Journey Through the Tetons

We got a surprise call from Aunt Linda just before our weekend started. She was going to be in an art festival in Jackson Hole. We decided to drive down for our Saturday. We stopped in Teton National Park and went to the visitor center. We also had a great drive just looking for moose, and seeing the mountains.

When we got to Jackson, we got coffee, and explored the town trying to find Miller Park/ Aunt Linda. We had a great time at the art fair, Linda's stuff was awesome as usual. Roman Bought a journal made from an old book from the Journal Ladies. It has a Ranger on the front, and some of the original pages still in it.

We shopped around a bit, got a patch for roman and a bumper sticker for the car. We went to a real, big store too.... Kmart. now we have sheets that aren't accidentally dyed pink, and some shampoo and other necessities.

The drive back was great too, we listened to an audio guide cassette of Teton National Park. It was interesting and had funny background music.

and another adventure tomorrow....

'The Token American'

Lately we've been hanging out with or Slovenian friends. We go to the rec hall in the evenings to play whatever the 'sport du jour' is. Its awesome being 'the token American' in the group. The teams somehow divided into 'Europe + me' vs. 'Asia'. This is pretty much the first positive experience I've had playing team sports with my peers. No flashbacks to high school gym. Here are some things ive learned about playing sports with globally aware participants.

1. all girls scream if a ball is hurling towards their face. It doesn't matter where you're from or what language you speak.

2. Unamerican boys dont yell at you if you miss, they say things like "try it again" or something else encouraging.

3. Everyone was laughing all the time

4. No one really kept score, or paid close attention to the rules. 

5. We were all still friends at the end of the game, and no one got injured.

Back country mosquito killin'

     Thursday, after work we went on our back country camping by Shoshoni lake. Destination was 9 miles far from our dorm. First day we walked only six miles because we were going to stay our first night at camp site named 8G1. That camp site was covered with mosquitoes, and they were vicious, and they were in  big hordes. We did used our bug spray, which by the way, we almost forgot. It was working for a while but they were still around our heads. We ate some noodles prepared with our new Jet-boil, and we went to the bed.

     Next morning after delicious breakfast consisted with oatmeal and hot chocolate/coffee we hit the trail once again, but just for a two miles or so. We had to cross some stream which Em crossed on her feet and I double jumped across with a help of a stone. So Em had her shoes wet and I did not. Yet. Next stream we had to cross Em crossed it on fallen trees. I tried to do the same but I accidentally jumped to the mud deep to my ankles, luckily only one foot got the full hit. Now we both marked from our trip we went on. The map we got from rangers was little bit confusing so we ended up in a wrong camping site, which we did not know right away because it was place with beach and bear proof food lockers. We built our tent and stayed there for a while, we went to see a geyser basin which was pretty close to our fake campsite. We saw a geyser go off, what looked pretty nice.

After we got back and after observation of the surrounding with binoculars we decided to go back a little bit and tried to go another way what showed up as a best idea. Finally we found our right campsite which was way nicer and even had a benches and some sort of a toilet. After we built our tent and bear proofed our backpacks we went to the beach. It was a wonderful feeling to washed our faces and hair in cold water of Shoshoni Lake. Beautiful place to stay! Too bad the weather turned to the cloudy and windy-one. Well we had to move our tent to the more sheltered place so we did not have to hold its sides so it would not collapse. After evening full of rain and wind, night was not really different, accept the wind stopped, but the tent was and still is waterproof so we were dry and could sleep without any worrying. Awesome.

      Morning wasn't what we hoped for. It was cloudy. So we ate our breakfast, packed our wet stuff, got some water from lake by using our new awesome water filter which I did not see before in my whole life.,and went on our 9 miles long hike home. The only advantage of cloudy weather was that it  wasn't hot. Mosquitoes were our company the whole way home. So many mosquito bites. We left our campsite around 8.30 and we got back at like 1.30. Pretty good time I think. We put all our wet clothes to the washer, shoes and sleeping bags to the car and took a shower. My overall feelings after this back country camping were really good. Good way to spend some time away from all the craziness. 
Here some photo's. 

Mt Washburn Hike

On our Saturday, I made Roman get up early to go on a hike. We drove the long way to Mt Washburn through Hayden Valley. I wanted to see if we could spot any wildlife besides buffalo and this valley is popular with bears. Buffalo, there were many, this is also where they come to "Rut" in July- its their mating season. We did see three bears, I think they were black bears, but they were really far away so its not certain.

We started up Mt Washburn  from Dunnraven pass. Its 6 miles round trip. The mountain was covered in wild flowers, as opposed to snow when we were here last. It was a great hike, every turn had a vista point. Theres a fire watchtower at the top where a ranger lives. I think that would be pretty neat to live on a mountain peak.

West Yellowstone

Today, since my relief person quit, I went in to work for a few hours while Roman got some beauty sleep. I don't mind the extra hours, and I would have been waiting around doing nothing anyway.

After work, Roman and I drove to West Yellowstone- specifically to mail a package to Slovakia. We also took advantage of our free pass to the Bear and Wolf Center. It was really cool! we got to see grizzlies and wolves and there were exhibits about them.

 

We stuck around for the feeding of the wolves. Today the dumped a bunch of donated rainbow trout into the stream in the wolf pen. Then we got to see the wolves catch the fish. It was really cool!

We also played some mini golf and had lunch. We even got some cherries at the produce stand.

The Fourth Of July

This fourth was a strange one, no fireworks, hanging out on the lake, or making hot dogs over a fire. This fourth of July was way more interesting. I was the minority in our group, trying to explain what and why we have the fourth of July. Roman, our three Slovenian friends, and Terrance (from Singapore) were so excited because the Employee dining room was making a special meal: steaks, watermellon, strawberry shortcake, corn on the cob, and root beer. The boys of course, were silently enjoying their steaks while the girls were so surprised they were eating watermelon in the USA.

Apparently, watermelon is their favorite fruit, and they didn't think we would have it here. I ate too much corn and too many strawberries. Its rare that we have fresh fruit and veggies in the EDR. After filling up, we headed down to the "parade". It was a very sad parade that lasted one minute, one second on Terrances video. There were 2 horses, a fire truck, and the Xanterra recycling team. Lucky for us, they had icecream after the parade at the ranger station! yummy

Roman and I also finished this puzzle. We've been working on it for about a week. Its cool because it has everything yellowstone in it.

Working the past few days were interesting. I hear all the good stories in the office because I'm there most of the day. about 1/4th of the kitchen staff called in sick on the fourth.... I think they came down with a severe case of the "fourth of July paydays". The 5th was worse because apparently Rangers had to get involved that night, some were in jail, some had left the park permanently, and most were just hung over, and late.

pictures to come later.....

Friday Taco bus, Saturday hike and Monday patches

     Friday was trip day. We had planed to go to the West Yellowstone to mail a package for my family and do some shopping. Our Slovenians friends Marko and Mateja joined us. They are pretty funny. Marko wanted to get a hair cut but unfortunately he had to scheduled his visit. And we did not make it to the West Yellowstone on time, post office was closed, so Em will have to go there sometime after she finishes at work. We had dinner there too, way better dinner than we could ever have here at EDR. We went to the Taco Bus for our Mexican dinner. Very good dinner! Everybody had happy tummies.

     On Saturday we joined couple of employees and headed out for a hike. Slough Creek is the name of the trail. It was a really nice 10 mile hike. We did not see many animals, just one bison and hundreds of prairie dogs and two marmots.We saw some Pronghorn on the drive back to Old Faithful.




  Today after work went to finished our last final task which was separating us from Junior Ranger Patch. We had to time Old Faithful`s eruption and by that predict when its gonna go off  again. While we have been waiting for 'Old champ' Faithful we saw Beehive geyser go off. Pretty exciting! So our prediction was 7: 01. It actually went off at 7: 06, sooo we are good. Now we have our patches and we are deciding where to put them! Hope you had a splendidliocious day folks!

Young Scientist Project

 

Using the Laser thermometer - which someone asked if it was a scat identifier.....tourists

Sick, with 'Bob Dylan Voice'

This weekend, we had awesome plans to go camping and horseback riding in the north part of the park. We were also going to hike specimen ridge, where they have petrified trees. All our plans came crashing down when I went home sick from my Friday :(

We made the best of our weekend though, on our Saturday I did feel better, so we went on a ranger walk through the upper basin, did our research project and earned our "Young Scientist" badge, and we went to some other evening programs.

Our project for our "Young Scientist" badge was: Is bacteria color and temperature universal in hot springs of the upper geyser basin? we got a backpack filled with sciency toys including a holster with the laser thermometer. we walked around and took the temperatures of white, yellow, orange, green and brown bacteria living in the hot springs. Later I geeked out with excel crunching numbers and making graphs. keep in mind, this badge is for ages 14 and up. The instructions were in comic form.

We found that the temperatures vary a lot with similar colors of bacteria, however, the bacteria colors always grow in the same order from hottest to coldest thermophile. Badge, Earned.... now for the Junior Ranger Badge :D

One lady approached us when we were taking temps of the springs and asked if my thermometer was a "scat identifier". Unfortunately I dont think she was joking, or that such device exists... but it doesn't  take a genius to know that All the poop in the upper geyser basin is BISON! 

pictures to come later!

So, since I was raspy, I decided to try and learn a Bob Dylan song on the ukelele. Roman thought it was very entertaining! I kept coughing like a smoker in the middle of the verses too.... if only I could play the harmonica too....

Pow wow

Last weekend we joined couple other employees and went to the Cody, Wyoming. As I heard it is a cowboy city with rodeo every single night, but we did not go there because of that. We went there to see a Pow wow. It was really interesting to see all those native Indians to wear their traditional "celebrational" clothing. Lots of colors. I noticed that they had some similar foot stepping as our national dances. We had a fry bread, what is a traditional Indian food. Also it reminded me a Langos, Slovak version of fry bread. They taste different but look the same. We bought a dream catcher to  protect us from nightmares, and allow us to have good dreams only. So far it is working for us, we`ll see later. On the way there we saw a black bear hanging out between trees, ironically it was brown. Silly Americans! Then we saw a bison, few elks and on the way back another black\brown bear run across road. This weekend we plan to go camping, hiking and horse back riding. Here are some pictures of pow wow:

 

New Uniforms!

We both got new uniforms this week! I started my volunteering gig with the Rangers, and Roman got promoted from Room Attendant (room cleaner) to Team Leader. Now he is in charge of a group of Room attendants, and making sure they are cleaning meticulously.

Volunteering with the rangers is really fun, I just get dressed up, walk around the geyser basin and answer peoples questions. I haven't got any silly or crazy questions yet. I also change the predicted eruption times on different geysers, and sometimes I pick up garbage. I also tell people to stay on the boardwalk A LOT.

One interesting fact I aquired while out on a rove was from a teenage boy. He walked past me, with his family and said " our tour bus got impounded and we're stuck here." I'd like to hear the rest of that story someday. At least they are stuck in an awesome place.

We also are going to earn our "young scientist" badge by completing this packet about the Scientific Method in the geyser basin. We get to borrow a backpack with an in-fared thermometer and other cool toys to play with! The activity is 14 and up, but I've got connections :D 

Throwing Up Waterfalls

This was the first weekend Roman and I had two days off, at the same time! How Exciting! On Friday we went on an 8 mile hike to Ferry Falls and Twin Buttes. It was a great flat hike past Grand Prismatic spring, through a new growth of woods to a 197 foot waterfall. We saw a marmot chasing a chipmunk, I think they were playing tag, and a very curious squirrel. We find  some strange things to talk about while hiking.... since talking and being loud keeps the bears away.

After a snack break at Ferry Falls we continued to two woodland geysers; Spray and Imperial. There was an amazing orange river connecting the two features, you could feel the heat rising from the running waters.

Then, because our book told us it was O.K. , we went off trail and blazed up North Twin Butte. It was steep, and windy, but we made it. We figured that if Buffalo can do it, we can too. There were some buffalo prints on the way up, as well as a lone Bison, mulling on grass in the valley of the Twin Buttes. Our elevation at the summit was 7,875 feet, a 650 foot gain.

In the picture above, you should be able to find the following: Imperial Geyser, Spray Geyser, Romanko, a Lone Buffalo, Grand Prismatic, and the Firehole river. Possibly the Absaroka Mountains. 

In the evening we went to dinner, and the nightly ranger program as usual. The employee pub also hosted a "super hero party". we made an appearance wearing Spiderman and The Avengers gear, but it was lame- so we went to bed. The only person I saw dressed up at all was our friend Jude, who was "Guitar Hero" he had a pocket amp, looked like a metal rocker and was sporting a British accent and horribly gelled hair.

Saturday, we drove up to Mount Washburn, near Canyon. It had a fresh layer of snow on top of its piles of unmelted winter snow. We hiked about a mile up just to get a good look around, then headed down to do some Canyon Exploring. We hiked the South Rim, Artists point, and then headed to the North rim, Inspiration Point and Brink of Lower falls. It was a lot of up and down. We totaled 10.5 miles for the day.Oh, also it snowed on our way home, and into the evening... on June 9th.. CA RAZY!