TOURIST QUESTIONS (recieved by email from my Father)

[HawkerHurricane]

TOURIST QUESTIONS

These are questions that people actually asked of Park Rangers around the country. Excerpted from Outside Magazine, May 1995, pp. 120-121.

Grand Canyon National Park:
Was this man-made?
Do you light it up at night?
I bought tickets for the elevator to the bottom -- where is it?
Is the mule train air conditioned?
So where are the faces of the presidents?

Everglades National Park:
Are the alligators real?
Are the baby alligators for sale?
Where are all the rides?
What time does the two o'clock bus leave?

Denali National Park (Alaska):
What time do you feed the bears?
Can you show me where the yeti lives?
How often do you mow the tundra?
How much does Mount McKinley weigh?

Mesa Verde National Park:
Did people build this, or did Indians?
Why did they build the ruins so close to the road?
What did they worship in the kivas -- their own made-up religion?
Do you know of any undiscovered ruins?
Why did the Indians decide to live in Colorado?

Carlsbad Caverns National Park:
How much of the cave is underground?
So what's in the unexplored part of the cave?
Does it ever rain in here?
How many Ping-Pong balls would it take to fill this up?
So what is this -- just a hole in the ground?

Yosemite National Park:
Where are the cages for the animals?
What time do you turn on Yosemite Falls?
Can I get my picture taken with the carving of President Clinton?

Yellowstone National Park:
Does Old Faithful erupt at night?
How do you turn it on?
When does the guy who turns it on get to sleep?
We had no trouble finding the park entrances, but where are the exits?

Park Incidents
Compiled by Debra Shore
Frequent Contributor to Outside

Wildlife
A visitor to Glacier National Park in Montana lost his car keys while attempting to lure a ground squirrel by dangling the keys out in front of the critter. The squirrel grabbed the keys and ran down a hole with them.
The keys were never retrieved, a ranger cited the man for harassment of wildlife, and a locksmith was called to make new car keys.

Putting our Loved Ones at Risk for a Photo
In May of 1994, Tony Moore, 43, of Marietta, Georgia, was gored and seriously injured by a large male bison in Yellowstone, next to the Lake Hotel. Moore and a friend had approached to within 15 feet of the bison to have their pictures taken. While they were standing with their backs to the animal, it charged.
Moore's companion escaped, but Moore received a severe puncture wound in his right thigh and was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Jackson for treatment.

Watching for Falling Rocks
A visitor setting up camp at Lake Eleanor in Yosemite National Park hit herself on the head with a rock while trying to string up her food to protect it from bears.

Requesting Assistance
In 1994, a woman visiting from the Bay Area embarked on a solo hike to the summit of El Capitan in Yosemite. When she became lost and saw a storm brewing, she called 911 from her cellular phone and asked to be rescued. A helicopter found her barely off the trail and one-fourth to half a mile from the top of El Cap. When the helicopter lifted off and the woman saw how close she was to her
summit goal, she asked the crew to set her down on top. When the crew declined, she threatened to sue them for kidnapping.

Caring for the Creatures
A woman, appearing rather distraught, came into the visitor center at Redwood National Park in California to report that she had seen several Irish setters lying along the edge of the highway and she feared they were dead or injured.
Rangers explained to her that these were pieces of redwood bark that had fallen off logging trucks.

Asking for Directions
Darryl Stone, now superintendent at Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, remembered working the entrance station at Yosemite when a woman drove up and asked, "Which way are the geysers?" Ranger Stone directed her to continue 1,000 miles further to Yellowstone and told her there were no geysers at Yosemite. "Yes, there are," she said. "I have a friend who saw them." Stone and the woman went round and round several times before she left, insisting
that there were geysers at Yosemite. Later she wrote a letter to the chief ranger complaining that Stone had refused to provide her with the information she wanted.

Back-Seat Driving, as Always
When an elderly couple stopped to film some bears at Dunraven Pass in Yellowstone, a young bear crawled into their car searching for food. Unable to make the bear leave, the exasperated (but well-dressed) couple drove about 17 miles to the ranger station at Canyon Village with the bear in the back-seat.
When the husband got out to report the incident, the bear hopped over into the front seat so that investigating rangers found the woman in the passenger seat and the bear behind the wheel.

All Tuckered out from our Day Hikes
In 1993 a woman called 911 from the top of Half Dome using her cellular phone.
According to dispatch, she reported: "Well, I'm at the top and I'm really tired." The answering ranger asked if she felt sick. "No," she said, "I'm just really tired and I want my friends to drive to the base and pick me up." The dispatcher explained that she would have to hike down the trail she had ascended. The visitor replied, "But you don't understand, I'm really tired."
What happened next? "It turned out we got really lucky," the ranger said, "her phone battery died."

Taking Mementos Home with Us
Each year visitors to Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona pocket an estimated 12 tons of petrified wood to take home (despite numerous warnings not to take wood and the fact that this criminal violation carries a minimum fine of $275). Some years back, several female foreign visitors, clad only in bikinis, were observed hiding wood in their garments. Another time, rangers received a report that a man had put a large piece of wood in his car. Upon searching his vehicle, they found a 40-pound piece of petrified wood in his
trunk. According to rangers, this visitor said he didn't know how it got there. "My four-year-old son must have put it in there," the man said.

Ever Alert to Terrorism
A group of European visitors came into the Wawona ranger station in Yosemite National Park and said, "Our car is parked at the trail head and it's been blown up by terrorists." Though rangers expressed some doubt, the visitors insisted that a bomb had exploded in their car and that they could see powder residue from the explosives. Investigating rangers indeed found that a door had been torn off and a powder-like substance (pancake flour) was strewn about the car." They were quite embarrassed when we showed them the bear prints," the ranger said.

Ignoring the Sage Advice of Rangers
A camper at Long Pine Key in Everglades National Park decided to take a dip in the lake with her dog despite signs saying "No swimming -- Danger -- Alligators." She swam to an island about 75 yards from the shore, then saw some alligators and refused to swim back. "Didn't you see the signs?" asked the ranger who retrieved her in a canoe. "Sure," she said, "but I didn't think they applied to me."

[Zuni]

1. I love this stuff

The idiocy of the average human being at times is beyond belief

[HawkerHurricane]

2. Remember...

half the people you meet are below average.

[skygazer]

3. Reminds me of things I've seen and heard in Vermont

I lived on a farm that was next to a main route to various tourist areas. When the weather got nice in the spring we always got one or two carloads of people coming to the farm to tell us we had a dead cow in the field. We'd explain that the cow wasn't dead, that they were just enjoying the nice weather and having a nap but usually we ended up having to walk these people out there to prove that the cow was indeed alive. I'm sure the cows appreciated having their naps disturbed.

We also had people asking us where the maple trees were (all around you) and why the leaves weren't pretty colors (because it's not Autumn).

[HawkerHurricane]

4. I'll have to make a list...

of the questions asked me during ship tours.

[Hans Delbrook]

5. And people wonder why Bush won?

It reminds me of the time one my aunts was visiting us and her husband was watching "professional" wrestling. My Mom, who'd never seen it before, asked me, "How do they get all those people in the arena?" She refused to believe me, at first, when I told her that people paid for the privilege. When I finally convinced her I was telling the truth she said, "Those are the people that elected Ronald Reagen."

[HawkerTyphoon]

6. Two more

I actually heard while working the visitor center desk at Old Faithful.

1. Phone caller: "What time is Old Faithful going off next?"
Answer: "3:15 +/- 10 minutes."
Caller: "We won't get there by then! Can you hold it for us?"

2.(Voted best question of the summer at a staff picnic.)

"Where was Old Faithful before they moved it?"

PS --

HH, I was just yanking your chain about not crediting your sources.

[HawkerTyphoon]

7. And one from Petrified Forest NP last winter

"What do you do to the wood turn it to stone?"

Yeah, you saw that one coming.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. True story

I spent the summer of 1985 living in a Tokyo rooming house for foreigners whose residents included a young American couple who were working as models.

One week, they got jobs as extras in an American movie that was being filmed in Japan. They'd come back to the rooming house in the evenings and tell the rest of us how boring it was. But one day, they came back and told us that they'd gotten into a conversation with one of the production assistants who had asked them, "Hey, do you guys want to drive down to Hong Kong with me this weekend?"

[ironflange]

9. I had a summer job once, dressed in a moose suit

This was in Banff National Park, for some reason there weren't a lot of animals around that summer and the tourists were complaining. So, they hired summer students to dress up as animals and stand around by the road so the visitors could get all excited. We were told in no uncertain terms to keep quiet and not let the cat out of the bag.

I was the back end of a moose. One day, as we were standing in the ditch, people's cameras clicking away, a HUGE grizzly bear came charging out of the woods, grabbed my end of the moose, and went to work. Rules, schmules, I thought, and started screaming for help! That's when the bear said, "Shut the hell up, you idiot, you're gonna get us both fired!"

:evilgrin:

[HawkerHurricane]

10. Oh, boo.

I heard it as a story about a zoo.