There was a memo, I think right after you left, that Einar Johnson signed that there was some cyclic maintenance money offered for historic structures. Einar wrote back that we hadn’t any historic buildings, even thought the lodge qualified from the fifty year rule. So it was his perception they weren’t?
Right, we were very much aware the lodge at Oregon Caves definitely was a historic structure of some magnitude, beautiful old place.
I wanted to ask you about the Caves. Did you get much time there?
Whenever there was a problem we would go over. We kept quite an involvement with them, partially due to the isolation of it, but again I would come over for staff meetings and budget meetings.
The staff was numbered five?
Usually three to five. I assume it is the same as the concessionaire ran the guide service. We went through a planning process there, and wanted to have a holding area at the bottom of the hill…
Okay, I was going to ask you about that.
A signaling system so that we knew when the parking lot was filled; it would automatically change.
Was the shuttle idea…?
I don’t recall us talking about shuttle, I think we were talking more of controlling the access.
[Bill] Well, we did talk about the shuttle a little bit because we kept trying to figure out whether we should give a program on the bus on the way up there. The bus would have a little video screen or something or other and the interpreter would talk to them on the way up, but that was just one of the considerations.
That’s right, I remember now the video screen thing came up when we had our conference in Great Smokies and they put us on buses. They had one of these screens up there while we went up over the Smokies. It was like a VCR-type thing; the guy plugged us in and gave us the tour while we went over the hill; it was great. I have never seen it done in the park anywhere else.
[Bill] no, I hadn’t either. They did have the same thing when I was out in Orlando when we went out to Kennedy. They had three screens one at the front, one at the left side for the middle group, and one at the right side at the rear for the people in the back. The guide just said and now we have a thirty minute orientation tape and he plugged it in.
I think it is a great idea.
