Yellowstone--The End

Well..I think I will start this post at the end and then go back in time. This may come as a shock to those of you who have only read my blog and not heard from me in person but I have decided to "pack my knives and go"--in the words of Padma Lunchmeat (from Top Chef). For those of you who don't watch Top Chef I'll put it another way: "Erika has left the kitchen." Yes, that is correct...I quit and have come home. I am writing this post from the Edmonds Estate (we got in around noon). I won't go into all the details here of why I quit cuz there are so many...the long and the short of it is that work conditions were pretty bad and stressful and were only going to get worse as we got more short staffed...so the stress and the way the kitchen was run and many other factors combined to make me decide that life was too short and my health was more important. Anyways...these pictures are from my trip home. This is a picture of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone...right by where I worked.

My wonderful mother came out and picked me up and we drove down through Old Faithful on our way out of the park. We saw lots of wildlife...these two guys kept walking around the road and came right by my window...they make a lot of noise.

Anywho...once we got out of the park it was flashbacks to the '88 forest fires. Outside of Missoula there were some forest fires. Look how thick and nasty the smoke is...in the middle is a fire helicopter with the big water bucket underneath...

At this point I really felt like I was basically at home and boy was I happy. I went out and tried something new and had an adventure--it didn't turn out the way I wanted it too, but that's ok. After making my decision to quit and giving my notice (I gave it Saturday) events totally validated my decision and I have no regrets whatsoever. So I am back home and so relieved to be back.
By the way if you want to see the pictures bigger you can just double click them. Also, while I am no longer in Yellowstone I think I will keep my blog around and update it some about events in my life. So you can keep up on my life it you all want to. My parents were able to get my on their flight to Indiana at the end of August...and I will sure blog about my adventures there and any other adventures before that. Thanks to everyone for keeping up with me and for all your support. I do have lots of other pictures and stories from Yellowstone not included on this blog so feel free to ask to see and hear more.