May 2009

I can't believe I forgot to tell you about the best part of my job: the birthday song. This is what we sing when someone tells us it is their birthday.

Canyon Lodge Birthday Song
(to the tune of "Home, Home on the Range")

Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Happy birthday to you,
From the Canyon Lodge crew,
Have fun and enjoy your big day!

Nuff said.

it is 8:45pm, but it feels like 6:00pm because the sun doesn't set here until well after 9:00pm, it's almost bedtime: I'm exhausted from such an eventful week.

Most of the people that I met and that I live with work in food and beverage in Canyon Lodge. The Canyon Cafeteria, Emplyee dining room (EDR), and the Canyon Dining Room (where I work) are the three parts of food and beverage here, and they all share one huge kitchen. The jobs in the kitchen are anywhere from serving and assistant serving (my job), to dishwashing, food prep, cooking, hosting, and bartending. Some of my friends have been cutting onions all week, while others have been serving me breakfast in the EDR. It has been fun learning about each others' positions and seeing each other in the kitchen. Sometimes, the cooks give us servers "tastings", where we can sample the restaurant's meals. Me and my roommate, Lauren, asked her boyfriend, Lance, who is a dishwasher, if he ever got to participate in tastings. He said he only got to taste the food that flew into his mouth from the dishes he was cleaning. As you can see, there is a wide range of jobs offered here. As for me, my job consists of pouring and refilling water throughout the meal, clearing plates, and finally busing the whole table, cleaning and resetting it. I have never worked in food service before, so this is all new to me. Xanterra, the resort management company that runs the Canyon Lodge, maintains extremely high standards for their employees: they run a tight ship! I suppose they have to, since our restaurant is considered the consistently busiest of all the locations here in the park. Today and yesterday, I spent my mornings practicing carrying a huge tray with water glasses on it. I managed not to break any, but tomorrow I might now be so lucky! Tomorrow is the last day before we are open for the season. As such, we are using this day for something that the restaurant calls "shakedown." For breakfast, the servers and assistant servers will break into two teams and serve each other our actual menu, practicing our newly aquired skills (and sampling our restaurant's cuisine!). For dinner tomorrow, we will invite all of Xanterra's Canyon Lodge employees (about 300 people) and serve them dinner, just like we would our guests. Then that's it! We open on Friday to the public at 11:30am for lunch.

Despite how it must sound, I have managed to do other things besides job training. A few days ago, me and a dozen other employees decided to take a hike down to Cascade Lake, a two and a half mile hike down the road from our employee housing. We knew that at least some of the trail was covered in snow, and early on, it wasn't so bad. We were beginning to think we were hot stuff out in the wilderness. However, as we progressed, the snow got deeper and deeper, coming up to our ankles, then coming up to our knees. At times, I was so deep in the snow, and so tired from hiking through it, that I just sat down in the snow, my lets stuck in place under 2 feet of snow. Then, you couldn't even find the trail because there was so much snow. Because you couldn't see beneath the snow, you didn't know when you were stepping in a stream of melted snow, essentially ice water up to your ankles. Suddenly, we were feeling less and less capable of making it to the lake without potential frostbite. In addition, it was getting late, and it was only an hour until the EDR closed for the night. We decided to turn back, and take a different way that would take us through less snow. The problem was, this would put us breaking the golden rule of tourist hiking: STAY ON THE TRAIL. oops. but no need to worry; we eventually found the trail, found our way back, thawed out our wet, frozen feet, and made it to dinner with time to spare.

As you can see, my summer so far has been characterized by impromptu outdoor adventures. Being an employee means never running out of stuff to do or people with whom to do it. Just last night, a group of us was sitting around, chatting about work and listening to music, when someone mentioned a fire pit they had seen while out exploring nearby. They suggested we go out and have a bonfire. Someone wondered aloud if it was legal to set a fire here without some kind of permission. "...hm...I don't know..eh, I'm sure it's fine!" Naturally, with such a confident reply, we set out on a little nighttime adventure. The bonfire wasn't very big (and thus not warm enough on a very cold night!), but the night was gorgous, the sky blanketted in stars. I was overcome with the beauty that surrounded me. I have never before felt so small and subject to the whims of nature as I do here. I have said little directly about the landscape, but it is totally different from what I'm used to. The park is covered in mountains; since the last of the snow is melting, there is a massive amount of water running off the canyon and the mountains, creating pretty little streams virtually everywhere. The sky is bigger and bluer than I have ever seen before, accentuating the evergreen trees that are so green, they remind you more of Springtime than Christmas. The air is brisk but gentle; it is cool most of the time, and I change clothes a hundred times a day, since the day starts off at 40 degrees, increases to above 70 in late afternoon, and back down to the 30s at night. Oh, and it rains nearly everyday; you'll be out hiking on a perfectly sunny day, and then all of a sudden, you're in a downpour. But then, as quickly as it came, it goes, leaving you wondering if it ever really happened at all.

If that all sounds magical, trust me: it is.

Well, I have arrived safe and sound. As I type this, I'm in my temporary dorm room, Big Horn, in a great part of Yellowstone called Canyon. I'm looking outside my window at the beautiful snow-peaked mountains, the evergreen trees, and, occasionally, some deer or bison. I guess I should back up and explain the couple of days which brought me to this point.

Friday afternoon, I flew alone to Bozeman, Montana, the nearest airport to Yellowstone. The next morning, I was to be at the Bozeman Greyhound Bus Station at 7:00am, where a Yellowstone shuttle bus would pick up me and the other future Yellowstone employees to take us the 75 miles to the park. When I arrived there that morning, I was overwhelmed: more than 50 employees, most of them my age, were there waiting for the buses as well. Many of them came alone, like me, but even those who came with someone they knew were friendly and eager to make acquaintances. Waiting in the cold (it was probably 45-50 degrees that morning) and riding on a bus for an hour and a half, I got to know lots of people very quickly. Everyone is so nice and friendly! People have come from all over to work here, and most of us for the same reason: to escape the mundane, to pursue adventure, to meet new people, and to experience the great outdoors in a whole different way. Upon arrival to employment check-in, located outside the park, we waited in line all morning to fill out paperwork, verify identification, and have our employee name badges and ID cards assigned. After that, we waited some more to be assigned our work uniforms: my server assistant ensemble consists of khaki pants, a black and white checked collared shirt, and an apron. Now, this doesn't sound all that bad if you haven't seen it. But let me just put it this way: in my wildest dreams, I couldn't have imagined my uniform any uglier. I think my friends and family would be proud. Then, finally, it was off to Canyon, my home for the next 3 months. It was at least a half hour drive to Canyon from the north entrance to the national park, but our eyes were wide open the whole time: I couldn't have imagined this place being any more beautiful. The whole place looks like a postcard: majestic mountains surround you. A photo opportunity is around every corner. I don't feel like I'm even in America. The national park is its own world indeed. I am overwhelmed by the sheer size of this place and of its features. The animals seem not to know we are here, going about their business everywhere from 5 yards from the Mammoth Springs Post Office, to right in the middle of the road, causing traffic to sometimes back up for miles. On our way to Canyon, I even saw my first bear, only about 50 yards from the road.

After checking in with human resources and having dinner, we went to our dorm lobbies, where a group of us found out that there was no more room in the area where we were intended to live. So, we were being placed temporarily in Big Horn, the senior citizen employee dormitories. (Did I mention this dorm has 24-hour quiet period?) By this point, it was after 7:00 pm, and we had been going non-stop since at least 6:00am. All I wanted to do was move in and unpack, and go to sleep, since we had work orientation at 8:30 the next morning. But since this whole experience for me is about being flexible and breaking away from routine, I managed to take my circumstances in stride. I'm rooming (for now) with a girl named Lauren, a college student from Georgia.

This morning, we had breakfast and attended a long and tedious orientation session for work, where we met new people and learned about all of the boring, common sense parts of our jobs. And now here I am, sitting in my dorm room, about to hike to the huge canyon for which my village is named, and wondering how I am lucky enough to live in such a beautiful place, AND get paid for it.

I though I'd take a few minutes and try to answer some questions that I anticipate someone reading this might have. First of all, Canyon Lodge, where I work, does not open until Friday, and this week will be busy with training and further hiking/getting to know my area. I will be working five days a week all summer, hopefully as close to 40 hours weekly as possible. No, my wi-fi is pretty much useless and I have resigned to only rarely getting on the internet this summer (facebook is impossible to upload, so I'll do my best). No, my cell phone doesn't work at all. Tonight I will probably turn it off for the remainder of the summer. I'm actually looking forward to it. I will miss my friends and family terribly, but will be able to call home via payphone. Sorry, guys, but there is no way Skype is going to work here at the incredibly slow rate the internet moves. Yes, it is very cold here. It warms up during the afternoon on sunny days, but the nights are in the 30s. The employee cafeteria food is not bad at all; it's very similar to school, with a main course, a great salad bar, soups, bread and cereal, and drink fountain (the coffee is surprisingly amazing, which is handy since it will apparently be some time before it stops being so cold) at every meal time. During my downtime, I will probably be doing lots of hiking, camping, rafting, kayaking, and sightseeing. There is no TV here, not much cell reception, hardly any internet, so I brought many books to read. I'm having fun "roughing it", although it's clear I'm not as good at that as some. Despite this, I can't wait to learn to live yet another completely different way than I am used to; so far I'm loving every minute of it.