Back at the Ranch

I've had "camp duty" for the last two days. Yes, that means scrubbing toilets!

It occurred to us that we haven't yet posted any pictures of where we are living. These photos are of the Bunkhouse. It was originally the bunkhouse for the ranch hands when the bison were being raised here in order to try to save them from extinction (at the turn of the century only 25 were left in the park). When the Yellowstone Association first started offering classes here in 1979 everyone stayed in the bunkhouse. Now we have cabins and a bathhouse but the classes, cooking, and hanging out still all take place here. We'll post some pictures of our cabin and the bathhouse soon.

The kitchen. There are two sinks but it can get pretty busy when a class of twelve plus the instructor and the four volunteers are all making dinner. Notice how well caffeinated we are!

Dave blogging! (or maybe reading about either Illini or UVA basketball)
This is the classroom. We have the usual digital projectors, whiteboards, and a nice flat screen TV for either watching DVDs, Videos (yes we have too many of those to not have a VCR) or power points. My favorite part is that there are many bookcases full of natural history and Yellowstone history books to be read.
In the summer this is a second classroom but in the winter it is the boot room. Everyone stores their indoor shoes by the front door and leaves their wet boots on the racks. Inevitably as soon as you put your boots on to go outside you realize that you've left something critical (like lunch) back in the kitchen. Unless you can convince someone to play fetch, off go the boots, on go the indoor shoes, the lunch is retreived, off go the indoor shoes and on go the boots!