First Day at the Job

Morning visitor in the backyard

Today was my first day working in the "Float Office" of the Triangle X Dude Ranch.  The boss (Jim) wanted me at the ranch at 8:00am.  All of you know that morning is not my favorite time of the day.  I set the alarm for 6:00am and awoke to a beautiful morning.  My backyard view this morning had 3 elk wandering around and feeding.  The buffalo are incredibly cool but I will give the elk a few points in the cool category also.  Every morning brings a new animal surprise to my breakfast view.  I am pretty sure that I love that!

It is a 25 minute drive from the house to my "office" at the Triangle X Ranch.  It is a lovely drive and I need to be on my toes because many animals are known to cross the road at any time and rumor has it that the police are very serious about the speed limit.  Once at the "office" I was told that Jim was out taking care of things on the river and I was to begin my training with Owen.  Owen was very helpful in walking me through the scheduling process and phone system.  Funny thing is that Owen told me she is from Augusta and graduated from Augusta Prep.  Should have seen her face when I said "that means you know Steve Blanchard, Tom Holodak and Moe Bailey".  So within the first two hours on the job, the first prep school connection had been made.  After a few hours working the phones and asking Owen a lot of job related questions, it was time to load sandwiches into sack lunches and load the coolers in the shuttle van.  This was a task I could handle.  Much to my surprise, Jim called from the river and wanted me to go (as a passenger) on the 11:30 raft trip.  He thought it would be a helpful experience preparing me for when clients asked about what the trips are like.  It was a nice raft trip and I am only sorry I did not have my camera.  The Snake River is moving pretty swiftly right now, but our scenic float trips are taken on a slower part of the river.  Along the ride we saw a beaver, a bald eagle in his nest, many birds and a year old moose.  All in all it was a great ride and I do believe it will help me with the clients.

Storm rolling into the valley.

My working day ended at 2:30 giving me time to head to town for a workout at the JHHF.  I was not the oldest one in the club this time!  After my workout, I headed back home because a storm was rolling into the valley.

I head back to the ranch in the morning for another day of training.