Snow!

It snowed yesterday at Canyon Lodge! (in June!)  I watched it cover the ground and the trees from the cafeteria window as I served breakfast and lunch.  Though there have been scattered piles of snow lying around leftover from past snowfalls (as seen in a previously posted picture of Canyon Lodge), this is the first time here that we have experienced any new snow, so fresh and soft and falling right in front of us.  Hilary took some good pictures of it, which I have put on flickr (link to the right).

One of the nice things about Yellowstone is that it draws employees from all over, offering different points of view.  My coworkers from Michigan, Illinois, and other northern states acknowledged that the snow was pretty, but did not share my enthusiasm, and may even have found strange how often I mentioned that it was "still snowing." Nevertheless, my Georgian comrades appreciated the snow as much as I did, and my friend Andy from Singapore was happy as well; she had never seen snow before, and had said when we first got here that her goal for the summer was to see snow.  

When my boss Roger told me to take my lunch break, I replied, "Okay, I'll take my snow break."  I did eat lunch, but I also found time to have a fun snowball fight or two with Hilary.

That morning, I served breakfast to some park guests from China. Sometimes I communicate with visitors with limited English, but these folks were the first ones I have encountered who seemed to speak none at all.  Some of the foods we serve are oatmeal and biscuits & gravy, all of which are near each other in the food line.  The first Chinese man enthusiastically pointed to the gravy.  I asked, "would you like a biscuit with that?"  He said nothing.  I smiled and pointed at the biscuit, and he shook his head.  "Do you want oatmeal?"  I pointed at the oatmeal, and he shook his head.  I pointed at the gravy, and he smiled and nodded.  With a doubtful, questioning look, I held up a bowl, and he continued to smile and nod.  I reluctantly served him up a hot bowl of gravy, and he was happy.  The next man also smiled and pointed to the gravy, and I sighed and gave it to him. I said, "I don't think this is what you think it is," but the words were lost on the two men.