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.