DOES YOUR DAY OFF START LIKE THIS?

Sunday night it rained again but on Monday morning the ground and everything else was covered with 1-2 inches of snow, not just a dusting like on Saturday morning.  I went outside to take some pictures before the snow melted.  This is a picture of the fence and road behind our campsite.

At Walt Disney World you can have breakfast with the Disney cartoon characters.  At Grand Teton National Park you can have breakfast with full grown wildlife ambling by your motorhome.  When I sat down to eat breakfast I looked out our side window and noticed several bison coming between our RV and the next campsite.  I asked Ann to come quickly with the camera and she took the following pictures of a herd of about 25 bison who rumbled within 10 yards of our RV.  Seeing is believing!

Most of the bison went towards the place in the fence that was broken and didn't have a top rung.  However, a few of the more agile bison showed their leaping ability and hurdled over the fence.  Ann caught this big bison just as he was about to leave the ground.

What a way to start a day off!

SATURDAY MORNING

Saturday was not the typical summer day in Grand Teton National Park.  Friday night we went to sleep to the sound of raindrops landing on the roof of the RV.  We woke up to a winter, yes, winter wonderland of sorts.  The ground was covered with a dusting of snow as these pictures will attest.  The first picture is of the road in front of our RV with snow on the fence.

Our Honda Fit is covered with snow and ice and we don't have an ice scraper!

We showed the view below about a week ago when the mountains formed a spectacular backdrop behind the store.  Well, on Saturday we didn't see the mountains--all day.  The roof of the store is covered with snow but no footprints of a fat guy in a red suit or his four-legged friends.
  

This last picture, which could be found on Hallmark Chistmas cards in December, was taken at about 10 a.m. from the store window looking towards the Jenny Lake ranger station.  Beautiful!

Even with the off and on snow showers, we sold almost $100 in hot beverages, but only 4 hot dogs on the day.  Not exactly an ideal day for hiking or bike riding, let alone camping in a tent.  The campground at Jenny Lake only permits tents, no RV's permitted with hard sides (motorhomes, trailers, etc.).  That day, we had a run on hand and toe warmers, stocking caps and wool gloves - no surprise there!  

FIRST FULL WEEK AT THE STORE AND MORE WILDLIFE

The picture of the two elk was taken on one of our days off earlier this week.  No antlers on the elk right now, as they have shed last year's antlers and are growing new ones.  This weekend, the Jackson Boy Scouts held an elk antler auction, where the public may purchase antlers that have been shed in the winter elk reserve in Jackson.  We have been told that people come from all over the world to purchase these antlers to use for "art projects".  Now that is a unique fund raiser that you won't find everywhere.

We survived the first week of being in the retail business.  Lots of  boxes still to unpack - we have thousands and thousands of T-shirts in stock.  It is hard to believe, but we have been assured that, by the end of the summer, that stock will be gone.

Our recent weather has been overcast sky with light rain and temps in the low 50's.  Business was somewhat slow this week, as the current weather is not conducive to hikes in the sunshine.  One observation is that there are quite a few visitors from other countries, both in Europe and elsewhere including India and Canada.

Earlier this week the smoothie machine was installed in the store.  We offer blueberry and strawberry colada smoothies.  In three days we have sold a grand total of 1 smoothie (blueberry).  Remember, the high temperature has been in the 50's.  Coffee and hot chocolate sales have been brisk, especially considering we are still in the slow season.

Hot dogs are one of our lunchtime offerings.   We have one of those machines with the rollers so the hot dogs cook nice and slow.  Some days, we have less demand than anticipated,. and we have some hot dogs left near the end of the day.  Rather than throw them out,  we offer late afternoon discount deals.  Yesterday, our deal was 3 dogs for $1.  Today, we gave the last one to a man walking a dog while his wife was shopping in the store.  Once the store gets busy, we will be selling around 75 hot dogs daily.              

CAN YOU TOP THIS VIEW ON YOUR COMMUTE TO WORK?

We have about a 20 mile drive each day to the store, our views are spectacular.  The time flies by as we keep a constant vigil for wildlife and enjoy the breathtaking scenery.  Grand Teton is the highest peak (13770 ft. el.) in the park  and is almost completely snow covered now; this view is priceless.  Note the sky is cloudless.   

This is a view of the back of the store with Mount Moran (el. 12605 ft.) in the background.  We have this view every day when we sit at one of the picnic tables in front of the store and enjoy and nice quiet picnic lunch.  Yes, that is snow piled up around the building.  Today the little birds were out in force looking for a handout.

Today was opening day at the Jenny Lake Store, so we became grocery and gift clerks, after a week of unpacking boxes and stocking store items.  We were certainly not swamped with customers, since most of the park facilities are still closed, but we had a steady stream of folks wanting drinks and snacks, souvenir T-shirts, bear spray, warm sweatshirts and jackets, postcards or gifts to take back home to family and friends.  Our cash registers have touch screens and barcode scanners, so it is not hard to operate - just getting used to a new application.    Of course, we learned about cash register money counting and balancing procedures.  A cold beer after a long first day of work sure tasted good!


Bear spray you ask?  Yes, we sell two varieties of bear spray depending on how far you want the canister to shoot, 30 or 50 ft.  We have hiked a lot of the trails in Grand Teton National Park in our four previous visits and have never carried bear spray.  We have seen bear droppings but never a bear.  The advice in all the National Park Service literature is to never get between an adult animal and its young and if you come across a bear, quickly, without running, move up-wind.   This is your Wyoming fact for the day. 

FRIDAY TRIFECTA

What a wonderful wildlife morning!  We had just gone a mile down the road from our campground when we saw a lone moose wandering by the road not being bothered by us at all.

Five minutes later, an elk crossed the road in front of us but wasn't close enough to get a good picture.  Later in the drive, we came upon several deer grazing by the side of the road. 
Pictures later in the summer will show these animals with their racks, i.e. horns, which have been shed earlier in the spring.  The Boy Scouts in Jackson gather the elk horns from the National Elk Refuge just north of town and sell them as a fundraising project.  This is your Wyoming wildlife fact of the day.   

On the return drive back to the campground in the late afternoon we encountered bison again.  It is a daily occurrence for us to see herds of bison somewhere during our drive to or from work.  The orange pole in the first picture is at least 6 ft. tall and is used to show the snow plow drivers where the side of the road is during the winter months.  The 2nd picture shows more clearly that this bison is shedding his winter coat.     

According to the local Jackson paper, the south entrance to Yellowstone National Park, which is just north of Grand Teton National Park, opened on Friday.  Looks like Saturday temps will be near 60 degrees.

TRAFFIC JAM WYOMING STYLE

Today was day #3 of preparing the store for our Saturday opening.  We drove out of the campground, focused on getting to work on time.  What did we see in front of us a few miles down the road?  A herd of about 25 bison who wanted to cross the road.  And they don't like to be hurried.  We grabbed the camera and started taking pictures from the car - with the windows rolled up!  Respect for wildlife and sharing this breathtaking environment with them is one of the focus missions at Grand Teton National Park, and this situation is a perfect example.

It was certainly wildlife day, as we also saw a moose on our way along the main road.  Unfortunately, the moose was too far from the road to get a good picture.

The pictures taken Thursday morning of the interior of the store show that we are not ready to open just yet.  The first picture is a view towards the camping supplies, clothing, and souvenir items side of the store.  Cardboard boxes everywhere!  We each were supplied with our own personal box cutter to recycle the boxes after we empty them, another focus mission of the park.  In the 2nd picture, I am standing at one of the two grocery dept. cash registers preparing an energy drink display that will sit next to the register.   Notice the walls of the store are made of logs.  We have at least one woodpecker who serenades us in the mornings.

The view of the hallway leading out the back door of the store shows over 40 boxes that contain various camping supplies and souvenirs that still needed to be unpacked and sorted.  And this view is after we unloaded boxes for two straight days.  We also received basic cash register training as well as store opening and closing procedures.  

In response to several of the questions that have been asked in our blog comments.  We carry 4 different brands of beef jerky, all in at least three flavors.  We also carry about 20 types of trail mixes in several different size packages as well.  We do not have "slurpees", but we will have a "smoothie" machine which we have not seen so far.  Who needs a smoothie when there are still snow flurries, as there were yesterday.  However, we do not sell any alcoholic beverages.   Campers in the adjacent campground (tents only) have to bring their own adult beverages.

Wednesday night we took a trip into Jackson, about a 10 mile journey, to enjoy happy hour at one of our favorite places to eat--The Snake River Brewing Company.  Besides freshly brewed cold beer and great food, the people watching is interesting as well.  There aren't too many tourists just yet, mostly locals.  Several looked like they were "outdoors types", as their clothes looked like they hadn't seen a washer for quite some time.  Not sure if we can call ourselves locals until we have been here at least a month.

The Jenny Lake Visitors Center, Ranger Station and campground all open on Friday and we open a day later.  Saturday morning will be fun!

ORIENTATION AND CORRECTION

Most of you know I like to be accurate in what I say/write.  I mistakenly called the bison we have seen every day "buffalo".  Upon further review:
What is the difference between bison and buffalo?



'Buffalo' is the popular name often used to describe North American bison; however, this is a misnomer. In fact, buffalo are distinctly different animals from bison. Although both bison and buffalo belong to the same family, Bovidae, true 'buffalo' are native only to Africa and Asia.

You now have your fact for the day.

Orientation today consisted of an overview of the Grand Teton Lodge Company, a company under Vail Resorts.  This was somewhat painless after having presented over 50 workshops a year.  The various presenters, a VP, Health and Safety Director, and the Director of Retail made the topics as interesting as possible.  We will be trying to make every guest have "An experience of a lifetime."  This phrase was drilled into us repeatedly during the 2-hour presentation.  We completed registration by being photographed for our ID badges and picking up our work jackets.  Neither of us broke the camera. 

The remainder of the week will be spent cleaning and stocking the store with vendor deliveries beginning on Wednesday.  The Jenny Lake Store opens on Saturday.  

GETTING SETTLED IN THE PARK

On Saturday morning we started out at the Moose, WY U.S. Post Office.  We arrived right at 10 a.m. when the lone worker was putting up the U.S. flag.  We asked to purchase a P.O. box.  35 minutes later we not only had a P.O. Box but 6 fresh baking potatoes directly from Idaho, including a healthy coat of Idaho mud on each, courtesy of Dennis, the postmaster for the day.  Where else in this great country of ours can you rent a P.O. box and get 6 large Idaho baking potatoes?

Here is a view of the Teton mountains from the main road from Moose into Jackson. 

We continued into the town of Jackson to do laundry, get some groceries, and join the library, one of the big reasons for getting the P.O. box.  There is no house mail delivery in Jackson so if you have a P.O. box anywhere in Teton County you can get a library card.

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers out there.  Sunday morning we headed to Human Resources at the Jackson Lake Lodge, headquarters of the Grand Teton Lodge Company.  We passed this snow covered meadow enroute.  The second  picture below is of Jackson Lake.  We have never seen such a large lake completely covered by ice.

After filling-in employment forms, we proceeded to pick-up our uniforms, maroon polo shirt with gold lettering (FSU karma over 2000 miles from Tallahassee)  and khaki slacks.  After lunch in the employee cafeteria, we drove to the Jenny Lake Store, our workplace for the next 4 months.

 

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see why most services in the park do not open until later in May.  We will begin cleaning the store and stocking shelves on Tuesday.  Monday is devoted to an orientation for all employees.  The store opens on Saturday.

On our way back to the campground we saw over 50 buffalo in several herds along the road to the campground.  The ones pictured below were the closest to the road.  A buffalo can get to be over six feet in height and weigh over 2000 pounds.  Yes, that is your trivia fact for the day.

We plan to continue to update our blog all during the summer. 

      

OUR DESTINATION AT LAST

We left Laramie, WY on Thursday morning after an all-night rained pelted the RV and left huge puddles around the campground.  We prepared the dinghy (warming the motor and setting the auxiliary brake) during a sleet storm.  The first picture below shows the big snowflakes coming down and the second picture is of our window thermometer (yes, we know it was attached it upside down) - if you look close you can see the snow accumulated on top of the thermometer.  

 

We continued west traveling into a strong headwind and occasional snow showers which made driving difficult due to the lack of visibility.  During the Wyoming winter, the snow fences, which dot the landscape along both sides of the highway, are severely tested.  Our journey this day took us across the Continental Divide twice.     

We arrived in Rock Springs, WY and battled more strong winds as we set up the RV for the night. The campground WiFi was weak and the Aircard that had provided us with great internet connectivity so far across the county could not hook up with a satellite. NO INTERNET! - it felt like we were totally out of touch, like we were living in pre-historic times, well, maybe pre-internet times.

On Friday we traveled on the last leg of our journey through more snow showers but fantastic scenery.  The pictures below do not do justice to the views we saw.

  

Wyoming trivia for the day.  We passed through Kemmerer, WY, home of the J.C. Penney Mother Store, founded by James Cash Penny in 1902.  Learn this fact so you too can win a trivia night at your local pub. 

Another interesting Western site along the way.  Afton, WY has the World's Largest Elkhorn Arch, which contains over 3,000 elk antlers. The arch is 75 feet wide, and 18 feet above the four lanes of Highway 89 in downtown.

The road for the final 30 miles of our journey to the town of Jackson followed the Snake River,  a beautiful scenic drive.

We felt a sense of accomplishment as we saw the sign welcoming us to our summer home town of Jackson, although many people call it Jackson Hole because the town is in a hole between two mountains.

Although it was REALLY HARD to drive past the turn to our favorite Snake River brew pub, we traveled on to our summer residence.  We are in a nice shady spot in Gros Ventre Campground, located about 10 miles from town.  We have full hook-ups (50 amp electric, water, sewer) and a good opening in the trees for the satellite dish to be able to function.  Ron and Karen, the store managers we will be working for, are in the next campsite.  This is the third summer they have been working at Grand Teton and gave us lots of good pointers about getting settled in our campsite and the job we are facing on Monday morning.

EARLY MORNING PANIC AND SNOW

Last evening there were extreme winds in Lamar, Texas which rocked the RV like it was a toy instead of a 24,000 pound beast.  Today we began our pack up procedure, which started out normally until we went to bring in the bedroom slide.  Our RV is equipped with 3 slides (bedroom, kitchen, and living room) which move outward using electronic switches to give the RV more interior space.  This morning, the bedroom slide would not retract, giving us only a flashing error light.  Considering we were far from civilization, our thoughts went to the possible scenarios.  From Ann's computer days - READ THE MANUAL FIRST - Ann checked the RV manual and found the reset procedure.  We followed the reset instructions and we were able to retract the bedroom slide.  The kitchen slide came in like normal but the living room slide needed the same reset procedure as the bedroom slide.  We don't really know what caused the slide problem - just speculating that the RV systems thought we were no longer level because of the windy conditions.  Even with the delay, we were on the road by 8 a.m.; our bodies were able to adjust to the earlier hour since we just switched to Mountain time the day before.

Our morning journey took us past more farms/ranches with the only wildlife being small herds of deer every so often along our route.  Cattle, horses, goats, etc. don't count as wildlife.  We passed through lots of small Colorado towns that were long past their prime.  Ann often remarked, "can you imagine living here?"
 
We hit city traffic again in Denver, but it was a breeze compared to Dallas traffic.  When we stopped for a stretch near the Wyoming border, we noticed that the weather had turned considerably cooler - hint of weather conditions to come.  As we began to make the climb up the mountain between Cheyenne and Laramie, we saw the first patch of SNOW.  The higher in elevation we climbed, the more snow we saw lying on the ground.   As we crossed the summit at Medicine Bow National Forest, el. 8640 ft., between Cheyenne and Laramie, we even saw a few snowflakes on the windshield.  And I was still in my shorts, but not for long.

When we checked into the campground in Laramie, we were told that we could not hook up to water, as water would only be turned on at campsites when there were no more nights below 32 degrees.  Good thing we added water to our fresh water tank before leaving Lamar!  We are so accustomed to having city water hookup that this situation is a new way of living on the road. 

The temperature was 42 degrees at 7 pm when I began this installment.  The coach is rocking again in the wind like last evening.  Today we played it smart and didn't extend the slides, figuring we could exist in cramped quarters for one evening so that we didn't have another panic situation tomorrow morning.  Snow showers are forecast for this evening as the temperature is supposed to drop into the upper 20's.  Our first use of the gas heat since we owned the RV, and it works!

TEXAS PANHANDLE AND INTO COLORADO

We left Dallas on Monday morning for our trip up through the Texas Panhandle to Amarillo. The drive was a reminder that are "Texas wide open spaces".  Nothing to see along U.S. 287 but farmlands, ranches and grain elevators.

We did some minor maintenance on the Honda Fit on Tuesday morning in Amarillo before heading north again on U.S. 287 through the western corner of Oklahoma and into Colorado.  It sure was good to visit an honest auto dealership, Southwest Honda in Amarillo.  We had minor brake work completed that didn't break the bank.   

Heading into Stratford, the last town along our route in Texas, we saw a sign which said the Pheasant Capital of Texas.  That  bit of information just might win you a trivia contest somewhere.  We didn't see any pheasants though.

Crossing state lines into Oklahoma did not change the scenery - the same barren ranchland as Texas.  We did see our first wildlife of the trip when a deer crossed the road about 50 yards ahead of us.  We also spotted prairie dogs sitting on top of their mounds along a portion of the route. 

We entered the Mountain time zone when we passed into Colorado.  We are staying at the Lamar Sportsman Park and Horse Motel.  Yes, there is a barn less than 30 yards from the front of our RV with about 10 stalls for horses.  In fact, the RV on our right is a horse trailer with some living space.  We watched as an older couple took their two horses to the barn along with water, feed and grooming supplies.

Tomorrow's journey will take us east of Denver and into our summer home state of Wyoming. 

WEEKEND IN THE BIG "D"

We enjoyed a relaxing weekend in Dallas visiting family; daughter Wendy, her husband Scott, and grandchildren Amelia (6 1/2) and John (4). Saturday morning was John's first T-ball practice.  John and Scott practiced various throwing and base-running drills during the 45-minute practice.  You can see that John was thrilled to be getting that foot on a base, while Scott (in the orange shirt) is encouraging him to run fast.

Sunday we took the children and Wendy for a picnic lunch at the RV.

We knew the children would be excited by a trip to an amusement park on a beautiful spring day. The children rode the train around the park, the bumper cars and several other rides.

We were glad to be in Dallas to hear Amelia sing in her church children's choir recital. We concluded the evening with Scott's fabulous pulled pork from a pork shoulder that he had smoked all day. Scott's grilling and barbeque skills are second to none.