Carissa, Kirk, & Peter Bangen hiked to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park last Monday.

It was a 17 mi round trip journey, and about 4,800' of altitude gain. Melissa and her friend Jessica spent the day in a less strenuous examination of the valley floor. It was very beautiful and October is a great time of year to visit Yosemite if you want to miss the crowds, as long as you didn't want to see huge waterfalls - they are pretty dry this time of year.

Dressing up is the fun part of the job, I get to bring history alive. Two girls wanted their picture with me after I told them a Bodie story. I don't think that they will forget it very soon.
-Melissa

Wow, time really does go fast. I started my job out at Bodie about 3 weeks ago.
On the 1st I moved out to a little house in Bodie so that I would not have to commute every day. I share it with two other people right now but soon there will be two more. There are three bedrooms, five beds. Right now I have an adorable little room all to myself. But after there are a few more girls, that is suppose to change.
I come home on my “weekends.” Last night I was hoping to get home before everyone ate dinner. Turns out that I did not need to be in a hurry because we did not eat until 9:30pm. Daddy and Kirk were out working and did not want to quit until they were done. I think some of you know how that goes.
I got dressed up for the first time yesterday. It was fun but I found out that I need a few more trappings to be comfortable and all dressed up too. A good thing about it thought is that I did not get hot in that heavy dress even thought it was a nice day. The museum is so cold that it was nice to wear something that I did not need to be wearing a coat with too.
We have a credit card machine out at Bodie, but when I started I did not need to worry about it because it did not work at the museum. On Friday night when Gary, the ranger that I work with the most, came to escort me (or maybe it is all the money) to the office to close out for the day he came in with the credit card machine. I asked him if he knew how to work it and he looked at me and said “You mean you don’t!” I came back with “Well, do you?” “No.” “Oh good, then you can teach me.” (Gary doesn’t like to admit that he knows how to do anything. But he is a nice guy.) The next day around noon he came in and asked me if I had figured out how to run the credit card machine. (One of the other staff members had been in earlier to teach us how to use it.) After he found out that I had managed to run two cards already that day he was relived that he would not end up having to teach me how to use it.
Well, I should quit before this update becomes a book. May every one have a week that is blessed of the Lord.

Nathan has enjoyed batting (He isn't very good at catching yet) while he played tee-ball this year. The first time he hit the ball he ran after it to pick it up.

I got a new automobile. It's a '93 Toyota 4x4 Pickup. 2.4L I4 with 86k mi. Runs pretty good. I drove it home from Sacramento to Bridgeport today.
-kh