathered my two ditty bags up and headed downstairs in the dorm to where the laundry room was. In case you do not know what a ditty bag is, it is a holdover from my Navy days. The Navy issued all new recruits a white canvas bag that we were to use to put dirty laundry into throughout the week and then hand it over for washing. The bag would have our name and unit number on and once the laundry was done the bag would be returned to us. I used my old ditty bag for a few years until Cathy decided to make two new ones for us to use on our vacations. She is a very talented person for sure as the bags have held up longer than my old Navy one did. The group here provides a laundry room for the workers that is free of charge. We just have to provide our own laundry soap. They even have an ironing board and iron to use if we need it. The group expects us to have clean outfits for work so I guess providing us with free washers and driers is a good thing. I finished the laundry and folded everything back up like a well taught husband. Cathy would be so proud of me. J
After laundry was done I looked out the window and saw that the snow had turned into rain/snow so I decided to read a book for a while. Around 11AM I decided to head to West Yellowstone instead of going too far north as I did not know what the roads would have been like higher up in the mountains. I picked up a few things West Yellowstone and used McDonalds Wi-Fi to update my phone and upload some pictures. Have I ever said how much I appreciate McDonalds and their free Wi-Fi. J I also went to the store to pick up a few items before filling the tank with gas and heading back into the park.
Once in the park I decided to visit Firehole Canyon. This is a place just into the park and traces the Firehole river through a fairly nice canyon. The park set up a one way drive through the canyon and the drive goes on for about 2 miles. The drive has several places to stop and take pictures or just explore the river and the canyon. It is very nice and there are several water falls as the river cuts its way through the canyon. Once you get to almost the end of the drive there is a place to park and there is a place where a person could go and swim in the river’s collecting pond. I would imagine that when the weather warms up that there will be several people dipping into the pond to see how cold or warm the water is. If I were to guess I would say the water stays fairly cold most of the year.
After visiting the canyon I decided to head back to the dorm and wait for dinner. After dinner I walked over to the Old Faithful Inn for a look see. The inn is not too far from where I work/live and in fact there are three places to stay around Old Faithful, besides camping. You have the Old Faithful Inn, the Old Faithful Snow Lodge and the Old Faithful Lodge. I walked into the Old Faithful Inn through the back entrance and into the main lobby. I was taken aback by how beautiful it was. The whole interior is made up of large and small logs that have been carefully joined together to create three floors of space. The lobby has a massive fireplace jutting up through the roof three stories up and a very nice clock on the chimney that is about two stories tall. It is an old fashion clock that has a pendulum and weights to make it run. There are chairs available to the guest surrounding the fireplace. The lobby is open up to the roof and you can climb stairs to the second and third floor and sit on chairs facing down into the lobby. I headed to the third floor and sat on a couch facing the fireplace below. What a view and very comfortable. There also was a person playing the cello and violin and piano to entertain the folks going to the large dining hall for dinner. After a few minutes a couple sat next to me and I asked them where they were from. Well wouldn’t you know the husband and wife were from Ohio and he was a graduate of Purdue University and she was a MP in the Army reserve. He knew a lot about Indiana and even new about Crane where I used to work. We talked for several minutes then they excused themselves as their dinner reservations were coming up. I also got up and went down to the second floor as the inn had a balcony out the second floor that extended over the main entrance. This balcony faced Old Faithful and has several old wooden table and chairs so the guests could watch Old Faithful going off. I looked at my watch and calculated that she should go off in about 20 minutes. So I joined the group and talked to a few people who were on a bus tour. We conversed about places to see and places we had seen and they all seemed to be very happy with their bus tour. Well Old Faithful was faithful after all and went off as planned. You see she goes off every ninety minutes plus or minus ten minutes. The sun was just going down behind the inn and Old Faithful looked great as usual. After she did her thing I got up and explored around the inn more. It is a very very nice place and the price to stay there seems to be contingent upon where you want to stay in the inn as some rooms are more primitive than others.
I left the inn and headed back to the room to watch a little TV and to update the blog. Not a very busy day but saw some pretty neat stuff. Tomorrow I am back to work for the next four days. I have the 11:25AM to 9:30PM shift.
Well as always thanks for reading my musings and I wish you all well and have a great night’s sleep.
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