July 10: Let the July Family Bday Extravaganza Begin!!

Happy Birthday to Mr. David Politte! Hope golf and dinner are awesome! Ill call you and see how 32 feels...

July 8

This past week has been pretty eventful. I served a guy who was in the process of riding his bike (not a motorcycle, a bicycle, but I guess he didn’t specify and I am making this assumption strictly based on his spandex attire) across the US from Oregon to Virginia, went to Idaho Falls Idaho for a night, and my roommate and best friend here, Johnny, is headed back to Arizona already. He got drunk at the employee pub Tuesday night. When he was walking back to the dorm, he was stopped by the security guards. Johnny’s memory is a little hazy, but the Ranger report states that it was at this point when Mr. Singleton informed the security guards that they are not real cops and they should stop acting like it (apparently peppered with expletives). I guess they believed him, bc they called in the real cops, the rangers. They don’t mess around. They ruffed him up a little bit, he has cuts on his temple and his ear from when they threw him to the ground, arrested him and charged him with drunk in public and disorderly conduct. Both federal offenses, both possible $5000 fine and 6 months in federal prison for each. He was hauled all the way to Mammoth (2 hr ride) bc that is the only jail in the park. I stayed in that night, so I just woke up the next morning and he wasn’t in our room. When I went to lunch on Wed, people were asking me if he got arrested, so I went to talk to the rangers about it. I was planning on going to Idaho Falls that day, but wasn’t going to if there was something I could do if he had been arrested, which at this point I was convinced he had been. At first I thought maybe someone convinced him to crash at the dorms by the pub, or maybe he was talking to his gal on the phone in his car and passed out there, who knew. Turns out he was arrested and there was nothing I could do. He had to sit in jail 2 nights waiting to see the judge. I went on to Idaho Falls since I couldn’t do a thing for him. Couldn’t even talk to him. I picked him up Thursday after he saw the judge. He was fined $250 for each misdemeanor (2), fired from his job, and cannot enter the park for 1 year (very applicable punishment for a guy who lives in Arizona and doesn’t intend on coming back). So many people have done so much worse and just got a warning, C Walker for example, sleeping in the crow’s nest. Johnny blew a 0.11. That’s about a drink and a half over the legal limit. This is his first offense of any kind, ever, except one speeding ticket. This is so out of character for him its ridiculous. I think he just said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people and they overreacted. He was walking home and about 5 minutes away from passing out in his bed. He wasn’t driving, he wasn’t messing with anyone, he just had a little too much to drink, was probably walking funny, trying to get home, and mouthed off. You should not go to jail or lose your job for that. It’s a shame. I am somewhat happy for Johnny bc it hasn’t been a whole lot of fun for him since he’s been here. He hates the cold, his weekends kept switching bc he does whatever is asked of him so he never really had friends to do things with on most of his weekends, and this kitchen is nothing like the kind of kitchen he wants to work in. Its about quantity not quality here, and it has to be, it’s the 4^th busiest restaurant in the US, he knew that coming in. In Arizona, he knows he will find a better place to finish his externship with better experience in the right direction for him. For me, this sucks. I just switched my weekends so he and I could hang out on our weekends. I actually enjoy doing things alone, so its no big, I was just looking forward to hanging with one of my really good friends. It also sucks bc I am gonna get stuck with another roommate. I keep having these visions of coming home from work and all my shit is in a pile on the floor and there is this 8 ft Serbian telling me that he is going to use the armoire from now on, and not in English. I always try to look on the bright side of things, but this one just sucks. The only positive I can come up with is that I will be able to read and run on my weekends much easier now.

Idaho Falls was pretty cool. I didn’t know this, but there are actually falls there, right in the heart of town, pic above. I stayed close to that building in the left of the pic. Quite a Mormon presence there. The other pic is the Tetons in the distance from the Idaho side on the way to Idaho Falls. I stayed at a hotel called Le Ritz (vs. The Ritz), it was the cheapest hotel in the downtown area, and I had a view of the water. Everything was within walking distance, but I got there late bc I was trying to figure out the whole Johnny situation. Apparently people in Idaho don’t like to eat past 8pm. I literally could not find a place open to eat at 9pm. I walked around the falls and the downtown area trying to find an establishment that would serve me anything on a plate. During my search, I was on the phone with the girl from the Le Ritz front desk looking online for the same thing to direct me in my hunt. After 30 minutes of searching and trekking Idaho Falls downtown in its entirety, I was defeated. I wound up at the wine bar that I wanted to visit after I ate. I went in and the waitress was super cool, she made me a cheese and meat plate even though they stopped serving food an hour before. I laid the old, “my roommate got arrested and I got into town late,” bit on her. Works every time. I talked to the staff for a while, all of them were really nice and made a visitor feel welcomed. They told me I should go to another bar called the Frosty Gator, but I had also been told I should go to DB’s. I walked by DB’s, those people were wrong, and it was a hike too. I didn’t even go in. It reminded me of someone who lives in their grandparents’ basement and has people over all the time. Bad vibe. I went to the Frosty Gator and had a beer. At this point I was pretty tired, so I was outta there pretty quick. If it were the real weekend, I think the night life would have been more lively. I assume people from neighboring towns come there to party on the weekends. I was there on a Wednesday, and its still Idaho, so it was just a nice quiet night. The walking around was great. The bars I visited took me all over their downtown, by the falls, and through the paths of the park surrounding the falls. It couldn’t have been any nicer out. 65 or 70, no humidity, clear as could be. Just leisurely strolled back to my room with a view. The next day was all driving. Drove from Idaho Falls to Mammoth to pick Johnny up then back to OF. Started driving at 11am, didn’t get in til after 5pm.

As far as work goes, I will be splitting time between the warehouse and the restaurant starting tomorrow. Its actually on the schedule so they cant F with me about it anymore.

July 1: Whats the date again?

It cant be July already. Nope. Its still May. So this weekend has turned into a nice quiet weekend around Old Faithful and Im really glad it did. Got to do some running, working out, sleeping in, feeling healthier, reading outside in some really nice spots in the park, pics above. I finally got the sunburns I was asking for. Im really not that burnt, it just feels really good to finally get some sun. Without the burns, summer just isn’t official.

I was up in West Yellowstone the other day to watch some world cup, and I noticed the poster above. “Mountain Man Rendezvous.” I think its just a bunch of people who live in the mountains by themselves, at least that’s what I am hoping. I bet they all just appear at the rendezvous at 5am, fresh kill over their shoulder, emerging out of the fog or through a bush or something. I have to go to this. Im sure I will be able to spot the real players bc they will be wearing the hides/coats of their kills…. that they killed with their bare hands. It better not be story telling. If it is storytelling, it better be a legit mountain man giving first hand accounts of wrestling a bear, an alligator and Sasquatch all at the same time… and winning. I guess I will find out soon enough.

Dave and Colleen, tell Donovan thank you for the card. Its awesome. I miss you all. As you can see, its hanging on my wall. Luckily I got it the day I did laundry and cleaned my room. Otherwise there wouldnt be proof that I have it hanging on my wall bc I wouldn’t want it to look like it was hanging in a drunk monkey’s room.

June 27

I cant stress enough how fast time flies here. I feel like I just wrote a blog and that was 10 days ago. Insane. I think I haven’t written in a while bc I have been working most of the time and my last weekend was shot due to an alcohol training program (hiliarious ‘80s video of people acting wasted so you know when to cut them off, mandatory) and a double on my “Monday” back, so my leisure time has been pretty limited the past 10 days. The good news… the GREAT news is that the weather has changed and it seems permanent. It has been 70s and sunny for about a week straight. Paradise. Shorts, tees, flip flops, windows down, all that. Im on a patio right now soakin up some rays (scorching my face) and typing this. Since I last posted, we have found time to sneak in a few things… We hiked up a hill off a trail to get a good look at Grand Prismatic. Since it has warmed up, the steam over the pool can be better described as vapor, so we knew we could get a good look at the pool, pics above. We got back to the trail and hiked about 5 miles to get a look at Fairy Falls, pic above. I cant tell you how much better everything is now bc the weather has turned. I don’t want to say its better with all these people here, but it is impressive to see everything in full swing. The Inn is a madhouse. PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. Dripping with people. The restaurant is pretty steady, sometimes slammed, but for the most part we have all adjusted to the increased volume. There is more car traffic here now than most major cities at rush hour. You don’t really notice til there is something (bison) blocking the road, or even just near the road, and you wait forever to get through behind 24687234698753986735496873 cars. There are purple and yellow flowers everywhere now, almost as common as buffalo turds. Almost.

 

The talk for this ‘weekend’ right now is Glacier National Park in northern Montana. Its only 7.5 hrs away which might sound like a lot, but we can get there in a day after work and still have daylight to work with. The weather is still pretty chilly there, so maybe we will do that trip in August or so. I havent been feeling the greatest the past few days, so I think I will just stay local and hit a few hikes. Win Win. 

June 16: Josh, Rachel, and my Bozeman

Today I showed Rachel and Josh around Yellowstone. They are friends of Johnny G’s gal Andrea and are moving up to Seattle and had a half day to spare in the park. We met up around 930am in Mammoth and the weather was pretty rotten at first. The rain came around 900am or so and it was brutal. Dark clouds as if it were nighttime, huge rain drops and lots of them. 10-15 seconds in it and you were soaked all the way through. Then, the signature of Yellowstone….. the weather changed before you could say “Huckleberry ice cream.” Has anyone ever had huckleberry ice cream?? Its sooooo good. We sell huckleberry everything up this way, its local so they exploit the shit out of it. A small bag of huckleberry yogurt covered pretzels is $8. You might get 12 pretzels. I mean, Im sure theyre good, but cmon. $8?? Huckleberry ice cream is unreal though. Worth every penny. Speaking of ice cream being worth every penny, I was talking to Nas, she is from Singapore and a server assistant in OF Inn. She was telling me that Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream is a major delicacy in Singapore. It costs like $15 - $20 a pint. She said she went to walmart and saw it for the prices we US citizens are used to and freaked out. Back to June 16… The rain stopped within 10 minutes and it was sunny. I thought the weather changed in STL?? It is so ridiculous here. The forecast literally means nothing. At Old Faithful it could be snowing sideways, and at Mammoth (50 miles away) or even Lake (25 – 30 miles away), it could be 75 and sunny, happens all the time. Between the differences in elevation and the size of the park, you really have no idea how its gonna be when you go for a drive. I think the geo thermal activity has to have something to do with it. Probably not, but it sounds interesting. So they hopped in my car and I took them directly to Canyon. When we got there it was 65 and sunny. Perfect. We walked around artists lookout, took some pictures, and even got lucky seeing a bull elk leaving the area. We set out for lake area, saw a grizzly on the way, but it was through the trees, still, count it. We stopped and took in some great views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. After that we took the road back to OF stopping at the Continental Divide and Keplar Cascades for photo opps. We pulled up at OF and hurried in to see when it was going off next. 30 minutes. Perfect. Plenty of time to get a good seat on the mezzanine of OFI with a cup of coffee to take it in. My friend Lucy from the UK who is a server in the restaurant and her boyfriend who happens to be from Missouri visiting her for a few days were on the mezzanine to watch OF as well, so we all sat on a bench getting to know each other until it went off. During this time, the weather changed again on us. It cooled off about 15 degrees and was threatening rain. It really worked out bc the pics Rachel took show OF going off with dark rain clouds behind it. I had never seen that and I think its one of my favorite looks of OF. As the geyser was winding down, we decided to beat the crowd to the restaurant in OFI to get a bite to eat. We took our time bc it started raining and eating at the Inn is pretty cool. I basically forced them to try this huckleberry ice cream, boom goes the dynamite. The next stop was grand prismatic spring. Grand prismatic is the spring you think of when you think of Yellowstone, a big blue pool with green and yellow/orange around the outer rim. Its huge. The down side of grand prismatic when the temperature is as cold as it is now is the amount of thick steam. So much steam that you cant get a very good look at the colors or the spring as a whole. The up side is that the warm steam is plentiful, when it comes off the pool it hovers onto the walkways and keeps you warm, until the wind changes. It feels so good when you are in the steam. It doesn’t smell like sulphur there either. It was funny walking up to GP, everyones hair walking the other way was soaked from the steam. We walked around for a little bit, realized what time it was, and got back on the road. It was getting pretty late in the afternoon, so we cancelled all other stops and went straight back to Mammoth. From there we followed each other north to the town of Livingston Montana where we parted ways, myself to Bozeman and Rachel and Josh onto Glacier National Park for the night.

 

That night in Bozeman Johnny, Robbie, Garrett and myself went to a house of a restaurant called Dave’s Sushi. Don’t let the name fool you, it was right on. The place was small and off the beaten path, you would have to ask someone where to get great sushi in Bozeman, which is exactly what Johnny did when he arrived that day. Warm sake, great rolls, lots of laughs… it sucked. From there we went to main st to the wine bar and then the zebra lounge. The wine bar is so awesome. Zebra lounge was a basement of a place with good music and everybody dancing. It was fun, but by the time I got there I was so pooped out from running around all day, I just sat and relaxed with Johnny all night. Other OFI employees were in Bozeman that night and we all met up at the Zebra Lounge. 2 girls who are servers at the Inn who are friends who came here together from NC, a server named Josh from NY, and a guy named Christian but I don’t really know him that well. People watching is awesome in MT. So many different kinds of people. This one girl kept getting hit on and asked to dance, and every guy who danced with her would spin her all over the dance floor, dip her, try to be fancy in a graphic tee. Needless to say, the music playing was not conducive to such moves. So if one guy did it, I would have written it off. But Im talking like 4 or 5 guys. It was just bizarre. Some cowboys and cowgirls showed up, some thuggish ruggish, Zebra Lounge draws quite a diverse group. Montana, you continue to amaze me. After Zebra Lounge, I was done. I went back to the room and crashed. Hard. 

June 15: Purple Mountain

Today is my Friday and the weather ended up great again. Robbie and I decided to go for a hike called Purple Mountain. Its 6 miles roundtrip, and quite a climb. You end up 1200 ft higher than you start and you start around 7800 ft., so you end up around 22000 ft up. Its simple math. We drove the 15 miles from Old Faithful to the trail head which is just north of Madison Junction. The first ¾ mile – 1 mile of the trail starts pretty harmless, then you really start to climb. Lots of switchbacks, steep inclines, faded trails, it was great. We got to the top in about an hour and 15 mins. It was super windy up there. We both brought windbreakers/rain jackets, so glad we did that. Gear makes all the difference. We were able to hang out up there for about 45 minutes. The views were vast and impressive. You can see the Tetons in one of the pics and they are over 60 miles away. We started using a compass to locate other areas in the park. The roads are so windy here that you get turned around pretty easy. Im starting to believe that the direction guide in my car is lying to me, and that it also exaggerates the temperature from time to time. Lola, check yourself. I have noticed that my stretch in my sexy stretch pose has gone lame. Its like Im almost being serious when I pose like that. I will remedy this. Once we had enough time at the top aka noticed bad weather coming from the west, we decided to hustle down the mountain. We ran roughly a mile of the top portion of the mountain. I was surprised that neither of us were winded. I don’t think elevation had anything to do with it, probably that all the running was very downhill. After the hike we went to West Yellowstone to catch the end of the NBA finals. The drive back was quite a struggle. Thank God I was just riding along. I slept very well.

June 14: Elephant Back Hike

Working while the weather is nice here is some kind of torture. We even swung the windows open in the restaurant it was so nice out today. One of the best days yet. 70s, sunny all day (so rare), breeze, perfect for anything outside. And guess who had a breakfast – lunch double… This guy (2 thumbs pointed at myself). I couldn’t let it hold me down though. Robbie and I both had a double. We decided we had to go for at least a short hike after, you just have to take advantage of this kind of weather. We decided to go over to the Lake area for a hike. We checked one of the hand outs from orientation listing different hikes in that area and decided on one called Elephant Back. It described a 1.5 - 2 mile ascent to an amazing view of the lake and the mountains in the distance. Sold. We drove the 40 minutes around the way and started the hike around 6pm. Its so great that it doesn’t get dark til almost 10pm. The weather was a little chillier bc we were higher in elevation, maybe 60 or so, but still great weather. The pics look great I think, especially my signature stretch, but they do it absolutely no justice. I took a quick little video of the panorama from the top, hopefully it gives you a better scope. There were hippies up there doing cool hippie shit like drawing and wearing hoodies that said “Yellowstoner” on the back, probably picked that guy up at the Old Faithful gift shop. The hike took a couple hours, lots of unreal terrain and views, of course no bears. No anything really, a few chipmunks and squirrels, but no big game. After the hike, we decided to drive around the Lake area and we found some really scenic back roads. If I ever come back here to work or vacation, Lake is the spot. We stopped at a really neat bend in the road running right next to the water, I tried to get the super sexy stretch pose on top of my car, but as you can see that attempt failed miserably, the stretch pic didn’t go as planned, the only one worth seeing it just looks like Im fixing something on the luggage rack, so lets just go with that. We drove back through a long and colorful sunset watching the mountains in the distance change from hues of orange and purple as the sun kept falling. Its funny how a long day at work can be forgotten so quickly with a solid dose of nature and good people. Great day.

 

Tomorrow is my Friday, another Bozeman “weekend" is planned, only this time with Johnny and Robbie, and maybe Manfred. Manfred is from Singapore, really cool guy who works in the kitchen with Johnny. As far as the jobs go, the bottom line is that the job doesn’t matter. The pics above are why Im here. But since I know my mom wants to know and I don’t get to talk Ruth or anyone as much as I would like, here’s a quick update. The Food and Beverage director approached me today about a somewhat management position, an inventory manager for old faithful called a “store keeper.” Every job here has a cute little euphemism. Im not sure if they looked at my work history in STL or what, but it was flattering the way she was talking to me, I mean I bus tables (todem pole location = low) and shes talking about some type of management? I came out here to read, run, relax, and explore and not think twice about work, maybe not even think once. That position doesn’t sound conducive to any of my “goals”. She also said another option was splitting time between serving in the restaurant (starting serving next week for sure) and working in the warehouse. I told her I wanted door number 2, but she told me to think about it, so I guess she wants me to take the Store Keeper position opening in a couple weeks. That just sounds like a lot of stress and not as much fun as telling a table of older women in the restaurant last night that “Mike and I appreciate the compliment,” after they said “We haven’t seen anything ugly since we’ve been here.” Mike is a big lean guy from New York with a booming voice and a big smile, always popular with the ladies. He is a server in the restaurant and does better financially waiting tables than most of us salary desk jockeys. Mike and I were both at their table, so much fun. Serving is gonna be stressful at times, but so much fun, not all the time, but moments like that will happen often enough and meeting people from all over the world will both make it worth while, and I will have a couple days in the warehouse to stay out of the bees nest that is the restaurant. That’s the plan anyway…