Coin Purse

As I stand at the visitor center desk, which includes the cash register for the Devils Tower Natural History Assoc. bookstore, I have had the opportunity to observe thousands of people pay for merchandise. It amazes me the complexity some people put into as simple of a task as paying for a book. First of all, the amount of people who still pay with cash amazes me. To be fair, a high percentage of people who have visited the bookstore lately are old. Old people use cash much more than do younger people, likely due to the relatively recent explosion in the use of credit cards. The old people also amaze me in their use of a device I though surely went out with the passing of the age of 9. This device is the coin purse. I've seen all manner of coin purses (I'm strictly talking about a small container made to hold coins here, mind you). My favorite style is one made of leather in a spiral pattern that collapses down on coins laid flatly in its center. Now, old people have been around for a long time. They've probably learned a thing or two in their day. I think they may be on to something in their use of coin purses. Personally I just keep coins in my pocket for a day and then throw them on my dresser that night before bed. I never put them back in my pocket to use the following day. I've probably lost dollars upon dollars because I lose the coins or put them in a receptacle with the never-accomplished goal of exchanging them at the bank.

Save Me

My inner parent keeps whispering in my ear, "get a real job this winter." To satisfy the voice, though I am still giving my all to ignore it, I am taking a break from filling out NPS applications for winter positions in the desert Southwest. I'm pulling for Death Valley. I want to establish a trend of working at the parks with the most morbid names.

In a decidedly non-morbid announcement, check out the blog of the coolest, smartest, Jew I know...Smurf This.

The regularity of my blogging seems to follow a general pattern - When I move somewhere new, I have lots of time on my hands and I blog with some frequency. As my tenure at any given location continues, my time is increasingly occupied by the various things one does as the socially awkward phase of meeting people transitions to that of membership in a community. While this has happened as the summer has progressed, the departure of many of the seasonal employees at the Tower has given me some more free time. The problem is, my internet access is provided by an open wireless connection at a local tourist trap. The catch is that you have to sit outside on picnic tables where the deer and antelope quite literally play. As the equinox approaches I have found myself on various occasions, checking my email in the dark with a hat a gloves on. The cold, darkness, and be-gloved hands have combined to zap what were good intentions to blog. Never fear though, I will be making a move somewhere new in the next couple months, so my blogging frequency should increase. I still have no clear place to go. So I will do what I normally do...get in my truck and drive around the west pretending I have the money to be unemployed until I get something figured out. Yellowstone is on the docket of travel destinations, hopefully for a week, and hopefully with a lot of fishing involved.

As for other travelers, I have to give a shout out to three cool cats who have initiated blogs to document their travels - My bro heading for the southern-most tip of S. America, his intrepid and eloquent girlfriend researching an MA thesis in Guatemala, and my bro's former roommate, mutual friend, and all around good chap learning to speak the local lingo in Taiwan. Oh to be young again.