Limbo

At the risk of this blog becoming monotonous and repetitive, the news: the job at Voyageurs fell through. That means that unless there are major changes, I will probably be at Glacier National Park for Summer 2009. Although still in contention for a Lead Park Ranger job at Theodore Roosevelt (one of nine applicants who were referred to the hiring official), and for a couple jobs at the same grade level I am currently in at Pipestone and Apostle Islands, the outlook is doubtful because of the timeline involved. I have been allowed to hang on to see whether I will be able to get the job at Theodore Roosevelt for a little while longer before making any commitments to Glacier. Though that settles nothing in terms of employment at this point, it has relieved a great deal of anxiety I have had all week.

The only positive lately has been that we converted to summer weight uniforms on April 1. No more long sleeves, itchy pants, and choking ties. I get pretty sweaty under all that wool. The magical park ranger summer pants that shrink over winter have made their way onto the hangers in the closet and the unfathomably stuffy winter uniforms are back in a box.

There should be migrating cranes and bison calves any day now. Perhaps the cranes will come through as it warms up this week and the wind is out of the south.

I recently found out that I will not be working at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center this spring because I have the distinction of having the ability to collect fees and am needed in Medora. That's OK with me, though that means I will get less reading done. Were it not for Painted Canyon, I might not have read Citizen Soldiers or Nothing Else Like It In the World, both terrific books by Stephen Ambrose. My current reading project, in between bathroom-time installments of Newsweek (which I will not be renewing), is Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey.

Edit from a few hours later: I forgot to include that I updated the Google Earth thingy for the South Unit to include a little doohickey for the Painted Canyon webcam. When you click on it in Google Earth, it zooms down to show you the webcam image transposed over the GE terrain. Pretty neat.

I also forgot to include this photo that I took of an elk a couple nights ago.