Week 5

Most of the work that we have done this summer including entering recipes and new items in our databases, creating menus, and determining estimated usages for items at our new dining hall has lead up to our meeting with our distributor, FSA, on July 1st. We traveled to the big city of Billings and met with FSA at their headquarters. We even got a tour of the warehouse where we learned more about filling slots, receiving food from vendors, handling the food safely, and the process of shipping it out to end users. We were surprised at the amount of different coolers and freezers that had specific temperature ranges strategic to the food products that were stored within. We walked through many freezers and coolers so we got to wear some fancy VIP jackets! We were easily amused by the men zooming around on the pallet jacks- as they have to fulfill a certain rate of "picks" per hour.

With the opening of the new dining hall fast approaching, the chefs tested the recipes (that we have entered into the databases!) and we got to be the guinea pig tasters. We tried Mongolian grill stirfry with veggies and different sauces. We also tried some duck, salads, and a brie chutney sandwich. We also compared the burger from our previous visit to Garl's beef ranch with our current burger. Garl's grass-fed beef burger took the bun!

It was Paul's birthday over the holiday weekend so we celebrated early in the office with a delicious orange angel food cake with a scrumptious array of fresh fruit and whipped cream from the bakery!

Happy Birthday Paul!

We took a long 4th of July weekend and drove up to Glacier National Park and the wonderful town of Whitefish, MT. We were warmly welcomed into the home of our co-worker, Rose's parents house in Whitefish. They provided a lovely dinner, comfortable beds, great stories, and tips for our trip into Glacier. The first of many activities was whitewater rafting on the Flathead river.

The look of terror on Alyssa's face is deceiving... she was actually loving it!

On the 4th of July, we hiked UP to Big Mountain and had the treat of riding the chairlift down.

We also thought it wouldn't be a 4th of July without a lake so we swam and paddle-boarded in Whitefish lake and jumped in Flathead lake.

The view of Flathead lake from our private property beach... oops.

After a long day of activities in the sun, we wanted nothing more than a clean shower and comfy beds in a hotel room. As we expressed our longing for this lovely night, we drove up and away from civilization and into a smelly pasture of horses, snuggled deep into the forest. A woman greeted us and exclaimed, "we've been waiting for you! You're in the tipi tonight!". We looked at each other in dismay and followed her past their unfriendly bull, Tom Tom, to our humble abode. Indeed, we did sleep in a tipi on the night of the 4th of July. Despite the current dry season and banned fireworks on the 4th, the night we slept under the stars in a tipi exposed to the elements, a downpour blessed us with its presence. Our only fireworks were the lightning strikes from the thunderstorm.

The best part of staying at the Lonesome Dove Ranch was the delicious breakfast in the morning! We chatted with other vacationers in the community dining room and to our surprise, we met a dietetics professor from Texas who has a student also at a NACUFS internship in New Hampshire- shout out to Katelyn Warshaw and Diane Papillion!

The next two days we spent in Glacier National Park. We took advantage of the free shuttle on Going to the Sun road and took in the beautiful mountains. We did many hikes and ignored the sassy mountain goats, whom we are no longer fond of after our Ridge experience.

We have taken Paul's motto, "work hard, play hard, sleep when you go home." VERY seriously.