Day #71: Alaskans Don't Believe in Switchbacks

Josiah and I hiked Mt. Juneau today. Correction: we didn't hike Mt. Juneau, we CLIMBED it. It rises 3500 feet in 2 miles, and literally goes straight up the side of the mountain. When asked, Alaskans will say "what do you mean there are no switchbacks?" This was easily the most taxing hike I've ever committed to, but it was also the most rewarding. (For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, check out the video I took from the summit that I posted on my wall... absolutely incredible.) The 360 view from the top was a humbling reminder of how small I am in relationship to this great wide world, and of how great this northern land really is. It is interesting, though, how much an extremely physically demanding hike straight up a mountain can intensify the feeling of utter beauty when one reaches the summit. I felt transformed.

As we made our way back into town, I realized how much it felt like a lifetime ago that we had started this trail to the top. Standing on the top of that mountain, Alaska spread out before me in the infinite bliss of wildlife, glacier blue seas, and rugged snow-capped mountains as far as the eye can see, I felt indescribable. Some combination of invincible and defeated, alive and spiritual, utterly alone and yet one with the rest of the planet. If every day could be spent like this, I would be completely happy.

Day #70: A World of Ups and Downs

I realize that my life is a roller coaster. Sometimes I am up, sometimes I am down, and sometimes (though they seem to be more rare than anything) I am just in between. A lot of days these are extremes - I am really high or really low. Our society seems to put a negative emphasis on people who aren't as stable emotionally, and I don't doubt that an emotional stasis might be more healthy on some levels; but the more I learn about the breadth of the human condition, the more I tell myself just to accept it. I am who I am because I am an all or nothing person; this applies to everything from my friendships to hobbies, from emotional levels to tastes and aversions. I may as well love myself for the unimportant character "flaws" I possess. That being said, I can control myself, but I obviously can't control others, so when my close friends around me look down on me for me for these up and down roller coaster emotions, it's really hard for me to feel great about loving myself in spite of their disapproval. I'm trying to stay true to myself without stepping on any toes. So not only am I learning a lot about myself here in Alaska, I'm learning a lot about relationships with others and how those change with changing environments.

This brings me to something I heard Debs say the other day that I can't get out of my head. She said she has learned a lot over the last year about staying constant - what she meant was figuring out how to remain true to yourself when the world around you or the environments you put yourself in are changing. I think about my journey to this point in my life and I wonder how well I have accomplished this. On a surface level, when I came here, nothing changed. I still like to spend time outdoors, travel, adventure into things that might be slightly beyond my comfort zone; but on a deeper, more emotional level, am I the same? I think there is more behind this question than I even understand at this moment, and it makes me wonder what secrets of life I might stumble across next.

Needless to say, I am feeling better, though work has become monotonous and more of a chore than fun anymore. I will start my countdown, because I am really looking forward to the SUN and to travelling with that special someone, but I'm also going to cherish these last 4 weeks and 2 days before I go home. Anything is possible, and I am blessed to have a way to fund my travels, so I will wear a smile on my face and enjoy each remaining second in this beautiful land that is the great northern state. Alaska has been wonderful to me.

(Side note. Dumbest tourist question ever: where can I buy postcards in town?)

Day #66: Hopelessness Blues

Flood warnings. Swollen rivers and lakes. A brown Gastineau Channel. Six inches of rain in four days? Well it's not like we had a choice.

I love Juneau. I have loved my time here and the friends I have made. But now it's really just stale bread, and I can't digest it much longer. It'll be moldy soon; then I'll be forced to hang on to something that has potential to leave a sour taste in my mouth for quite some time...

Yesterday turned out to be okay. None of the tourists want anything to do with the rain; it's like they didn't associate Alaska with wet, crappy weather. Really? I did one tour with full stage time (I sat around for 3 hours waiting for the group to get back from whale watching) which is really just long enough for me to sit in the bus in the rain and think about how much I miss home. Today I woke my butt up to do one quick transfer - 3.5 hours of work. I'm done, I'm tired, I feel broken. I have this horrible pit in my stomach thinking about how Daniel has been completely MIA for almost 5 days now. Most of all though, I resent the photos of my friends climbing in cool places, in the SUNSHINE. My heart has grabbed onto the idea of my travels this fall and now I can't get it out of my head. I want it to be now.

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. :)

Day #60: Weather on the Fritz

So yesterday was a beautiful day - actually, the first cloudless day since I have been here. I was in a small vehicle and had a mine tour followed by a deluxe, which is a 5 hour tour and nothing to get excited about. My groups were both happy, though somewhat asleep, and tipped me well. When I got off work, Nick texted me wondering if I wanted to take the road out to North Douglas, so we hopped on his scooter that is way too small for 2 people and headed up there. Of course, Nick had more energy than anyone should ever have, so he was wired and making all sorts of awesome sound effects and noises throughout this journey. But the sunset was glorious, and since neither of us had been up there, we got a whole new perspective of the valley. From one of the beaches you can see across the channel to the Mendenhall Glacier. We took the road all the way up to the sign that says "end" and I started to feel almost claustrophobic; being unable to leave easily is one of the things that really turns me off to the prospect of ever living year round in Juneau. I realized that I need the freedom to move about with a car in order to stay healthy mentally, though this 3 month period will be just fine.

Today the rain came back - it poured most of the day which usually puts the tourists in a less excited state. That being said, my day was relatively uneventful except for the fact that I was able to go grocery shopping for the first time in a couple of weeks today. The result is that I will only spend half a fortune on food instead of a full one because now I have food for all of my meals throughout the day. I made myself dinner here at the hotel for the first time in over a month, and it was the first meal I hadn't bought out in 2 weeks. I had time to get food because I had enough time between my duties, one of which was another mine tour. I hope that I don't have to do another one of those for a while - they are super boring and don't usually turn up any tips. Tomorrow should be a long day, and hopefully one with some good tours. Hope you all are well, another update soon...

Day #59: Back to the Grind

Daniel left this afternoon, while I was at work. We had a wonderful week, and I was pretty sad to see him leave, but I am also excited to get back to the grind to build my monetary cushion for our travels together this fall. We were quite busy, so here's the quick update:

Monday: I worked, Daniel slept in, and I was able to get him on a canoe tour in which he canoed out to the glacier in a giant canoe. He really enjoyed it.

Tuesday: I requested a couple of tours that Daniel could ride along on, so in the morning we visited the Rainforest Gardens & then got lunch while all of my guests were at the glacier. Then in the afternoon I was able to get him on a whale watching tour. He loved both of these tours.

Wednesday: I had a tedious 14 hour day, after which I met up with Daniel and cried in his arms about some horribly rude guests. I won't go into detail about what they did, but I was really glad to have him there to comfort me. He is so good to me. We ended the evening by meeting Pat out at the bar for his birthday where I promptly bought him a drink then excused ourselves for bed time because we were so exhausted.

Thursday: At this point we were both spent. Thursday was spent watching movies and being lazy. I'm pretty sure we only left the hotel room once and that was really just to go downstairs in the hotel for dinner.

Friday: Friday was the highlight for sure. In the morning, we took a walk out to the flume between Mt. Roberts & Mt. Juneau just to get out of the hotel room. We weren't sure yet if a tour was going to happen. Well everything came through beautifully and we wound up getting on the Taku Lodge tour - they take you up in a float plane out across from the hole-in-the-wall glacier to the historic Taku Lodge. There they feed you a deliciously fresh salmon dinner (salmon roasted on the grill outside as well as steamed apples with cranberries, baked beans, freshly made biscuits, cole slaw, and fresh bread) and then take you on a brief nature walk around the grounds of the lodge. The history of the place was incredible, and the wildlife was awesome - there were two guys who pretty much get paid to chase bears away from the grill and into the trees! After they were done cooking the salmon, they let the bears lick the juices off the grill, and we got a great view of them up close (from inside of course).

This week with Daniel was a highlight of my summer - and he said the same thing. I think he really enjoyed Alaska (possibly a lot more than he thought he would). Something about the ruggedness and the lack of fluff here really inspired something wonderful inside of him; something is alive now that makes him desire to live completely without luxury. I am with him on that. We both really enjoyed our time together, though we both were anxious to get back to our summer plans and finish what we started. Talks about this fall continue in the direction they've always been. For now, I am going to work really hard for the rest of the summer and save up as much money as possible in order to live as cheaply as possible while travelling come October.

Missing you all but keepin' on truckin'.

Day #54: Daniel is Inspired by AK!

Yesterday was a late start due to the fact that I got called into work, on one of my days off, to run on shuttle for 2 hours. Daniel rode with me and got really bored (understandably). By the time I was relieved it was too late in the day to comp anything, and the one tour we made it onto we got bumped from again. So we borrowed my friend Nick's scooter (it is slightly scary driving 40 on a 55 mph freeway) and went out to the west glacier trail and hiked out to the glacier and the ice cave. Daniel was psyched - he kept saying how this was easily the coolest place he's ever been. I'm continuing to tease him because he wasn't very excited to come here in the first place (only excited to see me) but now I think he finally understands the draw and the beauty of Alaska.

Today I have to work a full day, but unfortunately it's nothing to get excited about. Hopefully I'll be off early enough to get to climb with Daniel after work! I'll have to work tomorrow and Wednesday as well; maybe they'll be nice with my schedule. Thursday and Friday I will have off as well to hopefully get on a heli with Daniel before he heads home on Saturday. Then it is only a month until I'll go home and head out on my journey with him! Hooray!