First day at work

Thursday, May 27

Yesterday was my first day at work. I felt pretty stupid. I would be standing behind the counter watching the veterans answer questions and people would come in, see me just standing there and ask me questions about what to see, where to go, where to stay, where to eat, where to see elk, .... Guess what my answer usually was -- "I don't know". I had actually driven around the park Tuesday and from listening to answers from some of the old hands, by the end of the day I was able to make some visitors think I knew what I was talking about. It's really interesting meeting so many people from so many different places. It seems that there are as many foreigners as US citizens. That will probably change when schools let out and people start their summer vacations.

Yesterday after work I took a short trip out of Jackson to look at a campground and see if I could see any wildlife. I really wanted to see this campground because as I was leaving work and the visitor's center had already closed, these two guys from Calgary, Canada came up and met me in the parking lot. Since I was in uniform and looked important, they asked me if I could direct them to an isolated campground that was close. Well, I had my little map that I was taking home to study so I pulled it out, we looked at it and I pointed them to a campground that was close. I drove out there later just to see if it was even open. It was and I'm sure they would be completely satisfied. It was isolated and on the Gros Vontre river. There was a big tree in the campground that had an owls nest in it with a couple of little fuzzy owlets. There were a couple of people set up taking pictures of the owlets with telephoto lenses as long as my arm. These Ansel Adams wanna be's make me feel bad when I get out there with my little Kodak QuicPic.

To get to the campground I had to slow down to a crawl as bison were all over the road. A few miles further down the road was a herd of 100 or more elk. I probably saw no more than 5 cars on this short drive. I hate to go back to work tomorrow and tell people what's out that road. It will get congested.

Right now is really a good time to be here because it is not yet crowded. The downside is that the weather can get bad, but in general it has been great. A lot of places, stores, campgrounds, trails and roads are not open yet. Most around Jackson will open this weekend while some of the facilities up north will not open for another couple of weeks.

I took some more pictures, but left them in the car and don't want to shut down, pack up and come back into the library. I will attach them next time.