Week 5 is Division of Facilities Management! This was by far the hardest week I’ve had at this park. I’ve slept on a heating pad every night. Went to bed early every night and sadly got chiggers. But overall this was one of the best weeks I’ve had so far. I loved having a project, knowing that I have to get done, and seeing the end result. Working hard every day made me feel accomplished and I could skip the gym this week!
On the first day working with Maintenance I was able to do trail maintenance. The Buffalo river trail really needed to be defined so that visitors know where they are walking. I was given a heavy-duty weed wacker and a backpack strap to help hold it up. I felt it was light till we got on the hike. Very quickly that weed wacker started to make my shoulders and neck burn. We hiked a few miles total but we had to stop about every half mile. It took us all day just to complete three miles of the trail. We had to cut down all the weeds growing over the trail and the trees that were sprouting on the trail. Normally this is a winter job but I was lucky enough to do it in the dead of summer. We thought we could stop for lunch at noon but it quickly became 4:00. The one guy didn’t even bring water because he thought the trail had a few accesses to the road. Luckily the other guy brought extra Gatorade and we were able to fill the bottle without camel backwater. By the time we got back to the truck, I was digging in my lunchbox. I never had a ham and cheese sandwich that tasted so good.
The next two days we focused on fire pits. The goal is to replace all the fire pits in the park. My job was to go to each fire ring and dig out all the dust. I put it side by side and dumped the dust in a ditch next to the road. I thought it would be a quick and easy job but it took all day to do half the rings at the campground. It was a very slow job and super hot. Most of the rings were far from trees and I had the sun just baring down on me. We had a long lunch in the truck that day. The next day was even hotter but every now and then we got cloud coverage. I was surprised it took two days just for me to clean out only campsites worth of fire rings. He replaced 9 rings. He had to get rid of the old rings, weld on the new ones, and spray paint it black. I now understand why maintenance doesn’t clean out the fire rings very often. It takes a long time and when they are doing that they can’t work on other important jobs around the park.
The second day cleaning out the rings I found a lost dog! She was wandering around the campsite begging for food and water. She was friendly enough that I was able to pick her up and drive her over to the ranger station. There was a cage where we were able to put her in. I hung out with her for a while because she was super upset about being in the cage. The staff was able to give her food and water. Everyone was offering to adopt her but the owner claimed her the next day. Apparently, neighboring dogs wander into the park a lot because of the smell of campfire food.
On the last day, I rode around and checked on all the bathrooms. I got lucky and it was a slow rainy day so they weren't horrible. We replaced all the toilet paper, changed the trash bags, and picked up any trash on the floors. I was also shown how to check the cl level at all the water wells. Being a lifeguard for 6 years I was able to catch on to it quickly. That day since it was nice and cool I got to see a bunch of elk really close up! I didn't even think to take a picture and when we went back they weren't interested in us anymore so they were too far away for a good picture. The elk was huge and beautiful! I went back to the maintenance staff to get graded and just mentioned how my washer stopped working properly so that day they bought me a new one! I may have gotten chiggers from working with maintenance but I ended the week with a new washer! Overall it was a great week, very rewarding to see my work.
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