Malheur Visitor’s Center

It was a full eight hour shift at the Visitor’s Center for me today.  Having had only seven visitors actually come in the door, I guess you could say that it was a little slow.  :(  Nothing like working the Visitor’s Center at Pea Island NWR or Laguna Atascosa NWR!  Kind of reminded me of Swan Lake NWR.  Oh well, I brought my lap top along today, and was able to catch up on my blog reading.  You can’t keep busy restocking merchandise if nobody buys anything.  The highlight of the day was selling four cans of pop to staff members.  :)  How sad is that? 
The Visitor’s Center has a huge deck surrounding it, and I’ve been told that it is packed with visitors for the spring bird migration.  The building, was constructed by the CCC in the 1930’s, and has a unique tiled roof with many colors.  The refuge was established in 1908, so is among the oldest refuges in the nation.  This building was used as the home of some of the earlier refuge managers.
These are the views out the front picture windows.  Not too shabby, I must say.
That’s the museum building on the left, and the public restrooms on the right.  These buildings were also constructed by the CCC.  The museum has a wonderful collection of stuffed birds of the refuge, and an egg collection.  It reminded me of a small version of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY.  Most of the birds were taxidermied (don’t think that’s an actual word:)) by one of the first refuge managers.  It’s a nice collection.
Remember my story from the other day about the mother yellow-headed blackbird?  Well, I now know where all the fathers were!
They were all here just in front of the deck at the Visitor’s Center pigging out at the bird feeders.  Looks like they don’t get along together any better than the hummingbirds do.  :)
There are also a lot of hollyhocks blooming around the VC for the hummers to enjoy. 

Tomorrow, the volunteer coordinator is taking me on a tour of the refuge in the morning.  After that, I’m going to have to try to figure out what to do about my latest attack of the motorhome gremlins.  This time, there appears to be a leaking out of my hydraulic leveling jack fluid on the back driver’s side jack.  :(  Ugh!  It doesn’t sound like that’s something I can fix myself, and here I am again in the middle of nowhere!

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy

The Sunday Blast from the Past

On August 31, 2006, I arrived at Lewis and Clark State Park in Washington state to begin a seven week stint as a campground host.

I had been told this would be a more physical than social job, and that description was correct. Besides selling fire wood and answering camper's questions, I had plenty of physical chores to do which include scraping, priming, and painting the Environmental Learning Center building.




I also had to dig up all the boulders surrounding three flower and plant areas. Over the years, the boulders had sunk in the ground and it was my mission to unearth them all, put in new soil, and reposition them. Manual labor, to be sure...





This park is located in the old growth Douglas fir forest with huge fir trees that are around 600 years old. And underneath those fir trees are numerous kinds of mushrooms.


Most of the stuctures in Lewis and Clark State Park were constructed in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). They are beautiful stuctures and must be maintained as they were constructed because they are now on the historic building registry. That includes the cedar shake roofs. Those roofs require a great deal of upkeep. There are two picnic shelters like this one, and while I was there, the larger shelter was rented out twice; once for a wedding, and once for a native American Pow-wow.



I was provided with a full hookup site in amongst the Douglas fir trees. It was a beautiful site. I spent one memorable evening sitting at my campfire while listening to the eerie sounds of the drums floating through the forest from the pow-wow. I'll never forget that. It brought all kinds of images to my mind of what it must have been like a couple of hundred years ago. That was truly a blast from the distant past!
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Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy