May 24, 2023

Today is another very busy day.  It all starts at 10:00AM as we have a New Employee Orientation to attend at the Visitor’s Center.  We finished up around 12:30PM.  The Rangers pitched in and bought pizza and soda for lunch.  It hit the spot.  Afterwards, Nancy, Carla, and Karen stuck around for a class on the computer system that they will use when they work the gate on weekends.  While Nancy was in her class I ran to the grocery store.

The back story is that among the hosts we usually talk a lot about food.  I had mentioned about smoking a pork shoulder and they all thought it would be a good idea.  One day last week when Nancy was grocery shopping she found a deal on pork shoulders.  Buy one get one.  So it was a great deal.  She came home with two shoulders  each weighing about 8 pounds.  Having previous experience smoking at high altitude, I knew it was going to be 14 hours, at least.  So I started the smoke first thing yesterday and completed it and pulled it by 02:30AM this morning.  The nice thing is that pulled pork reheats very well.  I was pleased with the results.  So tonight we are hosting a dinner for the anyone from the park who wants to attend.  So my grocery trip was for supplies for tonight.

The initial idea was to have the dinner hosted at our site so we could have a campfire.  But again it was supposed to rain so we moved it to a room at Camper Services.  We supplied pulled pork, buns, cole slaw, and my Boston Baked Beans.  Carla and Angel brought a Boston Cream Cake.  The hosts showed and a couple of the rangers had other commitments and could not attend.  Jasmine, Patrick and Desiree did show up.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and we definitely had a good time talking.  The dessert was perfect after a heavy dinner.  It was nice and light and just the right sweetness.