"That's Not a Groundhog!"

I know I've missed a few more days, but I will try to keep up better! Thursday, Feb. 25 was my Friday last week and it ended an interesting week!

Sunday and Monday I focused on cleaning the park and doing rounds around the whole park, which always includes fee compliance. I put an envelope on someone's car at Little Washoe, and pretty soon, an older man in that car drove up to me to ask why there was suddenly a fee for people to park and walk their dogs. I explained that the fee system has been in place since it became part of the state park (1999 I think?) and that there are several signs posted at the entrance explaining the fees, and that they are charged daily, year-round. He said he has been coming for years and has never had to pay, and said he was never coming back. He drove away, but he didn't seem angry, just disappointed that we charged a fee. Another person hadn't paid because they thought the park was "closed."

The rest of the week seemed pretty normal: we went through seasonal applications, set an interview date, and called the people we had chosen to interview to set up times. I did the deposit, took it into town, and attended another River Wranglers meeting. I had to leave at 5 because there was a full moon hike scheduled for that night at 6 p.m. I only had two people signed up for the hike, but ended up with 11 total, which was great! I had timed the hike wrong, so we waited at the top of the overlook for an extra twenty minutes or so for the moon to rise over the mountains, but overall, I think it went fine.

Wednesday morning, someone came to the park office to tell us there was a groundhog stuck in the vault toilet at the Wetlands restroom. I was thinking...first of all, we don't have groundhogs here (we do have marmots at higher elevations...), so I figured they meant a packrat or a squirrel or something. I texted my supervisor, then went out to take a look. As I leaned over the riser to look down inside the vault part of the toilet, a large, round, white face looked up at me. That's an owl! I had no idea how it looked like a groundhog, but you never know...haha. I texted my supervisor again and told her about it. She said that happens sometimes, but if we left the toilet lids up and the door open, the owl would fly right out after dark. She said to leave a long stick in there just in case. I left the stick and a printed sign on the door so people would know not to use that side of the toilet.

The next morning, the owl was gone. I kept working on a slide show outline for a talk we are doing for the American Association for University Women in March, finished the outline, and left. I was going to Dayton State Park for pictures of the park truck, said hi to the new employee with River Wranglers, and went to Fort Churchill to meet with Kristin. We are doing the talk together, so we decided to meet and figure out how we wanted the talk to be set up. She is talking about Nevada State Parks as an agency, and a little about the fee structure, and I am talking about the individual parks, highlighting some of the less well-known and the ones that are the most "important." (Not that one park is really more important than another, but some have higher historical significance or more unique natural resources).

My days off were spent mostly at home. My husband was sick, so housework, laundry, and grocery shopping were starting to pile up. I know that's not very exciting, but it was nice to have a couple days at home!