Scared spitless ... but alive!

Everyone knows how amazingly graceful I am ... Also, my family knows what happened when I learned to ride a bike ... (I couldn't steer the stupd thing) Well, two other tour directors, Scott and Diane, decided they were going to rent scooters from the Harley store in Denali. How hard could it be, right?

We went to the bike store, got a brief lesson, and were told that anyone could ride these things. We began on the George Parks Highway toward the park. It was incredibly scary since there were very fast cars, and we were only going 30-40 miles per hour. I was last in line and when I began to turn into the park, I was trying to slow down and turn. My feet touched the ground and my legs flew about, but I kept control of the scooter. It seemed that my scooter had stiff steering and veered to the left.

We went 13 miles into the park, stopping at Savage River, just before public vehicles can't go any further. Mt. McKinley was out and very beautiful during the ride. After we got out of the park, we went toward Cantwell, but didn't find much. We turned around after the McKinely Villages. We then drove back toward the Chalets, drove up the switchbacks toward the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain to the Grand Denali Lodge. Again with the massive curves/turns, braking and accelerating ... not my forte.

It was about 9 p.m. at this point - we started at 5:30 - and we decided to drive up the steep hill to the Crow's Nest restaurant for a wonderful bleu cheese burger. This hill has major speed bumps and ditches that nearly made me bottom out.

We got back on the road around a quarter till 10 p.m. and decided to drive out to a bridge where the train crosses. We went there and drove back. On the way back my scooters balance got worse, and it's actually getting dark here. We had to where our sunglasses for protection, so it was getting hard to see.

After gripping the handles of my scooter for dear life for five hours, I was done. I gladly turned in my key, felt good about overcoming a fear and not becooming a grease spot on the pavement. Celebrate the small victories!

P.S. I have no clue why this is underlining everything!

People are Leaving!

A lot of the tour directors are beginning to go home so they can start school. This makes it hard because it gets me thinking about home. I miss you all very much and I can't wait to see you.

Levi, Wyatt and Chase - I'm sending big hugs and kisses your way! Mwaaa!

My 28th birthday was spent in Denali on the Tundra Wilderness Tour. It was great! I lost count on how many bears I saw. I know it was over a dozen. One of the bears was in a river bed feeding on a caribou carcass. I don't have pictures of it because I could only see it through binoculars.











Don't I look older here? I'm 28 ... closer and closer to the dreaded 30 ...










This caribou got close to the bus. The antlers on this thing were massive and it still had its velvet on.




This is the Sourdough Cabins the tour directors stay at while working in Denali. They have two double beds, a shower that spits water and gets more on the floor of the bathroom that the person in the shower. And the water smells like sulfur. Other than that, they're great. The water is my only complaint there. It's almost like I'm at summer camp when I stay there.

I took a motor coach up to Denali while deadheading to Fairbanks, and on the way we stopped in Talkeetna for a potty break. This is the town the television program Northern Exposure was based off of. The show began taping here, but the actors complained that it was too cold so they moved production down to Roslyn, Wash. It is a tiny, quirky town! They have all kinds of odd festivals that go on including the Moose Dropping, Mountain Momma and Wilderness Woman festivals to name a few. (I tried uploading the pic, but the connection is too slow ...)

Update ... I wrote this a couple days ago in Fairbanks. I arrived in Denali around noon, and my day is now complete. My tour - a tour 16 - is going well. It goes to prove my theory that land first people are happier!

Turn and Burn

Today I'm "turn and burning." I dropped off my latest tour at the ship at noon and immediately boarded the ship to pick up the next group. The tour I just finished was another Alyeska tour. I didn't do as well in tips as I should have, but I had a family of 11 from England. The English are great people, but they are not accustomed to tipping.

I had a great group of people. At Hotel Alyeska is the 7 Glaciers restaurant, which is on the top of Mt. Alyeska, and is rated four diamonds by AAA. You have to take a Gondala-style tram to get to the top, which is fun. A group of my guests had asked if I had ever eaten there, and I told them I hadn't since it was a bit out of my price range, but many of my guests come back with rave reviews. These fine folks invited me to go with them since I had helped them out with a number of items. It was a lot of fun, and the food was great. I would've taken pictures of all the food, not just the dessert, but I think that would have been a bit odd for the hosts. The dessert is a devil's food cake with chocolate mousse and ice cream on top. There was a thin chocolate crisp layer around the edge with gold stenciling, along with the chocolate spoon with stenciling. Divine is the one word to describe it. My meal was a great goat cheese/arugala salad with pecan crusted halibut with curry sauce. Yummy!

This is another great view on the pathway from the Hotel Alyeska into Girdwood. There were also a number of paragliders, and I failed to take a picture of them. I was too much in awe of what they were doing. I even had the chance to see how they took off on the top of Mt. Alyeska. It's safe to say that I'm too much of a chicken. Cockle doodle doo!

This is a huge mushroom that I found along the path in Girdwood. And a beautiful flower.

Poor, poor Roslyn at Alyeska. The poor girl had four sick people on her tour, and she didn't get a break!

This is the front of the train when it was coming in last week in Denali. The front of the train is the Alaska Railroad, and the McKinley Explorer cars are owned by Holland America. The top is glass domed and holds 88 guests. The ground level is the dining compartment and serves 44.

Land first ... Cruise later

If you ever decide to go on a cruise and land tour, please, for my sake, go on the land portion first. This is a lesson I learn time and time again when I pick people up off the ship. When people have been pampered on a cruise ship, then they go on the land tour, especially to places like Prudhoe Bay, they are quite cranky. Those that go on the land first have no idea how cushy the ship will be and are geared up and excited for their vacation.

My Alyeska tour went wonderfully. The people were great and the accomadations were amazing! This is the only place that we get to stay in the same hotel as the guests. Check out the cushy beds. There's also a great pool, hot tub, spa and workout room. Girdwood is the town Hotel Alyeska is in, and it has a population of about 3,000, but the town consists of a few restaurants, a post office and a book store. It's definitely a place where you take advantage of its beauty.




This is a view on the walk from the hotel into Girdwood. Gorgeous!









Here I am doing a meet and greet at the Westmark Hotel in Fairbanks. Doesn't this look like the tour director you would want to tour with?!










Here I am by the river in Denali. There were a couple curious foxes near by and I managed to get a few pictures. I would say they got within 10 feet of me.

Right now I'm on a "Tour 20." This tour is a really nice tour for the guests and myself. I met my 39 guests in Fairbanks and the following day we rode the train to Denali. That afternoon they could do optional excursions or soak up the scenery. Today they all went on the eight-hour Tundra Wilderness Tour in Denali National Park. They didn't go on the same tours, so I was sending people off for three hours, and greeting them when they came back for four hours. I'm not complaining though, because I could never get tired of this place. Tomorrow we're heading to Anchorage and then we spend two days in Alyeska, which is a 4-diamond resort. I'm looking forward to the cushy beds and the swimming pool.

This afternoon I went down to the river with some others to watch the rafters go by. On our way through the woods, we came across a brown fox and a red fox. They were really close. I'll share the pix when I can.

Finding Fun in Fairbanks, Part II

I spent this morning following up on my resume. This isn't the best time since it seems that a number of people are taking a long holiday weekend.

This afternoon I went to the Museum of the North and the Botanical Gardens at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. If you get the chance, you should definitely check it out. The museum is architecturly beautiful and the exhibits are very nice. There are all kinds of animal, native indian and history exhibits. Also the art is wonderful.











Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks










Ceremonial Athabascan Indian dress made by Dixie Alexander and her daughter, Rita Prita. Rita does presentations everyday at the Riverboat Discovery on beadwork and Dixie's work is displayed in the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History.




UAF Botanical Gardens















I'm trying to be artsy with my pictures. I thought the colors in the flowers were amazing!

Fairbanks must be where Cabbage Patch Kids are grown. These are HUGE!













View from the top of the hill where the museum sits. This is looking toward Fairbanks, across the ag test grounds. UAF is known for its agricultural studies, especially for artic agriculture.











I failed to post this yesterday from the July 4 party. Nothing says, "God Bless America," like a man wrapped in a $.99 tablecloth eating potato chips ... Jeff, Juli and Melissa need help ...