MAKING IT RURAL

My address is General Delivery, Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming.  I’ve never had a General Delivery address before.  I ordered something from Overstock and it took a month, several calls and a slight change of address to get here. UPS and Fedex don’t deliver to General Delivery. It’s too…..well…general.

Even though my package took forever to get here, my constant checking at the Post Office means the Clerk at the Post Office here now recognizes me. That’s kind of nice.  The Post Office itself is one of those oversized government edifices built an awfully long time ago (1936) when it was important that the government have oversized edifices that have that particular ‘I’m Government’ (with a capital G) look. The postal clerk is a seasonal worker just like me but paid better I’m sure (it IS government – even here). Now that I have all my packages, I only walk over there a couple times a week. It takes too much precious time, particularly if I have to detour around the elk.

Mail may be problematic at times here but the internet is really tricky. Provided for the Staff but oversubscribed, the Staff internet service is very slow if available at all.  I’m used to private high speed internet shared with only one other person. I haven’t had a working tv and have watched my favorite shows on my computer for a long time now. Not possible here in Mammoth. Still, if I get up in the wee hours of the morning – after the young employees have finally gone to bed - the speed of transmission is decent enough on the internet end. At 5am, it’s on my end that the receiving is a bit rough.

My cell phone works here at Mammoth – most of the time - but get too far down the hill to Gardiner or further into the Park and you lose touch with the world. I work here for a big company that has policies using cell phones during work hours anyway and can no longer answer my phone on my whim – or make a call when I want to find out if one of the hair salons in Bozeman, an hour and a half away, has an opening on Saturday.  Saturdays in market towns are very busy you know. By the time I can make my calls, at breaks and lunchtime, I have forgotten how important it is to get the hair out of my eyes and by the time I do remember all appointments have been taken. Fortunately, nowhere in Yellowstone will you find a job posting for fashion police.

My close friends who might want to get hold of me know to text. I get texts pretty regularly and will reply when the window of opportunity comes round – provided I’m not in one of the thousands of dead zones or hiking, rafting, cycling or generally goofing off in some incredibly beautiful place that doesn’t have cell service and shouldn’t have either. I don’t like to spend my time walking around with my cell phone stuck to my ear yelling “Can you hear me now?” when my free time is so precious and there are so many beautiful things to see.

Sometimes it feels that the ‘real world’ has taken a detour at the rusticated triumphal Roosevelt Arch on the north entrance road. It’s not that time is standing still – exactly. It’s just that Yellowstone is on rural time. Everything takes much longer than in the city. So you begin to cut out the inconsequential stuff – like hair cuts and pedicures – until you can get to the big city of Bozeman (population 38,000).

If you have to visit the dentist or optometrist, good luck. Most practitioners in the nearest small town called Livingston are booked up through the next month. So you do what your grandparents or parents did. If your crown falls out, you first try Supergluing it back in. If your glasses fall apart, you tape them back together. You make your own repairs, live with less and wait until you have a LOT of errands so that your entire time is not spent traveling to Bozeman or Cody or Jackson or sometimes West Yellowstone to get what you need.

Even going down to Gardiner Market is annoying because the road down from Mammoth to Gardiner is only 2-lane with hardly any shoulder, very steep sides and often has an RV taking up both lanes. And, of course, there are all those wild animals that have the right-of-way. Pedestrians come second on the right-of-way list. THAT doesn’t happen in the big city.

Motorized vehicles are way, way, way down on the right-of-way list. Horses even have a higher priority than cars.  And your car may not be the biggest thing on the highway, anyway. Bison have been known to crush cars. Lots of things can impede your ‘short trip’ to the store even though it is theoretically only six miles down the road.  It is pretty easy to discard the notion of going for a  'quick' beer if the beer is several miles down a road with everyone and everything having a higher priority than you do in your car. Easier to stay home, add storable red wine to your shopping list for the next time you DO go to town, put on your hiking boots and step out into Wonderland.

So, with nothing big city-ish to do and no real where to drive unless you have a few free hours, it becomes pretty easy to park your car and save gas.  I parked my car last Sunday after a trip to Bozeman and only drove it a few yards the whole week to re-park it in a better spot. I intend to drive back to Bozeman this weekend. I have enough errands to make the trip worth while and I’ll catch a movie and a Thai dinner while I’m there. And the Hot Springs are on my way back. Trips to the City are big events.

So how do we entertain ourselves here in Wonderland?  Obviously, with some of the most beautiful and intriguing scenery in the world, there are lots of places to visit during the day.  There are LOTS of short and medium-length hikes right here at Mammoth and I have yet to make it to more than three of them although I have taken organized hiking trips offered by Yellowstone Association and the Mammoth Employee Rec Department.

The Rec Department does a lot for the employees of the Park.  The three young men at Mammoth who run the activities plan white-water rafting, trips to the theater in West Yellowstone, group hiking trips all over the Park, bingo games, league sports, tournaments of all types, trivia nights and even a 4th of July trip to Livingston's Rodeo. Xanterra employees can also work out in a very nice gym that is more like my old high school gym than LA Fitness. (Personally, working out in a gym seems a bit too big-city when you have 3,468 square miles of wilderness to explore.) And if it's nighttime and you don’t feel like being active, there’s always card games in the dorms or the pubs here at Mammoth (see my post A Lady Walks into a Pub).

Of course, every National Park in the United States has Ranger talks and Ranger-led walks.  There are always videos available in the Visitor Centers as well.  All sorts of things to keep a person busy. The Yellowstone Association also offers all sorts of tours and hikes and awards various levels of ‘certificates’ if you participate in activities put on by the Association, the Rangers, or the Rec boys.  You can also do independent study and many of us do.  Part of my certificate work involves reading a fascinating early history of Yellowstone.

Sometimes (not often) we hear guests complain that there is ‘nothing to do’. Yeah, well, go to DisneyWorld if that’s how you feel. This place is literally crawling with things to do. You just have to get out of your car and sometimes your comfort zone to do them.  But when you do, please remember that at Yellowstone the critters are more important than you are and they may be pretty grumpy about being in your photo with little Johnny. And for your own sake, give them plenty of right-of-way!