Day #65: Waking Up to More Rain

Good morning. I have worked every day since Daniel left, and in those 6 days I have worked 57 hours. I am not complaining - time is rushing past me in a whirlwind making me more and more relieved every day that goes by. Alyssa leaves in 2 weeks. I leave in 5. Holy crap, where has this summer gone?

On Tuesday I drove up and down the mine road 5 times. This is a road that is one lane, for 2 way traffic, with switchbacks, and our company has a specific radio channel dedicated to drivers using this road so that we can always be in communication. Well for whatever reason, I couldn't hear the other driver until we were face to face, wondering where the heck this person came from and which one of us was going to volunteer to back up a large section of road. It was me. I backed up a quarter of a mile with 8 guests on board, but I did so "impressively" because everyone kept saying how impressed they were. Okay, great, I spent the entire rest of the day triple checking the radio so I wouldn't have to do it again. Now the reason I drove up and down this road was to take folks out to a dog camp where they would do some dog mushing and get a tour of Gold Rush Dog Camp, and I got to go along on one of these tours. I don't look excited in the photo because I had no idea there was a photo being taken of me. The best part was when I got to hold 16 day old puppies!

Wednesday was a very interesting day. My first tour went awesome, then I had a second tour that was just basically a shuttle out to the glacier for a hour or so and then back. This group of people had it out for me. First, I had one guy who was on the wrong tour, but was happy about it, so he went out to get his ticket changed and forgot to give me back the ticket. So now I had 28 people sitting on my bus and 27 tickets in my hand, and when I asked everyone if they had given me their tickets everyone said yes. Protocol at this point is to hand out tickets to every person, then collect them again, so Von and I do this. Gentleman remembers his ticket, but even with his ticket this time we only count 26 tickets. Pass them all out again. Recollect, count 26, everyone is confused and a weird mixture of really frustrated and really humored. I go through each row, you gave me yours, you gave me yours, etc. until finally one lady realizes she forgot to give me her comp ticket for 2 the second go around. Woohoo! Success! At this point we are ten minutes late and I've already promised them a little extra time at the glacier, so I hustle them out there - we have a great time. They think I'm funny and interesting, and two older couples up front think I am just the highlight of their vacation. But the story isn't over yet!! We get everyone back on the bus, and I count 27 heads. We wait ten minutes, as company policy states, and no one else shows up. I ask if anyone is missing anyone from their party, everyone says no, and I scratch my head trying to remember who was by himself. Twelve minutes go by past my pickup time and I do a fifth head count just to be sure when one gentleman towards the back says, you counted this one laying down in the back right? Are you kidding me?? I couldn't see this little girl curled up in a seat this whole time. Well by now this group thinks this is just the most hilarious thing, which is wonderful because they could have just as easily been a group of angry impatient tourists. I tell them stories the whole way back in light of our crazy times together, and after they love my send off song they all join me in a round of do-a-dear from the sound of music. That was the first time a group ever sang with me, and it was a great grand finale to the wackiest tour I've ever given.

That night I got off at 915pm after an 11 hour day to get to wake up for a 515 start time to take someone from management to the airport. As you can imagine, I was not psyched on this, but it was nice getting off at 145 having worked 8+ hours already. Last night there was a company barbecue and a softball game against our rival driving company (Alaska Coach Tours). They won, but we all got free food. It was also a going away barbecue for all the folks leaving - there are about 25-30 people leaving in the next 2 weeks (meaning work might start getting crazy here soon). After the barbecue I went out to the Alaskan with some friends from Gastineau Guiding and watched Alyssa perform at open mic night with another one of our driver friends. It was a great night, even Pat came out at the end. Hopefully he will go to breakfast with me this morning. :)