Done

Yeah, so that's a lame-o title, but I'm on day 7 in a row, staring 8, 9, 10, and 11 in the face and just finished my stint as the human stoplight for memorial day weekend at Yosemite. Over all, it was not too bad. I did get to make my first bike stops. That was pretty neat. No one expects to be pulled over by a ranger on a bike. It's genius. I have not, however, seen more gridlock save say Bay Area traffic at rush hour than I saw in Yosemite on Sunday afternoon. The valley was gridlocked inbound and outbound. It was amazing. I pulled the patrol vehicle into an illegal parking spot, pulled my bike off the back and just rode in between the cars. Way faster response time. It was like that for close to three hours. It was much like being in Chicago and less like being in a national park. And I was much more a traffic control device and less a ranger. Such a bizarre place, this Yosemite Valley. It is truly its own beast. I am sad to leave it, as beastly as it is. I think that is what I like about it. But more than that, there are really exceptional people here. That is perhaps the biggest downfall of this whole move. Leaving exceptional people. And not in that, "well they're nice" sort of way, but in that "Man, y'all are really outstanding in your own ways and I've been lucky to work with you for even a short time" sort of way. And although I'm sure they were tempted, not a one of them made me feel like an idiot, which would have been very easy to do. There was this one poor ranger who got stuck with me more days than not, having to listen to me babble on in my usual way, having to explain everything to me every day... I think he was just a little excited when I chose bike patrol this week. But pointing to the exceptional quality of the folks I work with, he was exceedingly patient, funny, and kinda let me do my own thing, even though I'm sure he would have done it more efficiently and timely. But I learned. And laughed. And made fun of myself a lot. And it was a pretty damn fun 7 weeks. So, I am going to perhaps the least beastly and unpopulated of all places in the NPS... a monument no one has ever heard of before. Huh. We shall see. I shall be so lucky as to work with folks a fraction of the quality as I have found here in the valley. How lucky and what a cool thing to be able to say? For now, back to packing. For a dissertation on how I feel about that topic, see the previous entries regarding moving and packing. Thanks for reading the distraction.