Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 30

  Well I made it to a month at Wall Drug.  I can't say time is flying by, but it is not crawling either.  I must have worked hard yesterday trying to help Pauline with the cases of moccasins, because I did not wake up until almost 8AM.  Once I realized the time I got up and has a rousing bowl of frosted mini wheats, the breakfast of champions ( from the 60's).   I soon realized that the wind was really howling outside and I figured I would have to drive to work, but after a while I saw that there was not rain just a lot of wind.  It seems that we had a cool front come over last night that drove the hi temperatures away and brought us a day of mid 70's.  I asked Gina at work if the weather here always followed a pattern of hot for a day or two then cool down then back to heat again.  Usually a week will see this cycle happen a couple of times.  She said yeah it happens a lot and probably has to do with the air coming over the mountains in Wyoming brings cool conditions and then the plains heat brings the dry and hot conditions.  They tend to fight for control during the summer.  I told her that today was great for walking into work, even though the wind was blowing at about 15 miles an hour.

   Today Pauline and I managed to get all 244 moccasins stored in their place in our store and we had some room to spare, as she indicated another shipment would soon arrive tomorrow.  She does a great job at arranging the space in the store and my job was mostly to climb the ladder and get the boxes into position.  So far today we have sold a lot of the new moccasins styles that she got.  So she was happy.

   One of my least favorite tourist interactions happened several times today.  We have probably 40 varieties of moccasins to choose from and several sizes to choose from for each style.  About 6 times today I approached a tourist looking over the moccasins and ask them if they needed help.  They would respond "yes I am looking for a size (fill in the blank)".  To which I have to respond always "for what shoes are you looking for?"  I mean really folks just telling me a size accomplishes nothing.  One day I will just grab a random style and say here is a size so and so.  Just to make my day.  :)  Yes I know I am cranky, but it takes a lot of self control not to dope slap a tourist or two every day.  I guess God wants me to work on patience and self-control.  Before I leave here I will have had to work on every fruit of the Holy Spirit.  :)

  Not too much else happened and tomorrow will be July the 1st.  I hope July passes fast.  Take care and enjoy the dogs of the day below.  Some really nice dogs came through.  Stay well and be safe and remember when shopping for shoes pick a style before asking for a size.  The life you save may be your own.  :)

Gracie

Miniature Australian Shepherd

A dog and her skateboard.  She stays on that while being pulled around the store.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 29

   Got to sleep in late today and I really enjoyed that.  After the heat broke last night it rained buckets and thundered quite a bit.  But I still slept pretty good.  I had a visitor today.  It seems that HR never informed me that the bug exterminator guy was coming by today.  I let him in and he did his spraying and there was another guy spraying around the outside of the trailer.  The guy said that with all the staff cuts he was not surprised that no one told me.  I agreed with him and we talked for awhile about how the town was very happy to have Wall Drug open again.  He said he felt that the town turned into a ghost town for the two months the store was closed.  He said he could never remember seeing such and empty main street in all his life.  He told me that the store only shuts down 4 days a year.

   After he left I got ready for work and headed out to walk in the heat.  Today it was supposed to get to 99 degrees but I think it only made it to 95.  After clocking in at work I immediately went to HR and had my W-4 adjusted to take out an extra 75 dollars of federal taxes out of my paycheck every payday.  They again never took any federal taxes out and I did not know why.  So I am hoping the paperwork will straighten things out some.

  I don't know if it was the heat or just long drives in a car, but today was the worst Kid-Throwing-Fit day I have had since working.  I mean there were a couple of real tantrums being thrown today and parents who cannot discipline worth a hoot.  One kid was throwing a fit in the hallway outside our stores and it seems every worker in their store was sticking their head out to find out what was going on.  The kid kept screaming and stomping and yelling at his father.  Who did not do a thing to stop the kid from putting on a pretty disgusting show.  Several of my co-workers wanted to volunteer to kick the kid in the butt all the way down the hall and I wanted to do the same for the Dad who did not seem to have the guts to discipline the kid.  Several times today kids were throwing tantrums and screaming and yelling. 

   I was able to talk to a guy who was wearing a Guam t-shirt.  We got to talk about the island and I told him how me and my family lived on the island for 2 years when I was a kid.  We talked about the island and how it has changed over the years.  Nice to relive some childhood memories.

  Today was a pretty active day in that we got 20 boxes of moccasins to inventory and price and put on the shelf.  The picture below shows you how cramped our store is and when you get that many boxes in it really becomes congested.  Like I said before Wall Drug has the worst inventory system going and when you have to do the whole process in the store in the middle of tourist season, it is pretty evident that their system is archaic.

   Putting up 244 boxes of moccasins takes a lot of time and Pauline has some work to do tomorrow trying to figure out where we will store some of it.  As we got in new stock and don't have the shelf space for them yet as well as storage space.  I think Pauline and I will be fairly busy tomorrow getting the store straightened out, but she is a pro at this and I am sure she will have a plan on how we can get all 244 boxes stored.

  Well that is about all for today.  Hot dog and beans for dinner.  Living the life. :)  Take care all and stay safe and well.

Dog of the Day, a cute little girl who was 11 years old and I would guess weighed no more that 3 pounds.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 28

   Well back to work.  I got up early and ate breakfast and headed out to my day shift at 8:30AM.  Since this is Sunday, and the end of the pay period, I have a day shift and then tomorrow I go to evening shift.  11:00 to 7:30.  Tomorrow is also officially payday, but since I get direct deposit I had the money deposited Friday.  Isn't technology wonderful.  Wall Drug pays every two weeks, so tomorrow I will have to ensure they are taking the taxes out like they should be.  I am sure I will have to adjust it as the payroll folks on summer work sometimes act like this is my only income and when you declare being married on the W-4.  They don't take out enough federal taxes.

   Opened up my store this morning and found the place is somewhat of a disarray.  I think the person who worked the night before was a new employee and thus not trained on keeping the place straight during their downtime when customers are scarce.  The belts were a mess.  The carpets needed swept and the register area was a mess.  So for the first 45 minutes I got the place back in order.  Then around 9:30 or so it got fairly busy. Which was good and the time passed fairly quickly.  Before I knew it it was 11AM and Stephanie arrived to work the late shift.  Over all the day was uneventful and I did not even get a good Dog-of-the-Day picture.  I did meet a family from Indianapolis whose son worked in the Bloomington area and knew where Linton was.  My interesting person of the day was a guy who was wearing a "Mott the Hoople."  If you know who they are then I have respect for you.  If you don't them your not my Rock-n-Roll age.  We had a great conversation about old rock groups from the 8-track era and the various concerts we saw in our younger days.  He was glad that someone understood his t-shirt and I thanked him for making my day.  The lead singer of Mott the Hoople was Ian Hunter and he had the best album title ever.  It was "You are never alone with a Schizophrenic."  That title ranked number one and REO Speedwagon's "You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish" was a close second.  Come on and laugh as those are great titles for albums.

   Walking back to the trailer after work was hot as the temp was 90 today at 5PM.  I am not looking forward to tomorrow as the temps are to hit 99 degrees.  So I am sure I will be sweating on the walk to work tomorrow at 11AM.  Thanks for reading and everyone stay safe.  It sure is good to watch LFCC Sunday service on YouTube.   Makes me less homesick.

One of the entrances into our camping and kids store next to me.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 27 (Day Off)

  Today, being a day off, I slept in late.  I was up late after watching the entire Avengers Infinity War on Disney Plus. :)  I got up and pulled the steaks out of the fridge to season them.  I am going to fix them for a lunch/dinner today.  I just need to find a way to cook them with the limited cooking items that the trailer has.  Sorry no outdoor grill.

  After getting some checkbook work done I decided I would head out today to visit the Minuteman Missile National Historic site.  The main visitor center is only about 24 miles east of Wall.  I went to the visitor center first, but found out that they were limiting the people entering because of the virus.  The ranger was nice enough to give us a brochure of the historical site.  I read over the material and was amazed that in its peak cold war time.  There were 150 missile silos in this area of South Dakota.  The other thing I thought was interesting is that the each missile did not have people at them.  The people manned the controlled center, which was responsible for 10 or so missiles in the flight.  So the missiles were just out there amongst the wheat and corn fields surrounded by barbed wire and some sophisticated motion detectors and monitors.  I asked the ranger how quick the response was to an intruder and he said very quick and they were authorized to kill and ask questions later.  Interesting.  After visiting the visitor center I saw where the control center was for the flight in the area.  It was not far from the visitor center and it is still furnished with items from the era.  I asked about tours and they said I would have to call a number and pay a fee to make a reservation to get a tour of the facility.  It is several feet underground and can only be seen by paying a tour fee.  I was then told that they were pretty booked up through July.  I will have to call and see if I can get a reservation for August if possible.  I left the visitor center and drove down the interstate to where the only viewable minuteman missile silo is.  The site is pretty bare and has some markings around it and the fence.  The place was deactivated and the nuclear elements were all removed, but they kept the silo intact for people to view.  You can't go down into it but they removed the top blast shield and put a window over it so you can see down into the 80 foot silo where the missile stands.  It was pretty interesting and I have included pictures of it all below.  One day I think I will venture out and see if I can find some of the other silo sites.  The ranger said that when the missiles were decommissioned, the sites were emptied of any equipment and technology.  Then the site was blasted and the blast doors sunk down into the silo.  The land went back to the ranchers.  He said that many of the ranchers left the fence up and used the area to store hay and farm machinery in.  I would like to see if I can find some of these sites in South Dakota.  He also told me that North Dakota and Wyoming has several silo sites and some have been preserved for historical sites.

   After the steak dinner, when the heat went down, I headed for a walk around Wall. 

p.s. Three miles and the heat stayed above 90 degrees.  Stunk pretty good after the walk.  Thank you Lord for showers.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 26 (Day Off)

   After sleeping in for a little bit I decided to get up and get some breakfast so I could get to the laundromat before a crowd gets there.  Today was two load day and I made sure I had enough ones to get some change.  The whole thing will cost me around 6 dollars to wash and dry the clothes.  When I got there I was happy to see that no one was there yet.  So I got the clothes going and sat down in one of there not so comfortable chairs to read a Clive Cussler novel I brought.  In fact I brought 4 of his books to read while I am here.  I finished one already and just started a good Kurt Austin adventure of Cussler's.

  After laundry was done and put up where it belonged, I headed out to Custer State Park outside of Rapid City.  Dad took me to that park when we were motorcycling.  It has some interesting roads and tunnels and views from the Black Hills.  The place is also a habitat for Bison and free range donkeys, as well as other wildlife.  When I reached the entrance I just happened to see a small herd of Bison crossing the road and like Yellowstone, the cars were backed up trying to get pictures.  The cost for entrance into the park is 20 dollars for a 7 day pass.  What is interesting is that the park has many entrances and exits as you travel the highway.  You will find yourself leaving the park and then heading back into it several times.  They give you a sticker to put in your window so you can just pass the gates when you have to enter again.  I was hoping to be able to do a small hike, but the weather started getting cloudy.  After traveling several miles and seeing some great views of the Black Hills, it started thundering and lightening.  But the rain was not real hard and seemed to pass by quickly.  I arrived at Sylvan Lake and decided to try my luck on a trail.  I pulled over to a trailhead parking for what they call Little Devil's Tower trail. I found a parking spot, which were very scarce today as many people were in the park visiting.  I changed into my hiking shoes, put on some sun screen, grabbed a water, and grabbed my retractable hiking stick and headed out.  I figured I would do about two or three miles through the forest and hills.  The temps were great for hiking and the area was really nice.  The granite rick formations were amazing and I was able to climb and lot of them easily.  I made it to Sylvan Lake and walked around it taking pictures and videos.  The lake was packed with people and there were several great rocks to climb on for some good shots of the lake.

   After the hike I drove around some more in the park trying to hit all the tunnels that they had.  One of the best tunnels was called Needles Eye tunnel, next to the Needles Eye rock formation.  Every tunnel in the park is single lane and Needles Eye was very very narrow.  I think I had a foot to spare on each side of the truck.  I put some great pictures and videos up on Facebook of the Needles Eye area.  One of my favorite things about the park and the pullout areas was the amount of rock areas a person could climb upon.  I enjoyed doing that and most of the tourists seemed to also.  After leaving Needles Eye I went through three more tunnels.  The last two tunnels were carved so that when you exited the tunnel you had a complete view of Mount Rushmore.  Very nice and very well crafted tunnels.

   After leaving the park I headed to Wal-Mart to get some supplies I needed.  I then headed back to the trailer for some dinner, having missed lunch I was pretty hungry.  Tomorrow is my second day off and I bought some steaks that I think I will be cooking up for lunch tomorrow.  Enjoy the pictures and videos below.  More are on Facebook.  Take care.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 25

   TGIF.  Yes it is the end of my week.  Two days before payday.  A full two week paycheck should look good and go a long way to balancing my expenses.  :)  I was able to sleep in a little as I switched shifts with Pauline so she could work her second job tonight at the Red Rock restaurant.  She is a very hard worker and her and her husband are saving for the future.  I think they want to ultimately buy a house with their our land.  I think they own a trailer but not the land it sits on.  I told her it is good to have a goal and that it is good they are both working hard to achieve it.  After a breakfast of sausage biscuit sandwiches, which I cooked by the way.  I walked into work.  It was a little hot at 10:30 and that made the walk not so nice as the previous morning.  I got to work and found it fairly busy.  Pauline said she was working on inventory and she would send me to the upstairs stock room for some work later in the day.  Several customers came in and actually bought something today.  Which is a vast improvement over yesterday.  We sell a very authentic pair of moccasins that is made completely of bison and another made completely of deer.  Both sell for about 98 dollars a piece.  I have never sold one in the 3 weeks I have worked in the store, but today I sold 4 pairs.  Unbelievable. Yesterday we go in a shipment of purses and hand bags to sell in the Buckboard section of our store.  One of the laughs we got was the below item that we had to put on the shelf.

  Yes that is a raccoons tail hanging off of it.  If any of my readers want one, or two, we do ship across the US.  :)

   I had an interesting meeting with a couple from Indiana today.  A guy walks in wearing an IU shirt and I ask him where is he from and he responds Montgomery Indiana.  I laughed and told him that I was just up the road in Linton.  I then asked him if he knew a friend of mine named Louie Kavanaugh.  He said yes he and Louie are well acquainted.  He told me to tell Louie hello from Dale Wilson if I ever talk to him.  I emailed Louie and told him of my encounter and he responded that he knew Dale well and was wondering what in the world Dale and I were doing in Wall South Dakota.  I emailed him back and let him know what is going on with my summer employment.  Interesting how small the world is when you can run into people anywhere you go that are from your neighborhood. 

   Many of the employees are worried about the upcoming Sturgis motorcycle rally.  It seems that the virus is spiking everywhere there are people gathering and not protecting themselves.  Sturgis folks are mostly motorcycle people and I am sure they wont be protecting themselves at all and you can throw out social distancing.  So the virus will probably spike around here shortly after that  rally happens.  I see in the news where the NBA and baseball and football are all having spiking issues with trying to get their sports started.  It is going to be very interesting in the coming months whether or not states fall back on restrictions because people cant use common sense. 

  Well that is about all for today.  Not a very exciting day but busier that yesterday, thank goodness.  Enjoy the dog of the day below as it was a mix breed dog that had about 4 different breeds in it.  Very pretty.  Take care and laundry day tomorrow and I hope the weather holds so I can get to Custer State Park for some hiking and exploring.  Stay safe and keep praying for Janie Elliott as she is having several health issues.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 24

   Today started with great morning weather and the walk into work after breakfast was refreshing.  Too bad the day did not continue that way.  Not that anything bad happened, it was just the business was way down in our department.  I am having a very hard time just standing around doing busy work.  It is the most boring thing I can imagine.  Straightening up the area, cleaning the area, checking the stock, etc... Over and over several times a day just to keep moving is getting on my nerves very fast.  Those that came into the store allowed me a rest from the boredom, but most never bought anything.  Business was terribly slow even if traffic looked like it was OK. The slowness enabled Pauline and I to add stock to the shelves but even that did not keep me busy.  I walk around the area several times a day (hundreds of times) just so I would not have to stand at the register.  I have found that standing in one place for too long makes my back hurt a lot.  It is days like today that makes me think 100 percent that I will not be coming back here to work unless I can get assigned to an area that keeps me moving.  I think I would like to work in the basement gathering and putting up stock, as I would be moving all the day and would not have to deal with selling to customers.  If I ever apply for here in the future I would only come back if I was assured that type of job.  I know I sound cranky but people who read my blog has requested that I be candid in my evaluation of my summer employment.  Some would like to do this type of employment in their retirement and like me to be honest.  I never want to steer anyone into working a job without their eyes wide open.  I just hope tomorrow will be better. I switched with Pauline and will be going in for the late shift.  TGIF. 

   Friday or Saturday will be payday, depending on when the auto deposit arrives. I will finally get a full two weeks pay plus overtime.  So I am anxious to see what the total will be.  I have been tracking my expenditures and income, so I can compare it with Yellowstone.  I think Wall Drug will be better than Yellowstone when it comes to pay and overall expenses, but it still boils down to liking the job.

   That is about it for today.  Saw several St. Louis Cardinal fans today and managed to razz them all.  Cub fans must do this as it is in our code.  :)  We all hope that there will be a baseball season this year, but none of us will put any money on it.

  I watched Warren and Jim do the Wednesday prayer meeting tonight.  It is sure nice to see this and I am glad that the Sunday sermon and Wednesday prayer meeting are online to watch.  I miss my church family just as much as I miss Cathy.  Take care all and stay well.  Stay busy too.  :)

Dog of the Day.  A real cutie.

We sell a lot of used ropes.  The real cowboys and cowgirls will buy ropes and when they are used up by them in the rodeos, they will trade the used ropes in for new ropes with us.  4 used ropes gets them a new rope in trade.  Then the tourists will buy the used ropes as souvenirs.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 23

   Another early morning to get breakfast and walk into work.  The weather was great for walking, but I think it will be changing to warm in the next few days. The store was not very busy this morning until around 10:30.  So I was able to get the belts back in shape and do some cleaning of my areas. Pauline got into work at 11AM and then sent me upstairs to the storage area to gather some belts and belt buckles to bring down for sale.  Before I went upstairs the maintenance guy brought three large boxes from the Minnetonka factory.  Pauline said it was her order for more moccasins and some other items for Gina's area. I went upstairs to get the belts and such.  The place is amazingly packed with goods for the stores around me.  I have not yet been to the basement, but I hear that area is packed to the ceiling with goods for sale in other parts of Wall Drug. Some employees are assigned to the basement and their job is to go around the store and gather notes on what items need restocked.  Then they would take their list to the basement and gather the items to take and stock the shelves.  This process happens many times a day and when the place is packed with tourists, it is very hard to restock while the aisles are full of people. 

   I got my belts brought down and restocked where needed.  After that was lunch and then Pauline had me price mark the moccasins and put them on the shelves.  This is a time consuming process for sure.  Pauline has to add the items shipped to her inventory, look up and record the prices, then hand me the price list.  I then have to use the pricing gun to mark every box with their appropriate price. Then I have to use the ladder to take the boxes up on the second shelves where they are stored for sale.  By the time I put up 50 boxes my legs are tired from climbing the ladder.  But at least I get my steps in for exercise.

   Not too much interesting happened today and did not have any interesting conversations with people from Indiana.  One thing I can safely say though is that God is really stressing my learning of patience because I had another rather testing customer today.  It seemed like I got down 14 pairs of shoes for this guy and after having to answer his question of "What do you think?" over and over. He then never bought a thing.  Patience young Jedi is all I could think.

   Tomorrow will be another day for sure.  Take care and stay well. 

Another view of a hallway just off our main hallway.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 22

  I did not like getting up early.  :) But some of us have to make a living. :) After a breakfast of biscuits and gravy (YES!) I headed into open the store at 8:30AM.  At 8:30 the store is not really busy, so I usually spend the time putting all the belts back in order and getting moccasins down from the high storage to fill in gaps on the shelves.  Also when no one is around it is a good time to use the spray disinfectant on all the surfaces and the seats and the cash register.  So far no employee has shown any signs of being sick.  Believe me if one employee gets sick, we will know if very quickly.

  About middle of the morning I was at the register and I guy walked by and I did a double take reading the back of his shirt.  I could not believe it when I saw the shirt advertising "Knepp Trucking Odon Indiana."  I just had to talk to the guy.  I stopped him and asked him if he was from Odon and he said yes.  I told him I was from Linton and he just laughed at this being a small world.  He said he drives his truck through Linton all the time.  He asked what I was doing working in Wall Drug and I told him.  I asked him where he and his family were headed and he said ultimately Glacier Park in Montana.  I told him I have been there several times and he and his family will have a great time in that beautiful place.  I bid them goodbye and wished them safe travel.

  Not too long after that an elderly man came in with a distinctly Mennonite look.  I could not resist asking him where he was from and he said he was from Elkhart Indiana.  We talked for awhile and he asked me several questions about areas around Rapid City.  He was very nice.

   I was not done seeing Indiana folks because Gina brought over a man and his wife that were from Goshen Indiana.  She said he said he wanted to see me when she told him I was from a small Indiana town.  He knew where Linton was and we talked for a time about traveling west.  It was sure nice to see some fellow Hoosiers today.

  The only odd thing that happened today was in Gina's department.  There was a man and his wife that came through my area.  The man looked very normal for a person of about mid fifties I would guess, but his wife was dressed rather brightly colored.  Sort of reminded me of Joseph and his technicolor coat.  She was rather loud in her appearance.  She had a dress on that was a combination of orange and yellow and came about knee high.  I just shrugged when they came through as I have seen many oddly dressed people.  But Gina got to see more than she bargained for.  It seems the lady was in Gina's area and wanted to see something on the bottom of a shelf.  Gina said she bent over to grab something and (Gina's words) she had nothing on under the dress.  I told Gina thank goodness that happened in her area.  Very disturbing and Gina was glad there was no one else in her area at the time. 

  One of the things I think God is teaching me while here is patience.  You see I think God put me in moccasins because he felt I needed to work on my patience, as well as serving others.  It is a real struggle to be patient with a person who wants to try on many shoes that obviously are too small for their feet or who can't make up their mind on what shoe type to buy.  You definitely have to be patient selling shoes.  I have to work on this every day and to keep from screaming the phrase "For Pete sake make up your mind!"  I think God is telling me this as every day I leave work I smile on how I managed to make it through and still like customers.  God seems to always have tests for us to pass/fail.  We just need to keep an eye open and remember Jesus loves everyone.  No matter how many shoes they want to try one.  :)

   One more thing before I close and eat some dinner.  Please say a prayer for me as I want to try to reach a fellow co-worker for Jesus.  I think God is calling me to say something to them.  I just need the Holy Spirit's guidance to know the right time.  Thanks for reading and stay well.

  p.s. The Dog-for-the-Day shots are below.

Part St. Bernard and part yellow lab.  Very nice and well behaved dog.

Could not get him to stand still but a very nice mix of everything dog.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 21

  Back to work after two days off.  Still on night shift. I worked with a new employee today, Stephanie.  She has been working in boots and will fill in for us when Pauline or I are off.  When I got to work I found it very busy.  Stephanie and I must have sold 20 pairs of moccasins in an hours.  Pauline was very happy about that.  Being Father's Day (Happy Father's Day to all) we also sold a boat load of belts today. Pauline was very happy about that too. Speaking of belts, I never mentioned the variety of belts we sell.  We have a collection of many US made belts.  From leather, to bison, to ostrich, to bone and horse hair.  From plain ones to very very fancy ones.  Our sizes range from 20 inches to 60 inches.  We also sell some very large belt buckles.  Silver ones, iron ones, steel ones, and brass ones.  We also sell a variety of suspenders. 

   Today I met one of the bravest men I know.  I approached him in the moccasin section and asked if he needed help.  He showed me a pair of ladies moccasins and asked if I had these in size 9.  I checked nad sure enough we did.  He said he would take them.  I said who are they for and he said his wife.  I ask him if he would like her to try them on first and he said no.  He said he was sure that was her size and they would be OK. I told him he was a brave man and I would never be able to one know my wife's shoes size and then have guts enough to buy them without her trying them on.  He got my award for bravest man I ever met.  :)

  Today we also had an incident where we think a family was stealing.  From what I could tell the Mom was setting up blocking to allow her son to put items in her bag.  They were around the store for several minute and in several departments.  They stood out as peculiar, as they were trying on shirts in my moccasin area.  Gina finally called management and reported them after they left.  I think they were reviewing the video and Gina reported on where in the store they were heading.  I felt this whole thing as odd, but I was told by the seasoned employees that this happens a lot.  Theft is a real problem in the retail industry, but at least they have video surveillance in Wall Drug.  Which is more than Yellowstone had.  In Yellowstone theft happened quite often and no one seemed to care.

   That is about all for today.  I go in for early shift tomorrow and I am sure I will miss sleeping in. I leave you with a picture from the Mall area.  This is the end of the hallway I work in.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 20 (Day Off)

   Well today was a lazy day off.  I slept in and had a late breakfast.  I wanted to go to the Wall Meat processing plant today to see about getting some steak to cook.  I also wanted to explore the area around Wall a little too.  To see if there were any areas to hike or just see what the farmers are doing.

  Heading out in the truck I went to the meat processing first.  Unfortunately they were not open on Saturday.  My co-worker Pauline's husband works there.  She said that with the processing plant issues in South Dakota, that her husband had to put in many hours of work a day.  I will stop by there next week when I move back to day shift. 

   I then headed out north into the farm land surrounding Wall.  Right now the main crops are winter wheat and hay.  They are always bailing hay here to feed the many many cattle that I see roaming around South Dakota.  The winter wheat is about ready to harvest and I am sure at some point I will see sunflower being planted.  Because when I come through South Dakota in the late summer early fall I see a lot of sunflower fields.  The fields are so yellow that it just about hurts your eyes to see them.  Very pretty to look over.

  After a short nap, yes naps are my best friend, I went for a walk around Wall.  There is a very nice walking trail near me that takes a person through a hay field.  They just harvested the hay and the rolls are still in the field.  I noticed that the edge of the field had many cacti growing.  I find it amazing that they survived the hay mow.  But what really made me smile is that several of them were blossoming some very pretty yellow flowers.  If I lived here I would go and dig a few up and plant them at my house.  They make the field look interesting for sure.  I have been warned several times to be aware of rattle snakes on my walks by the locals.  So far I have not seen any but I am hoping that they will warn me if they find me first.  :)  On any long hikes I do in the area I may bring a Bowie knife I have in the truck.

   That is about it for the day.  Since it was my day off I watch a few movies on my Disney Plus subscription.  I finished Toy Story 4 and that was about as heart breaking as Toy Story 3.  :)  They both were very funny  movies and had a great story.  I am sure they will do a Toy Story 5 sometime.  Thanks for reading and I hope you are all doing well.  Please keep my sister-in-law Janie Elliott in your prayers as she fights cancer.  She is having a very hard time.  Also please pray for my neighbor Carrie Riker as she is having some heart issues.  She is a very sweet lady.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 19 (Day Off)

  Woke up semi early and had a couple sausage biscuits for breakfast then headed into town to do some laundry.  The coin laundry was empty and I think doing laundry on Friday morning will be a good thing.  Driving through town I see that two hotels are open now, but the Econo-Lodge and Super-8 are still closed.  Several mom and pop motels in the area are also still closed, as well as a very nice cabin motel on the edge of town.  I don't know if all of the mom and pop motels will ever open back up, as one has a for sale sign on it now.  Sad.  After laundry was done I went to the local grocery store to pick up a few things.  The local grocery policy is that anyone who is from out of town has to wear a mask.

  Once the laundry and groceries were put up I decided to head to Rapid City and do some hiking around Custer State Park, but the weather changed my plans.  As I approached Rapid.  I need to stop here and let you know what I learned about local speaking.  The locals don't call it Rapid City they just say Rapid. Also the town near Deadwood that I visited is spelled Lead and I pronounced it like the metal lead, but I was corrected by the locals that is is pronounced leed.  So I am learning to blend in better.  Back to the story.  As I approached Rapid ran started to fall in sprinkles.  So I changed the GPS to head to Bear Country USA in Rapid.  This is a drive through zoo that has several animals just roaming around.  As an employee of Wall Drug I can get in free.  Once you pay to get in you start on a one way loop through their park that ends at a place where they have animals in some great habitat for you to view. The drive part takes you first through the Rocky Mountain Elk area, then the Reindeer, then Arctic Wolf, then Bighorn Sheep, then Dall Sheep, then timber wolves, then mountain lions and finally the bears.  I have included several pictures below and uploaded my favorite bear video on Facebook.  The place was great and I highly recommend it to anyone with kids.  The drive through part is great as well as Wildlife Walkway at the end.

   Before I left Rapid I decided to go visit the place where Dad and I stayed when we took our motorcycle trip out west.  The place was called Hart Ranch and it is a great camping, golfing and home community in a valley in the black hills.  Dad and I stayed there about three days as we drove all around the Black Hills on the motorcycles.  A great time.

  A couple things happened on this trip today.  One was coming up on an accident on I-90.  As I came over a rise I saw several people crossing the road in front of me to get to a car in the grassy median.  I could see from where I was that there were some serious skid marks on the road and it looked liked the car spun around before going off the road.  I slowed down and rolled the window done to see if I could help in anyway.  There were already several cars stopped and one of the guys said that they had enough help and thanks.  The car off the road had its airbags deployed and there was an elderly couple being helped out of the car.  The lady I saw had a nasty bruise on her head and she looked very shook up.  Which I could understand if the airbags deployed.  I drove on and said a prayer to God to help that couple and that their injuries were not serious.  If I was to guess I would think that they hit one of the many Prong Horn Deer that are always around the interstate.  I can't think of anything else in the area that would cause the airbags to deploy.

   The second thing that happened was when I stopped off to get gas.  The pumps were all full in my direction so I went around and came to the pumps in the opposite direction.  After getting ut the guy who was filling up his tank next to me said he did not have any luck with the pump I was at as it would not authorize his card.  I told him I would give it a shot anyway and put my card in the pump and pulled it out.  The pump said to begin filling and I did.  After about 14 dollars the pump shut off and I waited for the receipt.  The receipt prints and falls into a little area where you have to lift a door to retrieve it. When I lifted the door I found several receipts in it.  I pulled them all out and had to find mine.  After going through 5 receipts I found mine and threw the other receipts away.  Getting back into the truck I headed down the road and back on the interstate.  I pulled the receipt out of my pocket and was putting in in my wallet when I noticed that the receipt did not acknowledge a discover transaction, but a Visa transaction.  I thought maybe that was just a generic term for all credit transactions, but when I got to Rapid I stopped and used my phone app to contact discover to see if the transaction went through.  I saw no indication that a charge was ever made.  So my guess is that the guy who thought his card did not go through never gave it enough time and when I showed up it did not accept my card swipe but just continued on his card.  I don't know what direction he went when he left.  Could be a local or a tourist, but I think he will be surprised that his credit card was charged for my gas.  So the lesson on this is that if you swipe a card on a pump and don't use the pump make sure the transaction is cancelled.

   Back a the trailer now and writing this.  Waiting for the rain to blow over so I can possible get my steps in with a walk around the town.  I hope you enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading.

The Elk

The Bighorn Sheep

Dall Sheep

Mountain Lion

Hard to see but there were I think 4 or 5 black bear cubs in there.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 18

   TGIF.  The weather turned marketable cooler overnight.  I woke up to around 54 degrees and when I walked into work it was about 67 degrees.  A very nice day and I would love having this temperature 365 days a year.  I think for the next 4 days we will be having relatively cool temperatures.

  I got into work at 11AM and it was fairly busy.  A lot busier in our area than it has been for a while.  I think when Pauline went on her lunch break I sold 7 or 8 pairs of moccasins in a half hour.  When she got back I told her I was done for the day as I could not do better than that.  She said, "Get back to work." She is such a slave driver.  :)  But in all reality it was a great day for moccasin sales and for belts and such.  Pauline was very happy.  Sometime during the day a store manager stopped by and I had a chance to talk to him about the store situation. He said in a normal tourist summer they would employ around 220 people.  Some full time year round and some temporary workers.  He said right now the store has only around 105 employees.  This is rather disturbing on two fronts.  One is that some people are not coming to be employed.  Secondly that less than half of normal employees can take care of the reduce amount of tourists coming in.  Gina, who works in the next store to mine, said that normally they would have 3 people working in each section.  That means in my small area of belts and moccasins, there would have been three employees running the register (as we only have one) and helping customers.  That would be very crowded.  Speaking of crowded.  Today the store was packed with strollers.  Big long ones and double side-by-side ones.    It was getting very hard to move in the store when multiple tourists were maneuvering their strollers around.  Some had kids and some had dogs.  As the picture shows below of one dog in a stroller.  I have nothing against strollers but there needs to be some common sense in that if the space in a store is at a premium, maybe one person just needs to keep the stroller outside of the store and let the other go in to shop.  Also strollers with twins side by side can barely make it through a doorway, let alone maneuver around a store with limited isle-ways.  Just a little public service announcement.  The manager I talked to indicated that the store sales were increasing and that this week they had some very promising days.  So maybe the store will do OK in the coming weeks or months.  They just need to get some workers to come back.

   By the way did I ever tell you I have to wear a mask all day.  I really hate it and boy am I ever glad to get that off when the day is over or I am on break. 

   On a side note I have heard from my friends at the Yellowstone store that things are not going well for the parent company Delaware North.  You see the company has many stores and venues that are shut down because of the virus.  They have furloughed quite a few employees, many of the middle management at Yellowstone.  Because of the financial hit they are taking some employees may not be coming back.  Delaware North is being tested financially right now and some at the store seem to be worried about how things will shake out.  I guess I am lucky I am working at Wall Drug this summer as the Yellowstone store is very understaffed and now they have this financial test hanging over their heads.  I will be keeping in touch with them over my contract as I worry about my friends and former co-workers.

   Well tomorrow is my first day off and I think I will get laundry done and then head to Custer State Park to try to drive the loop and to hike a little.  Take care you all and please stay safe.  Thanks for reading.

One of several dogs that get pushed around in a stroller.

The Dog-of-the-Day a Shepard Poodle mix.  Isn't he one unusual looking dog.  Very friendly though.

Wall Drug Adventure 2020 - Day 17

   Before I get into today's stuff I forgot to mention yesterday a member of the office staff came to me and handed me paperwork on Wall Drug's 401K plan for employees.  I was surprised that one they had a 401K and two that you only had to be an employee for a year to get into the program.  It is not a bad program in that they will match 100 percent of your first 900 dollars and 50 percent match of your next 600 dollars.  SO if you put in 1500 dollars a month then they will put in 1200 dollars.  I don't think that is too bad.  They just handed me the paperwork that describes the contribution and eligibility, so I don't know anything about who runs the program and how well it has been doing for employees.  But like I said not a bad thing to have a 401K program available as an incentive to get people to work here full time.

   Well work today was pretty good and fairly busy.  Busier than yesterday for sure.  I think the hot temperatures slowed people down yesterday.  It was 15 degrees cooler today and very nice for business.  Talking to Pauline I found out that one of the very good sources of income for the store will be severely drawn down.  That is tour buses.  Wall Drug gets a lot of tour buses full of tourists come through several times a summer.  The tourists usually stay at a local hotel and then spend the day at Wall Drug and the badlands.  She told me that many tour buses have cancelled their tours this year.  Some will be there this summer but most wont be.  This is another hit to the local economy.  Very sad.

   Yesterday we had a family come into the store with a child who clearly needed watched.  It seems that the child decided she wanted a purse and pulled one of the shelves.  Then proceeded to walk around the store with her parents, all the while grabbing items off shelves and putting them into the purse.  When they got to the cash register their parents finally noticed the stuff purse and told her now she would not be getting anything she took.  They paid for the things they wanted and left, with a very unhappy child.  The cashier then began to dump the items out of the purse to get them put back on the shelves.  The parents were unaware that their child decided the first thing to add to the purse was the child's own toy, a My Little Pony.  So after the items were returned we placed the My Little Pony aside and waited for the parents to return.  After the whole day went by the parents evidently were down the road many miles and must have decided it was not worth it to come back for the toy.  So I put the toy aside and moved it around our station several time.  Posing it on the counter and facing the customers.  So today the toy was behind me at my cash register station sitting on a metal bar.  This afternoon a family came in that had a little girl.  The little girl was not having a good day.  Her Mom said it was because she had been in her seat most of the day while they traveled.  I looked down at her and saw her looking past me at the My Little Pony.  I reached for it and ask her if she would like to have the toy.  Her face just started beaming and she shook her head yes.  I gave it to her.  Her Mom and Dad thanked me several times.  Later today they came through again searching for some cowboy boots.  The Dad came back to my station and thanked me again for the toy, as her daughter had not stopped holding it.  I told him that was OK and I am glad I improved her vacation outlook for awhile. A nice feeling for today.

   Today's Dog-For-The-Day pictures are below.  I hope this blog finds you all well.  Take care and stay well.

Another backpacked dog.  Such pampered pets.

I don't condone hats on dogs, but I do sell the hats.  Does that make me a bad person? :)