'The Deep'

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6:26 am - Monday - 42º F, humidity 73%, wind 3 mph out of the south southeast with clear skies.....forecast high for Gardiner today is 78º F......76º F for Mammoth Hot Springs.....there is a definite chill in the air.

From the looks of downtown Gardiner Sunday we are past the summer crowds.......usually there is no street parking available at 1 pm on any day of the week due to all the tourists in town, but Sunday the lack of vehicles in town was a little spooky.  I guess there are a lot of schools back in session as of August 7th (Monday), which means most families with school age children have returned to their home towns, and workaday lives.  

After Saturday's 'Great Ice Cream Disaster' it was kind of nice to arrive at the General Store to find things relatively uncrowded, and that is how the day went.....uncrowded.  The best thing about Sunday was everyone was smiling again......

TLE with our 'CLOSE' shift supervisor 'Dodge'....look at how empty the store is!

I pulled a cash drawer Sunday, and that is what I did 90% of my shift.  Since we had no ice cream to sell we were acting as the 4th checkout station for the store to keep the lines from getting too long at the retail checkout stations where TLE works.  That was good for me as it kept me busy most of the time.  In the picture above you can see there is no one in lie at the 'Fountain' at 6 pm!

When things got quiet I spent time helping my co-workers deep clean the 'Fountain' area.  Since the ice cream freezer was empty we turned it off and spent about an hour cleaning the inside to a point where it almost looked brand new again.  At one point I suggested that I lift one of the hot dog rollers off the counter so my co-worker could clean the counter behind, and underneath it......we got a little surprise.....

.....there was one hot dog, and one bratwurst under there that appeared to be about 2 months old......they were essentially petrified.....we found one more under the other hot dog roller.  I guess we need to move them more often in the future!

We were promised an ice cream delivery by Wilcoxson's Ice Cream Sunday, but the truck never arrived.....no doubt they will arrive by Monday, but we will not know, because we will be out hiking new to us Yellowstone trails for the next two days!

The temps inside the store were utterly delightful Sunday......there was a nice breeze coming in the doors and windows, which combined with the lack of foot traffic made for a very pleasant Sunday......nice to have a slow day once and a while.  I'm sure we'll see a transition from the family type vacationers to those who visit places like Yellowstone outside the tourist season, but I think we have passed the zenith for this summer. There is, however, a strong possibility we will see an increase in traffic for the upcoming August 21st solar eclipse.

We were home by 10:55 pm relaxing and looking forward to our two off days, and more '100 Mile Hiking Club' hiking miles......thanks for stopping by!

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Ooooops!

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7:19 am - Sunday - August 6th - 43º F, humidity 87%, wind - CALM.....partly cloudy with a forecast high of 74º F here in Gardiner and 73º F in Mammoth Hot Springs.

We were up well after 8 am Saturday, and it seemed that 1 pm came all too soon, but there we were on our way up the Gardiner River Gorge to the General Store once again.  We had barely parked the VW when one of our co-workers advised that the walk-in freezer door had been found ajar and ALL 80 three gallon tubs of ice cream had literally melted into soup.  That meant the only ice cream we had to sell Saturday were the 8 three gallon tubs left in the 'Fountain' ice cream freezer.  Knowing how fast this ice cream goes and that ice cream sales account for about 80% of our 'Fountain' sales I knew some of us would be going home early.  

After seeing how much was in each tub I predicted that we would be out of ice cream by 4 pm........

.....by 2:30 pm we were down to 3 partially empty tubs....well, mostly empty tubs....vanilla, chocolate and 'birthday cake'.......

.......by 3:45 pm we were down to a tub about three quarters empty of chocolate ice cream.....

......and as predicted, at precisely 3:58 pm there was none.   At this point in time we had 5 workers in the 'Fountain' and we only needed 2 at most....a cashier, and someone to serve hot dogs, pretzels and the occasional nacho/cheese order.  Our floor supervisor came by with the news we all knew was coming......some of us would have to go home early.  I immediately volunteered, but that would mean that TLE would have to go home, also.  The other person who volunteered also had a spouse working in the retail area with TLE, so the floor supervisor had us draw straws.  I offered to let the other co-worker do the drawing, but she insisted I do it, so I did, and I drew the long straw meaning I got to go home.  Why did I want to go home?  Well, there is nothing more boring than doing a job when there is not much to do.....time seems to go backwards when one is not busy, and all I saw was a lot of 'not busy' time ahead of me if I stayed.

TLE and I were in the Beetle and on our way home by 4:25 pm (she had to count down her cash drawer) looking forward to a relaxing evening, and that is precisely what we had.  After changing out of our work clothes we moved our lounge chairs over to the area in between the Newell and the trailer where the stiff afternoon breeze was sufficiently blocked enabling us to read, nap, and enjoy the early evening air without being blown over in our chairs......we remained there until almost 8 pm at which time it began to get cold.

It is a big mystery to us on the 'CLOSE' shift how the walk-in freezer door ended up being open when we all checked it on our way out the night before......there have been rumors for years that the General Store is haunted.....I wonder.....hmmmmmm?  The other thing is we just received our weekend shipment of ice cream from Wilcoxson's Friday, and our next is not due until Tuesday.  Will we be able to get an emergency shipment by Sunday?  If not, my guess is we may get another day off work.....we'll see......

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'New Blood'

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8:44 am - Saturday - 56º F, humidity 73%, wind 3 mph out of the north northwest with cloudy skies.....forecast high for today in Gardiner is 73º F (72º F in Mammoth Hot Springs).  We are in a 7 day trend in Gardiner of 70º days.....(Monday being the lone exception), and a 15 day trend in Mammoth Hot Springs with all temperatures in the 70's for those 15 days.....

.....we have definitely turned a corner weather wise here in Southern Montana!

I spent part of my morning helping a store friend, Chuck, check the air pressure in his Class A diesel pusher tires.  He just purchased this rig about 8 weeks ago on his way to work here, and discovered recently his dualies were way under inflated (98 psi ---- supposed to be 120 psi).  His small compressor was not able to push 120 psi into those big tires, so I offered to help.  I have a 'pancake' compressor to which I attach an 'air doubler' to boost the 120 psi my compressor generates up to 200+ psi.  By the time we finished with his tires it was almost 11:30 am and time to get ready for our 'CLOSE' shift.

Friday was a hot day in Mammoth Hot Springs (Gardiner was even hotter)......there was very little breeze so it felt stuffy inside the General Store our whole shift.  The later arrival of the crowds continued.  We ('Fountain') were slammed from 2:30 until 6 pm, and just as suddenly as it began it slowed dramatically.

Our store (Mammoth Hot Springs General Store) is the only store in Yellowstone to get 100% participation in the 'Bronze' Adventure Guide program......the only store EVER, as a matter of fact.  As a thank you and reward our manager gave us free pizza for lunch.,....thank you Krystal!

We have added some 'new blood' to the 'Fountain' staff.....Peter, Anthony and Taylor (all 20 somethings).  They also work part time for Xanterra, which has the contract with the NPS (National Park Service) to operate the hotels in many National Parks.  I mention that to say this.....their addition (Peter, Anthony and Taylor) means we typically have 3-4 people on the 'CLOSE' shift now which means we can clean the 'Fountain' much more quickly, and deeply at the end of each day, which I know our co-workers on the 'OPEN' shift each day appreciate.  There have been some days when we only had two on the 'CLOSE' shift, and it was sometimes difficult to do the really deep cleaning which is required on occasion....now it gets done every single night!

I mentioned our schedule change in yesterday's blog entry where we now have Mondays and Tuesdays off again.....well, that means we will be off work August 21st, the day of the coming solar eclipse!  We now have plans to hike back up to Bunsen Peak that morning to get an unobstructed view of the eclipse----YAY!  The Mammoth Hot Springs area is supposed to get a 97.5% eclipse!

We were home by 10 pm and unwinding from another work day.  We were in bed before midnight......love the 'CLOSE' shift which allows us to 'sleep in' if we so wish....and we so wished today (Saturday).

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MID2, MID1, CLOSE, CLOSE, MID2

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7:34 am - Friday - August 4th - 52º F, humidity 64%,  wind 1 mph out of the east southeast..clear blue skies......again!  Forecast high for Gardiner, MT is 86º F ( Mammoth Hot Springs - 81º F).....after today the next 14 days will be in the 70's at both locations.....a sign of the changing seasons.

Thursday it was back to work in the Mammoth Hot Springs General Store.  As we get later into the 'season' the busy time during our days seems to be shifting more to mid afternoon.  Initially it began around 1 pm and lasted 2-3 hours, but now it is beginning around 2:30-3 pm and lasting the same 2-3 hours.  I'm sure part of that shift is due to the reopening of the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.....their check in time is apparently 4:30 pm. 

At any rate we slept in until almost 8 am.....no doubt our bodies are still in recovery mode from the 18.4 miles of hiking we did the two prior days.  I finished cleaning up after the beer tasting party we had Tuesday evening (putting chairs away, throwing out 14 beer bottles, etc.) and then it was 10:30 and time to head to work for our 'MID' shift at 11 am.  The line at the North Gate was about 1/2 mile long, but thanks to the employee entrance we were able to zip through in just minutes.

We arrived to find our schedule (beginning this Monday) has changed again.....our days off are back to Monday/Tuesday, which we like, and three of our 5 shifts are now either 'MID 1' (11 am - 7 pm), or 'MID 2 (9:30 am - 5:30 pm).....we still have two 'CLOSE' shifts on Friday and Saturday.  As I have written previously, this is the nature of the hospitality industry.....the only thing certain from week to week is change.  Well, as 'they' say, "Change is the spice of life", and that is how I will interpret it.  I am actually somewhat excited about being off work at 5:30 pm!

Our 'MID1' shift began slowly, but by 2:30 things were going full tilt......I acted as cashier for about 90 minutes processing one customer after another.  The rush continued unabated until around 5:30 when it once again began to slow down.  

Our managers had been preparing us for about two weeks for the software update scheduled for Wednesday night....in the past these updates have resulted in software malfunction the next day resulting in all transactions being processed manually for hours at a time until the system was debugged.  This software update did occur Wednesday night, and the 'OPEN' shift folk ended up processing customers manually for about 90 minutes before the bugs were worked out in the system.....by the time we arrived at 11 am order had been restored.  Nonetheless, those who came on at 7:15 spent the better part of their shift sorting out the issues from the first 90 minutes.

We were off once again at 7 pm, and home by 7:15 pm relaxing outside in our recliners (TLE in her rocker) until close to 9 pm when the chilly air chased us inside.  We have noticed a sharp decline in the flying insect population this past week as well as the temperatures.  

That's it.....another day in the life of Clarke and TLE.  Life is moving fast!   Thanks for stopping by!

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Encore

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7:52 am - Thursday - August 3rd - 50º F, 82% humidity, wind - CALM.....clear blue skies.....wow, CALM and clear blue skies.....each is a rarity, but both at one time....double WOW! Forecast high for Gardiner is 81º F (Mammoth Hot Springs - 76º F).

So, what do you do after an epic 13.5 mile hiking day?  Well, follow along to see.......after a very full Tuesday we slept in until after 8 am getting over 9 hours of sleep.  We had both intended to be up early again, but at 6 am my eyes refused to open, so I just went back to sleep for 2 more hours.  I was surprised that I was not really sore.....just a little stiff.  After just a few minutes of being up and moving around the stiffness seemed to recede to the background.  We did want to take another hike Wednesday to add to our '100 Mile Hiking Club' mileage, and to get us over the 45 mile mark, so around 10:30 am we headed back to the Swan Lake Flat area, which is just across US-89 from the Bunsen Peak trailhead.  On the other side of the road is the Glen Creek trailhead which runs about 2.1 miles to the 

Snow Pass/Fawn Pass Junction just 2.1 miles distant.  Our plan was to hike at least out to the junction and turn around giving us 4.2 miles to add to our mileage log......

.......the trail was mostly flat with a couple of gentle ups and downs, and we found ourselves at the junction sign within 50 minutes.......

.......it occurred to us if we just hiked another 3/10's of a mile that our round trip total would be 4.8 miles and that would put us just over the 45 mile mark, so on we continued....

........3/10's of a mile further put us at the beginning of a long climb which, we decided was a perfect turn around point......

 At the 2.4 mile mark.....time to turn around!

......the hike back to the Glen Creek trailhead was mostly a slight downhill walk.......

.....we arrived back at the car to find that our GPS tracker showed us having covered 4.9 miles......doh!  If we would have walked just another 20th of a mile we could have hit 5 miles exactly!  Nonetheless, we were happy to have added a short hike to kind of loosen our legs up from Tuesday's endeavors, and it was just perfect.

The Glen Creek trailhead is just 5 miles south of Mammoth Hot Springs.....as we crept down the final grade into Mammoth Hot Springs we couldn't help but notice how many people were out and about.....the traffic slowed to a crawl, and we soon discovered the reason......

.....an elk cow grazing just outside the General Store.....just past the General Store we noted that the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel is finally open for business after a lengthy remodel.....now to see if business picks up at the General Store!

Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel open for business

TLE suggested we stop at 'The Corral' for a burger.....Yelp gives them a solid 4 stars on 55reviews, while TripAdvisor gives them 4.5 on 147 reviews.....we would be solidly in the 4 star camp.  This place is quite pricey....$11.95 for a burger.....add cheese and bacon and you're over $14.  TLE got their Salmon Burger.....add two beers and you're right at $38!  Now, to be fair, their hamburgers are amazing.....I chose bleu cheese as the cheese on my burger, and the bacon was thick, and lean.....the hamburger patty was enormous!

The Corral (Yelp picture)

 TLE's salmon burger

What puts them over the top is their alfresco dining, which is all they offer.....fine with me!  The outdoor temp was in the high 70's which made it a perfect day for sitting outside.

Oh, I forgot to mention that on our way up to Swan Lake Flat we stopped off at the USPS  to pick up a package our daughter Kate had mailed me......a bag of my favorite cigars, which can only be bought at Rite Aid drug stores.  There are no Rite Aid drug stores within a 100 miles, so she agreed to buy them and mail them to me.......it's a good thing because I smoked the last one I had a couple of days ago!

The Panetelas!

We were home by 2:30 at which time I changed clothes and took a nice long nap.  TLE went to the store while I napped and returned just as I was waking up around 3:20.  We lazed around the rest of the day gearing up for our return to the working world Thursday!

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The ups and downs......

8:20 am - Wednesday - August 2nd - 54º F, humidity 65%, wind 3 mph out of the north...clear blue skies! Forecast high in Gardiner today is 77º F.....

We were in the Beetle by 8:05 am on our way to the Bunsen Peak trailhead just 5 miles south of Mammoth Hot Springs on US-89.  By 8:40 am we had begun our hike to Bunsen Peak......our ambitious mileage goal for this day was lucky 13.....read on to find out how that turned out......

 The Golden Gate bridge

 Starting to gain some elevation

 This pano take at Bunsen Peak is about 350º

  8,564' Elevation!

.....we reached the summit about 9:50 am.....an hour and ten minutes.  We felt really strong for the first time since we joined the '100 mile hiking club'.  We departed the summit abut 10 am, and were back at the trailhead by 10:58 am.  I forgot to turn on my GPS tracker at the beginning of the hike, so I turned it on at the summit for the hike back down to the trailhead.   From there we began our 'out and back' hike to Osprey Falls.  Our friend Kirsty highly recommended this hike,and we were not disappointed.....initially we thought it was about 4.3 miles to the falls, but it is was exactly 4.65 miles!

The first 3.1 miles was like this.....mostly flat, but then we came to this ominous, cryptic sign.....

If only we had known how steep!

.....from here the double track road became a single track trail which was steep....maybe 10-12% most of the time.....very rocky, and difficult to keep from sliding due to all the lose, pebbly rock.....

This sign does not lie

.......we probably averaged about 1 mph going down....after what seemed an interminable amount of time we rounded a corner in the trail to find Osprey Falls in all her glory....

 At last!  Osprey Falls....some 150' high

 YAY!!!

......in all we descended some 1,442' to the river before sighting the falls......it was actually easier to climb back up the trail, than going down from a traction point of view.  Of course we were climbing 1.4 miles of 10-12% grade, which necessitated frequent stops in the shade to cool down, and catch our collective breath.....

  That's the Gardiner River way, way down there!   We had to hike down there to see the falls!  Total drop of 1,442'!

....by the time we reached the flat area again my legs felt leaden, but eventually we got into our stride again and were walking at over 3 mph for the final 3.1 miles back to the car.....

 TLE stylin' in another hiking skirt....and still smiling after almost 12 miles!

.....in all we covered some 13.5 miles on this day.....that is the most by far we have ever covered together in one day of hiking, and we still felt like we could have gone a few more miles!  But, even if we had  wanted to hike further we would have needed more water.  At beginning of our hike we each had approximately 85 oz. of water.....at the end we each had less than 5 oz.

We stopped briefly at Rustic Falls to snap this picture, and to take pictures of the 'Golden Gate'.......

 Rustic Falls near the 'Golden Gate' Bridge

.....originally back in the late 1800's this bridge was wooden......the sign gives you a brief history of this bridge.......

 24.24 minutes per mile average going downhill from Bunsen Peak

  We averaged 21.02 minutes per mile going to and from Osprey Falls!  I forgot to turn on my GPS tracking device at the beginning of the Bunsen Peak hike, but ran it going back down.  4.2 miles total and 756 calories no longer exist.  In all 2,426 calories in flames for the two hikes.

.....after a brief stop at the Gardiner Market to pick up a few supplies for our beer tasting party that night we were home by 4:30......around 5 TLE made me breakfast for dinner!  What a woman!

 Breakfast for dinner

.....by 7 pm our guests were arriving for some beer tasting......Mark, Paul, Susan, JR, Sandi, Susan, TLE and moi......not pictured....'Dodge' (Kristen), Linda and Barbara who had not arrived yet.......

 Beer tasting party

.....in all we sampled 14 craft brews, and had a great time getting to know each other a little better......

14 beers tasted

........everyone began to drift home about 9 pm thanking us for a great time.....we had a good time too....always fun to share some of our craft beer finds, and now my Norcold refer has room for some new finds!

We were in bed before 11 pm......what an amazing day!  Thanks for stopping by.....and I mean that!  Thanks!

P.S. - Just a reminder, we do derive some income from our blog.  The first source is via Google Adsense.  You have probably noticed various ads in the right hand column of our blog, and in between the daily blog entries.  If you are interested in any of those products and click on any of those ads we do get a few cents for each click.  

Secondly, we have an Amazon Affiliate account through Amazon, which means if you click on this link (Amazon Affiliate link) and do your Amazon shopping using that link we will receive a small commission on each completed purchase, and we will be so ever grateful for the addition of a few extra coins to our checking account!  Using this link does not add one penny to your purchase price, nor does it affect your Amazon Prime account status.

'Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future......'

6:07 am - Tuesday - August 1, 2017 - 48º F, humidity 63%, wind 3 mph out of the east southeast.....clear skies.....sun is just beginning to crest the eastern mountains.  Forecast high in Gardiner is 87º F today (83º in Mammoth Hot Springs).  Up early as we are going hiking this morning before it gets too warm!

Once again we come full circle to our 'Friday' (Monday) and the 'MID' shift (11 am to 7 pm).  While I love having bookend 'MID' shifts (Thursday and Monday) I always come up short on those mornings as we have to begin getting ready for work at 10 am so we can be ready to leave for work at 10:30......I get used to getting ready to go to work at 12 pm so we can leave at 12:30 pm.....I really like having those extra 2.5 hours in the morning.  Ah well, you can have it all, but I would like to have it all.

I'm sitting here looking at my wall Cedar Key, FL Sunsets calendar (RV sized) that we buy each year from Chris and Cherie at Technomadia through their Zazzle Store wondering how we got to August 1st so quickly.  It was just the beginning of April when we began our 3 week trip up the California coast on our way to South Lake Tahoe for the summer.   On April 23rd we arrived in South Lake Tahoe at Tahoe Valley Campground for what we thought was going to be the best summer at TVC ever, only to see the death of that vision within 5 short weeks.  That was just 4 months ago, but it seems much, much longer.  That is the wonder of this lifestyle, is it not?  We have wheels on our home and can move our home at a moment's notice.....well, maybe a few dozen moment's notice.  Nonetheless, we can change our view and circumstances without going through escrow......we just give our notice, find a new circumstance and go!  We have recaptured our desire for the 'new'......the unexpected, new vistas, new friends, new experiences.  We once again relish the thought of exploring by foot new trails taking us to places we always dreamed of visiting.

  

The weather trend, as I have written previously, is for cooler temperatures over the next two weeks......below you can see the forecasts for Tuesday through next Monday......

August 1-7

.....mostly 70's with a couple of 80º days......then the next 7 days with all 70º days.....even a little rain perhaps

August 8-14

.....the night time temps are getting back into the 40's again, and by the time we depart in October they will be back into the 30's no doubt......yup.....'Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future......'!

Monday the General Store was rockin'........from about 12:30 pm until we left at 7 pm the customer line at the 'Fountain' was non-stop.  I worked a 1.5 hour stretch as cashier (1:30 to 3) where I was processing one customer every 10-15 seconds for the entire time.  Then the stretch from 3:30 to 6 pm where there was never more than a 60 second break in the line for 2.5 hours.  The typical transaction runs from $3.47 (one scoop of ice cream including tax) to $6.94 (2 scoops of ice cream plus tax).  Customers are tendering $5, $10 and $20 dollar bills and I am making change at a furious pace, or they are presenting credit and debit cards to cover their small purchases.  You get the occasional large group of 5-10 folks on one bill, but it is mostly one, or two people at a time.  You are counting out change for one scoop.....$1.53 ($5 tendered), $6.53 ($10 tendered), $16.53 ($20 tendered).  You must keep track of your dwindling penny, nickle, dime, quarter inventory, and make sure to call a floor supervisor for more change before you run out, while continuing to process one customer after another.  At times you feel like you are in a 'high wire' act, and one false move will send you tumbling.  Actually, I find that kind of exhilarating!

All too soon, once again, we were on our way home in the Beetle at 7 pm......we sat out side for about 90 minutes enjoying our cocktails, and then headed inside to watch a movie on Netflix entitled 'The Imitation Game' (2014) about a group of 6 British mathematicians who spent the early days of WW2 trying to break the encryption code of the 'Enigma' machine the Nazis used to send coded messages.   They were, of course, successful.  It was a very good movie and we both highly recommend it.

We were in bed a little after 11 pm dreaming of hitting the hiking trails once again Tuesday.....thanks for stopping by!

P.S. - Just a reminder, we do derive some income from our blog.  The first source is via Google Adsense.  You have probably noticed various ads in the right hand column of our blog, and in between the daily blog entries.  If you are interested in any of those products and click on any of those ads we do get a few cents for each click.  Secondly, we have an Amazon Affiliate account through Amazon, which means if you click on this link (Amazon Affiliate link) and do your Amazon shopping using that link we will receive a small commission on each completed purchase.  Using this link does not add one penny to your purchase price, nor does it affect your Amazon Prime account status.