June 13, 2007

NOTE: This posting begins a week ago, because we have only just now been able to access the internet. We are now on dial-up internet, so I hope I can publish this post shortly - it covers our first week at Crater Lake.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Happy Birthday, TOM! (He is now eligible for a lifetime National Parks Pass – woo hoo!)
The weather here is just bizarre! One minute it is snowing a blizzard, the next minute the sun is out. A few minutes later the clouds return and it’s raining and snowing. The only consistent factor is the temperature……cold. Yesterday’s high was 37; the low was 24.

Of course the woods are gorgeous - snow carpeting the ground, and laying thick on the tree boughs. Thinking the snow would melt before we could "capture" the scene, we ran around like southern yokels, snapping photos like crazy. Then it began to snow again, covering the branches even heavier. It’s just bizarre.

Tom has met the other boat captains – there will be seven to start out the season. He was issued his captain shirt (with epaulets). And Lynn met her manager at the gift shop.

A few more people are showing up on our block, “Mazama Row.” Others are checking into the staff dormitory. We are so glad we did not arrive today in this weird weather. We’ve had time to get our bearings, and learn where things are.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Orientation day!

So at 8 a.m. Tom and I drove the jeep 7 miles up the icy road to the rim. It took us 30 minutes, and we only skidded twice. The snow had fallen all through last night, making everything white again, so it was beautiful driving through pristine woods. Even the sheer drop-offs we slid past on those hairpin curves, were covered in fluffy white blankets of snow.

No one likes to sit for 9 hours in a “classroom” in the attic of the employee dorm dubbed “Animal House,” but that’s what was required of new employees, young and old. I swear Tom and I were beamed back to high school. Except for the boat captains, who look like they are 45+ years, and a few retired couples (like campground hosts), most of the employees are late teens to mid-20s. Comments and jokes were tossed out in Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish, as well as English, as the Human Resources leader did her best to present a total overview of working at Crater Lake National Park.

Do you remember the PBS series, “Upstairs, Downstairs”? Which half did you most identify with? In the majestic old Crater Lake Lodge, with its Grand Hall built with Ponderosa pine trunks and massive stone fireplaces, guests are treated to fine cuisine, beautiful surroundings, and a quite satisfying “upstairs” experience............Well, the employee dining room (EDR) is “downstairs.” We are required to park far away from the main lot, walk on the employees’ path, enter at the service entrance, continue past the freezer room, laundry room, and various other working areas of the hotel basement. We line up and proceed slowly through the “buffet,” which is served on paper plates with plastic forks and knives. But no complaints here – Tom’s meals are free, and mine are nominal. And, at the other EDR, at the restaurant nearer to our site, we always know what’s on the menu; the buffet serves the same items every single day.

Gatorade is saving my life! (That and fixing my own meals). In this altitude, it is easy to become dehydrated, and I did. Now, I drink several Gatorades and lots of water all through the day.

Upstairs, on the Lodge veranda:

Friday, June 8, 2007

Tom was in training all day, and Lynn had her first day at the gift shop. This involved learning the cash register, learning the inventory, how to fold t-shirts, and how to keep your cool when customers are impatient and downright rude.

After work, I drove down the mountain and stopped at the turn-out where Captain Gene said he found phone service on his Verizon mobile phone. Sure enough, my phone works – there on the side of the snowy mountain, on a hair-pin curve, in the wilderness of Crater Lake National Park, six miles away from our site.

By Monday night, though, our land line should be hooked up, and we’ll email the “How To Reach Us” information when it is working. AND we’ll be able to check email on a daily basis (if all goes well).

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Life As We Know It has drastically changed. Take, for example –

Mail: there is no friendly postman to take our postcards and letters at our front door. The nearest post office (the only p.o. in the park) is four miles up the mountain, and has limited hours.

Shopping: The nearest town is Klamath Falls, 60 miles away. It has a Safeway and a Wal-Mart, and not much more. Medford is a larger town and has Safeway, Wal-Mart, Target, Penny’s, Lowe’s, and a great Army Surplus store – but it takes 2 ½ hours to drive there. Nevertheless, we had a long list of “needs,” and we both had the day off, so on Saturday we drove to Medford, and crossed a lot of things off our list. The drive through the wooded mountains mostly follows the Rogue River. The road was cut through a thick forest of Ponderosa pines, leaving a ribbon of blue sky very high above us. We stopped at Natural Bridge, to see where the river flows through a lava tube, forming caves and blow holes, and exiting into rapids and falls; it continues down the mountains, and into the Pacific Ocean, 184 miles away.

After a day of shopping and the 2 ½ hour drive home, jeep loaded with supplies, we were exhausted. This is a whole different way of life! Tom is used to running over to Home Depot every time he needs a bolt, screw, or nail (sometimes several times a day). That won’t happen here. And there’s no dashing to Kroger to pick up some lettuce for dinner. If you don’t have it, you use something else.

And we still have not found the place to dump our trash. There does not seem to be a dumpster (other than "Recyclables") any place in Oregon. So we take our trash in small bags and deposit them in small trash cans wherever we find them.

Again, though, we are not complaining: neither Tom nor I have ever had a prettier drive to work. And stretching out on the sofa after a long day, we can look out the window into the tops of 80-foot Ponderosa pines swaying in the cool mountain breeze.