Start of the winter season!

Well, I'm back in the park for the 2009-2010 Winter Season. Training starts tomorrow and it feels great to be back. It'll be a while before I can upload pictures, as my computer is undergoing some maintenance back at home.

Animal count thus far: oodles of bison, a coyote, some elk, a few deer - possibly white tail and/or black tail, magpies, ducks, five river otters, and three wolves. Woohoo!

Bryce National Park

More Utah!

I wish I could tell you where these were all taken, but I'm actually not quite sure. Somewhere in Utah!

I'm in Utah!

Well, my contract at Yellowstone is finally up. I finished up on the 8th, and was out the very same night. The plan for my nine weeks off? Road trip! At least for the first couple of weeks. Right now we're in Utah! Which, for the record, is one of the most beautiful states I've ever been to! These are from Arches National Park:

Right now we're in Cedar City, UT. We visited Bryce yesterday and we're on schedule for Zion tomorrow!

On our way to Slough Creek.

Slough Creek. The fish in this creek laugh at you as you try to catch them. It's horrible.

Found some antlers!

Me!

The shade was kind of a bummer, but isn't he totally awesome?

Chasing the women, per usual.

Pretty.

These are actually from a while ago, but this post never got posted! Whoops! From August 2009.

Karr overlooking the moutains during our Mt. Washburn hike with Megs and Dad.

Megs! :)

There were Bighorn Sheep on the trail on the way to top of Mt. Washburn. He's so majestic!

We made it!

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. Work is keeping me extra busy with six day work weeks [yuck]. Let's see, over the last month and a half - Megs and Dad came to visit. It was so great to see them and will definitely tide me over until I see them again in November. The elk rut started right on time, we had a big guy show up on September 1st. The bugling is awesome, even if it occasionaly wakes me up in the morning. Business has remained busy up until about three days ago. Management told us it would die out in September and it did... at the very end. Coworkers are starting to leave, one by one - but the end is near. The restaurant closes Oct 5th, then it's deep cleaning. Karr and I leave on the 9th and will be one of the few who make it to the Survivor's Party - for those who've made it all season. I think of the original restaurant staff, there will be only 9 or 10 people that have made it from start to finish. There was a huge fire out here, down near Lake. I forget the name, but it was up to 9300 acres until the snow we had yesterday put the fire out. The mountain tops are covered in snow again and it's absolutely beautiful. As I said Karr and I will be leaving Oct 9th. The route planned is Denver, CO to the Four Corners, to The Grand Canyon, AZ, then eastbound to Tennessee. We'll stay there for a few weeks, then head back up to Wisconsin and Minnesota. Of course, we'll probably drive wherever the wind takes us. I'm looking forward to the end of the season and the glorious 9 weeks off till we're due back for winter. Hope all is well with everyone. Not sure I'll post again until I'm on the road once more. Sorry for the lack of pictures, here's a few to tide you over:

Beautiful bull elk literally right outside my door. Imagine my suprise when I flung open the door to go check the mail across the street... :P

Sunset somewhere in Lamar Valley.

The big fire of the season. Totally awesome, right?

It's been a while since I've update, sorry!

Notable events over the past few weeks:
-Went to Bozeman to celebrate Karr's Birthday [July 23] - had a good time, ate more sushi.
-Went to West Yellowstone to see an IMAX movie and check out the Grizzly Bear and Wolf Discovery center. The center was opened a few years ago - so it's relatively new. It's kind of neat - learning about how bears have affected the west over the years, and they actually have a griz and wolf exhibit in the back. But, as always, it's not as cool as seeing them in the wild. There's just something sad about watching a wolf pace around the border of his cage.
-Karr's picked up fly fishing lately, so we've been doing that once a week. We've gone down to the Gardiner River, and last Friday we went to Trout Lake in Lamar Valley. [See the pictures below!] It rained the whole time at Trout Lake, but we got to see some otters, so it was totally worth it.
-Last Thursday we went through the Beartooth Highway. Absolutely beautiful! I didn't have a chance to get that many pictures, because we were strapped for time, but it was amazing! I also got to drive through sun, rain, sleet, and snow - in the middle of August!
-I put my application in for a winter season here at Mammoth. I got the agreement about a week ago. Looks like I might be here for the snow! My agreement dates are Dec 16 - Mar 9. I'll keep you posted!
-Not much else to report on. August has been fairly busy as far as business goes. A lot of our servers are leaving this month to go back to school, which means I'll probably be working more here in a couple of weeks. Obama is apparently going to be at Old Faithful this Friday, so I'm sure it'll be a zoo there. I'm headed to Bozeman on Thursday for more sushi. Then the week after Dad and Megs are coming to visit! I couldn't be more excited!!!

Hope all is well with everyone!


Trout Lake.

Otters!

Otter with a huge fish! Wish I could catch one like that...

The clouds here are always amazing. Have I mentioned this?

Taken on the Beartooth Highway.

Sunset.

Rocks in the Gardiner River.

Mudpot!

Chipmunk!

HUGE bull elk! Taken inbetween Mammoth and Roosevelt. I'll probably see this guy up at Mammoth during the rut.

Sunset and bison in Lamar Valley.

Really awesome clouds.

Clouds!