Day #36: Daily Shenanigans

So it's been a busy couple of days! Tuesday was a 14 hour day, with my biggest tip tour yet. I learned a lesson that day to not judge a group preemptively after I assumed they wouldn't tip me at all; they gave me the biggest tip on a tour I've gotten since I've been here (and now I know that all groups sheould be treated the same!). Yesterday was a hectic day - I had three of the exact same tours, but they intertwined, so I had to keep lists of what I told each group so I wouldn't wind up repeating myself. On this day I learned to solidify my tour and do everything I can to not repeat myself. Now let me just say that doing 3 of the same exact tours back to back for 11 hours is very exhausting - by my last return trip I was so pooped I couldn't wait to go home. But this group turned out to be great; I had some new folks who'd been driven out by a different driver and so I decided to play Alaska/Juneau trivia with them, and they LOVED it. They gave me the energy for the last push back into town. What a hoot, these people were partying! They also gave me a round of applause for a very tight turn and treated me well. :)

Today was a day off, and it was a great day!! This morning I woke up early to meet my friend Pat for a hike - we hiked up the Perseverance Trail which used to be the access road into the Alaska-Juneau Mine. It was a giant system of trails, most of which we hiked, and then at the end of the last trail we continued on even further (bush whacking, true Alaska style) where we found some old mine ruins. We found a giant caved in building, some mine shafts and tunnels. I'd say we walked a good 10 miles today, which felt great, and luckily the weather was beautiful (clear and 80!). Spending the morning under big blue sunny Alaskan skies was an absolute dream come true. I decided that when Daniel gets here we are going to hike the 3 mile, extremely treacherous, intensely strenuous Blackerbee Trail up to the Juneau Icefield. I'm pretty sure he'd love it. The trails here are awesome - they all have so many great views and tons of history.

After I got home from my hike with Pat I took a nap, but we heard that Mendenhall Lake was flooded, so Alyssa and I went up to the glacier with Sean, Nick S & Nick H. Turns out, a reservoir of water on top of the glacier had been let loose when its dam broke free, and due to this breakage the lake where the glacier lets up is now 8 feet higher. It's supposed to level itself out over the next several days but until then you can only walk a small fraction of the way out to the glacier. So we goofed around out there for a bit, took some photos, then headed back out the channel to do some fishing. We found one of the creeks where the salmon run and many of my friends were able to catch them with their bare hands!! It was quite the sight - tons of salmon everywhere in the river and lots of eagles just chillin, waiting for dinner. We had many laughs, gave a random drunk guy a ride back into town, then headed up into the valley for some late night McFlurries from McD's. It was a great day.

Tomorrow I have one tour and a quick transfer, and I'm only scheduled to work for about 6 hours. I'm looking forward to sleeping in, going for a walk around town, and having a great afternoon of driving a bus. All the while I'm going to be dreaming about how Daniel will be here in 2 weeks - I can't wait, we're going to have such a blast!