In the late Spring of 1992, I left Michigan to start a summer job in Yellowstone National Park. I started as the Recreational Supervisor for Mammoth Hot Springs, I worked many hours and my schedule varied almost every day.
As an employee of Mammoth, we had to make reservations at the Dining Hall for what they called "the shakedown" dinner before it would open for the public. We were the Dining Hall's first "customers" for the season. The lady who took my reservation put me at a table with two guys and told me, "you never know you might marry one of them."
I got done with early with work so I headed over and was put at a different table with two other guys. One worked as a RA in my dorm and the other worked in the vending department. We were told that we could only order a different meal each from the menu. Well, the guy from the vending department ordered what I had wanted. He also had gotten to the table first and had his dinner before the rest of us did. He stayed long after his dinner was gone. He talked to his co-worker who came later and I talked to the RA from my dorm.
Two days later, I was working in my office in the employee gym when this cowboy comes in and turns off the light to my office. It turns out this cowboy was the same guy from the "shakedown" dinner, the vending guy. He thought someone had left a light on in a closet, which was my office. We started talking and he asked me if I had seen the park. I had not since I didn't have a car. He then asked me if I wanted to go to Tower Falls. I told him that I would like to go. I also told him that I love "hunting" for waterfalls. We went on our first date later that day to Tower Falls.
That cowboy, vending department employee, was named Jeremy. He was from Montana. If you weren't a supervisor, your name tag had your first name and the state or country you were from, so he was Jeremy Montana. He had a number of people ask him if he was Joe Montana's son. He always laughed about that.
We decided to go backpacking to the 3rd waterfall of the Yellowstone, Knowles Falls in early June. We took a friend John who lived in New Jersey, and we called him New Jersey John. Jeremy was the one in charge as he had lived in the West and was an Eagle Scout. We set out along the Blacktail Deer Creek trail. He decided to go left instead of straight ahead. We ended up on Rescue Creek trail. That day we had rain, snow, and sunshine. We had pronghorns come up very close to watch us eat our lunches. Rescue Creek trail took us to the road that leads into Gardener. Jeremy got me some moleskin as I had blisters from my hiking boots. We then took the Yellowstone River trail to Knowles Falls. We then camped for the night.
The next day, we headed out. I had always had an issue with a pinched nerve in my left shoulder and with wearing a backpack for the first time, it flared up. That and hiking 22 miles the day before didn't help. We sent New Jersy John ahead to take care of some things for my job. Jeremy pretty much took everything from my backpack and put it into his for our trip back out. We got to the trailhead a few hours later than we thought we would get there and were met by a Park Ranger who took us back to Mammoth. New Jersy John had thought a bear had eaten us.
We explored the Park on our days off. Jeremy had been to the Park many times but this was my first time. Jeremy had gotten to see Steamboat Springs erupt when he was younger and that was always a highlight for him. We both enjoyed our visits to Grand Prismatic Springs. Jeremy would always stop at Rustic Falls every time we drove by it, just for me. Artist Point Overlook was a very special place for us as it was the first place we held hands. We also enjoyed exploring Old Faithful/Upper Geyser Basin.
I transferred down to Grant Village in mid-July to become an Assistant to the Personel Director there. While there, I got a bad sinus infection and was taken to the clinic at Lake Village by my co-worker. I was kept there for most of the day and my co-worker had to get back to work. After they figured out I had a sinus infection, I was stuck at Lake. I had met a Recreational Supervisor who worked in Lake and I knew there was a phone in the office, so I called the dorm where Jeremy was living in. He drove down to get me and took me back up to Mammoth with him. He drove me into Livingston to get my prescription the next day. He took care of me while I was sick. I was sick for about a week. Once I started feeling better, Jeremy asked me to marry him.
We drove to Billings to get our rings. On our way back, the head gasket blew on his Datsun. We had to hitch a ride with a truck driver to Big Timber, then we got a ride to Livingston from a guy driving a new RV West. Once we were in Livingston, we were at the McDonalds and Jeremy ran into some cowboys he played pool with, in his hometown of Dillon. They were headed down to Gardiner for a rodeo. They gave us a ride there. Once in Gardiner, we found Jeremy's co-work who was playing Bingo. She gave us a ride back into the Park.
After I went back to work, Jeremy would ride the bus from Mammoth to Grant on Friday evenings. Since the bus didn't run on Sundays, he would have to hitchhike back to Mammoth. He started with a sign that said Park Employee. He did a lot of hiking to get back to Mammoth. The next time he added the word "friendly." Then he added "harmless" to his sign. Each weekend another word was added and by the end, he had a huge sign.
After we left Yellowstone National Park that summer, we were married on November 14, 1992, in Dillon, Montana. We have 4 amazing children, two daughters, and two sons. We got a chance to take our children to Yellowstone in June of 2010 for the first time. They got a chance to visit some of the places that meant something special to us. We were married for almost 21 years. Jeremy passed away on September 15, 2013. He had been a Type 1 Diabetic since he was 6 years old. He injured his neck and needed neck surgery. After that his diabetes became uncontrollable.
This cache is dedicated to my late husband Jeremy and all of the great memories Yellowstone holds for me. I hope that you find great places to visit while in Yellowstone and that you make memories to last a lifetime.
This Virtual will take you to 10 special places. You can do them in any order you want. In order to claim this as a find, you will need to either post a picture at the location as directed for that location or answer a question and send it to me for each location. I would like at least one picture from one of the ten locations. Please don't post answers in your log, as it will be deleted. Also, any pictures that may have information to answer a question may be deleted as well. As for posting a picture, you do not need to have your face in the picture, you can take a picture of your GPS, a trackable or part of your body if you wish.
You NEED to go to all 10 locations. You will need to post pictures from each location or answer the question for that location. Please send your answers to the CO. Please make sure you post at least one picture from one of the locations if you decide to answer the questions instead of posting pictures, before claiming the find or your log will be deleted.
Please note that there is very limited wifi and cell service in Yellowstone, so you may want to print this cache page out before going.
Please stay on on all trails, no off-road/off-trail travel especially at Rustic Falls/Golden Gate Canyon area. Follow all rules set for visitors of Yellowstone National Park. Blacktail Deer Creek Trailhead has limited parking, so a good alternative would be to use the stock pullout across the road at N 44 57.336 W 110 33.593 or the Forces of the Northern Range pullout N 44 57.336 W 110 33.593 (this per the staff at Yellowstone, I'm using their coordinates. If you have better coordinates for either location let me know and I will update this.) Tower Falls is a bonus location, as of writing this, it is closed because of construction. It is scheduled to open in 2021. You do not need to visit Tower Falls to claim credit for this cache.
I want to thank Christy Koehler, Hannah Wilkins, and Evan Hubbard with Yellowstone Visitor Services for their assistance and permission to place this Virtual cache.
Congratulations to etriley4 for earning the FTF!
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019, and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.
UPDATE:6/3/2022- Since the flood in June took out much of the road between Gardiner, Montana and Mammoth Hot Springs, no one can get to Stage #1 right now. So instead of going to Stage #1, please go to the Bonus stage, Tower Falls. Post a picture of you, your GPS or something geocaching related with Tower Falls in the background. The rest of the stages should still be available.