The night of May 18 - May 19, we had a snow storm. We ended up with over 4 inches of very wet snow. A number of tent campers found themselves in very short tents in the morning, after the snow collapsed their tents.

 

On the 19th we took a hike out to Lone Star Geyser. Like last year, we got to the geyser just as it was beginning to erupt. We could have ended up waiting for three hours if our timing hadn't been so good.

 

On the way out to the trailhead, south of the Old Faithful area, we came across a pair of trumpeter swans in the Firehole River but we weren't able to get a photo with both of them with their heads above the water at the same time.

We also saw a herd of bison resting near the lower geyser basin. One of the females had two babies lying near her. We don't know if they were both hers or not.

 

Once a week Penny has to drive to Norris Campground to sell fire wood to the campers. It's usually a half hour drive. It's become a common problem this year for it to take longer to get there because of the bison in the area. Some of the people have taken an hour and a half to get there. This is what Penny had to wait for the last time she went up there.

 

Driving back from town one day, we saw the first of the goslings that are beginning to hatch.

Tuesday the 26th we went on a hike to Storm Point with our hiking partners that we work with. On the way to the trailhead, which is east of Fishing Bridge, Penny said she thought she saw a bear in the woods on the other side of the road. We stopped at the turnout on our side and walked back to where she thought it was, expecting to find a stump. After looking around for five  minutes or so, I saw some movement in the trees, back towards where we had parked the truck. I walked back along the road towards the truck because it had looked like whatever it was, was moving that direction. Penny and our hiking partners hadn't gone very far when one of them yelled "Don, it's headed right for you!". I looked up into the woods and sure enough it was a good size black bear foraging for mushrooms and working it's way towards the road. Penny said something about having to get back in the truck and flew past me and jumped into the back seat on the driver's side. I walked back across the street to the truck and climbed into the driver's seat. Our hiking partners made their way to the back end of the truck. Fortunately, the bear stayed on the other side of the road and made its way back into the woods after digging up a few morsels in the opening in the woods. We were the first ones to find this bear, but a crowd of cars started building up around us as people driving by saw the bear. It appeared to be a beautiful male.

 

After the bear disappeared into the woods we continued our drive to the trailhead. It rained a little while during the first half of our hike, but we were in the trees, so we didn't get terribly wet and it only drizzled for a short time.

Near the far end of the loop walk is a rock formation that yellow bellied marmots live in. Last year when we did this hike in the late summer, we didn't see a single marmot. This year we got to see a few. They are cute little buggers that use the rocks as a condominium.

 

On the second half of the loop trail we found black bear foot prints that had to be no more than a few hours old, since the rain and hikers would have obliterated them otherwise. They were probably from the black bear that we had seen earlier, since they indicated the bear was headed towards where we saw him. We got caught in a hail storm for the last few hundred yards of the hike, but it ended shortly after we got back to the truck.

We are looking forward to our next hike, though we haven't decided where that will be.

5/13/15

We went on a drive to the Tetons Tuesday. Because of road closures due to construction, we had to go the long way around, through the Hayden Valley. This is the time of year that the Harlequin ducks congregate at the La Hardy rapids, just below the Yellowstone Lake, on the Yellowstone River. The males are only there for about two weeks during mating season, so it can be difficult to see them at all. The males have very interesting color patterns on their bodies.

 

Here is a photo with three pairs of ducks.

 

We had hoped to maybe find a moose or two in the Tetons, but we didn't find any animals at all. We saw a few elk and a bunch of bison during the drive through Yellowstone though.

We also stopped to see the Sulphur Cauldrons in the Hayden Valley. We've been by them many times, but haven't stopped there until now.

 

In the Gibbon Valley, on the way home, we did see a mother grizzly and her cub. We think it's the same one that was in the campground at the end of the season last year.

 

It snowed the first three evenings after we got to the campground, which is good, since it will help with the lack of snow pack that we have this year. We hope that it continues to snow every night until the end of September, as it might reduce the number of people that are planning on coming through the campground this year.

Sunday the 26th, we went on the company sponsored tour of the lower loop of the park. It is a tour available to guests, at a price, called the Circle of Fire. It goes around the loop stopping at all the thermal features, with the bus driver explaining the science and or history behind the different features. The company provides the tour so we can familiarize ourselves with the features of the park, to better explain them to the guests when they ask about them.

The first half of the tour was uneventful, other than walking the boardwalk around the Grand Prismatic Spring in a blowing snow storm. After touring the lower portion of the loop around the Old Faithful area, it goes around the west side of the loop up to Norris Geyser Basin, then takes a sharp right to head east to the Canyon Village area. We had lunch in the visitors center when we got there.

After lunch we headed south towards the Yellowstone Lake area, having to pass through a locked gate that prevents guests from driving in the area until the park service decides to open the gates - usually based on snow levels and the number of grizzly bears in the area. On the way south, the only thing we noticed was the low level of the lake and rivers.

 

On the way back north (we couldn't continue south because a bridge is being replaced along the road) one of our group saw an animal out in the field to the left. As it turned out, it was a grizzly bear. Well, not 'a' grizzly bear, but FOUR grizzly bears. A mother and her three cubs.

A few miles further, in the Hayden Valley, we saw a wolf across the Yellowstone River, walking along the bank.

This is just about the same location we had seen a wolf when we came to Yellowstone as tourists, nine or ten years ago.

After getting back to the Norris Geyser Basin and heading south towards the campground that afternoon, we saw another sow grizzly and one cub just north of the Gibbon Falls area. It appears that she is the same grizzly that was visiting our campground late last season. We all hope that she stays in the area she is currently and doesn't come back to the campground. Only bad things could come of it if she returns. At the very least she would be trapped and moved somewhere much farther away. At worst she would be put down as a hazard to humans.

It turns out, the photos we took of her last year in the campground, are now being used in one of the visitor centers, in a bear safety video.

After a few days of practicing our check-in process, we opened for business on May 1st. We checked people into more sites than any other opening day over the last five years. With the nice weather we've been having, there's little to discourage them from coming.

At some point during our bus tour on the 27th, Penny lost her ID pouch, where she kept her Xanterra ID card and her drivers license. Fortunately, she didn't keep anything else - like credit cards - in it. Apparently no one found it and turned it in and I went back to look around all the places she might have lost it, but I couldn't find it. That all forced us to take a quick trip to South Dakota to get her a replacement license.

After work on Monday (noon) the 4th, we headed east and got to Spearfish, South Dakota about 10 p.m. We stayed in a hotel in Spearfish and headed to Rapid City the next morning. South Dakota requires that you show proof of having stayed in the state, at least one night, during the last 12 months, to get a duplicate license. We hadn't been in SD since March of 2014. Otherwise, we might have been able to get her license online. We would have gotten her license in Spearfish, but that office is only open on Wednesdays, hence the trip to Rapid City. It took less than 30 minutes to get her license replaced and we were headed back to Yellowstone. After a 12 hour drive we arrived safely in the campground. Penny was able to get some nice pictures of the scenery during our trip, to help make it more worthwhile.

Yellowstone Lake is still frozen, but is thawing out.

There are some interesting rock formations east of the park.

 

 

And some interesting buildings 

 

Just east of Gillette, Wyoming, I-90 cuts through the middle of a coal mine.

 

One of the places we find very interesting is the Ten Sleep area of central Wyoming.

 

 

So far, we're having a great time. Hope to see some of you here during the summer.

To our families and friends -

 

Happy Mother's Day

4/15/2015

We left Shedd, Oregon March 30th and spent a week at the Puyallup Fairgrounds visiting with family and friends and taking care of a little business. We had Easter dinner with Penny's family on Sunday.

On April 6th we left Puyallup and headed towards Yellowstone for another season. We got to Maryhill State Park, near the Dalles Oregon, that afternoon and parked. We intended to stay for a couple of days, since we don't like driving every day. Unfortunately, someone decided to play with their guns starting about 10:30 that night. We don't know whether it was a park visitor or someone who lives near the park but we decided we didn't need to stay where idiots like to shoot weapons into the dark of night. So, we left the next morning.

We got to Farewell Bend State Park near Ontario, Oregon that afternoon about 2 p.m. We got the same spot we had when we stopped there on our way west in October and though numerous rigs came in each evening for the night, we never had anyone parked within a couple spaces of us. We stayed there for three nights, giving us time to do a little sightseeing. Four miles northwest of the park is a town called Huntington, Oregon. There are a couple of cement making plants there, one of which is closed and falling apart, the other is operational. We assume that is where most of the residents of this small town make their living. There is also an old cemetery on a hill east of the town that originated during the Oregon Trail days. It was a pleasant drive on a beautiful day.

From there we headed to Declo, Idaho for just one night, since the campground is close enough to the freeway, that the noise can be a bit of a nuisance.

We intended to go only as far as West Yellowstone, but we arrived there early in the afternoon and had time to drive the rest of the way to Gardiner. We could have gone through the park to get to Gardiner, which could have been faster, but the road between Norris Geyser Basin and Mammoth Hot Springs has not yet been paved and we didn't want to drag the trailer through a mud pit to get to our destination. The drive around through Bozeman added a couple hours to our trip but it was still pleasant. We got to Gardiner about 4:15 p.m. Two couples that we will be working with had already arrived earlier that day. One had come through the park and said the road was drivable as long as it wasn't wet. Hopefully it will be dry when we move down to the campground, since that's the way we will want to go.

When we arrived last year, the park had 130% of its normal snow pack and there was four feet of snow in the campground. The snow pack this year is less than 75% of normal and from what our friends that drove through the park said, there is no snow in the campground this year.

Hopefully, the fire season won't be too bad.

Today it's snowing off and on with gusty winds. Not much is sticking at the elevation we're at, but we can see it accumulating on the hills around us. We hope to get a hike in tomorrow, before we have to check in for orientation on Friday morning.

Thompson's Mills Sky View

2/22/2015

We've been having a good time here in Shedd, with somewhat decent weather (more sun than rain it seems). In fact, with all the good weather, especially the days that we give tours, it seems everybody and their brother comes out to see the mill. President's Day weekend we had almost 100 people come through the mill for a tour. We've been able to spend time with family but haven't done much hiking or touristy things.

We have seen some incredible sunsets out our back window.

 

A couple of weeks ago, we had a visit from a past employee of the mill. He worked here in the 1980's. He now works for a company that creates 3D renderings of objects from multiple photographs or laser scans. He had a lecture scheduled at Oregon State University later that week and wanted a presentation that depicted a potential real-life situation. Since he still lives nearby, he decided to photograph the mill and use it in his presentation. The interesting part of it all is, he used a remotely piloted helicopter to take video and still images of the mill from multiple angles. He gave us all of the images he took during the fly-bys. Below is a 30 second video of the mill that he took.

 

You can see our truck and trailer on the left side of the video, next to the shed, under the trees.

We have a little over a month left here and then we head back to Yellowstone for the summer.

12/19/14

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

We've been learning a great deal about Oregon history and having fun. We're getting more comfortable giving tours to guests, though they are generally few and far between. Don's been editing one of the documents used to train new hosts. It was written in 2007 an a few things have changed since then, plus he is adding photos so readers can better relate to the subject matter. Penny and Don have also been helping archive the equipment stored in one of the out buildings, so it can be moved and the structure of the building can be repaired.

Part of our job is to help with some of the animals that live on the property. There is a cat named Bucky, that lives in the mill and is essentially the mill mascot. Unfortunately, Bucky's allergic to wheat and lives in a wheat mill. We have to give him eye drops every day. He doesn't care for them but knows he'll get tuna as a reward, so he doesn't fight them. He does help keep the mouse population down as part of the deal. We also feed the ducks, chickens and turkeys that live here. In the picture below, you can see Penny with her new best friends, going to breakfast one morning.

 

Yesterday, as we walked out of the outbuilding we were working in, Penny saw two bald eagles in the trees at the south end of the property. There was a young one and a mature one. They sat in the trees for quite a while before they flew off. We were guessing that they were hoping to find dinner amongst the ducks on the property.

 

Penny has decorated the trailer for Christmas and we've started making Christmas candies. We will be spending Christmas day with some of Don's family in nearby Albany, Oregon.

This weekend is supposed to be interesting with the significant amounts of rain expected. We will be trying to keep on top of the flood control job we have at the mill. We don't expect any problems though.

11/27/14

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are spending the day with Don's mom, who lives near where we are volunteering.

We spent a month in the Seattle area taking care of our annual physical, seeing friends and family, etc. Had a great time seeing everyone.

We left the Puyallup fair campground about 10 a.m. November 17th and got to Albany, Oregon around 3 p.m. The drive was comfortable with no problems and no crazy drivers.

We were going to stay at Waterloo County Park in Lebanon but decided we didn't want to drive the extra half hour, so we stayed in the Albany-Corvallis KOA. We aren't big on KOA's, mostly because of the price, but in this case, the cost in diesel to get to Waterloo made it a wash. After setting up, we drove down to Harrisburg to check out a different RV Park, to see if it looked like a good place to move to, while we waited for our parking spot at the state park to open up. It looked acceptable, if not austere, so we decided to move there the next day. It was also considerably cheaper, with the same amenities that we would be using anywhere we stayed.

Tuesday morning, the 18th, we moved down to Harrisburg and stayed at the River Life Resort for a week. It's an ex hotel/RV park that is being turned into a church, with retreat capabilities. They are adding a sanctuary, which is taking up some of the pull-through RV spots (especially during construction). There are no trees, picnic tables or fire rings, but there are concrete site pads, neat and clean hook-up facilities and they keep the grass areas between the sites well mowed. The RV park/hotel were built not too many years ago, but someone forgot to have rebar put in the concrete site pads, so they are all cracking and a few of them have sunken areas that the owners have to fill in with gravel. It's generally not an issue for those parking in the sites. The original owners went out of business and the church bought it a couple years ago. I suspect the reason was mostly due to it being nowhere near a heavily traveled corridor, so it didn't get much business. It had many available spots while we were there, though there were quite a few spots taken by the construction workers.

The weekly cost was considerably less than KOA or even the county park and it wasn't too far from the state park that we are volunteering at for the winter.

We were able to get over to Don's mom's house a couple times during the week and we went to our new volunteer location, to get the lay of the land, meet the people we will be working with and see just what we will be doing as volunteers.

The couple that we are replacing as volunteers were originally going to leave the day after Thanksgiving, but had a family emergency and left the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We moved into the spot they vacated, on Tuesday.

Penny pulled the trailer from our Harrisburg spot to the state park. She needed to get some experience pulling the trailer in case she was forced to do it in an emergency. She did very well and fortunately the roads were relatively straight and level and there was little traffic. Optimum conditions for the first time someone is pulling a trailer this large.

The spot we are parked in is kind of tight, so it took us a while to get situated exactly right. We have a tree that could have been a problem at our right rear corner and we had to make sure it would not interfere with our slide or the rear corner of the trailer. There is a building on our left side and we are the largest rig they have ever had in the park. The front end of our trailer reaches clear out to the driveway. We even had to have them cut a couple limbs off the tree that we are parked next too, just so we could back into the site without scraping the roof with the tree limbs.

 

There are a bunch of ducks, chickens and turkeys that the camp hosts feed each morning and evening.

 

 One of the ducks has a problem with his right leg, where his foot is turned under, so he has become more of a pet than the others. They have named him Finley, after one of the people that has an historical association with the mills. We make sure he gets his share of the food by virtually hand feeding him.

 

The rest have to eat off the ground like normal birds.

There is also a cat that lives in the mills who helps keep the mouse population down. His name is Bucky, though we don't know how he got that name. His problem is, he has a wheat allergy but lives in a flour mill, so every day he has to be given his medicine. He really dislikes the eye drops but takes his other medicine well. We just sprinkle it on some tuna and it's gone in short order.

The facility has only been in the state park's ownership for seven years, so there is still a lot of work to be done to get it back to good condition. They have a timber framing carpenter working on fixing the basement that has been flooded a few times, a needs some of the woodwork replaced. They also want to ultimately get all of the grain out of all the workings, which will help cut down on the mouse problem. There are volunteers in the community that come in once or twice a week to work on various projects, including a retired professor from one of the Oregon universities that is going through all the archive material, to build as much of an historical record of the mills as possible. Others are trying to catalog all the equipment that exists, so they can make an historically accurate recreation of what was in the mills and how they worked. I only have a couple pictures of the outside of the mills at the moment, but will get some of the inside as time goes on.

 This is the house the owners used to live in. It is now the on-site ranger's house.