Trail Ridge Road Opens; Trail Ridge Store and Cafe Begins 2016 Season!

It's hard to believe the calendar has flipped to June, and schools are graduating their students.  Here are the highlights of time past since my last blog of May 22nd:

• new colleagues have arrived from across the United States, and international employees from Bulgaria, Ecuador, Poland, and Jamaica, with more to come soon,
• Xanterra presented their orientation,
• we drove up Trail Ridge Road, that wasn't open to the general public, surrounded by snowdrifts that were 22 feet high in some places,
  
• we arrived at our store @ 12,000 feet, with only the roof and possibly the top three feet showing, and began to shovel (CHISEL as there were several ice layers) out our hidden building,
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• we created an assembly line, loaded up our products, transported them up the mountain, unloaded countless boxes into our stockroom, unpacked them, and later hauled them upstairs for our merchandise to be on sale (and we still have hundreds of boxes yet to be unpacked),
  
  
  
• some of the National Park Service rangers carved words marking NPS's centennial year (our National Parks are America's Best Ideas) so we had a group shot,
  
• playing wiffle ball with one of my co-workers' grandson, Jack,
  
• playing hockey with five year old Jack on my balcony,
  
• going up the mountain later than expected due to overnight freezing temperatures, and departing from the top earlier than expected due to dicey weather,
  
  
  
  
• finally on Saturday, May 29th @ 11:00 a.m., Trail Ridge Road opened to the public, and our store opened @ 3:00 p.m., despite not being totally ready,
• running up and down our two level store, putting out apparel, gifts, souvenirs, and other merchandise, boxing, answering guests' questions, restocking, etc., (I've been recording 7-9 miles a day on my Fitbit),
• having delayed starts two out of the first five days of operation @ Rainbow Curve in the park,
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• admiring our daily commute up/down the park's majestic views,
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• working two mornings at the store with no electricity, heat or running water for three hours,
• enjoying the great-horned owls and their two owlets, and
  
• relaxing in the evening with good friends.

Today, I just complete my thirteenth day of work in a row.  Nancy, the retail manager and my boss, and I like to get ahead in our store, but we're struggling to make that happen due to all the inventory we brought up the mountain.  We're getting closer, though.  

I hope your summer is off to a great start.  God is good; life is good!

Miss you all, but greetings from Rocky Mountain National Park!

Amy