Park Housing

We just moved into park housing! The mechanic who had been living at the park got engaged and bought a house, so it was open. We just finished moving most of the big stuff...bedroom stuff, dressers, the bathroom, and fridge. The fridge was an adventure....we had to take the handles off the fridge and the doors off the oven because of how the kitchen is set up, in order to fit the fridge into the kitchen. Then we had to put it all back together!

My husband already caught a bunch of teenagers driving out in the sand dunes (not allowed). He went out and talked to them. I saw my supervisor soon afterward, and she went out and talked to them also. Surprisingly, they were still out there!

I will post pictures soon, but the house needs to be painted first. I've been here almost a week now and saw a very cool rainbow! We've had 80-90 days without any precipitation so even though I didn't get rain where I am, it did fall in the valley. It's a start!

I worked in the fee booth this morning and we had lots of questions about the boat ramps and how much water is in the lake. I always say the lake was dry for a year and a half, so now we have more than we've had, even though it's not much at all! I like working in the fee booth because I can get other things done (prepping for an astronomy program) while I talk to the park visitors. I even had people coming in looking for hiking trails today and got to describe my favorite (sand dunes). They walked around for a while, then went up the Deadman's Creek trail.

Last time I lived in park housing, we were pretty isolated. It was 45 minutes away from the nearest town. Now, we live about 5 minutes from a really small city, and about 15 minutes from a normal-sized city. Walmart is right down the hill along with a real grocery store!

Thursday night I did a full moon hike, using an equestrian trail that is around 3 miles long. I had 8 people, including a group of five girls who chatted loudly the whole time. I had been planning to do a "sit and listen" activity, to have everyone quiet for five minutes, observing and listening for sounds of nocturnal animals. At the start of the hike, I had decided not to do it, but after listening to the group of girls for a while, I thought it would be good for this group after all. It worked! Five minutes of silence, except for frogs, crickets, airplanes, and cars on the freeway. It's so quiet in the valley you can hear the cars all the way over on the freeway!

The moon rose and I pointed out that we could all see our shadows. One guy had asked if it would really be lighter once the moon rose. That's why I like doing these hikes--giving people new experiences and showing them something they might not normally see.

The trail I chose started out as a dirt road, turned into a wide trail through tall sagebrush and sand, then turned into a narrow trail in a wide open area with short grass, sort of like a dry lake bed (which it probably was a lakebed at some point). When the moon got higher, the wide open area was lit up and we had a beautiful moonlit view of the valley. It was one of the few full moon hikes where I felt like it turned out almost perfect!

Ordering Supplies, Finding New Projects

Today I am working on ordering the last of our interpretive supplies from the last grant I wrote. I sent it in in May, but it got lost somewhere between signatures, so I am just now trying to finish it up. The grant was for black lights, animal pelts, track replicas, and references like night sky and bird guides. I also really want a program about gold, so I ordered a couple supplies to get me started--a vial of gold and gold pans.

Bird Watching Program

 

Yesterday I posted that my friend Linda brought her history trunk, which I thought was a great idea. I think I am going to send in a grant asking for funds to build and fill two trunks...one for Dayton and one for Washoe Lake. We would use them during park programs and we would also be able to take them into schools with us.

 

I think the hardest part will be deciding how to make it and what to fill it with. We go to a lot of outreach activities (Nevada State Fair, Dayton Valley Days, Capitol City Gun Club, Cabella's, Sportsman's Warehouse) and I think this would be great to bring to get people's attention. I even think that Nevada State Parks could have its own traveling trunk that has something in it to represent each of the state parks...but for now I'm going to stick with Dayton and Washoe!



I also joined the Nevada Day Parade float committee and our first meeting is Wednesday. I'm going to try coming up with a few ideas. The theme is Nevada: Then and Now, and I think we could come up with some really fun ideas. The last parade we were in was the 150th Anniversary of Nevada's statehood and our float was a birthday cake surrounded by people dressed up like historic figures: Mark Twain, Sara Winnemucca, Liberace, and Bugsy Segal.

It's August Already!

I can't believe it's August already, and that the season is coming to an end in a month or so! Labor Day weekend is usually our last busy weekend, but sometimes the week after is busy too. We had an almost-full campground this weekend because of an event in Reno called Hot August Nights--a big classic car show!

Yesterday, I had two programs. One at Dayton State Park about the Carson River, and one at Washoe Lake--an astronomy program with telescopes! A fellow River Wrangler, Linda Conlin, asked to help with the program at Dayton because she needed some environmental education time to put on her quarterly report, so she brought the Carson River history trunk and her maps (which are much better than mine!).

Linda talking about the history of Dayton and the Carson River.

The Carson River History Trunk, complete with an adobe brick from Fort Churchill.

 

We've had several programs this summer, both at Dayton and Washoe, and I've given one at Mormon Station State Historic Park. Participation has been kind of spotty and unpredictable lately. I had three at Mormon Station, two people at Dayton, and only two on my last full moon hike at Washoe Lake. We did have great participation at the Kid's Carp Fishing Derby at Little Washoe and at our Dutch Oven Cooking Class. The Park Interpreters at Fort Churchill and Mormon Station have said the same about their programs. We don't usually cancel the programs though, because even though we might only have a few people, it's great to show we are doing these programs and that they are available for the public!

 

I also can't believe that I've already given out our end of season notices to our Park Aid staff! Because we hired both a Park Aid II and a Park Ranger Technician, our budget was spent faster than I thought it would! We are keeping the Park Tech and a Park Aid into October so we can get more projects finished, but one is finished at the end of this month, and the other two are finished on September 11. It seems like Easter came early this year, so we hired people early, and everything else sped up because of that. We are getting some great projects done this season, including giving our buildings a fresh coat of paint, trails are getting cleared, and bulletin boards are getting re-built.

 

I'll try to post again soon with a better description of our projects. Until then, I hope you are having a great summer and don't forget to watch the upcoming meteor shower this week!