I am working at the Roosevelt Lodge near the Tower Junction and Lamar Valley. This is the place tourists go to see grizzlies, bison, and wolves a few miles down the road. There is a corral here where wranglers ride horses and drive stagecoaches to a steak cookout. In between the Wyoming mountains a country singer plays his guitar. I am living among modern cowboys, but I am not one of them. I am waiting tables.
I do not work for the national park. I work for a resort company called Xanterra. I am serving ribs and bison burgers to hikers, vacationers, and wildlife photographers. The work is casual and lucrative. I am not attached to the job, and I don't care much about the money because there is little to spend it on out here. I am here to explore the wild country, to summit the Rocky Mountains, and to see geysers, hot springs, and animals from a safe distance.
While I was working on the cruise ship in Hawaii, my friend Mark told me about this website called coolworks.com. Mark has worked in the Grand Canyon and now works in the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, a few hours' drive from Yellowstone. During my vacation, I decided to apply nonchalantly to a few positions in Utah, Alaska, Michigan, and Wyoming. I landed a job at a hotel in Tampa, Florida where I was living, but I did not want an ordinary job close to home. I could do that anytime I want.
When the recruiter from Yellowstone offered me a seasonal position, the decision was easy. My only worry was that the distance and isolation would complicate my new relationship with my girlfriend, Erin. So I asked her to come with me. To my surprise, she agreed to my spur-of-the-moment plan. She applied for the same position at the same tiny lodge in the middle of nowhere. The summer season was starting in two weeks, and I was concerned that we may be running out of time. I used to think it was difficult to find a job for myself. The hunt is even more stressful when you are searching for two. I wondered what I would do if she didn't get the job, but I did not have to ponder that for long because she soon got the call. We packed our bags full of winter clothes and hiking gear and flew to Bozeman, Montana.
After spending a night in a Super 8, we lugged our oversized bags across the highway. The morning air was thin and cool despite the sunshine and the approaching summer. Valleys full of muted green grass stretched toward sharp mountain peaks in the background. We dropped our luggage near a retro bus waiting at a gas station. The body of the bus resembled polished chrome, and the top was canary yellow. The vehicle could easily be fashioned into a tank should the need arise. The bus driver was an energetic woman with a brown ponytail and chipper voice. She laughed at everything, especially her own comments.
After the bus driver stowed our bags underneath the coach, Erin and I shopped for snacks at the gas station. We figured this could be our last stop in civilization for quite some time, so if we needed supplies now was the time to buy them. My stomach was reeling from lack of sleep and nerves, so I only chose a bottle of Vitamin water and a souvenir magnet of Montana. While waiting in line to pay, a man in front of me playfully mocked another man wearing a thick brown jacket. When he opened his mouth to speak, I saw that his few remaining teeth were rotten. I made my purchase and neared the exit when I overheard one of the female cashiers ask another local if he wanted a free batch of Krispie Kreme donuts.
"We're just going to throw them out otherwise," the cashier said.
"No, thank you," the local said. "I'm trying to quit."
My first impression of Montana was that everyone knows each other, and some of the locals get so bored they become addicted to donuts which make their teeth fall out. Before landing in Bozeman, my only preconception of Montana was that you could drive as fast as you want because hardly anyone lives here. Former NBA coach Phil Jackson spent the off-seasons riding his motorcycle throughout the state. He loves Montana because nobody bothers him there. I figured I would see more animals than people, so I sensed that bothering would be minimal.
We boarded the bus and headed toward the northern entrance of Yellowstone National Park at Gardiner, Montana, which features the Roosevelt Arch. There were about twenty young people on the bus, and most of them were foreign. Many international students from Eastern European or Asian countries work in the national parks to save money before the fall semester. Many of the Americans were from western states like Washington. I fell asleep for the first leg of the journey and spent the latter half looking out the window.
My mind was stuck in the kind of limbo I often encounter during long drives. I was eager to reach the destination, but simultaneously I wished we would just keep on driving indefinitely. The truth is that I didn't quite know what I was getting ourselves into. I had done research and confirmed that I could make a lot of money here. I was warned that cell phone service was spotty and that I would live in a wooden cabin. I was told that the company would provide all our meals, and the cost of living in Yellowstone would be four hundred dollars per month. However, I had learned that expectations and outside opinions rarely prepare you for the initial adjustment of moving to a foreign place. It is one thing to consider living in a remote wilderness; it is another thing completely to experience the remoteness.
I have low standards for living. I have slept in wooden shelters filled with mice and bugs. I have lived without running water and have bathed myself with buckets of stagnant water sprung from a well. I have slept in a tent for a month straight and used a flashlight to find the communal bathroom in the middle of the night. I was ready to adapt to similar accommodations, but on this trip I am not alone. I have to consider someone else's opinions. I want Erin to be comfortable, and I don't want to disappoint her.
Erin and I had dozens of questions, and most of our conversations began withy the words, "I wonder..." But I didn't have the answers. We were going to wait and find what lie ahead. Part of me wanted to rush through the awkwardness of adaptation and establish a comfortable routine, but I also relished the opportunity to be a stranger in an unfamiliar environment. Soon enough, I would know all there is to know about my role at Roosevelt Lodge, and I would eventually become bored. I did not want to obsess over the answers or skip any steps in this process. I wanted to be comfortable with uncertainty and embrace my ignorance.
A few young men asked the bus driver questions about living in Yellowstone, and the bus driver broke off into a long digression about human fatalities. She described a young lady who wanted to impress her friends at home by taking a Selfie with a bison. When she turned her back on the animal to snap the photo, the bison gored her in the ribcage and sent her to the hospital. Near Old Faithful, a man fell off the boardwalk and submerged his skin into a thermal pool and suffered third-degree burns all over his body.
"The season only started three days ago," the bus driver said, "But there's already been two bison attacks. Then there was an old woman who had a heart attack because of the elevation."
After reciting each accident, the bus driver laughed a high-pitched cackle. She seemed to derive a demented pleasure from the suffering of tourists. I assumed that these incidents were common. When you introduce stupid people to dangerous animals without the aid of cages, the results are bound to get ugly from time to time. At first, I appreciated the bus driver's objectivity toward death. However, when she continued describing more gruesome deaths I found her laughter off-putting, so I tuned her out to avoid diminishing my excitement.
After stopping at the HR office in Gardiner to pick up our uniforms and ID cards, we drove south and crossed the border into Wyoming. We passed fields full of grazing bison and flocks of Japanese tourists using thousand dollar lenses to capture the image of a lone grizzly bumbling around in search of a meal. We stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs to have lunch in the Employee Dining Room. Near the entrance, an elk lounged in the shade and eyed passers by skeptically. The elk seemed to be leading a silent protest against humans who built resorts and restaurants on his land, or maybe it just wanted to get out of the sun.
We ate the cafeteria food and remarked that it was much better than cruise ship fare. Soon we were on the bus and then off again in a dusty parking lot at the Roosevelt Lodge. The lodge is made of logs, and there are rocking chairs on the front porch. This area is where Teddy Roosevelt used to hang out when he came to Yellowstone, and it doesn't seem much has changed since he was president.
The bus driver helped us with our bags and then took the wheel again and disappeared down the road. We were instructed to wait outside a wooden cabin that serves as the personnel office. A friendly woman with short hair welcomed us and handed us keys to our own cabins. It was time to move in.
