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.