The farewell party for Mike Tollefson, Yosemite’s Superintendent for the last 6 years, is this weekend. It’s going to be a big party with live music by the Adam Burns Band, dinner, and the works. Cher helped put together a slide show that DNC CEO Dan Jensen will give there, which finishes with some pretty fun images of Mike dancing – which is his other great passion. I’d like to see it. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to make the party, but I will still miss Mike’s leadership, and more personally just his easy friendliness. Talking to Mike never really felt like rubbing elbows with a VIP, but more like having a regular conversation with someone who loved Yosemite, and meeting people. I’m sure that was the key to his strong public support as Superintendent, and that it will continue to serve him well as President of the Yosemite Fund. When I spoke to him the other day, he said that he was nervous and excited about his new role, which is only right, and I love that even though he has a new apartment in SF, that role keeps him close to Yosemite.

I missed a chance to meet the new Interim Superintendent, Dave Uberuaga (YOU burr AH gah), at the DNC Senior Manager Meeting last week, so I’m still nervous about the new leadership. He comes to Yosemite from Mt. Rainier after 24 years in the National Park Service, and I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but could he be even close to as personable and personally engaged as Mike? Will he love Yosemite the way that Mike does? I guess only time will tell. He’s got big shoes to fill, that’s for sure.

This was the scene driving in to work this morning, and I had to pull over and get a quick picture. With the warm temperatures, the falls are flowing and in the morning the spray is lit with rainbow colors. It’s just a matter of finding the right angle. This picture was taken around 8:15am from the Sentinel Bridge pull-out.

Bracebridge Dinner is done for this year, but I already have ideas and plans for next year. Although I’ve lived in Yosemite for 5 years now, this is my first real experience with Bracebridge Dinner.

Why this year? First, bracebridgedinners.com put up some video of the performances on their site. Visit. I can’t describe it to you, and neither can anyone else that I’ve managed to read, although many people try. Although I’ve been staring at the pictures and reading descriptions for years, there’s something about Bracebridge that you just don’t seem to capture with static images. I was surprised at the music, although I knew there was music, and the beautiful costumes, although I’d seen many pictures of the beautiful costumes. They are so much more stunning when they are alive and in motion.

Then, I randomly kept talking to people who are completely passionate about the event. They cry and laugh during the performance, they become radiant if you simply bring up the subject of Bracebridge, and they return year after year to experience it again. Why? I had to find out, so I decided that I needed to see the event for myself. Being the relatively stingy and poor person that I am, $375 just seemed like too much money for one dinner, so I decided to volunteer to be part of the performance. Locals are invited to dress up in costume and play the role of hosts/hostesses, or forest folk, or litter bearers (although there is a height requirement for that last one, that I definitely do not qualify for). Unfortunately, my decision was made at the last minute. Martha was very gracious, and worked hard to squeeze me in.

But, as it turned out, I didn’t need to volunteer. Brian, the amazing boss that he is, contrived to take the Marketing Team to the event. Does that bring me to 487 reasons I love my job?

I had been warned that people dress up for Bracebridge, so I wore my nicest dress, but was still shocked at the elegance in the Great Lounge that evening. Tuxedos and top hats, floor length ball gowns. It was amazing. There were several of us who had never been to Bracebridge before, and I think the more experienced among us enjoyed experiencing it through fresh eyes. Apparently, several of my table-mates got a good laugh at the shocked expression on my face during one part – which I enjoyed so much that I had tears in my eyes.

So, what is it? It’s Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, based on the Washington Irving sketchbook of the same name. I probably hold ‘historic’ and ‘tradition’ in less high regard than I should, but there is a reason this performance has lasted through the decades the way that it has. Andrea Fulton, the producer and director of, and actor in the Bracebridge Dinner performance has worked hard to make the dinner in some ways contemporary and fresh, while still holding on to the Bracebridge tradition begun with the first performance way back in 1927, when The Ahwahnee was first completed.

During the course of the evening you become privy to the relationships and colorful characters who attend or visit Squire Bracebridge for the evening. I wish I could tell you which one was my favorite, but I enjoyed all of them so much the decision is too hard. We were serenaded or otherwise entertained at our table by the actors/singers several times. The intensity of the music becomes physical – vibrating in your chest. The food is superb – the menu designed by The Ahwahnee’s talented executive chef, Percy Whatley.

And next year? Next year I will volunteer far in advance, and I will get dressed up in whatever role they will give me, and I will bring my camera (cameras are forbidden during the performance) to take pictures before and after, and maybe I will become part of the Bracebridge Dinner tradition in my own small way.

The Ahwahnee hosts a number of special events during the off-season. Vintners’ Holidays is the first, and brings top wine-makers from around the country to showcase and give seminars about their wines. The event is capped with a gala dinner in the vast and sweeping Ahwahnee Dining Room, that, as one Vintner remarked is strongly reminiscent of the dining hall in Hogwarts (for you Harry Potter Fans) minus the owls.

And on Nov. 6, Tom and I got to go.

Couldn’t possibly market something that you don’t know, right? That was the previous excuse, but this time, I was selected to sit in front of a video camera because…?  Because I sit in the same cubby room as the guy who makes the decision about who sits in front of the video camera.  Too sweet!

Of course, dress up events aren’t exactly things that Tom and I participate in frequently, so there was a some stress leading up to the day of the dinner.  I borrowed a super cute outfit from my chic neighbor, Josie, right down to the shoes and matching purse.  Tom located the bag with the one suit that he owns, but was chagrined to find, the night of the dinner, that there were no shirts and only one dress shoe in the bag. The left one, I think.  We found a solid colored work shirt that was made passable with a few sweeps of an iron, and made a sheepish phone call to a similar-sized friend for shoes.

Vintners was amazing. Not being a real foodie, just playing one on TV, literally, I don’t have the rich foodie vocabulary to describe what I was tasting in terms of the food or the wine. But, I’ll tell you this much, a few Vintners’ Holidays, and a Chefs’ Holiday under my sleeve and I’ve gotten hard to impress. The presentation, and flavor is hard to beat.

There’s so much to know, about just the wines, or just the food, but there’s also something to be said for just pure enjoyment. In fact, another friend had the pleasure of sitting next to a real connoisseur, and he even recommended against analyzing the wines you really enjoy. Just enjoy them. And so we did. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.

It may not sound like the greatest field-trip destination, but the Mariposa County dump is a fascinating place to visit. People say things like “Americans throw away 1460 pounds of solid trash each year” (Annenberg Foundation) which is a big number but seeing the volume with your own eyes really makes that number something real. And it isn’t just the volume of garbage that is amazing, but the composition of the garbage. I was lucky enough to go on this field trip with the GreenTeam – a group of people in Yosemite working to establish environmentally sound practices within DNC.

While we were at the composting facility, a load of garbage from the NPS dumpsters was deposited in the composting facility. In this pile of trash, in addition to the many garbage bags of trash, we could easily see 2 sleeping bags, 2 tents, and a foam mattress, some looking like they were in pretty good shape. The staff told us that it would be easy for us to go camping with the things they find in the trash in a single day. We speculated that long-distance travelers are simply unburdening themselves of things that they purchase for their Yosemite camping trip, but no longer want to be encumbered with. My co-worker frowns and points out that any homeless shelter would have been happy for donations like that.

In spite of the many recycling bins located throughout Yosemite, we also found plenty of recyclables in the trash. They do the best they can to remove these items prior to composting, but are understaffed, and unfortunately, most of it goes to the landfill instead of the recycling center.
Plastic is everywhere. Composting seems to reduce the volume of the trash by as much as 40 – 50% (based on eye-balling the composting vault that was nearly finished composting), and even after the pre-sort, there is so much plastic remaining in the compost that it goes through a second filtration step and STILL has scraps of plastic, plastic spoons etc. mingled in with what you would think of as compost.

The compost isn’t clean enough to sell, but it is clean enough to be used to cover the landfill – they are required to cover all new garbage with at least 6-inches of material (or a tarp) at the end of the day. Using manure from the Yosemite stables, as well as this plastic-y compost mixed with dirt both reduces their cost in purchasing dirt, and also puts this “waste” material to good use reducing odor and deterring wildlife.

I’ve been proud about our move to biodegradable/compostable materials in the “disposable” items that we have in our F&B units, but visiting the composting facility really made me see how that fits into the trash cycle, and just how much better off we are replacing plastic utensils, cups, packaging etc. with their compostable counterparts.

I’ve bitten the bullet, and ordered out for the CIW Foundations course. That comes with 3 (by all accounts giant) textbooks, practice exams, online teaching aids and a voucher for the exam at the end. From what I understand the Foundations course covers all the internet basics from networking, to mark-up languages to… well I guess I’ll find out.

Once the Foundations course is done, you then have the option of picking a specialty. Time to buckle down and get an education… again.

One of the (many) great things about this job is the emphasis on learning and growing, and I’m loving that part of it especially. For example, Brian is buying this course for me, and has given me a lot of support and leeway on taking it. (He said that I needed to sign some sort of “I won’t get the education and leave right away” agreement before he’d pay for it. I haven’t, but I think we both know deep down that it isn’t really necessary.)

Now I have a double goal for the summer. Get back in shape, and pass the CIW exam. Wish me luck.

Two whole weeks on the road, and I’m finally settling back into the regular world in Yosemite.

The first stop was the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in NYC. The chance to immerse myself in SEM and SEO, learn about what is creating buzz in the industry (like all of the social marketing outlets, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook to name a few) was quite a luxury for someone as new to the field as I am. It gave me a real leg-up in figuring out what was important, and also what is possible, in terms of creating and marketing yourself on the web.

Hanging with the Crew, and exploring NYCs restaurants and bars was a real departure from my normal life, and I discovered pretty quickly that I just really like my sleep. We had a great time though, and I rarely eat so well. This is a picture of Brian after the dinner-sized appetizers and a thick chunk of steak, contemplating the desert tray, during our dinner with iCrossing. He wasn’t alone in being over stuffed, but still tempted by the after dinner treats. Chocolate cake… mmmm.

Even with all that exploration though – there were so many NY things that I didn’t see. Didn’t explore Central Park. Didn’t take the subway (we were expensing the taxi rides, and did a bit of walking). There are many good reasons to go back and check it out again.

When I got to VT, I found out that my niece and her friend had also been in NYC during the time I was there. It’s a quick trip for them from their home, and M’ana is a veteran, so they saw a lot of the city.

VT was great. We did quite a bit of XC skiing. It was a joy to ski the flats and rolling terrain that we don’t have here. The hills are shorter than ours, but brutally steep. In addition to getting to spend some excellent time with Tom’s parents, and all of his siblings and their families, we also managed to sneak in a visit to Aunt Polly, Uncle John and Aunt Barb, Greg B., Jeff B.