We woke up on Wednesday morning and checked the temperature: 0 degrees. After last night's -10, 0 sounded downright balmy, and we headed down for a swim.
We met a local guy in the springs who's originally from Hinsdale, IL--Chicagoland people are everywhere, and poor Steve had to spend the next 20 mins. patiently treading water while I chatted away with him.
It's a 30-minute drive from Chico to Gardiner, and we finally arrived at the Yellowstone Association's headquarters around 11:30 a.m. We met our new boss and a few other colleagues, and then she drove us over to what will be our house for the next week. Everyone at YA affectionately refers to our house as "The Brown House." We have no idea what our address is, but if we tell people we're staying at "The Brown House" they nod their heads.
The house was described as "extremely cozy" to us, but it's plenty roomy and most importantly, VERY warm (anyone who describes this house as "extremely cozy" has never lived in NYC!) We need to keep the front gate closed to keep out the deer. What moose were to the opening of "Northern Exposure," mule deer are to Gardiner: we had to let one cross the road in front of us when we were driving home from the grocery store (she was in no hurry), and we watched another 3 grazing in our neighbor's yard.
After we unloaded our stuff we drove into the park to register our car and have a look around.
Gardiner, MT sits right at the northern entrance to Yellowstone, and after driving on the entrance road for about 5 miles you cross into Wyoming. The whole adventure was worth it for me when the ranger at Mammoth handed us our Yellowstone National Park employee car sticker.
We drove out to the Lamar Valley
on the northern road, the only road currently open in the park. For just two short hours in the park we saw a lot of wildlife, including the Druid Wolf pack, several herds of elk
a coyote, bison, and the first bighorn sheep we've ever seen in this park
There will be two other YA employees based at Old Faithful bookstore, and they arrived in Gardiner last night. Their boss, the YA sales manager, invited us to join them for dinner at the Yellowstone Mine and we were able to pick their brains about what to bring and what to leave behind. They left for Old Faithful today on a bus--there isn't enough snow yet for the snowcoaches to operate.
We've met several people already who came out here as volunteers and never left. I heard Steve on the phone with Bry telling him that I'm in heaven and it's true--he's going to have a hard time getting me out of here.
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