The Wonderful Wind Cave

So it's now about five weeks since I began my adventure at Wind Cave National Park and it's such an amazing place.  Wind Cave National Park seems to be a park that combines two places I love; the surface and the amazing cave below.  It has the surface features that remind me of Yellowstone National Park (minus the hydrothermal features) but instead a vast mixed-grass prairie, expanding for what seems for miles, abundant with park wildlife including bison, elk, deer, ferrets, prairie dogs, coyotes, and the list goes on.  It's a place where East meets West (both grass species of the eastern and western United States present on the prairie and also both eastern and western bird species of the US present), a place where prairie meets Ponderosa Pine Forest, and of course a place where the surface meets the subterranean.

As many of you know I fell in love with Wind Cave prior to my employment there when I visited for the first time in November.  Over the winter I made multiple  trips. Each time I went, I fell even more in love with the place.  While visiting this winter I went on both the Garden of Eden tour, and the Fairgrounds Tour.  Being a guide there this summer I've had the opportunity to lead both of these tours but am also given plenty of other opportunities.  Besides these two tours I am able to lead the Natural Entrance Tour (currently my personal favorite tour), I also give Evening Campfire Programs in the campground, I lead a ranger-led hike, give short Discovery Ranger programs, Prairie night hikes (looking for the elusive ferret), and I am currently training to be a Wild Cave guide (a tour which allows the general public the opportunity to actually go into an undeveloped section of the cave and crawl and squeeze through narrow passageways for about four hours long). 

I really enjoy the people I work with.  Typically you always have at least that one person who gets under your skin or just drives you slightly batty (no pun intended) well maybe I am speaking too soon but I find everyone I work with very pleasant and really great!  I truly could go on and on about how great my coworkers are but it would easily take up a good amount of space.  I will just touch on the fact that I love the leads we have.  Their experiences and friendliness make working at Wind Cave an incredible experience.  One gentleman in particular has been working there for over 40 YEARS; isn't that amazing!  Another gal worked there back in 70s and after taken a break in between she has come back to work at Wind Cave again, she is so great.  Two folks, whom are married, are also really nice people.  They are always willing to help in anyway and incredibly knowledgeable!  Like I said incredible folks!

So today during one of my breaks of time to work on projects I started to read the guide log (a log book in which guides since 1983 have been keeping track of interesting visitor stories and activities the Wind Cave staff have been involved with.)  I don't know why but when reading those types of journals I always wonder 'why does it seem people "back then" had what seemed like a more fun time at the workplace'?  I think it could be a mixture of all sorts of things:


1) you could get away with more things in the past (things that if you said today or tried to pull would not be politically correct)


2) when folks are writing their stories in the log they embellish and make things sound more pleasant or fun then what they actually were


3) people view their jobs differently (what use to be just a summer job to folks and a good time in the summer is now more folks who are actually trying to make this their full-time career)


4) none-of-the-above.  I could easily just be blowing these ideas out of my rear end and I could just as easily be making an observation that isn't true at all


The only reason I ever came to this conclusion is because within the logbook were fliers for all sorts of events from the past that seemed really great: talent shows, poetry readings, art galleries, BBQs, and etc...

Who knows... either way what a place and what a week!  I feel it only appropriate to write another blog entry talking about my life as a whole right now.  So as I conclude this blog, I encourage each and everyone of you to come to Wind Cave National Park and visit this incredible place, and I hope all of you are having a great summer and continue to do so!