Desert View - Day 74 - (Shutdown day 4) - It's over....

6:33 am - Tuesday - January 23rd - Grand Canyon - 26º F, 38% humidity, wind - 6 mph out of the east......forecast is for sunny skies with a high of 40º F.  No water freezing these past few days so the heat tape I put on the hose bibs is working!

The big news to come out of Monday is that the government shutdown is over......for two, or three more weeks.  The Republicans and Democrats voted to end the filibuster 88-18 paving the way for the temporary 3 week budget to be passed, or at least that's what I heard at first.  Later I read somewhere that our next shutdown deadline is February 8th, so I guess its just a two week extension.  We are all wondering what changed between Friday night and Monday afternoon that ended the shutdown.....as far as I can tell from reading numerous sources nothing changed at all, except maybe the Democrats were losing in the court of public opinion.  The bill that was passed Monday was exactly the same spending bill that was filibustered by the Democrats on Friday.  The other good news is that except for the erroneous meeting we had on Saturday, things continued on here at the Grand Canyon as if nothing had happened.  The only real change was that there were no NPS folks staffing the entrance kiosks so if you were visiting the Grand Canyon you got in for free Saturday, Sunday and Monday....that's actually pretty cool.

At any rate, Monday was a normal unbusy day.  I had the 'open' shift and my first customer did not come to the register until 9:30 am.  My next customer was at 10:30 am.  By the time I counted down my cash drawer I had processed about 10 customers for my shift and deposited about $89.  The Deli did not get their first customer until after 12:30 pm.

The snow is slowly melting, and I mean SLOWLY, and there is still a lot of ice on sidewalks and streets.  It's been so cold these past few days that in some places the snow has not melted at all.  A good example of this is the drivers side of the Newell which remains in the shade all day long....the snow is still 2-3 inches deep there, and to dump our black tank, which I did Monday, meant I could not wear my slippers, which I usually do, but had to put on shoes and socks.  With the temps getting back into the mid 40's over the next few days I expect the snow melt to accelerate.

TLE and I both have long shifts Tuesday and Wednesday.....I work at the Trading Post (first time) for a 9 hour shift, and then back at the General Store Wednesday for a 10 hour shift....TLE has the flip side of that.  Then we are off for Thursday and Friday to give our daughter, Meredith, the nickel tour of the Grand Canyon....really looking forward to that!

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