Week#9 (11/10/2024): Why I stay 3 months. . .

Why do I stay 3 months?  I visit a specific national park as a volunteer to hopefully make a difference and leave an impact of some sort.  I also visit the park, one I have never been to previously, to learn more about that park.  How did it come to be, what is its history, why does it remain important?  All questions I try to answer through my time there.  One month is too short to even get to this level.  Two months doesn’t provide enough time to become familiar with the visitors and why they visit.  Three months, while likely not enough in the big picture, gives me time to gain enough history to say I am at least familiar with the important aspects of this park.  As most of you know I came to work with the Research Library, an area I knew nothing about.  I was also granted an opportunity to work with Interpretation and spend 1-2 days each week at the Welcome Center to answer visitor questions.  Because of them I will achieve my 3-month goal and answer the questions I try to answer everywhere I go.  Add to that my time working in the Research Library with a librarian that I think knows absolutely everything about Yosemite means I have an even deeper knowledge of the park history than I anticipated having at the end of my time here. These three months will be worth every day of it!  Staying longer – – – no.  I miss home, my family, and puppies too much to stay longer!  But my 3 months here will go down as some of my best memories.

This week began with another furniture move.  We completed emptying the card catalog cabinet last week and came in Monday ready to move the cabinet out of the museum library.  You’ll recall in prior pictures the card catalog cabinet is not small!  

Thanks to the help of Eric Nelson and Erik Westerlund, as well as volunteer Elizabeth Schwartz, it was successfully moved out of the library.  It was not an easy task.  THANKS TO ALL!

Here is the video of the cabinet move down the 2nd flight of stairs if you are so inclined to watch:  IMG_3955

And then it was done.  Here is Elizabeth striking a pose with the cabinet and all 7 boxes of drawers successfully moved to outside the museum.

So, with this move completed our next step was to look to our next priority.  MORE FILING CABINETS!  The last two file cabinets have 4 drawers full of documents that must be sorted (which means following through a flowchart to determine if they should be catalogued, scanned, duplicated, or discarded) to reset priorities.  

NOTE:  The word of the week is “ephemera” and I didn’t know what that meant until now.  Ephemera in a library is a term for small, printed items that are intended to be discarded after a short time (which can be pamphlets, flyers, letters, etc.).  It took us a full 3 days to get through these drawers and properly file, scan and/or discard them.  

I am so excited for you to see how good things look now that we have accomplished so much.  There is still more to go but we will definitely get these cabinets out this week.

 

We also received a personal tour of the Ranger’s Club.  Click here for more information from the NPS website.

What a great side tour.  All a part of learning more about the park! By the way, there is a sequoia tree in front of the Rangers Club that was planted the year it was built . . . 1920.  It still stands today!

Tuesday was my day at the Welcome Center.  The crowds are still here but certainly not to the same levels as in the summer.  The waterfalls are mostly dry now and the roads to the higher locations are beginning to close more often as the weather turns colder.  Snow has come several times up on Glacier Point and Tuolumne Meadows.  No one wants to be driving those roads when it is cold and icy.  

Wednesday and Thursday were spent working hard to file away or discard all that paper.  VIP (Volunteer-In-Park) Laura dug her heels in deep to work on this and taught me so much about how to determine what these things were and where they should go (file, scan or trash).  We also had more training on how to look up on various resources to determine if these items were already online.  With her help I got into the groove and between us we made our way through these files.  VIP Elizabeth continued her work on our technical side and VIP Madeline made her way through cataloguing more of our books awaiting input into circulation.  We really are a great working team of VIPs!

Fridays are our day off.  This past Friday Laura made her way to Glacier Park and did the Taft Point hike.  Here’s a video of the view from 8,000 ft . . . Taft Point.  Another great hiking point is Hetch Hetchy. Thanks to Madeline, here’s a video of their time there:  Hetch Hetchy Laura & Madeline – Nov 3, 2024.  Happy Hiking via my friends and their videos!  

Saturday was a half day at the Welcome Center and then Madeline, Laura and I attended the cell phone camera class at the Ansel Adams Gallery.  Our instructor, Derek, was terrific and taught us so much about our phones and their cameras.  Definitely suggest taking this class if you are ever here at Yosemite!  Look at the video Madeline put together about this and a few pictures I took.  Click for video: Ansel Adams Smartphone Photography – Nov 9, 2024

It’s been an eventful week.  And coming up this week are some guests arriving as watercolor paining (taught by our very own artist, VIP Laura!)

On a very personal note, today is the 2nd anniversary of my brother’s passing.  He was a terrific big brother and the biggest jokester you ever met.  I will never forget that laugh of his that came from deep in his core.  I could not have asked for a better brother and I’m grateful for the 73 years we had together and for the times we shared.  Rest in peace Mick.  You are missed!  

Upcoming events include (1)  Friends Cathy Scott and Joan Head coming to visit this week –  November 12-13;  (2) Government Credential Updating in Mariposa the afternoon of 11/12, and  (3) Watercolor class on Friday, 11/15 with VIP Laura.

Please forgive all errors, take care of yourselves, stay safe and blessings to all.

Hugs, Mara