Day 71 of Work & Travel - Final Day

The final day of my stay in yellowstone has finally arrived. I started the day with a final day at work. It's my last day and it really felt sad actually, i really liked the people i worked with. It was a fun-filled day everyday. My hrs were shorten today so that i could do my checkout procedures, while going thru my check out procedures a also ran around trying to catch some last photos with all the people i'm close with at old faithful.

Day 70 of Work & Travel - Lower Loop & Cody

After the upper loop yesterday, it's time to cover the lower loop and show dear the Yellowstone Lake. We also made a stop in Cody to walk around, however i realise there wasnt really much to shop for over there. We wanted to go see the Rodeo, but the weather was just BAD!! Not a very exciting day. :P

But at least I got to bring dear to Irma's the first restaurant I visited other than our EDRs. And best of all there's rib-eye steak buffet!!

Day 69 of Work & Travel - Bear Hunting w Dear

My final few days in yellowstone are dedicated to bring dear around. And today we went bear hunting. We ventured up the grand loop, looking for bears. And we were lucky enough to see one before the end of the day. :)

Day 68 of Work & Travel - Goodbye Singaporeans!!

Today is a really busy day for me. Only got back to Old Faithful like 4plus, 5am in the morning. And i was going to send zing & kailun out to bozeman in the morning. I came back took a quick shower and had a short rest and it was time to go back to bozeman again. I wasnt complaining, but i do wish there was more time. :P

Had a last meal at Bozeman with Zing & Kailun, Jap food. I must say this jap food is by far the best food i had so far since coming to US. :) Did some shopping after lunch and met the rest of the Singaporeans who are leaving on the way back to Holiday Inn. I dropped off Zing & kailun and turned back to pick them to Target/Ross area as it started to rain. Kyla was just hilariously depressed about leaving Yellowstone. Funny gal. :P

I had to rush back to Old Faithful soon after Ross/Target cos i had a volleyball game tonight. It's my last chance to play in the Yellowstone Volleyball League and i don't intend to miss it. Volleyball is something which i'm good at and something i standout in Old Faithful. The last games were not too bad, but perhaps due to my lack of sleep, I wasnt playing exceptionally well. We won nonetheless. hehee..

Day 67 of Work & Travel - Employee Appreciation Day & Dear Arrives!!

Today's employee appreciation day and also the day which i go pick dear up from Bozeman. She's finally coming to USA!! :)

Employee appreciation day marks the beginning of 2 weeks of 40% discounts for employees at all giftshops and today there's an appreciation dinner catered for all employees. This dinner is special in the sense that our managers will now become the ones who will be serving us dinner, which is pretty unique. :) and this dinner has great food too, prime ribs, prawns and other good stuff. This is really a great dinner cos there were a huge group of us who are having fun together, kindda like reunion dinner, farewell dinner to some of us. :P

Day 66 of Work & Travel - The Final HIKE....

Today I did my final hike of my stay in Yellowstone National Park. And i'm really glad it's the Bunsen Peak & Osprey falls trail, it's a really challenging hike, especially for me. PuiEe and ShanEr joined me on this last hike, i'm grateful to have them accompany me on this hike cos, i've already postponed this trip for a few weeks due to lack of participation.

It was a really tough hike cos first it was a very steep ascend to the top of Bunsen peak, then it was a long and tedious downslope to Osprey falls. Down slope has never been this tiring, cos it was steep and filled with loose gravel, we all fell at least once on our descend. Osprey falls was awesome, it was definitely worth the hike. :)

The hike back to the car was mainly flat, but i think cos we were all kindda drained already, the seemingly easy route back just seemed endlessly long. We were all glad we manage to finish the hike even though we took much longer than wat i had estimated initially. :p

Day 65 of Work & Travel - Just another Tuesday

Well, it's just another tuesday... :P

Day 64 of Work & Travel - Cycling

Went cycling with a bunch of people. It took more than a morning to finally agree on going for the bicycle ride. There were many reasons for that to happen, cycling wasnt cheap, some did not cycle for a long time, some could cycle but couldnt stop or move off, but i shall not say names, let just say it's all GALS!!! But i'm still glad we manage to go ahead with it FINALLY anyway.

We cycled to lonestar geyser, the ride there was HORRIBLE, it was upslope all the way. Only minor downslopes in between. Cos kailun had zing on his pillion, riding speed wasnt fast, so we had a torturous time there. :P

However, it was worth the ride there, cos Lonestar Geyser is really worth the journey. Pictures are up at fotopic. And to add to the good times, the ride back was exhilirating!!! Really fast and exciting :)

Day 63 of Work & Travel - Zombified!

Woke up really early today, 7++ i was up. I washed up and went for breakfast. Called dear to discuss the travel plans and i went for work at 9am. Only when i reached the giftshop and someoneask me wat time i'm supposed to knock off. Only then did i realise i was at work too early, I'm only supposed to be in at 10am, not 9am. :P

Just like yesterday i was stoning today as well. It took me a few breaks to get slightly more refreshed. Usually i'll be at a cashier where it would be easy to chatt with my co-workers, but today i was assigned to a secluded corner. There was no co-workers to talk to and i was quite lazy to make small talk with customers. Quite a bad day for me.

I found someone to take my shift for tml, so i'll be free tml. Shld be going on a bike ride around Old Faithful. Hope tml will recharge me alittle.

Left work early to join Lance and Kailun to West yellowstone. Used the internet at the bar which we went the last time. had dinner there too. The food was really good, pizza and such. Yummy yum, better than EDR or Pub. That made me feel better already. :P

Day 62 of Work & Travel - Most Boring Work Day ever!!

I only slept like 3 hrs before going to work. I'm like super super stoned today. Although it's a closing shift but i still felt super tired and super not motivated. Kept taking breaks here and there to try to recharge myself. Not much help really. :P I went for breaks mainly with Zing, cos the both of us are mostly on the same shifts. Multiple toilet breaks + ice cream breaks, and we kept reminiscing the times when we would go look for dawn and louise to do some crapping.

I was really tired, I came back to the dorm and fell asleep soon after.

Day 61 of Work & Travel - Dawn & Louise Last Nite

People who are closer frens are starting to leave. It's time when contracts of people like me are coming to an end. Today Dawn and Louise leave yellowstone and I drove them out to Bozeman, several others tagged along to do some shopping of their own. It was fun to drive them out again, but it's kindda sad also cos the 2 of them are usually the ppl whom i talk to during breaks and such. Dawn works at the dining room host stand, and louise at the front desk, both are just next to my gift shop. Break times just wun be the same. :(

We did some shopping today at the usual places, Ross, Target, Walmart. I bought 3 balls from target this time. 1 white for myself, 1 for fren and 1 for present(dunno for who yet.) I did not buy anything else, except for some titbits. Dinner was the exciting part today. We had dinner at this Chinese place called Purple Bamboo. We had buffet, the food was pretty authentic chinese, we were all super bloated after dinner. It was really satisfying.

came back to Old faithful really lat etoday, cos Dawn and Louise have not booked their accom for the next few days in San frans. So they were kindda paniky already, so we stayed to help in watever way we could. By the time we got the accom partially settled, it's already almost 2am. And by the time we reached Old Faithful it's already 4plus am. Shawn & Lorraine were kindda pissed that i was back so late cos they were delayed for their trip to Mt Rushmore. However, I think it cant be helped.. :P

I have some pictures Posted for their last day. :)

Day 60 of Work & Travel - Most Boring OFF ever!!

This is the most boring off day i've ever had cos I had planned to hike to Bunsen Peak and Osprey falls, yet i did not go cos there wasnt anyone to go with me. Initially, there was a few, but they either did not feel like going or just fell sick at the last moment. I was so so sad when I realised i was left alone interested in the trip, at that point of time i was really really disappointed. I planned this trip since 2 weeks ago, and i was very enthusiatic about going for it. But now, SADDED!!! :P

I rot in my room for the bulk of the day and that kindda made me feel even worst cos i really dun wanna waste the last of my off days doing nothing. :P I wanna see more of the park, walk around more, go around more. PISSED off!! :P

played volleyball in the evening, that was quite fun, But i'm still sore about not being able to go for the hike. :P super sad...

Day 59 of Work & Travel - Bear Hunting Day & Cody

Today started really slowing, cos the car wasnt back until 3pm. That was actually quite saddening cos i actually planned to leave early and go bear hunting. Shawn & lorraine took the car to saltlake city, utah. They had some problems with the car so they had to take it to service. Honestly, i couldnt feel much of a difference driving the car after the service.

We only managed to get the car and leave like 3plus and that wasnt really helping me in my bear hunt. We were going on a bear hunt main cos Dawn, who is leaving on friday, hasnt seen any bears thus far yet. We drove from Old Faithful up towards Tower Falls in search of bears, luck was on my side today. Even before reaching Tower Falls we saw it, I was really exciting myself. This time we saw a grizzly, that's like the first grizzly i saw, the previous bears i saw were all black bears. So yah, the bear hunt was successful and we headed to Cody.

I think i drove pretty fast to Cody, cos some of my passengers are kindda dizzy after the ride. BUT, i had to do it in order to make Cody in time for dinner. We had dinner at this Japanese restaurant, the place was pretty nice, but the food wasnt fantastic. That really disappointed me, cos i was expecting good authentic Jap food. Their saving grace was having sashimi and a frenly boss. We had thai styled curry instead of jap curry, but the boss said if we wanted japanese curry we could actually call her ahead and she would make the curry herself and serve it to us. That sounded pretty nice. :)

Day 58 of Work & Travel - Another Boring day

Not sure why i find these 2 days so boring. But i guess it's cos i spoiled my ball yesterday and i did not have the car to use for these few days. Even though we were all off early, without the car, i felt so crippled and couldnt go anywhere, that feeling sucks and i hate it!!! having your own transport in US is like so important, without it you cant go anywhere or do anything. :P

There's BBQ today, our area manager Matthew organised one for all retail staff in old faithful area. it should be pretty cool, but there wasnt many people who showed up. I ended up eating most of the food. :p it was not bad, even though it was BBQ in the Daytime, but the weather was pretty cool despite the glaring sun. :)

Day 57 of Work & Travel - Boring Monday Day again.

Once again, i was late for work, but this time i called in to tell mike that i would be late. So it wasnt all that bad. Work wasnt all exciting today, except for a short period of time when i was suppose to tend to the gallery. The Gallery is a part of our gift shop which has all the native american stuff like jewelery, carvings and such, basically expensive stuff. usually when i tend to that area not many people would ask me anything, cos i really dun know anything abt native americans.

but today, there's this couple who came and start asking me about the origins of some of the artifacts and i had to go around looking for the info and answer that they need. I learnt abit more today, but i wonder how much of wat i said was even accurate, cos there was no one to verify wat i said. And i was really not sure what i was looking at, thankfully mike came in and gave a rather convincing answer to them, which i did not think it was acurrate either. hahaa..

Left early today, even though i came in late cos there was just too many people working already. walked around the general stores and gift shops with a few frens. Cos some are leaving on friday, so they were looking for stuff to buy and i tagged along.

Went to play some volleyball after that and disaster befall on my ball. It was struck by a thumbtack and it was ruined!! how unlucky was that. And it was like the first spike of the day and the ball was lost from then on!! we had to use the lousy ball that the rec hall has, not conducive for volleyball at all. :P

Day 56 of Work & Travel - Beach Theme Party

This is my second party here in old faithful and shld be the last one before i leave. The theme was beach, there were quite a few in beachwear but i was in tshirt and shorts. :P I still couldnt really dance. i could only shake a little here and there, but i think i had a good time still. not as much booze this time compared to the last time though, maybe cos din really feel like drinking and there wasnt anyone making me drink this time around. hahaa. took photos with everyone i knew at the pub.

Day 55 of Work & Travel - Sick Day

Had been coughing for almost a week, but it had been the worst last night. I would cough so badly that i would wake up in the middle of the night. This morning when i woke up i was feeling so uncomfortable that i called in sick and went to the clinic instead of going to work.

Medical fees here are just so so expensive. Luckily i'm an employee so i only pay $15 consultation fee and half of the price for the medication, which adds up to $29. Not too bad actually, but if it were someone from the public it would have been $200+ instead. I'm have some insurance coverage too, but i'm not sure how they are going to reimburse me, i'm not even sure if they would reimburse me. :P

Day 54 of Work & Travel - 4th Jul @ Jackson Hole

It's Independence day here in US, and there's celebrations everywhere. I know there's some events going on here in yellowstone too. But since it's my off day today, i decide to go out. So some of us made our way to Jackson Hole where we know there will be fireworks going on.

We had a pretty awesome time here in jackson, walked around and did some shopping. I bought 2 tshirts here which i thought were pretty cool. there's lots of shopping opportunities over here and there are some pretty good prices too, even though most of the shops are kindda classy and overpriced.

Had dinner at this place called Billy's giant burgers, it's the best fast food i had so far over here. cooked to perfection, not the cleanest place you will find here but, the food and service are pretty good. so if i ever come back to jackson, i would most likely eat here again.

fireworks only started like after 10pm. We found a pretty good spot to watch it, a multi-storey carpark. that's like the best spot cos it was the only elevated structure with an open space for the fireworks. I'm really glad i brought my tripod along for this, cos i think i took the best fireworks i've ever taken. super nice. the pictures will be in fotopic soon. :)

Day 43 to Day 46 of Work & Travel - Mount Rushmore (Belated)

Left for Mt Rushmore on tuesday night in order to save some time and have more daylight to spare on wednesday. It was a 9 hr drive all the way to Mt Rushmore. But that's not our first destination. First was Walmart at Cody, where we stocked up on some food and supplies for breakfast. We made several intermediate stops to refuel the car and myself.

Breakfast was at Devil's Tower, here we set up our solid fuel and mess tins and started the fire. We had "bak kut teh" and "curry chicken" on the menu. Withthe supplies we gathered from walmart. I'm proud to say we whipped up a pretty good meal.

We went into Rapid city after breakfast, we had to look for lodging. We found this place call EconoLodge. Good price, nice room frenly staff and most of all the room is big!!!

After loading our stuff in the room we headed off to Mt Rushmore. From Rapid City it took less than an hr to reach Mt Rushmore. Mt Rushmore really is a HUGE piece of art. Sculpting a face is a huge task in itself, more so when the task is as huge as Mt Rushmore!!

We ended the day with some shopping over at Walmart again. We are really kindda stuck with walmart!!

Thursday morning we checked out of EconoLodge and proceeded to Wind Caves National Park. The Cave trail that we took showed us a whole new experience. In yellowstone we see all kinds of mountains and ridges and trees. The cave were new and refreshing.

For this trip we had chinese food 2 times, once at rapid city an once in gillette. Neither was fantastic, none of them had a fully chinese speak crew either. SO disappointing. :P

Day 53 of Work & Travel - Tiring Road Trip

We made our way to Roosevelt today. First stop was Tower Falls, it's supposed to be a very beatiful water fall, but when we reach there we saw that the trail to the bottom of the falls was closed for repairs. So we could only get a look of it from a far, which did not really do justice to the falls at all.

But even before the 1st stop, gues wat happened!? I saw BEARS!! 2 bears this time, a mother and a cub, the cub was really small and cute, it was running around and climbing trees. We managed to get much closer to the bears this time to take pictures cos the ranger was not there yet, so we managed to steal a few close shots of it. :) those bears totally made the day of everyone, therefore even though we did not have a good view of Tower Falls, no one was bothered.

Roosevelt Lodge was our destination for lunch, initially we wanted to eat at their EDR, but we realised that their EDR is so small that we had to give them notice of our arrival at leas a day ahead for them to prepare enough food. So we chose to eat at the Dinning Room, which is the hotel restaurant, instead. The food was quite good, much better than in the EDR, and it's not expensive too.

Next destination was Lamar Valley, this is supposed to be the place where we should be able to see lots of wild animals. However, we only managed to see several herds of Bisons. No bears, or anything here. But no one was unhappy, so we saw bears earlier already. :P

This is so far the most tiring trip for me. Cos i was driving all the way, and most of my frens were sleeping o nthe car. I couldnt sleep, but i was really sleepy, esp on the way back. But i managed to get back safely.

But that's not the end of the day, I came back to Old Faithful and got changed immediately to go to the rec hall. I had volleyball league games today, and i'm finally present for the first time. We were supposed to play 2 games today, but our first opponents were not fully present and hence they were walked over. In the next game, I finally played my first competitive game with a full team. It was really fun and i enjoyed it alot. Oh did i mention we won??

That was not the end of the day still, after volleyball i went to the pub. Our gift shop was having a pizza party tonight. All you can eat pizza, courtesy of the boss. That was pretty good, chatted a little with all the rest of the co-workers who turned up. :)

I'm just super super tired now!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 52 of Work & Travel - Lucky Day

The original Plan was to go the Bunsen Peak which is a hike near Mammoth Hot Springs. However when we got to the trail head, we realise the weather was very ominous. So we went direct to mammoth and check out the weather and some alternatives trails to check out. There was a high chance of thunderstorm at the Bunsen Peak area, and so we forego Bunsen Peak and took an alternative trail instead.

The lucky thing today happened just after we left Bunsen Peak trailhead for Mammoth. On the way to mammoth I finally caught sight of the first ever BEAR i see in Yellowstone Natinal Park!! How cool is that, and the bear wasnt far from us. I tried to get closer to get a good shot at him, but the ranger did not allo wme to get too close. Anyway, I'm just happy my bear-curse has been broken!!! Everything else that happen today did not really matter anymore. :P

Day 51 of Work & Travel - Active Day

Did alot of work back in the storeroom today. I was only at the cashier for a few moments when the crowd builds up. Otherwise I would be in the basement sorting out stuff for GAD tml. But i'm actually quite happy to stay in the storeroom and do that, physical work but brainless and easy. :P

I managed to clear all the stock needed for tml faster den ever, sadly i did not get much reward from my bosses. Mike would usually give park perks for a good job, but Tracie the other assistant manager who saw me doing the work was more stingy on her park perks. She did say thanks for helping, and my boss Mike did give me a pat on the back. :P better than nothing. I'm just glad i dun have much $$ to count at the end of the day.

Day 50 of Work & Travel - Monday Fatigue

Been Coughing quite badly since yesterday, so i bought a bottle of robitussin cough syrup from my shop. 10+USD not cheap, but it seems quite effective, at least initially. cos after awhile i felt groggy and dizzy. So i did not clear customers, i change to packing stuff instead.

I felt better after lunch and was back to normal work.

Had some sort of a "gameshow" today. Our area manager conduct something like a quiz show for all of us to take part. Quite fun, it tests us on our park knowledge. And i think i'm actually not bad, but i did not have the luck to answer those qns. But it's basically a fun experience. I think i was creating fun there too. :P Oh i must mention that i was taking part in this gameshow during my office hrs, so i get paid to play!!! YEah!!

After work i went to the rec hall, it's been a while since i got the chance to play some sports. I started off with some basketball and volleyball. Fortunately i had some players from my team which i play the league vball with around to play with me. :) had quite a good time playing sprts, sweat alot. And I'm really aching all over now. :P

Day 49 of Work & Travel - Boring Sunday

Today's kindda even more boring than yesterday. In fact, i was feeling quite tired still. Think i'm falling sick too. Tired singing today, but din have energy to carry on for along time.

Started coughing today, think that's making me tired too. zzzzzzzzz

Day 48 of Work & Travel - Singing Saturday

Still super tired today, still haven really recovered from my fatigue. And to counter that, I started SINGING!! hahaa. yah, i've been singing like non-stop from i start till i stop. But it seems no one hates my singing, some liked it in fact. The only prob was that i couldnt remember lyrics. So i had to cut my songs short. hahaa... But it was really fun to sing and sing.

Day 47 of Work & Travel - Super Tired Day

Haven slept much since coming back from mount rushmore. It was really a great experience going on a road trip with a bunch of frens. :) but the aftermath is to be very very zombified when i got back immediately to work.

I got back only like 6plus this morning. Had breakfast at the EDR and came back to rot until it's time to go to work. Only took a short nap before going to work at 2pm. Super stone when working today. Just float around, din really do much of work. :P

Day 42 of Work & Travel - Work & planning

Woke up really late today, 12pm but i only start work at 2pm. Spent most of the time awake before work trying to find out info about the trip to mount rushmore. But the lousy internet connection is really giving me very little info.

Work today was not too bad, been folding a lot of tshirts again. Also did some stocking. My ankle is much better now, such that I can move around much faster already. But sometimes the ankle still aches.

Been checking up on the trip ever since coming back fm work. Still the internet sucks. I'm pretty nervous now, cos tml we'll be leaving for Mt Rushmore already. It's so scary to not have a full plan of wat to do and where to go, yet at the same time it's so exciting. :P

Day 41 of Work & Travel - Work & Play

Work today is not really very exciting, kindda drained at work also. But i managed to scrape thru the day happily. :) I still managed to enjoy my day at work by having fun with my co-workers and my customers. It's great to be working in an environment where everyone, including the workers are just looking for a good time. :)

Wanted to go for volleyball after work, but there was no one at the courts when i reached there. quite disappointed about that, but i met 2 frens from china there shooting some hoops so i joined in. I seriously think my shooting is better than the both of them. hahaa. 3 of us went to the pub together for pizza, it's only 12USD for a large pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms. It's good and cheap.

Went to hang around with some ecuadoreans after the pizza. They are really fun and frenly. Had a few beers with them and they tried to teach me how to salsa. I'm relaly keen to learn but my feet and hips are just not listening to my mind. :P But it was really fun and nice. :)

Day 40 of Work & Travel - Cody PowWoW

This morning i went on a trip with the recreation hall to Cody. There's an event known as a Pow Wow, it's like a carnival where native americans get together to dress-up in their traditional costumes and show off their products, dances and such. It's really vibrant and there's lots of ppl around that area where they held the Pow Wow. My camera is not really working well today, which made me rather sad about that, the white parallel lines are back and it seems to be worsening. I'm going to try to reduce the use of it.

The Pow Wow was actually quite nice, i wanted to see the dancing competitions, but we had to leave early cos the rec hall peeps as to be back in old faithful for dinner. :P so we only manage to catch the Grand Opening and glimpses of the competitions for kids. :P

We had a quick stop at the Walmart in Cody, I knew what i need to get and i headed straight for the section where i could find my stuff. I picked up a 250gb portable harddisk and a 2gb mp3player for only 180USD, which i found quite worthed it. :)

I had a quick dinner once i got back to old faithful, cos i was preparing to drive to a rodeo west yellowstone just outside west yellowstone. I had a bunch of passengers along with me too. All of us are new to rodeo, but it really looks quite exciting. There were bucking horses, bucking buffaloes which the cowboys had to try to stay on and gain points for time and posture. There was breakaway where the cowboys/gals will try to lasso a runaway calve in the shortest time possible. there are also events which involves the kids from the audience, they had to chase after a calve to grab a red ribbon tied on it's tail. Really fun to see them running around. And all the kids are given a dollar for their effort, the winner get xtra food vouchers from some restaurant. quite exciting. Had to pay 10USD to watch the rodeo, and i think that's money well spent.

really tired when i got back, but i'm still ok. Just love to see everyone having fun. :)

Day 39 of Work & Travel - Shirts Day

Really tired today when i start work. Only came back after midnite yesterday and i had to open today. I gave myself a huge task today. I'm going to refold ALL the tshirt in ALL shelves so that they will look neat and uniformed. And that's what i did the whole day, standing in one corner getting all the shirts and folding them nicely and putting them back into the shelves. I think a did a great job today, but the best part is that, at the end of the day, i dun have much excess cash to count in my register!! hehee..

I was so tired today, i fell asleep the moment i got back to my room. Only woke up in the night, then i went to terrence's room for fun and got to know 2 taiwanese gals, they were funny ppl. but the funniest part was they tot i was speaking chinese like a chinaman and looked like a korean. :P

chatted around for a while and i'm going to sleep.. still so tired!!!

Day 38 of Work & Travel - Bozeman Day

Took a super long trip to bozeman today. Woke up early for breakfast with the rest of the people who are going with me. I took 7 passengers for this trip. That's the maximum capacity of my car. 3 in front, 3 in the middle and 2 in the trunk seats. Quite cool to have so many people travelling together. This huge capcity crowd is made up of zing, dawn, puiee, louise, kailun, slyvia, diana and myself. This is pretty much a shopping and entertainment trip to bozeman.

We left Old faithful at about 830am. Our first stop was in west yellowstone, i planned to stop for just a while over here but the shoppers were just too passionate about their jobs and went on to extend their shopping hrs. We went to quite a few good shops there, so expectedly they had moreand better things to entice them to shop. We only left west yellowstone around 1145am.

The drive to Bozeman was pretty easy, although this is my first time driving to bozeman, i remembered most of the landmarks when dorothy took me there and that made my driving pretty smooth. It took me slightly more than an hr to reach bozeman from west yellowstone. The view slong the way was pretty nice, very different from the last time cos it was hailing and snowing the last time i went to bozema, now it's all bright and sunny.

1st thing to do in bozeman is to look for a place for lunch, i did some research on my own the night before for food places in bozeman. I'm glad i did that little research cos i was recommending them to try out this Jap restaurant there, Watanabe. It had several good reviews on it's food quality and service. Most of the gang were really keen on having that after so many weeks of repetitive EDR food, except slyvia & diana. They are from ecuador and had never tried japanese food before, so they kindda afraid. But after looking at the menu i managed to convince them that the jap food will be edible to them too.

This lunch was really good, I liked my teriyaki beef loads, the portion was big enough to fill me. Sylvia and Diana have pretty much lifted their fear of the jap food and turned to like it instead. The rest also also blissfully contented with their meal. I'm really glad to see everyone with their looks of fulfillment after the meal, that makes me feel so proud. :p

It was time to start the shopping, stop no.1 Ross. zing, dawn, puiee, louise & kailun got off and started with their shopping. I drove Slyvia and Diana to another mall where they could catch a movie, Kungfu Panda. I dropped them off and went to find the camera repair shop for my camera. It was not hard to find thanks to my limited research. They did a quick check on my camera and told me they will have to order the spare part for my camera. So i'll have to come down some other time to have it fix. But thankfully it can be fixed.

I went back to the Ross and Terget area, i went straight to target to get myself a new pair of track shoes, 30USD for a pair of Champion shoes. I meediately changed and put on the new pair and threw my old pair of brroks away cos my brook are really old anf flat already. And i feel GOOD in a new pair of shoes!! :)

I couldnt find any of the gals initially anywhere, when i finally spotted them i realised they had been ross all the time. They have been trying on dress after dress, shirt after shirt, really scary. especially when i saw the pile of clothes and the multiple bags they ended up with. This is only the first stop for their shopping. By the time they were done at Ross it was almost 6pm already.

I took them to another place nearby called old navy before going to the mall to pick up sylvia and diana after their movie. I really like driving around in the car and i really think i'm very familiar with the area already. hahaa.. When i returned to old navy again, i tried to shop around a little too, wanted to buy a few bermudas cos they were on offer, but sadly, those designs i liked did not have my sizes and thos that are my sizes did not have any design i liked. However this is not cos i was too fat now, i realised i dropped back to 36in waist since getting here, but they somehow did not have much 36in bermudas, there are lots of 38 and 40in though. :P

Initially, i tot we would be going to walmart next for our final stop, but the sg gals saw a plastic bag from the ecuadorean gals which says "Aeropostale" and they got so exciting. So i took them to the mall which the shop was at, and did a little more shopping there before going to Walmart. These gals can forego dinner for the sake of shopping. :P

Walmart was pretty quick for them, cos most of them were kindda tired already, but i had to buy some stuff for other ppl as well, so i took awhile exploring the place. But i was done pretty fast too.

It was straight back home after that. almost 3 hrs drive back to old faithful, not much problems, just had a fox running past the car and i reach home safely with the car really really fully packed. :P

This is pretty much a shopping trip and i'm glad everyone was really happy at the end of the day. Perhaps i really should think about being a tour guide. :)

Day 37 of Work & Travel - GAD Day #3

Work today is pretty crazy, almost had no time off from the cashier. Been ringing up sales from the moment i got in to the moment i got off and i actually broke my previous record of sales, this time i hit 4.5K in sales. OMG!! So damn tiring and draining.

Went to play some volleyball after work. Not bad, did not start off too good, but got some pro players came along to make the game more exciting. Tried jumping a little, not much strength in my ankle yet. sobzZ.

Off tml, will be going down to bozeman, mainly to fix my camera and to do some shopping.

Day 36 of Work & Travel - Tiring Day

Super long day at work today, cos boss wanted me to stay back and help setup for tml's GAD day. GAD (Guest Appreciation Day) is a day where there are $5 stuff going on sale. I think i've already said that before, but doesnt matter if i say it again.

This was the faster setup of the GAD stuff ever, i think that cos i was doing it. hahaa.. but now, i'm tired.. need to get some sleep.. zzzzzzzzzzzz

Day 35 of Work & Travel - Big Decision Day

Today is just another monday at work, working on mondays feels kindda weird after 2 days of off. Gotta switch back to working mode, but it was good. My ankle felt much better already and i was able to walk much faster and also go up and down the stairs with much ease.

I made a pretty big decision today, cause i decided to take a road trip to MOUNT RUSHMORE next week. Yeah, there will be a few of us in the car next. I really want to go on this trip, see mount rushmore. WOAH!!! so excited now!! haha..

But at this point of time i only have a destination, there's no idea how to get there yet. hahaa. but i'm confident i'll find something. :P

Day 34 of Work & Travel - Fairy Falls

Slept thru most of today as well, just felt really really tired. Din feel like waking up at all, so i slept thru all the way. Thru mornig, thru breakfast, thru lunch. Only woke up just before it was time to go hiking.

It's fairy falls today, drove to the start of fairy falls trail. That really shortened the trail a lot, perhaps alittle too much. It took us less than an hr to reach the falls from our car. And the hike there was pretty easy, not much up or down hill. Not that i'm complaining, cos my ankle hasnt recovered to 100% yet.

There were 7 of us on this trip, Shawn & Lorraine,Dawn & Puiee, Su & BSZ and me. highest capacity in the car so far, but we could still take one more. Shawn was the driver this time. I still like driving more then being a passenger.

The view of fairy falls is really very pretty, much better than wat we had at mystic falls. It was a really steep cliff and the water fell from quite a height. There were a few marmots running around and climbing up the cliffs, they are fantastic rock climbers!!

We took quite a few nice pictures there, luckily most of the photos in my camera turned out quite ok. Some of them had horizontal parallel lines in them making it look like being seen thru a fence. i'm going down bozeman soon to get my camera fixed if possible. :p

We had xtra time on our hands so we went back to the car and proceeded to midway geyser basin next. It was and even shorter walk, 20mins and we are done. There was this spring there called the Grand Prismatic Spring. REALLY huge, but to really enjoy the full view of it, you gotta take a helicopter to see it totally. But we dun have that luxury, i tried going up a hill to have a better view but it wasnt much better. Still slightly better than on flat ground though. :P

Super tired, today actually, sweat quite a bit but it was not that tough. Perhaps it because the temperature is rising already. Summer is really here, lots of flies and mosquitoes and other bugs are starting to appear.

But as the sun sets and the temperature drops, the insect disappeared. I'm starting to love the cold instead. :P

Day 33 of Work & Travel - LoneStar Geyser

I slept thru the bulk of the day cos last nite's dancing and staying up really tired me out. And i'm glad i had the day off to sleep in. :) It was a much need sleep after a few days of lack of it.

The first thing i did after waking up was to take some photos of MY car!! :) It's a a 1992, Ford Taurus. It's a really good car and i realise i can legally take up to 8 ppl in the car, how cool is that?

Din really have much of plan about where to go initially, was suppose to go somewhere with annie, but it seems she left without me. but the day has not ended yet. I went for dinner and met Lorraine and Su there, and we decided to take a hike to LoneStar geyser. It turned out to be a great trip.

The hike was easy, mostly flat ground all the way with huge and obvious paths to walk on, so we wouldnt get lost. It's a cool forest trail to walk on and when we finally reach our destination, it only took us like an hour of leisure pace walking. But that's not the greatest part, the greatest part is that we were kindda just in time for the next geyser eruption. The eruption was fantastic, it was not as tall as the old faithful but the jet is very clear and strong, looks simply majestic and it went on for about 20mins before toning down. We took loads of pictures there, but i did not use my camera cos it's kindda injured from last nite. I lost the small metal piece which protects my lens. :P

OK, back to the lonestar, the geyser is really quite cool. From one side of the cone, it kindda looks like an old man. See the pics below, these 2 are not in fotopic, check out fotopic for other photos we took there. :)

Day 32 of Work & Travel - Friday 13th!!

It's been a very eventful day. but the start of the day was kindda torturous for me cos i was so so tired. Only slept a few hours yesterday before going to work. Really felt so so tired today, could make myself active and greet people or entertain people. But i was happy that i managed to scrape thru the shift. i did not do much sales today, was folding shirts and stocking stuff most of the time, so when i checked out, it was really easy and fast.

After work, i went on a short hike with some frens, annie, chino, allison & su. Annie is our RC (Resident coordinator), she needs to get to work at night i nour dorm, so we did short hikes. Really short ones. We went to Keplar Cascades. I've been here before sometime back when Mike drove some of us around, but this time we did not stay at the viewing gallery. We climb down to the bottom to see the falls even closer. It was quite cool. :) we took a few pictures there before climbing back up. The Climb was short but quite tiring, cos very steep and it was kindda like rock climbing already.

Went back to the dorm and got ready for a PARTY!! There's a PJ party going on at the pub, and i decided to go crash it!! The music was crap in the beginning, cos they were playing western music. I think i'm not the only to feel weird trying to dance to it, just doesnt click at all. But soon the DJ realised change is required and on came the familiar dance mixes. And fun started!! Anyway the DJ is my BIG BIG boss, hahaa.

That was basically my first time dancing in a pub, had quite a few beers but it was fun. I was alittle uptight at first, but as the beers add on, i convinced myself to let loose and that was fun. I also took my camera and went around snapping photos with whoever i knew. Danced with many frens, both guys and gals. I also made my boss mike buy me several drinks. I think in total i had like 10 beers, and i think i'm still ok. :P

The photos are up at fotopic check them out. You will notice my face is like super super red.

Day 31 of Work & Travel - Parkwide Volleyball

Started work early today so that i would have time to rest a bit before going down to mammoth. somethine pretty eerie happened in the morning when i just got onto my register. I was talking to my fren for a while, den i hear a sudden click, i turn and looked at my cash register's monitor and i saw "8" being keyed in. No one else was around. Scary. The rest of the day was pretty boring, nothing much happened and morning's are always very slow.

I drove to mammoth for the Parkwide volleyball tournament. It was a pretty long drive, look me almost 1.5hrs to get to mammoth. First time driving out of Old Faithful and first time on mountain roads, it was quite fun, but gets boring after a while cos there was no music in my car, it only had a cassette player which kindda sucks. There was no audio input as well. Double sucks!! But it's okay, we got there safely and without getting lost.

There were 5 of us going there together as a team, not the same team as the one i play with last week. These guys are better, much better. We actually thought we had a chance of winning something, but i thought wrong, there were really strong teams around. Good thing we are in as champions of Old Faithful, so we dun have to meet any strong teams in the first round, we got thru to second round which is also the semi-finals and we lost!! But at least we lost to the eventual champions so i'm not too sad about that. And they were really good, we had no chance at all, they are college players from columbia, super zai.



We had pizza and nachos at the employees' pub at mammoth, that place looks like a cooler place to chillout compared to the pub in old faithful. Nice place. The drive back to Old Faithful was pretty exciting, cos the WHOLE journey was pitch black. There were no street lamps at all, the only light were head-on traffic which did not turn down their high beams when passing, ASSHOLES!!! I almost knocked over an animal if the car on the other side did not flash me to hint me to slow down. It was like a racoon or something crossing the road, dumb animal!! Got back to old faithful around 1am in the morning, very fun day of volleyball. :)

Day 30 of Work & Travel - Test Drive

Woke up really late for work today, but it was still ok cos i was within the 2 hrs limit but just barely only. But i did have a chat with the manager cos of that, he reminded me that after 3 official warnings i'll be GONE!! But luckily this is not a warning yet. Phew....

Went to pick up the car from Lorraine today, had a short drive from her side to mine. It was pretty ok. But going down to mammoth tml will be the challenge.

Day 29 of Work & Travel - Off to Bozeman

Asked for off today so that i could go Bozeman. Actually there's really nothing much for me to do there. But i'm quite glad i came. Dorothy our co-worker drove me, su and her boyfriend, Bian Shang Zhi to Bozeman. Dorothy is very nice, it is her off day, she had almost no purpose in Bozeman but she offered to take us there on a trip anyway.

We had hail coming down on us when we reached Bozeman, luckily it ended pretty soon or else it would have been a really bad weather to be in. We only had one simple aim when we reached Bozeman. Look for Ross, a shop that sells branded stuff cheaply. After wandering around for a while, we finally found it. That was not before we went to Sears for lunch. There was a foodcourt there and it has chinese food, so i had that for lunch. Pretty good. :)

Ross was tough to find, but when we got there, we had a good time looking for stuff we would wanna buy. Most of the stuff there are branded and cheap, the only downside was a lack of selection. I got myself 2 pairs of NIKE shorts, wanted to get a pair of shoes too, but the design i wanted did not have my size and none of those shoes my size are anything close to what i want.

There was a Target store next to the Ross store, and we went there next. More shopping and i bought a Spalding volleyball, an air pump and some snacks. Target is a better store than Walmart is you ar elooking for brands, walmart has really cheap prices but there's no famous brands on sale or something. They had a whole beach volleyball court set on sale, and only 45USD. I was so tempted to get it. :p



We made our way back after that, it was quite an exciting way back. First we reallyed we had a punctured tire and had to change it at a mechanic shop nearby. As we made our way to west Yellowstone, there was snow, rain and hail. We also saw lots of bisons along the way which was pretty awesome. It's either seeing them in herds or seeing them really close to the car.



We had dinner dinner at west yellowstone, ate in a chinese restaurant cos dorothy said she liked it. And her favourite was egg drop soup, which is bascially "dan hua tang" to us. but she liked it. We ordered a few other dishes as well, and it was not expensive. We treated her to dinner after she had spend the day bring us all the way to Bozeman.



I had a great day.

Day 28 of Work & Travel - Car ARRIVEs!!

I woke up really early today, had breakfast for the first time in a long while. Even after taking almost an hour for my breakfast, it's still too early for work, but wth, I still went to clock in and start my shift. Business started off really slow today, perhaps it's monday, and i think most people are rushing to get out on hikes cos today's weather is quite good. traffic picked up as the day wears on, but there were too many of us around, and i mainly hopped from one register to another just to help pack stuff. I did not do much cashing at all, so i had plenty of change and kindda became the money changer to everyone.

highlight of the day is basically shawn coming back with our CAR!! I have a car here in yellowstone. It was late at night therefore i did not take any pictures. I'll take some photos of it when it's daylight. It's a big car for a cheap price, I piad 700USD upfront and i'd likely get most of it back when they sell it before going back to singapore. I'm happy about it. :)

Day 27 of Work & Travel - Off finally.

I slept through most of my day. I only woke up at 12 just to go for lunch. I met Corina, one of my assistant managers. She's really nice at work, and i had a long chat with her at lunch today. She wants to work on a cruise ship, disney one to be exact. So exciting. Dorothy, one of my co-workers who's around 80, joined us for lunch and i had a long chat with her too. I asked her everything about her life living in a farm. She used to live in a farm long ago and she had cows, pigs, chickens and many other crops. So they were pretty much self-sustained. I kindda envied that sort of life, she also found that period of her life a very enjoyable one.

After a very long lunch, I went to find the personnel manager to get a transit room for dear. The room situation is somewhat settle, but also somewat unconfirmed. Cos it seems that she could promise rooms only for now, and if some emplyee comes along and needs the room the room for themselves. It might be taken away from me. And i'll have to find some other way out. Getting a room from the hotel may seem the next possible course of action but July is really the PEAK period, so rooms are likely to be lacking by the time they tell me the transit room is not available. And they are not cheap(dear, check www.travelyellowstone.com for rates). The last option is to talk to my room mate and see if he could move to someone else's room for a few days for us, seriously last option. But currently the situation will be, i have the transit room from 18-21st jul. I'll check with them again at the end of the month when they could possibly give me a more confirmed answer.

After dinner i when to the rec hall to see if there's volleyball for me to play. But, there was a church service going on so i couldnt play volleyball. they would only be done at 9pm, so i felt kindda dejected and came back to my room. Internet connection totally sucks during this time of the day when everyone else is also trying to get online.

However i did check on the availability of hotel rooms before coming back to my room. And it looks very bad for me, cos the period when dear will be here is TOTALLY fully booked. So there's not much of an option left for me. I'm kindda depressed about that. I really want her to be able to spend as much time as she can with me over here.

Day 26 of Work & Travel - Snowy Day 2

The snow did not stop today. It kept piling up since morning. Worked late today again, it's my 6th day of the week and i'm kindda feeling tired. Especially with the past few days standing at the cashier the WHOLE day really made my right heel very sore. So yah, there's more sore than pain in my ankle today. But I did much more walking around today, I did some stocking, fold shirts for most of the day, swept the floor too.

I'm happied i did different things to standing at the cashier, cos that meant i had less $$ to count at the end of the day and i was right. I was the last cashier to close the counter, but i was first to finish my counting and paperwork for the night. hehe.

After work me and allison had craving for fresh pizza from the oven since yesterday. That's cos i took and ate a slice from Annie, one of our RCs yesterday. And so we decided to go get one ourselves. 2 Equadoran guys, davin & chino came back to the dorm as we were going off, so i got them to come along. So 4 of us went to the pub together. Allison is jewish, so she doesnt take pork and not beef & dairy product at the same time. So i order the pizza with only pepperoni on 3/4 of the pizza. Chino & Davin are really cool ppl, they are fantastic drinkers, cos beer is cheaper than water where they come from.

Day 25 of Work & Travel - Snowing Again

It's been 3 day since i sprained my ankle. I think it getting much better already. Can walk abit faster, as long as i dun twist my ankle when i walk or stand it's pretty much ok. But I believe it will still be a few day before i get back to running and jumping.

Worked a late shift today, so i woke up quite late. I finally have the confirm dates which dear is coming over to find me. I tried to find the personnel manager to arrange for a room for her to stay, but jenny the personnel manager seems to be playing hide and seek with me. Always couldnt find her when i need her. :P

And today, it started snowing again. It was just hail in the morning. Then it became snow and that lasted almost the whole afternoon. The whole place is covered in white snow again. very beautiful, but that means all the hiking trails will be covered again. Not good for hiking. :P

Took a few pictures in the snow this time. Check it out.

Day 24 of Work & Travel - Limping Victor

Called dear today before going to work, ask her to go visit my mum cos she was in the hospital a few days ago. So i'm wondering how is she doing.

Started worked early today. I was allowed to stay at the cashier position the whole day again. But i tried to walk around and do stuff whenever i can. I think my ankle is really feeling better today. Wearing the higher cut hiking shoes help by keeping my ankles steady and not twist any further. I suspect there could be some hairline fractures, but it shld be fine, think it's healing already.

Ended work quite early today, 2plus and i'm back in my room. I din know why i suddenly felt really tired and i fell asleep. I slept past my dinner time and i had to go to for the volleyball 3on3 tournament. So yah, i skipped dinner and had a huge snickers bar for dinner. :) The volleyball tournament was not very exciting. I won, with a team of people who i'm not familiar with and are definitely weaker than our opponents. I pretty much killed off the opponents with serves, i couldnt jump, couldnt dive. All i could do was receive and serve, which happened to be enough to win. And so i'll be going down to mammoth next thursday for the parkwide competition. I hope the opponents are just as bad. :p

Day 23 of Work & Travel - Immobilisation

After having my ankle sprained, my movements have been pretty much impaired and inconvenient. I still went to work today at 10am, but i requested to stay and the cashier the whole day and not move around stacking or stocking. However, i realised, just standing there is not easy too. There's constant pressure on my ankle, and the swell can be felt thru my shoes. i've been limping around the whole day, and that's such a sucky feeling. I hate this disabled feeling yet the pain is so intense that i cant ignore!!

I tried to play a little volleyball today after work, limp around the court as well, but i think that's enough for tml. tml will be the 3 on 3 tournament, i really hope my ankle kindda heals tremendously overnite, so i can play well tml.

I've finally uploaded some of my pictures for the past few days, check it out.

Day 22 of Work & Travel - Birthday!

It's my birthday today. And i'm really happy. I think i'm partially high now as i'm typing this blog, but i think i'm alrite.

I started off the day just like any other day, missing my breakfast. Work was as per normal, it seems no one remembers it was my birthday. We had this retail product info session today, and that's when i reminded people that it was my birthday. And i started going ard the rest of the day, telling my co-workers that it's my birthday and we shld all go to the pub together.

It was really an awesome time at the pub, cos many of my co-workers turned up. And i was really glad i had company on my birthday. I appreciated it LOTs!! I had a couple of drinks there, free one of cos, cos i was making people buy me drinks. But it's ok, i'm think i'm still sober enough. I took loads of photos at the pub, it was really fun there. I've got my 1st birthday card in the US too!!

I also attended a sports league meeting today, and i'm planning and trying to get a volleyball team up for the volleyball league. I hope there's response for the sign-up form i put up. :)

I sprained my ankle on the way back from the pub. It's not too bad for now, but i know it's surely going to swell like hell tml!! AARRrrrggghhhh. What a 26th birthday for me!!??

Day 21 of Work & Travel - Back to work

Back to work again after a weekend off, it was really good to have rested the whole of yesterday. But i still did not wake up in time for breakfast. I had to even drag myself up and out for lunch. I was really tempted to skip lunch too, but i was hungry. Talked to dear online, and on the phone yesterday. Finally talked to her in a while. She sounds so sad and stressed with her work. Poor thing. I wish i could have been there for her.

I sent something to her today, hoping it will make her feel better. Although i totally dunno how long it will take to reach her. And i seriously hope it does reach her. I know she will like it when she sees it. :)

Went to the general store today. But not to buy anything, just went there to change a raincoat i bought 2 days back before going up the Tetons, from another general store. I accidentally bought the kids sized one. So I got it changed for an adult sized one. Lucky for me i did not have to use it during the hike at tetons, otherwise it would be rather embarassing.

Worked till close today, nothing very significant happened at work today. Felt rather lethargic at work today, but i think i still brought certain level of entertainment to everyone, which is good. I'm glad these americans get my lame jokes.. hahaa.

Day 20 of Work & Travel - Sleep In

Wanted to go on the bus tours today initially, but my legs and back are just too tired to get out of bed in the morning. So i slept pretty much the whole day.

Day 19 of Work & Travel - Grand Tetons Day

This is really the most tiring day i ever had since coming to yellowstone national park but also one of the most fun one.

There were 5 of us going on that trip, Lance, Kelley, Danny, Terrence and myself. We met up at 10am and loaded our stuff in kelley's car. It was a long distance to the Tetons. Some of us packed sandwiches from the EDR during breakfast for the hike. It was a long drive to the Tetons, we past by many places, but we did not make any stop cos i think I've had too many shots on those kind of scenary already. So not much pictures were taken along the way.

We did make a few intermediate stops before we arrive at our destination.

A stop at the Signboard into the Tetons. We also made a stop at Colter Bay, where we went to the visitor center to get info about our hike. While at Colter Bay, we saw this rainbow forming around the sun. We came to learn that this is due to ice crystals in the atmosphere that caused this sight. But i'm more amazed with this shot i took.

hahaa. really cool, looks like a halo around the hand.

We were also quite lucky to see a fox close to the road. there were people gathering around, and so we joined in the crowd and saw the fox, it looks as if it was posing for us. or maybe it was just waiting for food.

We head off to our destination next, Jenny lake, this is where we would take a ferry to the other side of the lake to begin our hike to a place called Cascades Canyons. The ferry trip was quite interesting, the ferry guy quite fun, and we took quite a few videos on this short trip. The lake was huge and had very very clear water, but i dun see any fish, and the wind was super icy cold.

Soon we began our hike into the mountains. First stop was hidden falls, a waterfall which has been hidden by the trees, it looks pretty nice from far. But we couldnt get near it cos the roads to it was somewat closed.

Next was to hike up to this place called Inspiration Point. Great view of the lake from there. We ate our sandwiches there, and there were loads of chipmunks which will appear the moment we took out our food. The chipmunks are very very cute, even though we were not supposed to feed them, it was TOO hard to resist playing with them. Super cute, totally reminds me of my chipchip.

I think we are very lucky during this trip cos we saw many different animals, we saw the fox, moose, chipmunks & marmots.I have yet to see a bear since arriving here. Although i know seeing a bear may be very dangerous, but i still wished i saw one.

As we carried on into the mountains going thru Cascade Canyons, the tracks were mostly covered in snow and it was really difficult to walk, it's like walking on flat ground going forward, yet like climbing stairs cos you keep sinking in and have to lift your legs to get out of it. VERY VERY tiring.

Lance brought a water filter and pump so we could refill our bottles directly from the icy cold streams. The water tastes really nice and cool, no weird chlorine taste or watever. really good.

We hiked on further for about an hour plus before turning back. I was feeling that they turned back becaused of me. Cos i was totally shagged out already. I was actually quite relieved we turned back, but den i realised we had a really really long hike back to the car as well. We couldnt take the boat back too, cos it was late, that was 2 xtra miles around the lake to get to the car.

Basically, i was dead tired by the time we got the car, and it was late so we decided to go to a near by resort to grab some food. It was too late to go back to Old Faithful for dinner. But we were once again very lucky, this place we went to had pretty good food, at a good price and it has a fantastic view of the Grand Tetons.

I ate this burger called Wildgame Chilli Burger, it's actually Bison burger with Elk Chilli. It's pretty much like beef burger with mutton chilli, but it was good. Especially cos i was really hungry after the hike. YUM!!

We also had loads of fun on the way back. Especially when we were singing to the backstreet boys songs!! SHIOK SHIOK!! hahaa...

Day 18 of Work & Travel - New roommate.

This morning there's a compulsory meeting for all of us staff working in the gift shop at 7am. And i'm suppose to work today at 7 am. but guess what?? I woke up at 7.30am, i totally freaked out and ran to the bathroom, wash up and ran to the gift shop. everyone was already there by the time i reached, well almost everyone. there was 1 person who was later than i am, that's blake, another new guy. We have several new ppl coming in today. Not very good cos that means our work time will be reduced.

Spoke to my boss, mike, abit later in the day to catch up with whatever i missed early in the morning. He told me that i would have be promoted to be a lead if i were staying to around august or september. I just smiled when he said that, but i was very happy even though i din get the promotion. means i'm doing well and being appreciated. GREAT!

Oh i've got a new roommate today. His name is Adrian. He's a quite nice guy. He's from US, cant remember which state, he drove here and abrought along his bicycle. Quite pro one somemore. Rich kid i think, oh yah, bio major & future doctor to be. hmmm. cool!

I'm going to the Tetons mountain ranges tml for a hike. One of my colleagues, Lance will be driving us to the trails. i think it's going to be super tiring. time to sleep!!!

Day 17 of Work & Travel - PayDay!!

Really did not feel like coming to work today. After yesterday, that feeling was even stronger after a whole day of fun and travelling. :P but i have to come in, cos i can collect my pay today. My 1st paycheck since starting work here. Pay comes in every 2 weeks on a wednesday. since i wasnt around yesterday, i collect it today.

Sad to say, it really isnt much. I had 300+ in gross, but after tax and all the room and food deductions i'm only left with 230USD, which is actually ok considering i only worked 5+ days in the 2 weeks for my 1st pay check.

Something else happened today. I received a package from dear today. It was HUGE!! my fren Vj brought the box over from his PO box. I feel kindda bad to have him bring it all over from the post office. It's a pair of hiking boots!! They look pretty cool too. But if you read my blog, you'd realise i bought a pair of boots from walmart yesterday!! So.. I had to do wat i had to do. I sold off the pair I bought to a fren. a few dollars cheaper than wat i got. But it's fine. I like the pair dear got me. :)

Once again. Thank you dear!!!

Day 16 of Work & Travel - Full Day Tour!!

I had a great day today!!

Met up with Mike in the EDR for breakfast, he was suppose to bring me and a few others on a roadtrip around Yellowstone lake area. So there was actually 6 of us going in this trip together in the end. At first i was thinking, "oh shit, there's 6 of us. How are we going to squeeze into his car?" it turned out that my worries are uncalled for. He drives a 7-seater!! So there's plenty of room. haha.. anyway, there's mike, his roommate, Dan, Zing, Pui Ee, Dawn and ME!!

First stop was a place called kepler cascades, it's a pretty nice waterfall. Took a few photos there and we were off. Nothing much there, except we met this bunch of people who were on the yellow bus tour. The yellow bus is a very classic vehicle. Looks very very 60s.

We basically we're just going to go around the lower loop which is around the yellowstone lake. We took many nice scenary pictures along the way. And we met this tiny little chipmunk which was like so cool. Just look at the pictures we have on him. I compiled all the pics we took of him, and he looks super emo in some. Cool chipmunk yeah!??



Den we went to the west thumb geyser basin. Also took a few nice pictures over there. Colourful springs and awesome skylines. But the geysers and paint pots are rather depressing cos there was rain and it wasnt really bubbling away very well.

We were at the lake hotel next, it's a very nice and cosy looking place. Yellow paint on the outside and pink walls on the inside. There were a few yellow buses parked in the hotel driveway. So we took the opportunity to snap some shots with it too. the view of the lake frm there was really nice. I took a long panorama picture of the hotel. I think it turned out very well. :)



As we drove out of yellowstone for lunch, we passed by mountains which are totally covered in snow!! pure white and nothing else. We made a stop at this place where there's a point that's totally frozen and cover in snow. Next to the parking lot we found a snowman, which was actually very nicely done.



We had our first meal outside Yellowstone and first non-EDR meal. We were at Cody, a town to the east of Yellowstone National Park. We ate at this diner called Irma's. It's a very cosy place, not crowded like the food places in singapore. Yet it serves very good food. I had a cowboy berger, 0.5 pounds of beef, very well done one somemore. It's quite reasonably priced too. 9.75USD for that, but there tax and tips to push the price higher.



After lunch we went to WalMart, I bought a pair of hiking shoes, some socks and a folder. While the rest of the gang bought much more. They really bought provisions. I dun have much of those to buy cos i basically brought from singapore. so yah din have much to buy. The gals really spent a long time shopping at Walmart, I think they are really too deprived in Old faithful. Nothing to buy and even if there is, it's usually too expensive.

The rest of the places we visited after WalMart were quite nice too. But everyone was just kindda drained and exhausted, din really have the energy to carry on walking or hiking. So we pretty much browse thru the places and very soon ended with dinner time.

For dinner, we headed west, to another town called west yellowstone. Mexican food, at a restaurant known as Grizzly Claws. I totally can't figure the relation between grizzly bears and mexican food. Thankfully, they server pretty good and authentic mexican food. Yum. Very cheesy, very tasty.

The dinner pretty much marked the end of the day, super tired by the time i got back. Full day tour around the lake area is really tiring, and i'm not even the one driving.

Day 15 of Work & Travel - Off Tml!!

The day started off with me dragging myself out of bed for breakfast, it's my first breakfast of the week. It's the usual eggs & sausages, but i liked it. :) went back to room and take a nap after breakfast. Went to work after that. Seriously nothing exciting happened today at work, perhaps i was a little low on energy, mystic falls took my energy away. still feeling drained. I wasnt able to make anyone laugh much. :P

Mike, not the manager Mike, but the store&shipping guy Mike, plans to take some of us on a trip tml around the area. So i ask for a day off from Mike the Boss! And he gave it to me!! that was the most shok thing that happened to me today. hahaa.. but i kindda expected he would give it to me, cos we are kindda overstaffed and i heared he was rather tight on budget. So anyway, that means i'm off tml and i get to go on a road trip, and i'm quite looking forward to that.

After work, i headed down to the rec hall for volleyball. This was the best volleyball i've played since i've gotten here. played some 3 on 3 with some better players and it just makes everything so much more exciting. But my shoulder is really acting up on me. I just cant seem to get any power or control into my spiking or serving. Kindda depressed about that. time to sleep, gonna be a long day tml. :)

Day 14 of Work & Travel - Monday blues?!

Really wanted to wake up for breakfast today. But nope, couldnt drag myself out of my bed, just too tired. Whole body basically still aching from the 5hr hike yesterday. I think it will be at least 5 days before i go on a trek again.. body and mind needs to rest. :P I am so so weak!! :P

Went for lunch at around 11, starting work at 1130am. Early lunch is good, makes me not miss breakfast too much. I think having a full stomach before going to work is so so important. It just gives you more energy to work, talk, smile, EVERYTHING!! Seriously, i totally cant remember wat i had for lunch. But i was quite sure i was full, and i quite like the food. hahaa.

Work today is pretty good, tried out a few new things in my cashier position. Finally had a traveller's check coming in, and i really think traveller's checks are SO SO dum. oh well, some ppl still prefer using that to credit cards. I wonder why. And i also sold a few art pieces without the artist being around. Usually the artist will do most of the paper work and we just check out and cash. When he's not around, there a little more for me to do. I'll need to write down his painting codes, write the price, check out the item, wrap it up. Print enough receipts, one for white, one for yellow and none for pink.

Work with 2 new ppl today, both from US, John whose hair covers his whole face, he totally reminds me of a caveman!! and something else, he sucks at folding t-shirts. He only wanna stand behind the cashier and cash out customers, everything else he does, pretty much crappy. The other person is Alison, she much more active and positive compared to John. And i was like being a joker the whole day, and ya, i think i made everyone's day a happier one, even the guests. :)

I remember what i had for dinner, it's spaggetti with a simple tomato & basil sauce. They had fettucini labelled on the dish, but i knew it was more than that. There was fettucini, spaggetti and angel's hair all in the same pot. MUahaha.. oh well, nobody seems to be bothered, so let it be. :P there's meatloaf too, had meat loaf a few days back too, but this one today is so much better, at least for my tastebuds.

Oh well, there was suggestion from shawn and lorraine to buy a car. I'm very tempted to get it with them, then we could drive aroud easier on our off days and that would basically solve the issue of bring dear from the airport to yellowstone. :) Let's see how this works out. Shaw & lorraine are doing more research, they are very thorough in this aspect, and i like that. Saves me from work. hahaa..

I got off at 8pm today, well not at 8pm slightly after due to a last minute crowd coming in. So me and alison stayed back for a while to get rid of the crowd. I did my packing up and counting of my bank balance pretty fast. guess i'm getting good at it. alison is still new and not very fast at it yet, so i had to show her many things. I feel good!! hahaa.

came back to my room to rest for a while before heading to the Bear Pit, which is a pub next to our gift shop. Went there with Lance and alvin, it was lance's suggestion, cos he had 5USD spare to spend. haha. that's basically 1 glass of beer. I ordered 1 glass too, it's called Moose Drool. It's tastes quite good, flavour is much stronger than the usual beers we have in singapore and not too bitter. Not bad, for only 4.50USD.

My face is red and eyes bloodshot after just one glass. But i still feel very clear, however, I feel tired now and in need of sleep. time to go to bed, I want my breakfast!! I'll start taking photos about daily activities tml!! :)

Day 13 of Work & Travel - Sunday Off!!

Guess wat!?? i somehow overslept again!! i missed my breakfast and also my bus tour. I hope that tour was actually fully booked so i wun feel so bad about missing it. so when i figured i've missed my morning activities, i went back to bed, and only woke up at almost 12 for lunch. i had a seemingly light lunch, cos i only ate some meat and dessert.

I went back to the gift shop after lunch, cos another manager is leaving, and today is his last day. His name is Travis, tall, big, old guy. Nice person but always intimidating. Scary sometimes working with him, always have to worry about "did i do something wrong?". So we took a few pictures with him as remembrance.



he's more of a strict father figure than a friendly boss, however in no way is he mean or bad. :)

I continue walking around the old faithful area myself. I really explored the general store and the gift shop at the old faithful lodge this time. I bought a sweater for myself. It's a really big and cosy sweater, with yellowstone printed in front.. i think i really liked it. :) and it's quite cheap also. It only cost me 21.19USD compared to the 25USD i had to pay for a pair of gloves!! CHEAP CHEAP lar.. :)

I came back to my room after wandering around the place, just to wait for an early dinner. I decided to join shawn and Lorraine on a hike up to the mystic falls. Su join us also cos her boyfriend was working. At dinner we met terrence and rachel who are also planning to go to the mystic falls. So 6 of us went on the hike together after dinner. It was almost 5 when we set off. and it was a long long trek just to get to the base to mystic falls. it took us almost 45mins but that was the easy part. The bottom of mystic falls is a hotspring basin known as the biscuit basin. And the picture below shows me in the mist if the famous sapphire pool. quite cool, feel like sauna. :)



we took a rather adventurous route to the mystic falls, we went up to a lookout point with is way up on top of the hill. The tiny trails were steep and winding, i was super exhausted halfway up. I took a brief rest and catched up with them. reaching the lookout point is only half the journey. there was another mile or so before reaching the falls and as we continued on the trail, there were several parts which were still cover in snow. We have to trek thru the snow, and I only had SAF-issued track shoes. Ice was in my shoes and pants. COLD!!!

Thankfully, the view we had of mystic falls at the end was pretty amazing. We took quite a few pictures there before heading back home. Basically the whole trek took us almost 5hrs and covered at least 12KM!!!

Day 12 of Work & Travel - Off again!!

after working for the past 7 days it's finally time for me go off again!!! yeah..but however, i did not have anything planned for today initially and i also waked up late. missed breakfast again. been talking to dear the whole morning since i woke up. haven talk to her for along time. connection kept breaking, luckily it held out today. lots of things have been happening while i'm not around her, and i think we really miss all the stuff that we do together.

We talked until i went for an early lunch. Burger set, I have to say it again, i think i really like the food here. hahaa, but i do miss the local food back in singapore. especially when dear said she's gonna have minced meat noodles!! aarrggghh.. :P

planned to go out for a hike around 3plus to 4, but it's raining. I wonder wat else i could do. the rain gods of yellowstone seems to like playing with me. at about 4, the rain stopped and the sky looked good to go. so i gather a few people to have dinner before heading out to the trails. But as we finish our dinner the rain came pouring down even heavier then before!! aarrrggghh.. there goes my trekking.

I din want to spend the whole day in my room, so i went to the rec hall. there weresome sports going on and so i join in. basketball and volleyball. my shoulders are now hurting from all the sports. luckily, i have my yoko yoko with me. gonna soak my shoulders with that later on. there was a hiking trip to mystic falls at 6pm leaving from rec hall, there was vacancy but i wasnt prepared for wet weather dun have the clothes nor shoes prepared for that. so too bad.. but it turned out to be a good choice that i did not go. cos my frens, xiaodan and wanglin who went, were totally soaked!! PHEW!! hahaa...

oh yah.. i'm gonna take part in the 3on3 volleyball tournament. i'd most probably be joining 2 others from ukraine, a guy and a gal. not sure if we could win anything. but it's for the fun. so we shall see about that. I'll be joining the volleyball league as well. I hope there are more pro players there.

I hope i can have a more eventful day tml. I plan to go on the bus tours organised by the hotel and emplyees get to go on them free if there's vacancies. so ya.. time to sleep early, cos the bus leaves at 8.15am.

Day 11 of Work & Travel - Movie Night

2nd morning shift in a row, i can really feel the strain to get out of bed. Especially after quite a long day yesterday, work at the inn and lodge followed by volleyball at the rec hall. Even though it was rather amateurish, it still drains me. Perhaps it's the altitude. Today it's been on of my busiest days so far. there were endless guests coming in for the majority of the time. Worst still was that one of my co-worker, Kelley, she got sick too. So she was sent home to rest after a while leaving me in the cashiers ALONE!! sobzZ.. but it was alrite, just handle watever i could and the rest will have to wait.. no choice...

The rest of the selling of the day were normal, nothing really special happened. there was this group of taiwanese aunties, who were very troublesome. I find the taiwanese aunties the most troublesome of all the different countries i've seen so far. They were like buying 1 key chain each.. and they couldnt decide to pay with cash or credit... or to pay together. in the end.. all 3 aunties used credit card to pay for a 2.5USD key chain... totally a waste of my time...

that was the more irritating incident, but there's also these 3 guests from new zealand. Me, Su & Alvin were chatting with them. About the trip, about Singapore, New Zealand. Basically i think we made their day. They even came back in a while with a comment card saying how much they appreciated us. That pretty much made made my day too.. think perhaps tml i'll go look for the comment card and take a picture of it.

Since i started early i was going to end early too.. 3.30pm and i'll be off. just before i knocked off, i met george. My roommate back at mammoth, he was with his wife and they are here for the morning. Yup, he was the guy who drove us to old faithful. I was actually contemplating to have them drive some of us down to the lake where they are at for the night, but he scooted off before the rest knocked off.. hahaa... scared already... :P

oh well, so i arrange to meet up with su and lorraine at 8pm at the lodge. cos lorraine moved to a new dorm with better facilities at the same price. so i wanted to go take a look. so me went back to the dorm to change, expectiing to play some ball b4 8pm, den i met up with xiaodan for dinner before heading over to the rec hall.. played some basketball till 7 den they started showing movie, cos it was movie night. thanks to popularity vote, we watched "the illusionist" good show, but i've already watched it. but since i was still waiting for ppl, i watched it again. But in the end you know wat? They left for the new dorm without me!! SObzZ....so i went back to my dorm. actually even if that dorm is really very good, most likely i would not move, cos it was much further away. Now i only take less than 3 mins to walk to my giftshop.. whereas the new dorm is like 15-20 mins away.. no good...

so that's like my day, time to catch a good sleep.. super tired after 2 morning shifts.. oh and volleyball too... shoulders & back all aching.. feel so old.. and it was so cold when i playing.. it was quite hard to warm up..

Day 10 of Work & Travel - Volleyball

My first super early monring shift today. Start at 7am, 6am must wake up and start doig stuff and have breakfast. Quite tiring to wake up and work so early. especially when i din really sleep super early last nite.

Met corry in the dining area and a few other co-workers in the morning, during breakfast. He just came back from the grand tetons and will be on his way to his new work place soon. Starting work at 7am although tiring but it's actually quite slack, cos morning not much people coming in, mostly looking for newspaper. And yes, we sell newspaper too.

nothing much happen during work today, except Mike, my boss asked if i could go help out at the Lodge after my shift. I agreed cos i wanted to play volleyball today after work, the place to play is just next to the lodge. Went over to the lodge to help out, nothing much to do there, really dun see why they need the extra help... hmmm..

anyway, i treated volleyball as the highlight of the day but it was rather disappointing cos the standard really very amateurish. So i just play along and act dum every now and then. There will be a volleyball league going on soon, i hope i can be part of that. Hopefully the standard is more exciting. :P

Day 9 of Work & Travel - Snowfall

It started off as rain early in the morning. As i went for breakfast, the rain got lighter and becamed snow. It the first time i ever saw snow. Started work today the earliest i've done so far, 10am, it's a rather weird timing, cos there's 2 meals during this shift, which is also quite a waste of my $$ earning time. I skipped breakfast today so i could sleep alittle more. However i think i still had a pretty good day.

I got to know the resident artist for our gift shop, his name is James Reed. He does paintings which are very very very life-like. So i spoke to him for a while about what he does, what i do. Oh yah, he's a full-time artist now and he was a fireman before he retired. Cool rite? When he told me he was a fireman, the first image that came to my mind was all his painting burning up and he fighting the fire to save them. hahahaa..

That was slightly after lunch, during lunch i ate with a few co-workers who were from US, there's Kelley from yesterday, her sister Katherine who works at the gift shop at the Old Faithful Lodge (we work at the Inn) and also Lance from our gift shop. It seems the snow brought ALL the crowd to the lodge and they were having a crazy day over there. Perhaps because of that Katherine seemed really sick, anyway I'm actually quite glad everyone stayed at the lodge instead od coming to us. hahaa..

It's GAD (Guest Appreciation Day), we were expecting hoards of people coming in to grab the offer items, we have caps, mugs, Tees, photo frames, plush toys and tote bags all going for 5USD. I believe that wouls cause a stir too, but thanks for the snow, not too much of a rush was created here. Like i said the lodge was going crazy, cos the snow prevented people frm getting out, and the lodge is the place where they could see the Old Faithful geyser from indoors.

I did about 2hrs of extra work today, cos Zing, also fell sick. So i cover for her as she went back to rest. Those 2 hrs did not feel like extra hrs as all. I think i was kindda enjoying my time working there. I'm starting to learn to talk to guests more and that makes my time happier.

I took a few pictures as went for my breaks during lunch/dinner and also after work. Seeing snow really got me pretty excited. But too bad i could grab someone to go take photos with me. Only managed to get Lance to take a picture for me during lunch.



Oh, I had Lasagne for dinner, it was really good!!! hehee...

Day 8 of Work & Travel - Work

My shift timing is the same as yesterday but i woke up for breakfast today. I told myself not to eat too much for breakfast cos i'll be having lunch in a very short while. Breakfast the the usualy american breakfast stuff, but it's nice, it's like eating macdonald's breakfast everyday.. quite shiok. hahaa.

Went to the general store before going for lunch & work cos my shoes have opened mouth both front and back for both pairs. So yah, in need of super glue which doesnt really work when i tried it on at night. i wonder how long my shoes can last me. I also bought a pair of gloves, 25USD, the cheapest ones in US, but those are the only ones here. Brrrrrrrrr cold..

work went pretty well today, accounts balanced at the end of the day. another manager from snow lodge came over to help out while corry is gone and waiting for another manager to arrive. so in any case there are always 3 managers around. Travis is the manager from snow lodge, he's very very organised and sticks very closely to the book, whereas the manager of my shop, mike, is quite casual about most stuff. relaxing to work with him.

several interesting things happened during work today. first there's this indian american couple who came in for a shopping spree. Our shop has this promotion where you can get a wool blanket for 15USD when you purchase above 50USD, and when you spend above 100USD, we will aloow you to buy as many blankets as you want. And since this couple was on a spree, they had above 200USD to start with. And guess how many blankets they got? 13!!! They only have 3 kids. Anyway, I helped the deal along the way and i'm very happy with that. :) that was definitely the sale of the day.

then there was this other couple whom i identified as french due to their accent. and so we start chatting abt some french, they were very nice and very eager to teach me some simple french words and i have a few.

mer ci = thank you
s'il vous plait = please
de rien = you are welcome

I could only pronounce the 1st 2, the last one totally destroyed me. I cant make the croaking throat sound at all. hahaa. interesting couple. :)

Work was following and i was just going on and on. Tml will be a special day called GAD day. Guest-Appreciation-Day, this is a day where there are several items which will go on sale for 5USD only. Supposingly a very busy day, so me and alvin stayed a while beyond our off time. And in turn we were given 5USD of cash vouchers to use in yellowstone. COOL!!

I had lunch with a co-worker called kelley, she's from washington state and in nursing. the both of us closed the sale for that indian couple together. chatted with her quite a bit during lunch, mostly about singapore, cos she is like totally alien about singapore. she's never been out of the american continent before. I was introducing her to come to singapore at some stage of her nursing career, cos singapore is so short of nurses, especially nice ones which i believe she will become.

Oh yah, i got to know a few more people tonight, they are basically frens of another of my colleague, sze ying, who goes by zing over here. She just had her 21st birthday yesterday. Really cute gal, and her frens, a few guys and gals are like so surprised that my room has internet connection. :P it was nice knowing everyone. :)

hahaaa.. until tml....

Day 7 of Work & Travel - Work & Hike

I slept thru breakfast today, but it was ok, cos i'm working at 11.30am so i'll have an early lunch. I figured that i would have too heavy a meal when i had breakfast and lunch in like 2 hrs interval. Anyway it's off to work and today i was incharge of stock. I seriously don't like stocking, i dun mind carrying the stuff up and putting them into the shelves. What i really hate is to look at the shelves and deicde what needs to be stocked. I just cant figure wat i need or dun need. 8 hrs of stock is really very tiring, i would rather do cashier whole day. :)

Today's the last day of one of my assitant managers, he's Corry. He's going to take charge of another shop at Canyon. He's a nice guy, very corny and always teasing gals. That seems like the common factor for most of the US guys.



After work, I rushed back to my room to change and get ready for a full moon hike. The moon was really full and bright. You could really see the ground just under the moonlight. The hike consisted of a huge group of people, there wasnt any registration required, just be at the rec hall and be ready to move off. There were 6 of us in the gang initially. Su & shangzhi, lorraine & shawn, wanglin, and me. We were going up to observation point. Although i've already gone thru that way with wanglin a few days back, but going there at night was a totally new experience.

I was totally ready for a long hike, with xtra jacket, tripod, torch, food, 1st aid kit. I could hike for a long time. But the hike was pretty short. And it was so crowded at the observation point that we could hard find space to take photographs, anyway we did end up with some photos. My camera just din really perform too well at nite. sucks man. oh well, that's wat you get for being just semi-pro. hahaa.. the pro part is acredited to my tripod.

Day 6 of Work & Travel - Back to Work.

After 2 days of off, it's time to get back to work and start the money rolling. I wonder if it's working blues, cos i didn't really felt like going to work today. Maybe cos it's a sunday, but ever since getting here, it doesnt matter wat day it is. As long as there are guests coming into yellow/old faithful, there's work to do.

This was only my 2nd shift of work, so i'm still relatively new to everything. But i feel quite confident about most of the procedures already. So quite good. There's a few new staff who came in today, Jane from Ukraine and Kelly from Washington State. Also got to know a few more seasoned staff who werent around the past few days, Rob, Lance and Delicia.

I think there's nothing much to say about the day, cos there were too many customers and i couldnt really remember anything special happening. I was focused on making sure my numbers tally. Anyway, my numbers did tally today and i clocked in 2.6k USD. which was about 1k more than thursday. Woah!! Never expected myself handling so much cash. Real cool.

Because i was working for most of the day, there wasnt any pictures taken except a few which i tried to take of the moon while i was walking back to the dorm after work. None of them looked nice anyway. :P

Tml will be a better day.