Memorial Weekend

Hi all,
 A special thank you to all those who have given their service and more for us.
Ready or not the tourist season is upon us. Training for all the new volunteers and employees completed on Friday. They get an in depth week and a half of training for all the new people, very nice if you haven't done this type of thing before. You get the park history, an explanation of how things are currently run and a complete tour of the park and lodges. As a bonus they also do a tour of Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore.
 Wednesday all persons involved in the park gathered at Crazy Horse for a meeting on customer satisfaction or as Wendy and I call it a pep rally. Pictures also of our recent 5" of the white stuff on May 19th. Lets hope the last!

 

On Thursday we all met at Lake Sylvan Lodge for breakfast and kick off meeting. They told us of many new plans and happenings in the park. We have a new visitor center going in that will open in 2016. It sounded pretty cool as they won't have a counter with people behind it- instead the VC people will be roaming about able to show guest the various displays of the park. There will also be a replica of the Eye of the Needle( famous rock formation along the Needles highway) that they can walk through and a small climbing wall for the kids.
 The old VC will be utilized for naturalist programs.
 Also at the meeting they presented certificates for outstanding customer service from the past year. These are taken from guest evaluation cards that are given or emailed to them after their stays. I was lucky and received my first award. Kinda nice knowing you wowed a guest enough to take the time to recognize you.
 Wendy continues to work on her amazing basketry, she has to replenish her stock after selling nine of them at Betty's Campground. I continue to fish, I have started to dot the calendar to see how much fishing I can get in. I am up to 8 days thus far- pretty rough life huh? I put up a couple bags in the freezer and the other day just gave my catch to a local fella fishing by me.

May have to tell Wendy to start a blog on Basket making.

 I also have some hiking sticks to complete yet when the weather gets better. I saw a guest with some pine sticks that he was fashioning for canes. He had one inscribed as a Viet Nam Vet. As we discussed our common hobby I asked him if he would like to get a couple diamond willow sticks and he was all excited, I took him and he was happy to get a few to work on.