Today we took a two and a half hour river rafting trip down the Nenana River~ it was wonderful...through forests and canyons with great views of the surrounding mountains. The river water is glacial run-off and a constant 36 degrees year round even though today the air temp was 72 deg F. Because it is relatively close to the glacier the silt has not yet settled, making the water very murky and difficult for the guides to see obstacles, consequently, we were hung up on a large rock at one point which created a bit of excitement. We also took our first hike in Denali Park and got to see our first moose! (two actually, but what is the plural of moose?!)
We have been here a week now and Ron is still in training whereas Mary has worked 3 shifts as hostess in the Courtyard Restaurant. Amazingly I seated three Irish ladies, one of whom is from the tiny town of Edenderry where my mother was born and raised. We struck up a great conversation and I now have her address and am expected to keep in touch, and most certainly visit when next in Ireland (there seems to be a lot of guests from the U.K. and Australia).
Although we are regarded as "the old folks" we are finding our young co-workers to be very friendly, and this goes a long way to making our time here more enjoyable. In fact we shared our rafting boat today with a nice young couple from Bulgaria.
The social hours around our sleeping quarters seem to be between 9pm - 1am, making it difficult to get to sleep before then ~ because of the constant daylight it truly feels as though it is permanently 2:00 in the afternoon at all times (why we were advised to bring a flashlight heaven only knows).
Note: Still waiting for second bathroom to be operational!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Last Frontier Arrival :)
We have been here in Denali Park for 24 hrs now and still feeling a bit like a fish out of water. Just to back track a bit first........
We had a wonderful time in Seattle with Patrick and our good friends Jim and Nancy Doll. Both Sat and Sun the weather was spectacular (70's) we strolled the most beautiful Japanese Gardens, jogged around a favorite park close to Patrick ~ where I think every dog and their owners were out taking advantage of the warm temp ~ and, ate some amazing food, one place being a Spanish Tapas Restaurant where we celebrated Patrick's birthday. We also managed to fit in a play then spent Monday re-visiting our old haunts on Whidbey Island. It was so nice to meet up with old neighbors out gardening ~ they too seemed happy to see us and were disappointed we are not renting for the summer again this year, however were pretty excited to hear of our plans for being here in Alaska. We also had the tour of Patrick's house seeing it in it's "before" renovation stage. When we return mid Sept he will hopefully be moved in and we can help with the painting. In the meantime he is going to be living in a really cool 40 yr old van in his back yard.
So back to Alaska......... the approach into Anchorage on Tuesday had us surrounded by an amazing mountain range on both sides of the plane. Once again we were surprised by the warmth (60's) and had to peel off the warm clothing as soon as we checked in to the hotel. Kate and Andrew's friend, Brie, met us and chauffeured us around Anchorage plus shuttled a couple of bicycles we picked up for exploring the park bike paths in addition to hiking the trails ~ being with "a local" definitely gave us an advantage for a little sightseeing and getting to eat at one of the finest pizza/breweries we have ever been to ~ called "The Moose's Tooth" an absolute must for anyone visiting Anchorage, yes you will have to wait a while for your table, but without a doubt well worth it. Then dear old Brie shuttled us to the bus station at 6 am Wed (thank you SO much Brie, our time spent in Anchorage was so much more enjoyable because of you).
Okay, so now it is a tad cold waiting for the bus, but it was not long till we were on our way....... however 30 minutes into our four and a half trip into the Park, the electrical wiring for the a/c in the bus in front of us caught on fire!....... so it was evacuation time and hang around an hour to switch out buses (just a little extra added excitement). There is only one road, and have to admit, it seemed like a pretty long road, did not see any of the amazing wild life featured in the brochures apart from a couple of swans and one Caribou, however, the mountains really are spectacular ~ we had a great view of Mt. McKinley from about 175 miles away ~ at one point the road comes to within 40 mi of the peak. The treeline is at 2,000 feet instead of 12,000 feet which we were used to in Colorado, (the further north one goes the lower the tree line becomes). Here at Denali we are only 900 miles from the Arctic Circle.
SO........ here we are in "camp dusty" (i.e. employee housing).....it has everything we need, but not quite everything we would like. I was really hoping to have a bathroom included with our bedroom, however we would settled for "down the hall" right now ~ for in reality it is a trek across a dirt path to a communal bath servicing about 100 employees ~ a second bathroom will hopefully be functional shortly. Our room is "interesting" 11x11 two twin beds, desk with 3 draws, two night stands, and a small closet ~ actually all our stuff fits in! The view from Mary's bed is a snow covered mountain with fir trees in the foreground. The folks we have met so far have been very friendly, some of them are returning employees for many years, others just as green and clueless as ourselves! There is an upbeat air of adventure, which makes up for a lot. We have found the post office (a nice 3 mile round trip) so by walking or cycling we should fit in a little exercise just checking the mail!
Today we filled out paperwork and picked up our uniforms, this only took a couple of hours, tomorrow we start our orientation to "the front desk" for Ron and "Hostess" in the largest dining area for Mary. The food in the employee dining room seems to be okay but, Mary is fortunate enough to have the perk of being able to eat the same food as our guests on the days that she is working. It appears we will only be working 40 hrs/wk, we were thinking it was going to be a lot more, our shifts start as early at 4:30 am and end as late at 10 pm, as yet we don't know what our shifts will be, it will just be nice to have the same days off.
So far, so good....more to follow.
We had a wonderful time in Seattle with Patrick and our good friends Jim and Nancy Doll. Both Sat and Sun the weather was spectacular (70's) we strolled the most beautiful Japanese Gardens, jogged around a favorite park close to Patrick ~ where I think every dog and their owners were out taking advantage of the warm temp ~ and, ate some amazing food, one place being a Spanish Tapas Restaurant where we celebrated Patrick's birthday. We also managed to fit in a play then spent Monday re-visiting our old haunts on Whidbey Island. It was so nice to meet up with old neighbors out gardening ~ they too seemed happy to see us and were disappointed we are not renting for the summer again this year, however were pretty excited to hear of our plans for being here in Alaska. We also had the tour of Patrick's house seeing it in it's "before" renovation stage. When we return mid Sept he will hopefully be moved in and we can help with the painting. In the meantime he is going to be living in a really cool 40 yr old van in his back yard.
So back to Alaska......... the approach into Anchorage on Tuesday had us surrounded by an amazing mountain range on both sides of the plane. Once again we were surprised by the warmth (60's) and had to peel off the warm clothing as soon as we checked in to the hotel. Kate and Andrew's friend, Brie, met us and chauffeured us around Anchorage plus shuttled a couple of bicycles we picked up for exploring the park bike paths in addition to hiking the trails ~ being with "a local" definitely gave us an advantage for a little sightseeing and getting to eat at one of the finest pizza/breweries we have ever been to ~ called "The Moose's Tooth" an absolute must for anyone visiting Anchorage, yes you will have to wait a while for your table, but without a doubt well worth it. Then dear old Brie shuttled us to the bus station at 6 am Wed (thank you SO much Brie, our time spent in Anchorage was so much more enjoyable because of you).
Okay, so now it is a tad cold waiting for the bus, but it was not long till we were on our way....... however 30 minutes into our four and a half trip into the Park, the electrical wiring for the a/c in the bus in front of us caught on fire!....... so it was evacuation time and hang around an hour to switch out buses (just a little extra added excitement). There is only one road, and have to admit, it seemed like a pretty long road, did not see any of the amazing wild life featured in the brochures apart from a couple of swans and one Caribou, however, the mountains really are spectacular ~ we had a great view of Mt. McKinley from about 175 miles away ~ at one point the road comes to within 40 mi of the peak. The treeline is at 2,000 feet instead of 12,000 feet which we were used to in Colorado, (the further north one goes the lower the tree line becomes). Here at Denali we are only 900 miles from the Arctic Circle.
SO........ here we are in "camp dusty" (i.e. employee housing).....it has everything we need, but not quite everything we would like. I was really hoping to have a bathroom included with our bedroom, however we would settled for "down the hall" right now ~ for in reality it is a trek across a dirt path to a communal bath servicing about 100 employees ~ a second bathroom will hopefully be functional shortly. Our room is "interesting" 11x11 two twin beds, desk with 3 draws, two night stands, and a small closet ~ actually all our stuff fits in! The view from Mary's bed is a snow covered mountain with fir trees in the foreground. The folks we have met so far have been very friendly, some of them are returning employees for many years, others just as green and clueless as ourselves! There is an upbeat air of adventure, which makes up for a lot. We have found the post office (a nice 3 mile round trip) so by walking or cycling we should fit in a little exercise just checking the mail!
Today we filled out paperwork and picked up our uniforms, this only took a couple of hours, tomorrow we start our orientation to "the front desk" for Ron and "Hostess" in the largest dining area for Mary. The food in the employee dining room seems to be okay but, Mary is fortunate enough to have the perk of being able to eat the same food as our guests on the days that she is working. It appears we will only be working 40 hrs/wk, we were thinking it was going to be a lot more, our shifts start as early at 4:30 am and end as late at 10 pm, as yet we don't know what our shifts will be, it will just be nice to have the same days off.
So far, so good....more to follow.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Getting close
Ron and I are starting to wind things down a bit here preparing for our adventure in Alaska ~ We are leaving Florida this Friday (15th) after closing up the house for the summer and leaving the cars in an indoor storage unit. Trying to limit our clothing to one suitcase each is quite the challenge especially as it comprises mostly of our warmer clothing /rain gear/blanket/pillow! We are especially THRILLED that Kate and Andrew will be visiting with us for a few days in June.
It seems very strange to be pulling out our warm winter jackets, gloves etc with the a/c cranking temp now mid 80's~Never thought i would ever say this but i am almost tiring of the beach and we are looking forward to a change of scenery.
We will be visiting with Patrick in Seattle this coming w/e prior to arriving in Anchorage next Tue~ it has been 8 months since we last saw him, so this will be an added treat.
We have summer jobs working at the McKinley Chalet Resort. in Denali National Park~ Ron will at the front desk checking the guests in and out while i will be a hostess in the dining room.
Visit: http://www.denaliparkresorts.com/lodging-food/mckinley-chalet-resort.cfm
The resort sent us some training material with questions we will be asked by our guests. Most are pretty straight forward, like - How tall is the mountain?, How long is the Denali Park road? But some made us stop and think, like - Can we use American Dollars in Alaska?, What time does the Park Service let the bears out in the morning? Okay, it appears we will be having a laugh or two this summer.
We will be posting updates from Alaska, so keep checking .
It seems very strange to be pulling out our warm winter jackets, gloves etc with the a/c cranking temp now mid 80's~Never thought i would ever say this but i am almost tiring of the beach and we are looking forward to a change of scenery.
We will be visiting with Patrick in Seattle this coming w/e prior to arriving in Anchorage next Tue~ it has been 8 months since we last saw him, so this will be an added treat.
We have summer jobs working at the McKinley Chalet Resort. in Denali National Park~ Ron will at the front desk checking the guests in and out while i will be a hostess in the dining room.
Visit: http://www.denaliparkresorts.com/lodging-food/mckinley-chalet-resort.cfm
The resort sent us some training material with questions we will be asked by our guests. Most are pretty straight forward, like - How tall is the mountain?, How long is the Denali Park road? But some made us stop and think, like - Can we use American Dollars in Alaska?, What time does the Park Service let the bears out in the morning? Okay, it appears we will be having a laugh or two this summer.
We will be posting updates from Alaska, so keep checking .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
