First Days of Driving

Today marked the 4th day I've worked. Today also marked the 4th full day I've been here. Now that doesn't seem out of the ordinary; however, I am not used to working through the weekend. I've been told that it is not uncommon for float crew members to work 20-25 days in a row. So, the day of the week doesn't really matter to us unless we are looking at the schedules.

Today marked the third straight day I've seen bison. I have now seen the biggest bison herd in America. It was well over a hundred, which is over 1/6th the bison population in this region of the country. Bison is becoming so common to me, that I barely look. Today I was following a park ranger who was following a truck with an RV attached to it. The truck/RV stopped due to the bison (in the fields, NOT the road) and pulled over about 3 feet. Immediately, the ranger turned his lights on and got behind the RV. Now, my trailer is wider than my 15 passenger van I drive and the boat is wider than the trailer it is sitting on. Not only was I trying to get around this huge RV that just pulled over 3 feet in a no passing zone, but there were cars parked on the other side of the street. Needless to say, I did accomplish it, but it definitely wasn't easy. However, when passing the truck that was carrying the RV, I noticed that they had no idea the park ranger was right behind him.

Friday, I was able to see a bear with two cubs. While waiting for our trips to finish, another driver, Bryan, and I had walked about a mile and a half to a meal site. Since we usually don't have to do anything during the trips, we are capable of doing stuff like this. Everyday, we do a lunch trip and 6 days a week, we do a dinner float trip. During these trips, the guests are taken to this meal site which is really close to one of our pickup points. Once Bryan and I reached the meal site, the cook told us he had a visit from a bear. He didn't say how big, but it just wasn't around a long. Bryan and I helped the cook and his assistant set up, and then we were made a hamburger. Since it was getting close to our boats landing, we had to leave to walk the 1 1/2 miles right after our burgers were made. While eating, Bryan mentions that he hopes that bear still isn't around, which I hadn't even thought of. Luckily though, that is not when I saw the bear. We get back to the landing spot before the four boats are there and we wait for them. Straight across from the river is a huge hill going nearly straight up. It would be very hard for a person to climb it without using his hands. As soon as the first boat landed, we heard one float guide tell radio a guide behind him saying that bears are over there. Nonetheless, I look over and a bear with her two cubs were climbing that hill like it was nothing. In the afternoon, I had a 2:30 trip of just one boat, but there were three boats that left at 1:30. While I was waiting at the landing site for my boat to land, I helped land the 1:30 boats. I noticed that one boat had all Japanese guests in it. The guide's name was Jess, who I had two trips with the day before, and I asked him how it was. He told me that the one guest who knew a small amount of English told him that they didn't understand a word he said, so he didn't need to talk. He said it was one of the easiest trips he had ever done.

Yesterday, I also made the hike to the meal site to help set up. Although I did not see any bears, I did get another great burger out of it. I also saw plenty of muskrats around, which are not pretty animals. On my way back, I also saw about 6 turkey vultures surrounding an area about 75 feet from me. Even though I didn't walk over, I knew something had to have been dead for them to be around. A few minutes before my boat was supposed to land, I went down to the river to watch for them. While I was skipping rocks, I heard a big splash just below me in the water. I looked down and a river otter poked his head up and looked at me. I didn't move or make a sound, but it didn't take him long to go back down and never to have been seen again by me.

Today, I had an interesting day. I was scheduled to make only one trip, which was at 1:30 and have four boats of ten guests each. All I had to do was take my boat and guests down to the launching site, launch the boat and help the guests into the boat. Then I would drive to the landing site and help the guests unload and then load the boat. However, I did not know that we already had four boats in the water before my trip's four boats went in. We also only have six vans. What this meant was that two drivers were supposed to drive back to the lodge, drop the trailer they had, pick up the trailer for the other boats and drive to the farthest landing site we have. My boss radioed to the guides we would be picking up, and they said they could land within 45 minutes. Since it would take us 40 minutes to make the drive, we would have enough time to pick up those boats, come back to the lodge and get our original trailers to pick up our original trip. However, that 45 minutes it was supposed to take the guides took an hour and fifteen minutes. Fortunately, we had two vans come back in the meantime, who were able to take our original trailers and pick up our original trips.

I have definitely been able to experience the float crew as a fraternity. I have really hung out with them the last two nights. Tonight, our boss had a BBQ at his house, so I crawled into a guides Durango with seven other people for an hour and fifteen minutes to his house. It was definitely cramped inside that car; however, the party definitely made up for it. We left at 5:45 and didn't get back til 11:30. All we did was eat, drink, and hang out. Not such a bad time for being at your boss's house. Tomorrow, I have a different schedule. I get the morning off, but work til late. I'll start work at 1:00 and will work until 9:30 at the earliest. All in all, it's not such a bad job at all, and for some reason all the female employees are really impressed with people that work on the float crew. I'm sorry this is so long and if I bored you.

Take Care,
Adam Conrad