It has been a very snowy time here in the Greater Yellowstone region still. We hit a season high of 59 degrees, but then very quickly the snow rolled back in. Two days ago we experienced 4 hours of white out conditions and the roads in Yellowstone National Park were shut down. We’ve had avalanches all over the place and two of the entrances from the park are closed.
In the Gallatin National Forest, things have still been slow. They are speculating that the gas prices (currently $4.19) are keeping the tourists away, the first time in the history of the area. I am starting to get busy planning my program for the summer, doing a campfire program on Ghosts of the Greater Yellowstone Area and my supervisor is starting to get excited. I have another interpretive ranger who is very anxious to help me out with this program. At times, she seems more excited than I am about this program but it is great to see the enthusiasm.
I have started having trouble with one of my co-workers. I work a schedule that is four 10-hour days, with three days off. Out of my four days working, I work three of them with an older woman who has been there for a while. She, for some reason unknown to me, immediately took to not liking me and has made it known. She yells at me for stuff I have not even done, as well as acts like she is my boss when she clearly is not. I am respecting her because, yes, she has been there for a few seasons and she is an elderly woman. I have not, though, enjoyed being yelled at and put down and have recently requested a meeting with my supervisor in order to discuss the problems that have been arising between this co-worker and me. She sleeps on the job and then complains when I’m just sitting there, even though with the Visitors Center being this slow there really is not much that we can do. She also makes racial comments about people when they come into the Visitors Center, loud enough for other people to hear, and yells at children when they are not doing anything wrong. I feel like she should talk to the children’s parents first because most of the times the parents are standing right near their children.
Other than this, I am having a good time. The other people who are on fire crews, biologists, and wilderness rangers are really nice and we all hang out a lot. We went to a barbeque the other night at the Fire Boss’s house, which was nice because, as a certified Wildland Firefighter, it helped me get a foot into the door as far as getting to know him and hopefully being able to land a job next summer on a fire crew.
We have still yet to get paid. The Forest Service is changing around banks and it is messing up the whole process. I have filled out all the paperwork and am just waiting to watch the check appear in my bank account. They prefer doing direct deposit, which I normally do not like, but I didn’t want to cause a problem and request a check. It has been 4 weeks without getting paid and everyone is starting to get very frustrated with this.
Hopefully it will soon come and everyone can relax a little bit. My co-workers seem to be in a worse state then me because I worked my tail off before I came here so I would have a good buffer to use. I realized it would probably be a while before I would get paid my first paycheck.
Yesterday I saw a herd of Bighorn Sheep rams standing on the back haunches and butting heads just like on the Discovery Channel! There were 14 of them and I got pictures which I hope to post soon!
Well, keep me in your prayers and you'll all be in mine!
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