June 2 - Getting The Hang Of Ft. Pulaski

Park Headquarters where we get our mail
& process our paperwork

This morning Bill was to get up at 5:45 to shower and go have breakfast with our neighbors over at the Coast Guard station at 6:30. The alarm didn’t go off but I woke him up at 6:05 and he was ready in time.  He was disappointed the guys were not having breakfast with them.  He said there was only the cook and the guy cleaning up. He did enjoy his French toast, ham and sausage for $2.30.  Well we put on our other set of volunteer shirts and our other pairs of khaki pants, actually Bill wears shorts and I wear capris, and headed to work at about 8:20 today.  Ron is off 3 days so we were under the supervision of Patty today.  I guess she was not aware of what Bill and I were doing as she took off to the Entrance Station and left me without a word.  So I went on up and asked why she left me.  She said she didn’t know I was to be there but I found that off as she knew we were new VIPs since she’s the one who signed out our shirts to us and knew we were there to be trained but she didn’t bother to check the schedule.  So she figured out pretty quickly that I had the entrance job down already and left me there about an hour while she went back to the VC for a couple of things. Then since one of the VIPs had a family illness and left town today they were short in the VC so Patty sent me back to cover the registers.  Bill is learning the pass one but not the bookstore one.  He was able to go on a fort tour and learn more info this morning but after that he was the only person working the VC and at one point it was just he and I for an hour or so.  Imagine leaving two people with just 8 hours training each to be in charge.  We did fine!  Bill got more talkative with visitors after his tour as he is reading lots of material and picking up more info from the rangers, etc. I am content to chat with the visitors and tell them what is going on at the fort and leave the historical stuff to Bill.

We had an early lunch at 11:30 due to the short staff and getting everyone covered for lunch. We both worked the VC the rest of the day and will be in there again tomorrow. I was a bit bummed as Ron had figured I would be out that all day today so I packed the laptop to take and use the DSL during the slow times and get my blogs posted and emails caught up. Instead, for the time I was alone out there I cleaned all the dead bugs out of the windows, swept the floor, wiped down the counters and cobwebs and asked the maintenance guy for some WD40 and a screwdriver to fix the sliding window. He came back with some eco friendly lubricant and sprayed the window for me and tightened the screws in it as all the tugging to slide it was loosening the handle. It moves much better now. Geez, all these college graduates that sit out there all day fighting that dumb window and no one has a clue. Ranger Patty was pretty impressed with it when she worked out there after I left. I think I would have been happier on maintenance but they start at 7 each day.

I have enjoyed talking to people from all over. Met some from AZ today and quite a few Polish come because Vladimir Pulaski is a Polish hero so they come and ask about his death and monument, but those things are all in Savannah, not at the fort. Bill gets to talking too much with one set of people and doesn’t watch for new visitors and got some of the video running late. He had some time to read more info and brought home a book about the fort tonight. He read it once and said he’s going to read it again. I will be so sick of hearing statistics on the fort, the war, the cannons, etc.

We had our leftovers tonight with a salad and then I dropped Bill and Xena off at the maintenance building to dispose of our recyclables and then to walk back.  I went to a Weight Watchers meeting on Wilmington Island, then to the Kroger store.  It’s a really nice Kroger store, reminds me of a Publix.  Then I head to Wal-Mart to pick up Bill’s prescriptions.  I was supposed to go my Walgreens to pick up my Europe photos but thought the store was on a different road and by the time I realized which road I didn’t feel like backtracking.  I was really tired.  So went home and put the groceries away and made us a strawberry shortcake and tried to so some of my journal.