Au Revoir Yellowstone

Hello Everyone!

Well the time has finally come for me to end my time here at Yellowstone National Park. Honestly, I can't believe tomorrow is my last day. This experience has been one of the best in my life and I will never forget the memories I have made here.

My last week here was pretty fun and filled with a relative amount of excitement. Last Sunday I actually got to work a bear jam again. It was really great - best bear I have seen all summer. This guy was at least 3, maybe 4 hundred pounds easily. When I arrived on scene, it was a mad house. I was the first one to arrive and there were literally cars everywhere. There were tons of people on the road and many of them were WAY too close to the bear. After I got the cars out of the roadway and got all of the people back to a safe distance, it really became an enjoyable experience. I had a bunch of people offer to send me pictures, and there were tons of people asking questions about the bear and what he was doing. Animal jams can be very stressful times and a lot of them this summer were pretty taxing, but every now and then you get one where you can be an interpreter and really teach people about the Park and the wildlife. Really the best part of the job.

Last night was also very exciting as well. I got to go on a medical call with the ambulance. Crazy turn of events led me to this occasion. My supervisor called me late in the day to tell me to leave the patrol vehicle at the Tower Ranger Station, so that she could pick it up in the morning. I was then supposed to get a ride with one of the general Rangers who lives in Silver Gate just past the NE gate. Well, as it turns out, they were having an end of the season pot-luck at Tower, so we stuck around to join in the fun. (Tower is a sub-district of the Lamar River District, so I had worked with these folks all summer long). About an hour into the party, there was a medical call over the radio. John (the Ranger that was driving me home) responded that even though he was off, he was prepared to bring the ambulance up if need be. The patient was at the Buffalo Ranch in the valley. After radioing that along, he asked me what I wanted to do as far as getting back to Northeast. I told him, that if he didn't mind, I really would like to ride along and see how everything works when the ambulance responds to a call. Well, John is a great guy and said that was fine with him as long as the night shift supervisor (NSS) didn't have a problem. About ten minutes later the call comes out that they need the ambulance. So we gear up, say our goodbyes, and head up the valley with the ambulance. When we arrived on scene, John and I helped the patient into the ambulance and set him up on the stretcher. After doing an initial talk through with the patient, we had a short briefing. The NSS told the other LE Ranger, Amanda, to drive the ambulance and he wanted John and me to ride in the back with the patient while he stayed and patrolled the district. So we took off heading for the rendezvous point halfway between the North Entrance and the hospital in Livingston. The patient was not critical, but he had a head wound and was in what seemed to be an altered state of consciousness. He continuously asked the same questions and had a very hard time remembering anything from his day. I did a lot of talking to him so that John could focus on keeping him stable. It was truly a first hand learning experience for me. John showed me everything he was doing and I got some first hand experience dealing with a patient as well as putting some of my first aid knowledge to work at the same time. We made it to the transfer point around 11pm and made a very successful transfer. I am happy to report also that although the patient spent last night in the ICU he is now stable and in a normal hospital room expected to recover fully. It was a great learning experience which I took a lot from. I am definitely committed to furthering my Emergency medical services training; now more than ever.

There is a very large fire burning in the Park right now as well. The fire started last Wednesday and has grown to 9,300 acres and has shut a road down. Luckily this is the first major fire in the Park this summer and we are expecting snow tonight and 2 to 5 inches during the day tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be able to contain the fire so that it does not threaten any visitor services or developed areas of the Park. I find it ironic, though, that the first day I was in Yellowstone it snowed and the last day I will be in Yellowstone there is a 90 percent chance of snow! High of 35 degrees tomorrow! Which of course is my cue to get out of Dodge...

Let The Great Adventure Part II: The Return begin!

I will be in touch soon. I plan on taking a week to get home and making the most out of the journey.

Brent Everitt
Visitor Use Assistant
Northeast Entrance Station
Yellowstone National Park

Newlyweds and Nearly Deads...

Hello All...

I know many of you have been looking forward to the next email. Don't worry, I have not forgotten about y'all! Unfortunately there just isn't much going on out here. It is the season of Newlyweds and Nearly Deads as one of my coworkers put it. The Park is having one of its busiest falls in recent history, but the animals seem to have mellowed out. The bison rut is over and the herd has begun to break back up into its separate groups farther and farther away from the road. The elk rut has begun; if you have never heard an elk bugle (mating call) it is pretty cool to listen to. Some nights it sounds like they are just 50 ft from my place. I can only describe it as one long drawn out "neh" that becomes a whistle. The first time you hear it you are just sort of dumbfounded that a sound like that has just come out of the woods. It is a great experience to be here for it but it doesn't affect my job much at all. The bears have literally disappeared! I haven't seen a bear or heard of a bear-jam in over a month. The story is that the bears are at the higher elevations feasting on moths, apparently a bear will eat 1000 calories worth of moths in a day! That has to be a huge amount of moths! However, we have been getting reports of sightings over the past couple of days and apparently one of the berries that bears just love is just now blooming, so they could be on their way back toward the roadways soon. We'll just have to wait and see. The wolves have returned to the valley which is a bonus for the visitors but again, they stay far off the road so they have not affected my work routine much at all.

On the human front, things have begun to close down in the Park. Even though we are extremely busy, it was not predicted. Three campgrounds, two hotels, and a dozen other restaurants and stores have already closed for the season. Life in the gate remains pretty much the same. Not handling quite as much money, but the number of cars has not decreased - they just all have senior passes. :) I have had some interesting people come through but again nothing like the Canadians at the beginning of the season. We have already had three employees leave; another one at the end of the week heads off. As for me, I have two weeks left here in the Wild West before I begin the next leg of my Great Adventure. The travel plans have not been set in stone but considering I planned my entire trip out here in three days, I figure what's the rush? As long as I have my phone and my Garmin I can go anywhere! The general plan is to return to Charleston by the 9th of October.

Well I'm sorry it is not as exciting as previous emails but that is the life of the Park Ranger. :) Maybe Yellowstone will give me a big send off with lots of excitement that I can share with all of you. Until then here are some pictures I think you all will enjoy...

Until next time,
Faithfully,

Brent Everitt

Visitor Use Assistant

Northeast Entrance Station

Yellowstone National Park

This is a Black Bear just behind my place, roughly 50 feet from where I'm standing, safely in a doorway of course.
This is a picture of the river I had to ford when I drove those backcountry Rangers into the wilderness. (Note the warning sign)

Road Trip!

Hello All!

Well the excitement continues...

Not too much as far as work goes. I've been working mostly in the gate lately, which is fine because it leaves me with the energy to go out and do other things. My one world-saving mission and example of Government brilliance happened last week on my patrol day. After I went to each of the campgrounds in my district and collected the fees I was to go to Park Headquarters and pick up five bundles of Park Newspapers/Newsletters. (For those of you who do not know this those newsletters are an essential and vital link that makes Yellowstone work. :) haha jk, but they are helpful) Basically what happen was that we were suppose to have 5 bundles of newspapers waiting for us at the Supply Center. When I got their they told me someone had taken them. So I spent the next two hours of my day hunting down and literally stealing newspapers from other locations in the Park so that our gate would have them. Total excitement!! :) However, like I said my lack of having to do labor intensive work out here has allowed me to get out more. On Wednesday after work I drove to Glacier National Park. It is roughly a 6 or 7 hour drive from my station so I got up there around 10:30pm. My friends Adrien and Addie were kind enough to put me up for the weekend and we had a great time. On Thursday we started by heading out to Many Glacier, and doing a four mile round trip hike (Picture 1) out to the Red Rock Lake and Waterfall. It was a great hike and very beautiful one as well. After we did that we drove up to one of the Visitor Centers they work at on Logan Pass which sits at about 6,646 ft on top of the Continental Divide. From here we hiked five miles round trip out on a trail called the Highline (Picture 2). This was also a great hike because for a good deal of it you are just hiking along the edge of a cliff looking down on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Which I had fun with because every time one of the Old School Red buses came by with their tops rolled back, I waved at all of the people in the bus. :) I found it entertaining - Adrien said I'm going to be the type of parent who embarrasses the heck out of my kids, which in my experience is what parents are supposed to do. :) Love you guys! It really was a great hike, we picked some huckleberry, which I had never had before, so that was a new experience. There was one occasion where we had to get off the trail because a goat was heading in the opposite direction. Really cute because as soon as the momma passed us the little kid came running down after her. After our hike, I earned my very first Junior Ranger Badge and was sworn in by the Ranger at Logan Pass. I have the badge pinned to my backpack and I wear it to work everyday with pride. After Logan Pass we headed to the West side of the Park and saw the Cedar Forest in the Park (Picture 3). Apparently, it is the furthest cedar forest from the west coast on the continent, something like that. Anyway, I had never seen Cedar trees before so it was cool to see. We spent our evening sampling the local night life, which I'm pretty sure includes one bar called Charlie's Place, great pizza and great beer so really can't go wrong. I left Glacier on Friday and made my way back to Yellowstone. It was really great to get out of the Park for a little while (hadn't done it since June) and the drive there and back was spectacular! That's about it as far as my adventures this week. The wolves have started to move back into the Valley, the bison are all over the place, and it is getting cooler so the bears should be on their way back down to our level as well. So their may be some excitement to come, but basically the season is just about over, we have already had three people leave and three more will leave before the end of the month. Hope everything is well with all of you. If you haven't written me (or even if you have) I'd love to know how everything is going, especially those of you that have returned to school.

Until next time,

Best wishes,
-- Brent Everitt

Visitor Use Assistant

Northeast Entrance Station

Yellowstone National Park

Family and friends come to visit, oh and the Leader of the Free World too...

Hello All!

The fun continues out here in the great Yellowstone Wilderness. The animals seem to have subsided somewhat so I don't have any really great stories for this week. However, every time I think "hey I'll just wait till I have some more stuff", I end up with emails that are two pages long. So to save y'all from that I decided to update you on the few things going on here at the land of yellow stones.
Starting Tuesday the 11th, I was scheduled to work a utility day and then head to the Tower area for some Park EMS training so that I could help more during medicals (i.e. paperwork, the stretcher, and other things with the ambulance). So I started my day by chopping up some invasive weeds and thereby saving the world :) (well maybe not but when you're cutting weeds out of the ground with scissors these ideas pop into your head). Then I headed down to the Tower Junction to see if I could help with any animal jams. Instead, because there were no animal jams, I got the task of defacing and cutting up antlers, once again saving the world from antler wranglers. Seriously, though it is illegal to take resources out of the park and that includes dead bodies so we have to deface these antlers so no one tries to make furniture out of them or other classy home furnishings. :) We also then have to hide them because in some Asian cultures the antlers can be ground up into a powder and used as an aphrodisiac. And that was basically my day because about 10 minutes before training was suppose to begin we had a medical and the ambulance along with the instructor had to transport the patient to Livingston, MT. It was a fun day because I got to work with people I normally don't and I got to do some new things. But the work of a Park Ranger is not always as glamorous as some of you may think... :)
On Thursday my Dad's parents came to visit the area and I went and spent my weekend with them. I got to see some pretty cool things in Montana including a real ghost town, not just some tourist attraction. We also went to the Bair Family museum, the Shiloh Sharpshooters factory, and the site where they filmed The Horse Whisperer. It was a really great time. I finally got to spend sometime with my Grandparents and I really enjoyed it, although our visit was cut short by another Park visitor.
On Thursday night around 9:30 PM my supervisor called and informed me that I had been chosen to work the Presidential Visit Detail. Pretty big deal because my supervisor wasn't the one making the selections, and neither was her supervisor, so this order came from pretty high up in the pecking order out here at old Yellowstone. So here is how it went down. On Friday morning I received three memos: the first one is orders on how everyone is suppose to be dressed and that everything must be polished and pressed, next one is when and where I have to be, and the third one was instructions on how to salute the Presidential Motorcade (if you are laughing at the third one, join the crowd, but I guess there are some people who don't know how to salute, so it makes sense in its own special way). Anyway back to the day. I left my Grandparents early in the afternoon so I could get everything ready. As I'm in the middle of polishing my shoes the power goes out, and of course I saved the ironing of my uniform for last and therefore I'm SOL at this point. (Back to that in a second.) So I have to report to the Old Faithful staging area at 7am, which means I have to leave my station at 4am, which means I have to wake up at 3am, and they want me to look my best... haha you can see now why they choose me for this assignment ;). So I "wake up" at 3am and the power is back on so I press everything really quick, take a shower, get dressed, and meet Coach at the truck. I offer to drive because as the younger of the two I felt it was the right thing to do. We drove down to the Buffalo Ranch and met up with the District Ranger and formed up our caravan and made our way to Old Faithful. By the time we got half way there, we had a line of six or so Ranger vehicles, maybe more, but a pretty impressive sight. Until of course we checked in to the briefing room and there were nearly 100 Rangers there. Officially, I can't go into much detail at this point, but after checking in I was handed a packet that was stamped secret material on every page and we went through the briefing with each branch on the detail. I was assigned to the Presidential Motorcade. The original idea was to fly the First Family in and out, but the weather was calling for snow (I know, middle of August, doesn't process well for a Southern boy). Anyway, so if they couldn't fly in or out my detail and I were suppose to advance the motorcade and clear the road and stop all traffic/clear any jams if need be. Well the weather turned out to be just fine and I got paid 14 hours to watch the Secret Service wash the President's Suburbans, watch the helicopters land and take off, and listen to stories about the other Presidential visits people had experienced. Although I didn't get to meet the President or work actually at Old Faithful itself, I was still honored and really glad to be chosen to take part in the event. There are going to be plenty of Presidents to come in my future, so I still have time to meet one. An interesting fact for you, though: for a Presidential visit, it cost the Park Service (alone!) $80,000 for a two hour visit. How is that for stimulus... :)
Since that weekend things have been very slow in the Park. It is nice to get a break after the way July and August were, but it sounds like I'm going to have to take up learning the guitar or something in September because there will be nobody in the Park. Luckily though this weekend I had two friends from Glacier NP come down to visit. For those of you who know her, Adrien and her friend Addie came down to visit the Park and I took them around on Thursday. We did two hikes in the Valley, went to the Canyon VEC, the Artist Paint Pots, and the Museum of the National Park Ranger! :) Exciting for us Parkies. It was actually pretty cool - the museum is one of the original solider stations from the days when Yellowstone was run by the US Army before the Park Service was formed. It had a lot of information about the evolution of the Service and the System. We watched one of the videos about how the Park System was started and how it expanded to include Monuments, Battlefields, and Recreation Areas. Added bonus... Fort Sumter was in the film!!! Toward the end, as they were doing the conclusion, they showed a clip of a Ranger giving a talk atop one of the 15inch Rodmans! :) I got a kick out of it.
Well, I always think these are going to be short and they never are. Oh well, I hope you all enjoy them anyway. I know this one wasn't as adrenaline packed as the other ones but the wolves are moving back into the valley, the bears are about to start packing it on for their winter slumber, and the elk are about to start their rut, so maybe more excitement in the future.
Until then you know the drill... :)

Yours Truly,
-- Brent Everitt
Visitor Use Assistant
Northeast Entrance Station
Yellowstone National Park

Where the Wild Things Are

Hello Friends,

If I don't tell y'all about last Tuesday I would be cheating you out of possibly one of the craziest days I have ever had at the park. Now as usual I was on Campground/Bear Patrol duty last Tuesday. And this is how the morning goes... I wake up to a phone call from a coworker, telling me that the back country patrol ranger has left a bunch of his stuff up here and needs it asap. So I had to gather all of his things, my campground supplies, and my bear patrol equipment and travel 16 miles into the valley to drop off his equipment (not a big feat in the city but out here that is a 30 minute job at least) I then had to turn around and head back to the first campground and collect the fees. As I'm doing this a car rolls over in the valley. I'm not called out to this but most of the LE and General Rangers are, so I head to the next campground. As I'm finishing, some of the Rangers are leaving the rollover and heading back to the station when we get a call about a medical on the other side of the district. So everyone heads that way. By the time I make it to the central ranger station for the district there is one LE Ranger and me and that's about it. We get a call out about a bear jam so we roll to that and clear it up pretty easily and then I finish my campground rounds and head back to the station. (Background)-For the rollover we had to call out the fire engine, which now had to be cleaned. For the medical we had to send the ambulance which then transferred the patient to the Mammoth district ambulance who transported the patient to the closest hospital, Livingston, so that ambulance is gone for sometime. As soon as I make it back to the station, we get a call from dispatch asking for assistant in the Mammoth area with reports of a person being struck by lightning. So they send out the ambulance with Rangers clearing the way. Meanwhile on the North side of the junction a bear has been paralleling the road for nearly two hours (nightmare in the eyes of us on patrol) and the bear is heading straight for the station. At the same time a bear is spotted behind the Roosevelt Lodge which is south of the station. So now we have 3 Rangers 2 vehicles heading to Mammoth; 2 Rangers hazing the bear at the lodge; and 4 Rangers trying to handle the bear heading toward the station. And low and behold, ANOTHER bear shows up just down the road at the Yellowstone River Bridge. This is now where I am dispatched to, but before I ever get a chance to see the bear, the storm that was in Mammoth is now on top of us. Lightning strikes the hill directly behind me. It is time to get these people out of here, so just as I yell to everyone to get back in their vehicles, the HAIL comes. Don't know if anyone has ever been stuck outside in a hail storm but it is NOT fun. I'm roughly 100 yards from my truck and I'm not making it back anytime soon, so for about four minutes I just took the hail, and I mean seriously, this stuff hurts! Luckily these storms don't last too long and it makes the animals run for cover as well. So I cleared the scene and headed up Mt. Washburne to see if there is anything there that needs attention. Lucky enough for me, I find a Grizzly bear jam! The best thing about this jam is that the bear is little, maybe 600 yards away, and there is no way people could see him without scopes, so it was a pointless jam. Just as I'm getting that cleared, I have a German group pull up right behind me and tell me they have a problem. Basically they struck a rock with the side of their vehicle and now because of automatic closing and opening, the van door keeps reopening because it can't lock itself. So I ask these people two simple questions, "Is this a rental vehicle?" -Yes; "Did you get the insurance?" -Yes. GREAT! I can help, so I go to my vehicle and grab my sledge hammer and pliers and I go to town on this door. Once I was happy with the work I pushed the door closed and held it till it stayed in place. I told the visitors not to use the door until it was fixed professionally and I was on my way. At this point in the day I am exhausted!! So I start heading back toward the Northeast, until again, fun finds its way to me :) About half way up the entrance road, I notice a truck pulling a horse trailer. As the truck comes around the corner it drops its right side wheels off the road and a big puff of smoke comes out. This truck is fifty feet in front of me, heading straight towards me, and it just had a blow out... nervous? A little bit... Next thing I notice, the wheel comes right off and comes bouncing across the road. I pulled my truck over to retrieve the wheel because it was in the middle of the road. They had sheared the thing right off the axle, just snapped right off. So now they are parked in the middle of the road and can't go anywhere. So I call in for back up and I begin directing traffic as these modern day cowboys try to jerry-rig a fully loaded horse trailer so they can continue (luckily they did have two more axles on the trailer). It took them about thirty minutes but they were able to do something with the broken axle so they could continue. So I continued on my way back home, when I ran into yet another Grizzly bear jam, at this point I'm tired and not amused, so I cleared the road, made sure the people were far enough away, answered a few questions ,and finally got back to the entrance station. After all of that excitement I was pretty hyped up, so I decided to go for a run (first time I got the nerve to actually run through the park rather than on the treadmill). It was a great run too! So I was feeling pretty great when I made it back to the residence area. As I started heading up the trail to my humble home, BOOM! Guess who is there to meet me but a nice little black bear right on my trail. I took a hard left and got as far off the trail as I could because I had nothing but an iPod on me and as great as that is I don't think it would protect me from a bear. Luckily when I got into the parking area there were three other Rangers; two LE's and my roommate. I told them about the bear and we went to find it again. See, when a bear comes into a living area, you have to haze it away; you don't want it getting comfortable there. So the bear did a loop of the area (we got some great pictures) and then the LE's opened up on him with bean bag shots and firecracker rounds. This scared the bear away and ended one fine day...
On Wednesday I had a group of my coworkers for dinner. I made roll-ups which were a huge hit; if you haven't had them yet ask my Mom about them or I could make them for you sometime, they're pretty good. We headed down to the campfire ring and hung out there for a while. Thursday I went to the doctor in Mammoth to take a look at my neck and back as I am still having pain from the accident. On Friday it was back out to Cody, the two hour trek to get groceries. Saturday it was back to work, a couple of my coworkers came down and we made smores in the wood stove. (Side note- IT'S COLD HERE!!! Highs literally are only in the 60s or so, and it is snowing up on the Mountains! We have had like one month of spring as far as I'm concerned...) After work I headed out to Cooke City to play some pool with my coworkers which was a good time.
Sunday brought more excitement! As I was just about to leave my place after my lunch break, my roommate calls and tells me there is a bear in the residence area again! So I'm assuming over near the trail down to the gate, so I grab my bear spray and stay as far to the right as I can. As I started down, I noticed the LE Ranger getting her shotgun. Still, I'm assuming this bear is way to my left; when I glance back to my right guess who is ten feet away from me and walking right toward me... yup, the bear! So I stop in my tracks, the LE notices me and yells up to me asking if I see the bear. My response is something along the lines of "Yeah he's hanging out up here with me!" So she starts heading up the hill with her shotgun and tosses a rock at the bear. Unfortunately she was not a softball player in her days... :) (Her words not mine!) So I pick up a rock and chuck it at the bear and hit him right in the leg. Anybody guess what the bear did??? Just looked at me like, "Seriously, who throws a shoe?" (Austin Powers...anyone?) Anyway, by this time the Ranger has made it up the trail, takes aim, and hits the bear with a bean bag shot, at which point the bear gets the idea and runs off.
So that was my past week, definitely the opposite from the previous couple of weeks. Hopefully, the bears have gotten the idea that this is not the place to hang out.
I hope all is well with everyone back home. I hope y'all are appreciating the heat at least a little bit; trust me, you miss it if you lose it for a summer. Good luck to everyone heading back to school soon! Kind of crazy I'm not apart of that crowd anymore. My grandparents are suppose to be here Thursday and Friday and President Obama will be here on Saturday so you know another busy week ahead I guess.

Until next time your busy friend,
-- Brent Everitt
Visitor Use Assistant
Northeast Entrance Station
Yellowstone National Park

ONE FINE DAY...

Hello All,

Seems as though I am a little over due as far as updates go...
Well like I said things have picked up tremendously here. It is amazing how one week can be so different than another. So I'll give you the highlights and try not to make this email too long. Just after I sent the email last week things started to pick up. On the 29th I got to drive a back country law enforcement vehicle out to the wilderness line. The wilderness line is just what it says - there is no development out there, trails are not maintained and roads are not made, it is the wild. The point of the trip was to take an LE Ranger and a General Ranger out to the Wilderness Line in the Shoshone National Forest from which point they would make their way back into the Park on foot. My job was to drive them out there and then return the vehicle to the Ranger Station. I volunteered for this task even before I knew what it entailed, for a couple reasons: 1) I got to get out of the gate at noon, 2) I got to see a beautiful part of the country that few people get to see, and 3) I knew I would run into overtime :). Now the road out to the wilderness line gets smaller and smaller as you go until it turns into just a trail and then into nothing. There are several fords (rivers) that you have to drive through to get to the drop point. This is where the fun comes in! The first two fords were maybe two feet deep and we made it through with ease. However, the third was a whole other story! We entered the ford thinking it was going to be just a normal two maybe three feet deep until about half way through and the whole hood of the truck went underwater. Mind you, this is no toy truck, this is a Chevy Silverado 2500 4x4 with a lift and all terrain tires. Back to the story: now when the hood goes under the LE Ranger had a choice word or two and slammed on the gas. Luckily we made it through. About half a mile down the road the LE Ranger turns to me and says, "I'm a little nervous about you going back through that ford." To which of course I respond with a dumbfounded look on my face, "you and me both buddy!" :) We headed another mile or two until the road narrowed too much to continue and we began to unload. After everything was settled and the truck was turned around, the LE Ranger turned to me and said these wonderful words of encouragement, "Radio us when you make it through the ford. If you don't, we'll hike back to you; nothing we can do for you but we'll keep you company." And to those words of wisdom, we headed our separate ways. When I got back to the ford I stopped and got out of the truck to form a plan of attack. The problem returning was that the angle of entry was very steep, straight down to the deepest part of the river and then gradually up from there to the other side. Here is where the balancing act comes in - if I attack the river too fast I could ram the truck right into the bed and get it stuck; however if I ease it in too slowly I could flood the engine and get stuck. So after studying the river for a couple of minutes, pumping myself up, and reminding myself of that time when Bryan and I had a similar situation with the Suburban at home (Dad doesn't know about that one... sorry), I took to the river. My plan was to ease into the river until I felt like I had hit the deepest point and then I floored the gas as hard as I could. And this was exactly what I did! She hesitated a little when I hit the gas but as soon as those back tires were able to grab something, I flew right out of the river. It was a nerve racking situation (getting a gov't rig stuck in a river is not a good idea) but I got to see an amazing part of the world and I got a pretty good story out of it.

-- Brent Everitt
Visitor Use Assistant
Northeast Entrance Station
Yellowstone National Park

All Quiet on the Western Front

Hello All!

Well the subject should really say it all. Unfortunately, there has not been too much happening here at good ole Yellowstone. We have a had a couple of exciting events in my district over the past couple weeks. However, I haven't been responding to many of those. Construction continues on the road leading into the park, so we will be kicked out of our gate again tomorrow. Which means working outside on the road down in Silver Gate, MT which is a lot of fun when it is not raining. So things will be different once again starting this week. But we are getting into the busy season. August is not only one of the busiest months of the year, but it is also mating season, so the animals will be out in force, being aggressive, and trying to show off for the ladies. So we will have plenty of things to deal with here. Visitation for the park was up in June; our gate alone had a 61% increase over last year in visitation, and it hasn't even gotten busy yet. Have continued to meet very interesting people at the gate. Today I had the whole gamut of people from really nice and appreciative South Carolinians to very dense and difficult Canadians. See, now Colin is upset but that is okay; let me tell you about these fine Canadians. They come storming over to the window demanding a senior pass and saying that they didn't even want to be in the park. They thought that we should pay them for the road they just drove through, and they were cussing up a storm. Now these are senior citizens. For those of you that are not familiar with the Park Service's Senior Pass, you must be 62 years or older and a United States Citizen in order to even buy the pass. So I asked the wife for proof of citizenship (drivers license works just fine) and she hands me an Ontario driver's license. So I tell her that she has to be a US Citizen. She is very upset by this and goes stomping back to her car to get her husband. Supposedly he is a citizen, so he comes over and shows me, again, an Ontario driver's license! Now I'm finding this funny because I think they just don't understand. So I asked one more time, this is where the fun ended and the cussing started. Now I don't really mind what people do in their own lives because I am no saint for sure but when you come to my gate and expect me to help you, you better not be cussing at me because I don't put up with that. The wife is now really upset and I am the anti-Christ all of a sudden and I have insulted the husband because he served in the army. He said "I served the US Army! I don't know what you have done with your life, but I don't deserve to be treated this way." Now remember all I had done was ask the same question I ask every person trying to buy a Senior Pass - proof of US citizenship - but this couple was too important to be asked that! Finally, the women pulled out the husband's Michigan birth certificate from like the 1930s and I gave them their pass. They shared a few more choice words with me, and with a big Southern smile on my face I said "Y'all have a wonderful evening, welcome to Yellowstone!" Sometimes you just have to laugh it off and not let it bother you, and that is what I did. That's my one people story for this week; not the best but I get a chuckle when I read it.
For those of you at Fort Sumter I also met two people from Rice University who actually know Russ!! It was pretty crazy, you know. Ususally when you meet people that went to the same school as someone you know, they have no idea who you are talking about because Universities are so big, but these actually lived in the same dorm as Russ, so I thought that was pretty cool. Anyway, sorry this one isn't filled with much action but I still have 2 months left, so I'm sure there will be plenty more to come. Hope all is well in your lives and you are basking in that warm southern sun!! Actually hit 92 in Cody the other day while I was there, loved every second of it!! Roommate was dying... (not literally!) I've enter all of the gates into the park now, and I can honestly say I would not be as happy this summer if I were not working at the Northeast. If you ever come to Yellowstone and you want the real experience, the Northeast Gate has to be your entry point.

Until next time, with lots of love,
-- Brent Everitt
Visitor Use Assistant
Northeast Entrance Station
Yellowstone National Park
PS: It looks like Clifford as seen his last drive. The frame was bent, it turns out, and I will be trying to get GEICO to total the truck because I don't want a truck with a bent frame.