3 on 4 off

Tuesday: my first day off of four. I think I could get used to this. I drove by myself to the canyon area. Hayden Valley was covered in mist... dense and grey. This lasted through the canyon area, so i stopped into the canyon grill for breakfast of toast, hash browns and coffee.

It was about 930 when i got the the start of the north canyon rim trail. The sun was shining and the parking lot was not yet full of camper vans and tour buses. It isn't a hard hike, rather flat, but I chose it because I was alone and I figured there would be other people around. It goes from parking lot to parking lot along the canyon. I saw loads of people in the parking lots, but only two on the trail. I wore my bear spray... just in case.

I then decided to drive over dunraven pass, which finally opened after our days of snow. The pass itself was quite snowy, but the road was well cleared. The valley opened up beneath me, bright green after the rain and snow. A storm was blowing in, making perfect shadows over the hills.

I decided to drive until I felt like stopping and ended up in Mammoth again, just as a wild rainstorm hit. I took shelter int he restaurant and had a yummy veggieburger.
... then drove home....
passing this majestic view at moose something creek?? :-)

Wednesday:
Sue had the day off too, so we hiked the lake overlook trail. It is only 3 ish miles, but that is what we were in the mood for and it looked like storm. At one point we crossed a main road and saw a large group of people stopped taking pictures. We asked what was going on and were told that there was a moose baby and the mother was about 30 feet away.... yaaaa... this is what we saw....

This, folks, is an ELK. Sue even said, "you mean that elk?". the man insisted it was a moose..... wow.
We continued our walk, joking about how many moose we were seeing....

we saw other pretty too... a thermal feature covered in flowers ...

and amazing views of the lake and mountains

Thursday....
Ill write it later, just got sunny again, so I am headed out. :-)

Mammoth

Sue and I decided to go for a drive today... destination unknown. When we woke up it was sunny and the ground was covered in snow. We decided to drive north towards hayden valley.

it was covered with snow and so beautiful. One of the things that has struck me since coming here is the changeability of the landscape. In seconds the whole thing looks different, yet equally stunning.

we decided to drive up to Norris Basin again, to see what it looked like in the snow. It WAS snowing hard when we arrived, and it was so cold, but again stunning.

We were wet and cold when we got back to the car after about two miles of walking in the snow, but decided to make our way up to Mammoth. About 1/2 way there we hit a VERY dense fog bank. We were in fog through to Mammoth, where we were told the road back was closed due to an accident. OK, both of us have to work tomorrow.... so we went to Gardner Montana to have pizza and hopefully wait out the closure.
We went to Outlaw pizza :-) then walked around town. Small cute little town about 5 miles out of Yellowstone. It is the original entrance to the park.

We waited until it looked like the fog above us in the hills was lifting and made our way back to Mammoth. We could actually see the hot-springs (we couldn't see them for the fog earlier)  and had a quick look around.

the colors are even amazing in the snow.

The drive home was fast and when we reached Hayden again, all the snow had melted!

see the babies??? they were jumping and playing in the rain...

Now I am home and it is snowing again. Today we saw snow, sun, rain, sleet, fog and lots of wind... flowers, young leaves on aspen trees and bouncing baby bison. Loads of elk, and a lone pronghorn...

driving

went for a drive today to find some cell reception. It is a very windy, stormy day. Drove up to canyon first. I was told that I would have reception there. No such luck. Went on to Norris Geyser basin, because I hadn't seen it before. Took a little 2 mile walk around.

then I drove down to Marry's bay, by way of the Hayden Valley. In Hayden this morning i saw two bears, and the bison who are always in the area. I didn't get a picture of the bears, but here is a picture of the valley this afternoon...

As I sat there, looking over the scene, the clouds moved by so fast I felt as if I was sitting in front of a movie screen on fast forward. Every few seconds the landscape looked completely different.

I drove on towards my destination, stopping only once to see elk and bison... it was lovely.

Marry's bay: the wind was so strong it was blowing small stones around!

I made a few phone calls and then went to the general store at fishing bridge. The power was out and the lovely workers were showing people around with flashlights. I bought butter and came home. We had also lost power, but it resumed in about an hour. I made some lovely oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and brought them to the clinic for the folks working today.... that's my day!

First real day at the new job. I just love how starting a new job can make you feel like an idiot... enough said. I am going to chill for the night, though I am on call, and start fresh tomorrow.

so, had the first patient of the season...
Sue and i decided to walk to the general store (approx 1.5 miles away) to get some stuff for dinner tonight. As we were walking towards fishing bridge we saw people running. We thought, "bear". A girl ran up to us and said that there had been an accident on the other side. We couldn't see anything but cars, so didn't run or anything. A park employee drove past, we asked if he had called the rangers. Then we saw a man run up with fist aide stuff, and saw a man on the ground. Turns out this was a motorcycle vs truck. We assisted on scene and then rode in the ambulance to the helipad outside the clinic, started IVs etc. Helicopter from Idaho Falls  happened to be "in the area" so was only 20 min out from the time they were notified from the scene. We got him transferred. My pants were covered with blood, but I got them washed up, took a hot shower and then walked off the adrenalin.

 I am kinda proud that I kept my head for the most part, and was able to start an IV on the guy even though he was really fighting us.

hiking

Went to the clinic to finish up the preparations to open on Friday. We had to be out so they could wax the floors. Sue and I decided to go for a hike. We went up Elephant Back Trail which isn't far from where we live. The round trip hike is 3.9 miles with an elevation increase of 955 ft.
http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip/300060
we hiked up to the top and started along the ridge for quite a ways, but the snow was still too deep and we were knee deep in places, falling through and having to struggle to get out. At one point both my legs went into the snow  past my knees and i slipped back, bum in the snow. I had no solid area to brace myself on to stand and sue had to come pull me up.

not at all a flattering picture of me, but you get the idea. The drifts were a lot  deeper in places than this, but we were concentrating too hard on staying upright and not getting lost to take pictures. We finally turned around and went down the way we came rather than completing the loop. We DID, make it to the top though... yay us.
There were some amazing vantage points from up there.I know this one is sideways, and I really cannot figure out how to not have it sideways. I have tried several things... to no avail

...and this is where we live. No too bad, hu? 

Tuesday

We worked today. Stocked the clinic rooms with supplies like 4x4s and KY jelly. made sure gloves were in place etc. We also stocked up the crash cart, ran EKGs on each other, made sure everything was working. The IV pumps are antiques :-) LOL It was really nice to get everything into place, to know where to find supplies... mostly because I put them there.

We went for a walk along the lake after work. We heard what we thought was running water, but when we listened closely, we noticed that the sound was higher, like tinkling broken christmas ornaments, or broken glass being swept up. It was the ice moving in the lake, small areas rubbing up against each other. Every once in a while the sound was louder. Along the shore is waves of ice that has been washed up. I am not describing it to my satisfaction... but there you go.


we then drove over to mary bay... where we saw a bear up on a hill, far far away. I took a picture, but he is just a speck. I have one on a raw file that I can blow up so you can see it is a bear, BUT I can't figure out how to convert from NEF to JPEG... I will figure it out at some point. 

O give me a home

OH... Give me a home...

(in the background is Lake Village)

Where the buffalo roam...

(bison really, we don't have buffalo in this country)

Where the deer (elk)....

And the antelope playyyy-eeee...

Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word.....

And... the skies are not cloudy all dayy-eee!

the living room

my bed

the kitchen

 Went to old faithful with my roommate and new friend, Sue. It was nice to go before the place was completely overrun with tourists. There were a lot of people there, compared to the rest of the park. We had a good walk around the boardwalk, looked at a lot of thermal features. they are really beautiful. There was a little display in the visitor center about the PH of the hot pools and geysers. They have pools of a PH of 1.4 (very very acidic) to 13 (very basic). I think we walked about 3-4 miles around. I haven't downloaded any pictures from today, but will soon.

Friday FUN-DAY

It is Friday! I do work tomorrow, however. It is the last day of training. The clinic opens up next friday. I will post pictures of the inside when I get permission. The exam rooms have amazing antique looking furniture as our clinic was a hospital way back when. I am getting on ok, missing my family though :-(.

The weather has been holding up and it looks like the lake is trying to thaw. I haven't seen a bear in person yet, but several have. Kirk, our maintenance manager who has been coming up here for years, reports that he saw the biggest Grisly he has seen the other day near our housing.

We had a helicopter come from the Hospital in Idaho Falls to do a marketing run. If we have a critical patient, that is the way they get to a hospital. It is really exciting! I am going to learn a lot and hike a lot :-) This picture if from a hike I took on monday. We gave the wildlife we saw a lot of room. these guys look docile, but they are WILD ANIMALS with horns and not cows in a petting zoo. (you can click on the pictures to enlarge)