2016 Program Schedule

This morning I was finally able to sit down and finish our 2016 program schedule for Washoe Lake. I finished Dayton's a couple weeks ago; that one is easier. I'm only doing programs at Dayton about once a month, on Saturdays. This will be the first time in a few years that Dayton will have regular programs. I'm curious to see how many people we get!

Washoe's programs are going to be fun, I think. We've got astronomers coming in with telescopes, a Dutch oven cooking class (put on by pro's), a scorpion hunt with black lights, full moon hikes, daytime hikes, introductions to bird watching, and hopefully a couple Native Medicine campfire programs.

I have to admit that I was never really interested in astronomy until I started going to these astronomy programs, first at Fort Churchill and now at Washoe Lake. After the first one at Fort Churchill, I was hooked. That night, I stayed at the park until 2 a.m. I've had to leave earlier than that for the past few programs because I worked the next morning, but I love them. The Northern Nevada Astronomy Group is really good at making it interesting and understandable to the general public. I'm going to try my own basic astronomy programs this year, but we won't be using telescopes and they will be very, very basic!

 

I just heated up my lunch, but this afternoon, I'm going through the whole park, stocking toilet paper, cleaning, and checking garbage. It didn't snow in the valley like I thought it was going to, so that might make it easier to get around! Last week a couple of our roads were too water-logged to drive down without getting stuck in the mud!



More of the Same!

Winter seems to be kind of repetitive. Spring, summer, and fall are more varied; no day is the same! Today, we finally finished Washoe's deposit and reconciliation. Finishing Dayton's will be next, and that one should be really easy.

I went through the main part of the park today, checking garbage and cleaning. It finally quit raining and snowing for a few days, so I got a chance to mop the restroom floors, and they might stay clean for a few more days! Everything looked pretty good. The weather's been cold and wet for a while, so the park has been pretty slow.

A couple days ago, I went back to the shop and had lunch with Kevin and Dave--the mechanic and the maintenance repair specialist. During the summer, I don't get to talk to them much at all! Everyone is going in so many different directions. It's nice (for the most part) to have a break from the craziness!

This is the north end of Washoe Lake, looking south. There is finally some standing water!

 



One of the news stations called today and talked to my supervisor about doing a story on the little bit of water we have back in the lake! It's a good sign, but one good winter probably won't fill up the lake very much. I've had people call and ask about the lake after a couple days of rain; the ground has to be saturated and the water table has to be high in order to have our lake back. I was sad when a younger boy called about hunting, asking when we were going to put water back into the wetlands for hunting season. I tried to explain to him that the entire lake was dry, and that there was no water for us to fill up the wetlands (this was in early September 2015).

 

I'm off the next two days, but I do have a full moon hike Saturday night, so I'm working Saturday night and then doing rounds through the whole park on Sunday. I'll try to get more pictures of the park and post those!

Seasonal Budgets, Reservations, Year-end Numbers

I spent most of yesterday trying to finalize the seasonal budget as much as we can get it without knowing for sure who is or isn't coming back or when people can start. My supervisor and I looked at it again today and we think it's looking good! (I hope!)

We also started going through the year-end deposit & reconciliation for 2015 and trying to figure out where the mistakes are throughout the year so we can fix them and account for all of our permit sales. It's not too bad, except that some numbers just don't want to match! Then we have to look at the spreadsheet formulas and make sure everything is calculating correctly. That's definitely not my strongest point, but I'm starting to understand it a lot better! The problem is that we only do it once a year, so we have to remember how to do it every year!

We are having a really good winter this year, so maybe we'll have some water in the lake again!

Little Washoe has water all the time because it is spring-fed. The big lake is fed by 11 different creeks, but they all depend on snow melt from the Sierra Nevada. The past three or four years have been really dry, so the lake dried up pretty fast!

 

We had people out on the lakebed flying kites. I think this was taken last spring or summer. A park visitor sent it to us and we loved it.

 

This morning we also had a couple come in to reserve our Equestrian Group Use Area for the Swiss Club. They come twice a year and they are really nice people. They met Jack, the office cat, this morning and loved him. He loves attention from anyone and everyone, so he was very happy with their visit.

 

Deposit Day and Paperwork!

It's really windy, cold, and rainy outside today, so I'm almost happy to be stuck inside! I've been working on our deposits: Washoe, Dayton, and donations. I took them to the bank, took the paperwork to Division, and ran a few errands around town before coming back to the park. I had a message from our Northern Region office saying that I had forgotten to switch the dates over to the new year. It took me two tries to get it right, but now we're set for the rest of the year! It helps if you read the year-end/new-year instructions....

It's also time to finalize our seasonal budget. We are hiring a park tech this year, which will cost us more, but will be worth it. We also have a seasonal mower position who does the grounds keeping at our three parks: Washoe, Dayton, and Mormon Station.

Most of the seasonal employees are park aids. They are the ones collecting fees, emptying garbage, cleaning restrooms, cleaning campsites, checking in campers....the things we do in the winter, they do in the summer. I like meeting the new people, training them, getting to know them, and knowing what to expect from returning seasonals.

 

 

Last years seasonal employees built a Nevada-themed Frisbee golf course. This year we will have a grand opening!

 

Our Park Academy is also coming up, so I was asked to contact a couple people from Utah State Parks to set up a talk about the agency and maybe two guided hikes. We'll be in Mesquite, so we're close to at least two Utah State Parks, which will be fun to visit with some people I used to work with!

 

Required Training

When people ask us what we do all winter, they're imagining that we are bored and there's nothing to do because there aren't many visitors around! We actually catch up on our required training, whether it's supervisor training (discipline, evaluations, etc), defensive driving, information security, or sexual harassment training. We also have monthly safety trainings to complete and turn in.

Today, I'm catching up on training that I got behind on. I finished information security, and have moved on to sexual harassment, but first: lunch!

Last week I started working on our year-end deposit and reconciliation, where we have to account for every ticket and permit sold, and make sure all the numbers match. If they don't match, that means going back through the deposits to find out why. Once that is finished, our region manager comes out for an inventory, and everything gets turned in to the accountants, who really make sure everything is accounted for and everything matches. Sometimes they come back with a smiley face on them...sometimes they come back with things crossed out and corrected in red pen.

Jack likes to watch us work, and tries to "help." Sometimes he gets encouraged to go outside for a little while! I'm bad at taking selfies, but Jack likes being in pictures, so I try.

 

I was off the last two days and forgot to post--I am trying  to post daily! We spent a lot of time cooking and cleaning, preparing for the coming week. I'll be off again tomorrow and Tuesday because my cat is getting her tooth taken out and needs pain killers. 

This morning I already made it to work on time, even with snow-covered roads, sold one annual pass, passed my information security training, checked restrooms, garbage, and fee tubes at the north boat ramp and Little Washoe. Someone was flying a drone around Little Washoe; he had built it himself and it was fun to watch for a minute.

After lunch, I'll finish up my trainings, keep working on planning interpretive programs, clean the campground restrooms & shower, and check out the south parts of the park. Usually I do all that on Monday or Tuesday, but since I won't be here, I need to make sure the park is clean!

People have been cross country skiing around our boat ramp!

2016 Permits and Park Rounds

Today I finally decided to tackle the boxes of 2016 permits sitting on the shop table. I checked what we got against what we ordered and they all matched. Then I bundled them up and put the permits in the safe and the fee envelopes in the cupboard. I know, not very exciting, but productive!

We have day use passes that are good for Washoe Lake only, day use passes that are good for all Nevada State Parks, senior passes, and disabled veteran passes. We also have yearly boating passes, but those haven't been very popular since the big lake went dry!

Another not-so-exciting part of the day was vacuuming the office. Our office cat, Jack, decided to use the plants instead of going outside...so...I cleaned up after him! He's a good cat, just lazy. I can't post pictures to this blog from my phone, so I'll post about Jack later.

I also did rounds. I started in the campground, cleaning restrooms, scrubbing down the shower, emptying garbage, and then moved onto the equestrian areas and day use areas. Outside the main part of the park on the south side, we have two more day use areas with restrooms and garbage cans, a picnic area on the west side of the lake, and two locations on the north side. By the time I finished at Little Washoe (where the ice hockey was happening), it was after 4 pm and I still had to get back to the office to empty garbage and check mesages. I also sent out another couple group use reservation forms. I have a feeling the rest of this winter will go by way too fast!

Jack decided to help unpack boxes today.

Month-end, Year-end

I'm already bad at posting daily, but today was one of those "not normal" days! I drove from home to the Northern Region office, just west of Fallon, NV to get a signature from our region manager and grab a book of stamps. Then, I realized I'd forgotten my food that I made for the week (lunches and dinners), so I drove back home, picked it up, and finally got on the road to Washoe Lake.

Once I got to work, I started working on our month end, year end deposit. Two people came by; one bought a pass and both let me know there was a feral horse out on the road. I'll post more sbout the horses another time...but by the time I got out there, people had gotten the horse back into the park and dispersed. Now, the horses don't belong in the park but at least for now they are safe from cars!

I got the deposit finished, ate lunch around 2 pm, then went to the bank. The bank was packed! I did end up getting my favorite teller, Cody, and still got out of there pretty fast. Everyone else was taking care of year-end business I guess!

Once I finished at the bank, I go to our main Division office to get our mail and send the deposit paperwork to the Northern Region office. I email it too, but they need signed copies of everything. Talked to a few people I don't see very often, including our deputy administrator and the administrator for state parks.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow, so it might be slow, which will let me get around the park to clean and check fee tubes. I also need to check in our new yearly passes and count the old ones, and start working on the 2015 deposit and reconciliation (fun....lol).

Group Use Reservations and Ice Hockey

Today is a day off for me, but I didn't post yesterday. I have to do laundry, clean, and pack for the week. Since my daily commute is over 2 hours round-trip, I stay in Carson City a few nights each week, saving a lot of miles! I took this job because it was a promotion and it's a fun park (Fort Churchill was a lot of fun too, but this has a lake!), but it's a lot more of a drive than my old job!

I should have posted yesterday, but I was tired after I got off work. We start taking reservations for our group use areas on January 2, and had a few messages to return and paperwork to fill out. We have two group use areas at Washoe and one at Dayton and it's my job to take reservations and make sure we receive payment. I also make sure the areas are open and clean before the people arrive. (I missed one reservation my first summer and it was for a wedding, so we had to scramble to open and clean the site, plus make the people happy again...it's a lot less work to just have the area open and ready for them when they arrive!!)

I also finished up some paperwork for a funding request. We try to hold interpreter's meetings in a central location so we all only have to drive a few hours each, at the most. This month, we have a Park Academy, so we are going to meet a day early and have our meeting then. I finished up the form asking for funding for this meeting, and once I get the last signature I need to get, I'll send it south to get more signatures for approval. This money is generated from park gift shops and is used to fund interpretive supplies, signs, exhibits, events, and our meetings.

My supervisor and I also drove around to the north end of the park to Little Washoe to check restrooms, garbage, traffic counts (month-end reports) and fee compliance. We charge entrance fees year-round, but it's at a self-pay station, and not everyone pays the fee to come in. We left envelopes on cars that hadn't paid--there were a lot of people out on the shallow lake playing ice hockey and walking around. One person said he didn't realize the park was even open, so he didn't pay...we hear all kinds of "reasons" for not paying the fee (even though there are three signs letting visitors know it's a fee area before they are even inside the park). We told him the restrooms still get cleaned, garbage and litter picked up, and the area is monitored for safety, and all that still costs money.

We even came across regular park visitors having an icy picnic on the beach! We hadn't seen anything like it before, so we had to walk up and visit with them for a few minutes.

The most fun part of our jobs :)

Frozen Little Washoe. It's only about 4 feet deep right now.

First Day Hikes

A few years ago, Nevada State Parks started doing First Day Hikes on New Year's Day along with America's State Parks. Last year I did a hike to the gazebo at the overlook on our Deadman's Creek Trail hike and had around 20 people. This year I did one at Dayton State Park and one though the sand dunes at Washoe Lake.

This morning, it was below 20 degrees but sunny. I had no idea how many, if any, people would come as I pulled into a parking space at the casino. It was exactly 10 a.m. and no one had come yet, but I waited around another couple minutes. I had one person from Dayton decide to come, so we started the walk. As we got closer to the mill site, two more people joined us. They had arrived early and thought I'd probably cancel because of the cold--they decided to join us and we all did the walk. It only ended up being about 1/2 hour, but I think we were all okay with that! As I drove toward Carson City, it was a while before I could feel my face again!

We walked up to the water tank and then made our way back down through the stamp batteries. All three people are from Dayton and had kind of walked through the mill site, but never really understood what it was. It was fun showing pictures and explaining how it worked (even though my knowledge is limited...I'll learn more as I go though).

Snowy sand dunes with a view of Slide Mountain in the background.

Two people from Washoe Valley (locals) who had never been on this hike. They have lived in the area since the early '90s I think. It was fun introducing them to the Dune Trek trail and meeting their St. Bernard puppy! Most of those trails in the background are rabbit trails.