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Where do I even start?

With the huge amount of bears and people, the month of July has really taken a toll on everyone in camp, not to mention that we’ve only had one nice day in weeks. This can be a very stressful job with all the people management we do around the bears.

Yesterday was beautiful though, just gorgeous. There were very strong winds on Thursday night and on Friday the clouds had all been pushed out to make way for blue skies. It was nice to finally have a sunny day. It was so nice that I decided that after work, I would head to Brooks Lake to spend my Friday night there. Brooks Lake is about a mile or two away from camp, and is where some of our maintenance employees live. It’s very nice. The best part about it is that it’s away from camp. This weekend was even better, because I had one of the maintenance cabins to myself. Some of our maintenance is in King Salmon working on projects there. Well, I was hoping to wake up to sunny skies, but I had no such luck. At least it was nice to wake up to a quiet cabin. There were no planes flying over head and no people walking past.

My Saturday has gone quite well. I slept in for a number of hours to try to catch up on sleep. Then I had bacon and eggs with one of the maintenance guys; thanks T. Kay. Then I went into camp to do some email/apply for jobs. So far I haven’t applied to too many jobs, but I have applied to one job teaching environmental education in Grand Cayman. It’ll be interesting to see what they think of me. I’d apply to more park jobs, but I haven’t seen too many openings.

I found a box from my gram full of goodies in the mail/laundry room. That was a nice surprise.

After being surrounded by too many visitors and bears at camp, I headed back across the river to Brooks Lake. T. Kay and I had planned to have dinner together. I thought it was going to be just a simple dinner together, but then some other people had the same idea as me. We ended up having some lodge workers and some of their friends come up for dinner as well. We had the best bear battered halibut, mash potatoes, and veggies ever. I haven’t felt that well fed in a while. It was nice to have a real day off and enjoy it.

Everyone says it slows down in August. I am excited to see that. I might actually get to do interpretation/environmental education like I’d like to do. Right now we just don’t get the chance because of the bear traffic. It’s a bit hard to understand how this place works if you aren’t living it. It’s way fascinating. I’m not sure I understand it completely myself.

Anyhow, after a good day like this one, I’m ready to have some very sweet dreams.

I hope all is well where you are!