Arrival in Yosemite!

One of the things Larry had mentioned was that California produces 80% of the world’s almonds. The morning paper said that the predicted yield for this year was 2 billion lbs. of almonds. Many of those are grown right in Merced County. On the YARTS bus this morning on my way into Yosemite Valley, we passed many almond groves (amongst other things).

Almond Grove--Merced County

The Merced River is extremely full right now because the warm temperatures have been melting the snow. That means the waterfalls are absolutely beautiful right now! I caught my first glimpses of a few of them on the bus ride into the park.

Merced River 

 

Ribbon Falls

Yosemite Falls

Half Dome

Day one of “on-boarding” was quite the process. I'm going to consider it a good way to get to explore the park, seeing as how I went from the HR office—to Uniforms—to my manager—back to Uniforms—to the housing place (where no one was)—back to HR—back to housing—then finally to my tent cabin. (And then I went exploring so I could time how long it took me to get from my cabin to work.) Because the pool doesn’t open until Memorial Day, I’m going to be working in Housekeeping until I start lifeguarding, hence why I had to go back to the Uniforms place to get additional uniforms. Lots of fun.

The housekeeping uniform pants are easily the most uncomfortable pants I’ve ever worn. They’re Dickies khaki pants and the material is super warm and awful. They also fit terribly. I have a theory that because they’re unisex pants, they forget that females tend to have hips. Aka they fit weird in all the wrong places.

I did get somewhat of a nice surprise for my housing. I’ll be living in Ahwahnee Tent Cabin #1, so I’ll have two roommates and my rent is only $7.08 per week. Can’t beat that. And there’s only three tent cabins and a dorm in that area, so it’s supposed to not be too crazy.

—I'll get a picture of my little cabin later. For now, picture a dorm room with three beds, three cabinet things, and a box outside to put all of your food in so the bears don't eat you. :)

When I went exploring, I went to scope out the pool where I’ll be spending the majority of my time. You can’t really tell from my pictures because they were through a chain link fence, but my view from work > your view from work. :)

Supposedly tomorrow I have lots of orientation which I’m sure will just be delightful. Tonight I intend to get situated, memorize the location of everything, and how to get everywhere. It’s gonna be good. Peace out girl scouts.