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Published: September 25th 2015
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It has been raining for the better part of 3 days. I can’t think of any other time over the last 5 months that it has rained so much! Today is Thursday, but it is my “Monday”. It is wet, cold, and dreary outside. I go to work this afternoon. Upside- this is my LAST “Monday”! It is my LAST night shift! To celebrate, I am defrosting my fridge and freezer……..
Tuesday and Wednesday (the weekend) seemed very long! Jack worked on his photo organization, I worked on storage organization in preparation for moving. I made him watch the entire miniseries of “the Stand”. We did walk to the store between rain showers on Tuesday. Wednesday I made apple and peach dumplings for the maintenance (indoor) picnic, then we drove to Cody just to get out of the house! There is snow on the mountain tops again, and the temps are cool highs in 40’s and lows in upper 20’s. Expecting a heat wave though! By closing day (Sunday) it will be sunny and 60!
Actually, the rain is very nice right now, as a fire was ignited by a lightning strike on about Sept.
4 or 5. It was located about 10 miles west of Fishing Bridge and 2 miles south of Hayden Valley in the back country. It grew from a reported 1/10 of an acre on Sept 10 to 2,600 acres on Sept 14. We started noticing smoke clouds on about Sept 11, and the smell of smoke. By Sat the 12th it was reaching about 425 acres, and appeared to about double in size every day. The park’s philosophy is to allow natural fires to burn naturally, until they threaten structures, human health, and safety. Fires are necessary for the ecosystem, maintaining diverse habitats, encouraging regrowth….as a matter of fact, the lodgepole pine is the dominant tree here, and its cones require fire to burst and reseed the forest. That reminded me of a Bible study Jack did one time about a similar seed that required fire to reseed and grow. The point being that our trials are necessary to grow in our faith! It is so awesome how God shows Himself and His character and attributes throughout all of nature!
Anyway, as the fire grew, it was monitored closely and the powers that be began making preliminary
plans for management and possible evacuations. Many of our guests checked out early because of the smoke, but just as many are still arriving and checking in!
Then, Monday night it started raining. And it has rained ever since. It is raining now. I’ve seen a few snow flakes this morning, but it is predominantly rain. The last update the park made about the fire was that it had diminished greatly after receiving a half inch of rain Monday night, though it was still burning. I assume that with the amount of rain we have had, it is no longer a concern! Hope the rain clears out all the smoke as well!
4 more days of work….. Then time to be a tourist for a while!
UPDATE September 25: Woohoo! The rain is gone, and I am free! We closed down Fishing Bridge on Sept. 21. We were nearly full to the last day. Jack and I have moved back to the LERV, different spot, better, backing up to the woods, with a clearing several yards in where there are some logs to sit on, and we “stole” a fire pit
from a vacant site and put it back there.
We had a bonfire and weenie roast at Fishing Bridge on Sun night (the 21
st) and met for breakfast at the Lake hotel on Mon morning. After that we turned in our uniforms and whatnot and received our “termination” papers (finally, the “pink slip” I have begged for J). Most of my coworkers have now left. It was sad to see them go. We did have some fun times and lots of laughs. I decided to try Facebook again, to be able to keep up with folks. I am trying not to be obsessed with it or to let the things people post get under my skin!
For our weekend, we headed to Cody for shopping, had a campfire at Craig and Martha’s, did a little hiking at Storm Point, and had dinner with our friends Ken and Sandy before they left on Wed.
Martha and I spent some time yesterday morning at Artist’s Paintpots and taking her dogs to walk and play along the lake in the afternoon. Last night was marguarita night at Margie and Joel’s. I always worked on
Thurs night and always missed this weekly event!
Hanging around home today, doing this, cleaning and cooking in preparation for the kids on Monday, and just enjoying puttering around.
Don’t have many pics, but I will post some later on. Figure I had better get off the couch now and do something!
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