Hunting season has begun. 

For the last few mornings I’ve had married couples and groups of men coming to pay for showers.  They have their pickup trucks or RVs pulling a trailer with one or more ATVs on it.  Sometimes they’re wearing fatigues.  Once in a while they’ve forgotten to bring a towel and they need to rent one from us.  I had a man come in this morning asking if we sell underwear!  They also come in to do laundry and they are very dirty.

Rose said that one year there was a large herd of deer foraging in a valley surrounded by mountains.  The hunters gathered and were able to kill the whole herd because the valley didn’t have an easy way for the deer to escape.  It wasn’t even sporting.  Rose says that that valley is now off limits for hunting.

Still, some of these guys are Alaskans and I guess they must need the meat for the winter.  They seem jovial and grateful for a place to get cleaned up.  They are a hopeful lot.  One came in this morning and said, “We haven’t gotten anything all week, but we’re going to give it another week.”  I guess you have to sort of admire someone who will spend a week in the wilds getting dirty, cold and wet and not having anything to show for it, yet still enjoying themselves.  :-\