Seasonal job – Travels with Billie

And So It Ends

The first phase of my year of travel is nearly over. My last tour ended yesterday and here I sit in the airport heading back to Anchorage. I’ll be heading down the road the day after tomorrow- the end of fifteen years of post-retirement seasonal work. My guests kept asking me if it was sad to know I wouldn’t be back. Not sad, really, but bittersweet.

In these years I’ve made wonderful friends, had amazing experiences, and had the privilege of sharing this gorgeous part of the world that I love so much. I’m so lucky.

Goodbye, Alaska. We’ll meet again, I’m sure.

Just a Moment

Sometimes an amazing moment happens so quietly, unnoticed by most. This was one of those moments. The photo isn’t one of my best, but it captures something special so I’m going to include it here anyway.

The other morning I was leaving our housing to walk across the street to have breakfast at our larger facility, which houses our Employee Dining Room. Because it was early in the morning, no one was about, and I was focused on starting my work day.

I walked out the front door and onto the deck, which is only about 10 feet deep. I nearly walked right across and down the steps, but thankfully I noticed the moose that was standing right next to the stairs. I didn’t see her at first because there is a railing there and it blocked most of my view of her. I say thankfully, because moose, particularly females, can be very aggressive. You really don’t want to get into an argument with a creature who weighs over 1000 pounds, no matter how docile they might seem to the casual observer.

She was just standing there quietly, not moving, until I came out the door. She lifted her huge head and looked at me, standing only ten feet away. I was so astonished I just stood there and stared at her. It wasn’t until she started to casually stroll away that I came to my senses and started frantically digging for my iPhone to take a picture.

She walked across the parking lot, across the street, into the parking lot of the bar/restaurant across the street, and disappeared into the woods behind the bar. No one else was around, she didn’t run, she just slowly ambled away and into the woods. I stood there for several minutes looking at the place where she vanished into the trees, and finally walked across the street to breakfast. It was almost like it never happened. Almost.

Summer Has Arrived

Last year I talked a bit about how everything here seems to be in a hurry to stuff everything they can into the short summer season. When the warm weather arrived here, it seemed as though the mountainsides turned green overnight. One of our drivers told me she saw the roadside flowers bloom between 2 AM and 6 AM. Just that fast. With 21 hours of daylight here in Denali, summer is in high gear.

The moose have been very evident along the roads, chomping on all that nice tender greenery. I hear tell the beavers are busy at Horseshoe Lake, too, but when I finally made it there yesterday the only wildlife I saw was the Alaska State Bird: the mosquito. There were so many my pictures are full of blurry little smudges.

While last summer we experienced very few really warm days, this year seems to be trying to make up for the late arrival of Spring. Today the thermometer (according to the Weather Channel) hovered at 88 degrees. There is no air conditioning. Fortunately I have a fan, but it’s still pretty uncomfortable.

The good thing as that since this is Alaska, it might snow tomorrow. We can only hope.

What a Great Weekend!

This is what I’ve been waiting for since I arrived two months ago…

I finally got to take the shuttle into Denali Park on Saturday. I rode to the Eielson Visitor Center, and saw my first grizzly of the season. Actually, the tally was 31 Dall sheep, four grizzlies, 14 caribou, six moose, and three ptarmigan. None of our encounters was extraordinary…no bears walking down the middle of the road, no baby moose, and no view of the Mountain (Denali, for the uninitiated). But the landscape continues to call to me, the sheer joy of being in a land untroubled by modern civilization.

Well, there was one bear reasonably close, and since it was my first good look for the season, I’ll take it.

The plan for Sunday was to relax, do laundry, and maybe venture over to the Park entrance to hike to Horseshoe Lake. It’s an easy hike, under a mile, with a pretty lake with beavers and other wildlife (including the gigantic Alaskan Mosquito). Somehow I never made it. My friend Diane convinced me to do the hike early instead of later, so we started out toward the Park only to be waylaid by a moose and twin babies. Of course we had to stop and take lots of photos.

Finally, off to Horseshoe. We got about halfway in to the lake when Diane spotted an owl having a disagreement with a raven. It seems the raven had its eye on the owl’s nest; whether it was for baby owls or eggs we don’t know. We spent a good deal of time watching the drama unfold, and at one point the raven came right to the owl’s nest, who proceeded to spread her wings and cover the nest to keep the raven out.

Pretty amazing day, right? Well, we never got to Horseshoe Lake. We got a call telling us we could take a glacier landing flight if we could get back to the lodge in a half hour. So we hustled back, always within the speed limit, of course. The weather was beautiful, but I was worried that I was in a t-shirt with no jacket, heading up to Ruth Glacier on Denali. I needn’t have worried. I was so excited, and the weather was so beautiful, I never noticed the chill.

This was a bit of my personal history coming back to me. When we landed, the pilot pointed out a building that belonged to the famous bush pilot, Don Sheldon. Many years ago when I was just a child, Don was in my mother’s restaurant and tried to talk her into letting him fly me up to the glacier. Mom’s reaction was mostly along the lines of “Are you kidding me? I’m not letting you take my 9-year-old up to land on a piece of ice!” Of course, I was doing every bit of wheedling I knew to get her to let me go, but no dice. So, Mom, wherever you are up there, I finally got to go!

This is why I come back to Alaska in the summer. Why I actually work when I’m supposedly retired. Because you never know what you might see around the next corner.

A Change of Direction

I’ve learned through experience that sometimes life changes while you’re making other plans. On Monday morning, while we were all getting ready for a new work week, one of my friends and coworkers had a stroke just before she was to start her shift. Wendy works in the King Salmon, our fine dining restaurant. Her husband Roy is a driver-guide. Both have been coming here for several years and they are well-known and well liked throughout our little community. Last year Wendy brought coffee our office every day, and when she learned that one of our team members didn’t drink coffee she brought him milk. Both Wendy and Roy are known for their enthusiasm and kind spirits.

So it was a shock to hear that Wendy was being airlifted to Anchorage with Roy at her side. The next realization was that they are thousands of miles away from family, and without health insurance.

That’s when the most amazing thing happened. From all sides, people were asking “Are we doing something to help them?” This came from the newest, youngest members of our team to the top management. We put together a collection, and by the end of the week we were able to deliver over $2300 to our friends to help with their expenses. Princess and the Denali management arranged for our Care Team to look in on them and help in any way we could. I went to Anchorage over the weekend with my friend Diane to offer our assistance and to deliver the many greetings we had received by setting up a table in our employee dining area and providing paper and markers to create cards for them.

While Wendy faces some challenges, we were delighted to see that she had her sense of humor intact. I came away with a couple of reminders. One is that we are strong in the face of adversity and can find ways to cope. The other is that people can be wonderful. We received donations from people who knew Wendy only by hearing about her. We received donations from international students who come here to work and save for their next year of school back home-some working two jobs to make the most of their time here. We found some $100 bills in the donations from people who did not want to tell us who they were. And the outpouring of support and concern has been wonderful…not only for Wendy and Roy, but for all of us who care about them.

So this week…no bears, no moose, no adventures. But the warmth of good people helping others made it a good week.

Spring Is in a Hurry!

One of the reasons I was looking forward to going to Fairbanks was because it tends to be a little warmer there and I was hoping for a little green on the trees and bushes. Last year when it was still brown and bare in Denali, we were seeing a little start of green when we visited Fairbanks.

Through the entire drive I looked hard to see hints of green…anywhere! Nothing.

I decided to enjoy the trip anyway, and drove 55 miles out to Chena Hot Springs. The river was running high and since it was a holiday weekend there were lots of campers…and therefore no wildlife. But I visited the Ice Museum, which was fascinating (and cold!) and had an Appletini in a glass made of ice.

On the drive back to Fairbanks, just three or four hours later, I was starting to see hints of green! The trees were in such a hurry to catch up and start enjoying summer that they were leafing out within just a few hours.

The next day after doing my errands in Fairbanks I started back toward Denali and the hillsides were all turning green. As I said in my blog last year, summer in Alaska is short so the wildlife works hard to make the best of it. Apparently the fauna does, also!

Spring…then summer

As I’ve been whining about in my earlier blogs, spring came late to the interior of Alaska this year. Just one week ago we were in the middle of a major snowstorm that dropped upwards of eight inches on snow on already lingering snowdrifts.

Today we had spring. It came early this morning, that kiss of mild air that tells you the leaves might start thinking about cautiously showing their buds. The snowdrifts were creating little streams of snowmelt in the ditches and other inconvenient places.

This afternoon spring seemed to have run its course. and walking out of my office on the resort property I found that I had to take off my jacket-the one that seemed so inadequate earlier this week. Summer is arriving.

For the first time since I arrived last month, I walked across the highway to the employee dining area without a coat. Everyone was heading outside to play basketball, talk with friends, and just enjoy life. The snowy mountains surrounding us didn’t seem quite so forbidding. And on the drive back to our housing area, we saw water gushing down the hillsides.

The ice on the rivers is finally starting to break up, although there are ice dams forming that could mean trouble down the line. The Nenana Ice Classic came to a close on Monday afternoon when the tripod fell from the broken ice. It was the latest breakup since it started so many years ago, breaking the 1964 record by only four hours.

This weekend I’m heading to Fairbanks to take a little break from Denali, and do some sightseeing. My camera is packed and ready to go, and I’m hearing reports of many wildlife sightings and lots of baby moose. It’s also supposed to be 75 degrees in Fairbanks tomorrow. I’m sure our arriving guests tomorrow would not believe it if we tell them we had a blizzard last week.

Trip to Anchorage

After a month of living in Healy and seeing the same scenery every day, I finally had the opportunity to go to Anchorage last weekend. I picked up one of our vehicles there and brought it back with another coworker. It gave me a chance to do some shopping and try out a couple of restaurants. When you live in a big city you forget that not everyone can just walk into a Target or a Safeway or a Walgreens whenever they want to buy what they need.

I haven’t seen much wildlife since I got to Alaska, but the trip to Anchorage brought several great sightings. On the way down I saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree next to the road. Coming back, we spotted three grizzlies and two moose.

I’m getting excited about being able to get into Denali National Park soon. There are trails to be hiked, wildlife to watch, and photos to be taken. It’s why I come here. Maybe next weekend….

Spring Is Late This Year

According to the TV weather, this was the third coldest April in interior Alaska since they started keeping records. Of course, this had to be the year I spent April in Denali. It got to the point where every morning my coworkers would wander into the dining area, look out the window, and moan “Oh, no, more snow!” As our maintenance crew was working to haul away the snowbanks on the hotel property, more was falling to take its place. This was the view of Healy on the first of May. Oh, the building in the middle? That’s our grocery store! The Stampede, where I’ll live for the season, looks like a perfect winter scene.

Once the snow started melting, it began to freeze at night, making walking treacherous. We were required to wear studded snow tires on our boots to help prevent falls.

The good news is that Spring did eventually come. In just two weeks’ time most of the snow has melted (with some stubborn snowbanks still creating mud as they melt away). After living in Arizona for so many years I thought I had completely acclimated to the warm country, but when it hit the upper forties here I found it wonderfully mild!

Living In Cold Country

Growing up in both Cut Bank, Montana and in Alaska means that sub-zero weather isn’t a new phenomenon to me. Yes, I walked to school at -42 degrees, in the snow…uphill both ways. But many years of living in San Diego and the Phoenix area have spoiled me.

In those cities you wake up in the morning knowing the sun will be shining, and at the very worst you might have to wear a sweater. Being in Healy, Alaska during the coldest April they’ve had in many years takes some getting used to!

The first thing I had to (re)learn was that wearing earrings when it’s -15 isn’t a wise move. After the first time, the earrings went into the drawer until it gets warmer. (The frostbite is almost healed.) (Wink)

The second thing is that while the snow may have been melting yesterday, this morning it’s frozen again. So under that new dusting of snow, there’s a perfect skating rink. Step with care!

And then I’ve also learned that Spring wants to tease you. You get a couple of days in the 40s, you start thinking that Breakup is here. You convince yourself that soon the ice will go out and you’ll be able to see the river running. Before long the trees will start to green up and summer will be upon us. You start peeking at the sky, hoping to see a migrating bird coming through to tell you winter is finally over. All you see is another raven.

And then the next morning you look out the window and discover another six inches of snow. And the doggone ravens.