Climb every mountain... ?

(Photo: The Tetons, with Jackson Lake Lodge in the foreground)



It's that time of year again: the time when I have to figure out what I'm gonna do when the ski season's over.

As many of you know, I returned to Bozeman fully intent on making it as a freelance writer. While I am working and getting paid for that to a certain extent, it hasn't been the flag-waving success I'd been hoping for. So, in January I took up my old job waiting tables at Jimmy B's Bar and Grill at the Bridger Bowl Ski Area.

Which has been great. I'm really happy to be back at work there; I had forgotten what an integral part of my social life it was, much like working at Murphy's Irish Pub was for me in Sonoma. Plus, I come home with my pockets filled with cash, and I get to ski for free on a regular basis.

But the ski season doesn't last forever. It lasts until mid-April. After that, they boot us off the hill and we're made to fend for ourselves.

In the past Bridger Bowl has had a Thursday-Sunday summer season in which the mid-mountain lodge is opened to the public as a restaurant and for weddings, but that plan has already been downsized to weddings only for this summer.

That leaves the following choices: a) Crank up the querying a notch and get more freelancing gigs. Which I should be doing anyway, but I'm having way too much fun with skiing and ice climbing. In the summer I'll be having way too much fun with hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking, and kayaking.

So then there's b) Go back to my old summer job at the Pioneer Grill in Grand Teton National Park. There I'll be able to play in the mountains to my heart's content and then some, and make tons of dough for possible international travel after season's end.

It's tempting, isn't it? But what will happen to the fledgling freelance career I've put so much time into building? Will it fly straight out the window? Will I return to Bozeman starting at Square One again?

What to do, what to do...

I suppose I could work in a regular year-round restaurant in Bozeman... but that sounds too much like a real job. Lame!

If you have any advice, I'd love to hear it.

February Ray Update

My Stuart Smalley affirmations seem to have garnered some results, although not necessarily the ones I might have anticipated. For one thing, I'm now working three days a week back at my old job at Bridger Bowl, working at Jimmy B's Bar and Grill. And it's been great — it was like coming home all over again. I had forgotten how much working at a place like that — similar to Murphy's Irish Pub, where I worked in Sonoma — was integral not only as a job, but to my social life. Plus, free skiing!

I was a bit concerned that working at Bridger would distract me from pursuing my writing career, but so far I feel like I'm doing really well with both. The summer may pose a bigger question, when I have to decide if I should work back at Grand Teton. That place is like paradise to me, but I'd end up having to start my writing career pretty much from scratch again when I'd return to Bozeman.

In other news, the rail bike project is moving along like a coal train over Homestake Pass. Slow. It's been really warm lately so I should take advantage of it in our unheated garage, where the workshop is. I think I need old school skateboard wheels, instead of the ones I got for free from World Boards. I may have to go on eBay (scary!). Hopefully I'll be done by the time the snow melts.