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Recently, I’ve been working a seasonal job at a clothing store. Nothing big, just folding clothes at tables and making them look nice, but there were two weird incidents this holiday season. They were so… different than anything I expected that I needed to recount them.

The first incident found me organizing men’s underwear and undershirts. Don’t ask. I was rearranging the packages, when an older couple showed up and asked what kind of underwear the man should get. Speechless, I quickly got a hold of myself and preceded to name a few of the brands the store kept. Satisfied, the two started to search the section, while I went back to what I was doing. About ten minutes later, they approached me again and asked if there were any test underwear for him to try on, to see if he liked it. If I was speechless before, I was struck dumb by this request. Test underwear? Stammering, I tried to explain that I had never heard of such a thing. If they noticed my confusion, they chose not to react and soon wandered off, much to my relief. Later, I saw them head for the changing rooms. I think they were going to open a package and he was going to try one of those on. They don’t pay me enough to deal with that.

The second incident happened less than a week ago. I got to work and started folding in the store’s athletic section. It was almost Christmas and the store was running out of clothes. Everything the store had was on the floor. The manager on duty even told me that they were receiving a shipment of spring clothes that day. I hadn’t even been there an hour, when a woman asked if we had a sweatshirt in the size she wanted. I answered that if she couldn’t find it on the floor, it wasn’t in stock. She then pointed to a mannequin on a high shelf. There was a sweatshirt on it. “Could you check that size?” she asked. “I want to know if it’s a medium.” I didn’t even know where the ladders were kept, so I approached a cashier and explained the situation. The poor cashier was coughing and looked like he had a cold, but he accompanied me back to the woman, heard the problem, and showed me where the ladder was. He climbed up and managed to get the mannequin down, with me holding the ladder steady. Checking the size, it was indeed a medium. He managed to pull it off the shelf, while I tried my best to keep him from falling, and he showed me how to disassemble and then reassemble the mannequin. The woman got her sweatshirt and the mannequin, now with a new sweatshirt, was replaced on the shelf.

I worked the eight days leading up to Christmas, the last day being on Christmas Eve. I got some weird requests and inquiries during that time, but nothing was stranger than the underwear and mannequin adventures. You got to love the public. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and an even happier Happy New Year!

My time in Yellowstone has come to an end. My contract ran out earlier this month and the Hotel is closed for the season. It was a fun time. I got to dodge elk and bison, go on a five mile hike, see Steamboat Geyser go off, and meet new people from around the world. I also got to experience snow.

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            When my brother and I left the Lake Hotel, it was snowing. Everyone had been warning us that Yellowstone was experiencing blizzard conditions that day. Just looking outside confirmed that. When the bus finally picked us up, snow was covering every inch of ground. I felt frozen in my seat on the bus. It took about two hours to get from Lake Yellowstone to the West Entrance. Every time we reached another junction, there were rangers warning drivers of the weather conditions. This happened near Fishing Bridge, Canyon, and Norris. Luckily, we were able to get through.

            Even the town of West Yellowstone, which is right outside the Park, was absolutely covered in snow. When we stopped for lunch, my boots sank right into a snowdrift.

Now, I am back home in the heat of the desert. But, it was a thrilling adventure working in Yellowstone.

There was a roar in the air as we stepped out of the car. “What was that?” I said.

My mom turned to look at me and said, “Steamboat Geyser is going off.”

The four of us, my parents, brother, and myself, hurried down the boardwalk with the rest of the crowd. We were all headed in the same direction.

A geyser is a cone in the ground that emits steam. Water feeds into the geyser and boils under it. Once the pressure builds up enough, the steam shoots out of the ground, sometimes hundreds of feet into the air. Old Faithful gets its name, because the pressure causes the geyser to go off after hour and a half or so.

Steamboat Geyser, meanwhile, has a reputation for being one of the world’s tallest geysers, but it doesn’t erupt that much, at least until now. Recently, the geyser has been going off every few weeks or so. I actually got to see Steamboat in action a few weeks ago. On August 20th, my family and I happened to arrive as Steamboat was going off.

It was truly a magnificent sight. Steamboat wasn’t erupting at its full height, but it was still going up at least a hundred and fifty feet in the air. At its initial eruption, it went up an estimated three hundred feet. Everyone was just staring at this force of nature. The interesting part, though, was that the ground was vibrating from the force of the eruption.

On July 9, 2019, my brother and I hiked to Cascade Creek in Yellowstone National Park. This hike was a five mile long round trip. It was beautiful. We were with about ten other people. The path to Cascade Creek was constantly going up and down, twisting and turning through a dense pine forest. Eventually, we exited the trees and started off through a level meadow. My shoes were covered with mud by the time we reached the creek, which looked more like a huge lake. The plain must have been a marsh, or maybe it was because it had rained earlier in the day. The lake was spectacular. The water was glittering and pristine and it was protected by trees, hills, and mountains on three sides. The fourth side was mostly the pine forest and meadow leading up to the lake. I was exhausted when we returned from the hike, but it was a good tired. It was a fun few hours with my brother and the other employees of Yellowstone National Park.

June has been an exciting time for wildlife in Yellowstone National Park. At the beginning of June, a mother elk was wandering around the outside of the hotel. She was, understandably, very aggressive to anyone who came near her or her baby. I didn’t see this happen, but I heard that over a week ago, the mother chased an employee and he pulled out his bear spray and sprayed her in the face. For those of you who don’t know, bear spray is high-powered pepper spray. The elk wasn’t hurt and she let the employee walk away, but I haven’t seen any elk since I heard of the incident.

[Read more…] about Wildlife in the Park