California Here I Come!

Good Morning Folks!

I am getting ready to head over to my old hometown, or at least the north part of the county, San Diego that is. It is time to see the progression of my young grandsons, not to mention seeing my daughter and sister(s).

My first stop will be in Prescott for the afternoon and evening. I need to see my good friends there. Speaking of which, last week I spent a couple of days with my friends Bob and Cindy Henry down in the Goodyear, AZ area. We did a little hiking in the Estrella Mts. near where they live and went to a spring training baseball game, Indians vs. the Rockies. I'd never been to a game before, at least a spring training one. It was a nice new experience with good friends.

Spring has hit here in Flagstaff and the temps have been in the 60s, too warm for me. Stuff must be blooming, or it might just be the mold underlying the melted snow, because my allergies have hit with a vengeance. It was really bad in the Valley (PHX area). However, I have to say that it is nowhere near as bad in Flag as it was all those years in the Juniper zone of Prescott.

Well, the news is in and I have been hired to work as a Ranger in Yellowstone National Park for the coming summer season. I will be at the southern most visitor center in Grant Village. It will be a great new challenge for me. Although it is in the same ecological system as the Tetons, learning about the geo-thermal features in more detail will be my main focus. We conduct some programs at the West Thumb Geyser Basin.

Being at Grant will also allow me to get down to the Tetons to see my friends more often than might have been the case had I been stationed further north in the park. Of course there are the grizzlies to deal with as well. There are more of them in the area, especially when I first get there. There about 8 streams feeding into Yellowstone Lake where trout will be spauning, and I am told it is a grizzly happy time there from May to early June. It is the main reason campgrounds in the Grant Village area do not open until mid-June.

As for movies I have only seen one that was really good. The Wrestler with Mickey Roark finally made it to Flag and his performance is great in it. Mariasa Tomei is very good as well. Roark's perfomance should have beaten out Penn's Milk!

Hope everyone is well and happy.

Ciao

So Long Tetons!

Howdy Folks,

I just got the word that I did not get the new job I had applied for in Grand Teton National Park
for the coming summer. Although it is a disappointment, I realize that I may have burned some bridges with my forthright communication with the "powers that be" at the end of the season last year.



My 10 years as a ranger there were very rewarding for me, and I hope as well for the park visitors I came in contact with. Besides the obviously beautiful mountains that I got to wake up to every morning, I made some good friends and acquaintances. Folks like Bob Hoyle, Bob & Cindy Henry, Laine Thom, Pat Best, and others made my time there wonderful. I will miss the day to day interaction with my friends at Colter Bay, and the new ones I made while working for a season at Jenny Lake. My immediate supervisors, Elizabeth Maki, Dan Greenblatt, and Andrew Langford were the best.



Currently I am making plans for several trips for the summer. The first major one will be up through Colorado, Wyoming (and yes i will stop in the Tetons to see the above mentioned friends) and Montana. In Colorado I hope to visit places I have not been, Gunnison, Crested Butte, and Leadville, with a stop in Littleton to see my niece Kimby and her family. Surprisingly, I have never been to Rocky Mt. National Park and will try to get there as well. Later trips will be to San Deigo to hit the beach with my grandsons. In addition, I hope to get up to Banff, Jasper & Yoho Parks in Canada as well. I think that will fill up my summer.



However, there is an outside chance I will work in Yellowstone Park this summer. They have called twice as to my continued availability. That is usually preliminary to job offers when the supervisors of the various districts meet for the actual hiring process. I am not sure that it is something I want to do, but under the right circumstances, i.e., location in the park and housing considerations, I might consider one more year there in the oldest and first Natonal Park!



That is pretty much the news from here. We haven't had snow since the first week of February and it has been very warm. I am hoping for one more big storm to get in a last couple of sessions on the XC skis.



Movies continue to be a problem in Flagstaff, at least for me. All they seem to bring are things like the remake of "Friday the 13th," and others of that ilk. I did travel out of town on my birthday (while ill with a cold) to see "Revolutionary Road." Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet did excellent jobs with their roles but the movie is an absolute "downer," showing the disintegration of a mariage in the 1950s. If you like these actors it is worth seeing otherwise you might want to miss it.


Adios Amigos y Amigas