12/15/2013

                After three flights and nine hours in the sky I landed in Bozeman, Montana. I found Natalie right away and she had Derris with her as well which was a surprise to me. We waited ten minutes for my luggage to swing around and headed to the car where another person came along for the ride, Kristi. All that was missing was a poster with my last name on it.

                The ride home was filled with the same old questions that friends ask when you haven’t seen them for two months. How was the flight/ride? How was your break? Do anything cool? Catch up with the family? Excited to be back? Derris and I got settled in what was going to be our room for the next three months. We didn’t do much rearranging as everything seemed to be in its own spot.

                We woke up just before seven and headed down to the HR building in Natalie’s car. The sun started to light the horizon with a bright pink/violet glow. Minutes later the sky had all the warm colors of the spectrum but I was not in a beautiful place to take an award winning photo. The HR building is next to the laundry, maintenance and warehouse with many vehicles parked outside to the point where it almost looks like a scrap yard.

                We saw some returners from the past summer and some familiar faces from the previous winter. We were second and third in line for the check in procedure which makes things easy. We only waited 15 minutes outside with six others before the doors had opened. We made it through the process and started our contracts before going to get our uniforms. After the uniform process we went to the Two Bit Saloon for coffee and breakfast where Jen was working. I had worked with Jen for a couple shifts before deciding that it wasn’t for me.

                As we left Two Bit and passed HR we saw Kristi who was maybe 20^th in line and she was just leaving an hour or so after we were already done. Once we got up the hill we checked in with Personnel making our room official.

                I walked outside for the first smoke of the day and encountered my neighbors Chirs and Jim. I’ve known since last summer and Jim since I first arrived here in 2012. Derris and I will end up sharing the bathroom with them. I’ve reacquainted myself with many people who ask if I will be keeping the facial hair that I have grown. It’s taken two months to grow and I’m not sure what I want to do with it.

                Dinner was decent besides the dried out pork chops they served. I had a full meal with potatoes and gravy, broccoli, and a little bit of ham. The night ended with Phillip, Alison and Jenna joining the room for some cartoon comedy and drinks for those that were of age. The night was topped off with some alcohol and a fine glass of “Three Blind Moose”. Monday starts the agonizing pain of my fourth orientation about customer care and legendary hospitality “Yeah...!”