Work Is Not A Four Letter Word

I awoke this morning to the sound of our neighbor's beagle howling her little heart out. This is usually a signal that there are moose in the area. This meant that I needed to go protect the flowers that are just growing back and the first of Jude's tomatoes that are starting to turn red. As long as I am up it must be time for a new post.

I left off with the dip-netting that was taking place just down the street. We made two trips down there with mixed results. The first day Julius got one and Jude, Amanda and I got muddy. Jude and I went again the next day and got 7 more Reds. It became time to leave when Jude got stuck in the mud. What's up with the mud? With all of the glacier action up here there is a tremendous amount of what is called glacial flour. The grey mountains have been ground down by the glaciers. The material is as fine as powdered sugar. Mix this material with water and you get a frosting type material depending on how much water is there. Every once in a while someone will go out on the mud flats and get stuck. When the tide comes in they have been drowned. Where we were fishing, this was not an issue, but the mud was still there. The freezer is now full and we are slowing down on our fishing. As a matter of fact, we have not been fishing in two weeks.

Jude and I have a job! We are working for Princess Cruise Lines checking passengers onto their Alaskan Cruise. We went to a job fair back in March and were looking for part-time seasonal. Our biggest qualifications were that we are retired teachers. I guess that means we can put up with a bunch of crap and still keep our temper! I have been real good until a woman came up to me the other day and said, "You lost my luggage!" I answered a little to quickly and just said in somewhat of a sarcastic voice, "I DID?"

We work every other Wednesday in Whittier, AK. We leave the house at 8:45 AM and drive to Anchorage to punch in by 10. We then board a bus, excuse me, COACH and head down one of the most scenic drives in Alaska, Turnagain Arm. The road follows the water with snow capped mountains on each side. The trip takes us about an hour. Timeliness is important because to get to Whittier we must pass through a 5 mile long, one lane tunnel. The tunnel is open in each direction for only limited periods of time, westbound on the hour and eastbound on the half hour. In between times the train uses the tunnel. The tunnel was built during WW II for transporting supplies by rail.

We arrive at our work stations at 11:45 and begin checking in passengers at noon. We scan their passports and credit cards then give them their room keys and send them to the ship. There are about 20 stations where the guests check in. The passengers arrive by coach whenever the tunnel opens. This means we have a flood of people show up at 20 minutes to the hour. Depending on how buses come through the tunnel depends on when we get our break. Sometimes there are only a couple of buses with about 45 people on each one. During these "tunnels" we are done in 10-15 minutes. Usually there are 4-5 buses and we work longer, right up until the next tunnel. The day usually ends with the 8:30 PM tunnel. We rush to get the last load on the ship and make the 9 PM tunnel. Then it is a one hour trip back to Anchorage and then another one hour drive home. Actually it is a lot of fun and we work with some great people. More important, nothing to bring home and nothing to worry about, all for a big $9 per hour.

But wait, there is more. Working in the travel industry has some great perks. Jude and I do not work enough hours to qualify for a free cruise, but we do qualify for a 50% reduction on a regular price cruise. Better than that, we have the opportunity to do what is called familiarization trips, or Fam trips at a very low cost. Actually no cost, just big tips. We have done a one hour glacier boat trip, a 6 hour glacier boat trip on Prince William Sound, a tram ride up the side of a mountain, a train ride to Talkeetna, a 2 hour boat trip on a braided river (not much different than the 90 day trip down the rivers), and the coup de grace, a one hour flight seeing trip over Denali National Park. We also can stay at any of the Princess Lodges here in Alaska for a room rate of $35. In addition we get 25% off on food and I think 30% at the bar! Not a bad gig for part time.

These pictures were taken on our flight over Denali. Notice the blue color in the picture. That is pools of water on the surface of the glacier.

Driving home from work two weeks ago at 10 PM, we had something happen that had not happened since we arrived back in Alaska in May. The headlights came on! That's right, it was getting dark! We saw street lights for the first time! Today sunrise was at 6:15 and sunset will be at 9:45. We are now losing over 5 minutes per day.

Moose Like Inpatients But Not Geraniums

Our Life in Alaska

Sorry it has been so long to update all of you on what we are up to, but we have been busy! OK, so what is up with the title? We have some Alaskan tales to tell. Since we have moved in we have been busy with some major projects around the house; building a 12x32 deck with hot tub, doing some major moving of dirt in the back yard to make is level and building Jude a 8x14 workshop for her yarn business. More details on that will follow. What I do want to share is what our life is like up here.

During the building projects Jude and I have taken time off to enjoy ourselves and Alaska. None of the breaks have been planned, they just sort of happen. The first example was last month when Jude and I were on the way to Lowe's for more building "stuff". We were half way there when the cell phone rang. (Yes, we have cell phones in Alaska.) It was our friend Charlie over in Copper Center letting us know that the Reds (Red Salmon or Sockeye Salmon) were beginning to run. We pulled the truck off the side of the road, had a brief discussion, and went back home to pack up the trailer for a few days of fishing. After a 3 1/2 hour drive we were at the designated fishing hole and started to fish. The limit for Reds is 3 fish per person per day. After 3 days of fishing we had 18 fish in the freezer, 9 each. We left the camper there and came back to Wasilla for the weekend and the Iditarod Volunteer's Picnic. That evening Amanda and Julius (daughter and her husband) drove over to the camper and fished the remainder of Saturday and Sunday. We headed back over on Sunday and met them on the highway. There luck was not as good as ours, only two fish and a speeding ticket. But, one of those fish was the FIRST fish ever for Julius. When we got there the run was about over. We fished for one more day and only got one fish. Time to head for home and work on the deck.

Let me break for a moment and talk about the salmon here. There are five varieties here in Alaska: King or Chinook, which are the largest (the record is over 90 lbs); Sockeye or Red Salmon in the 3-8 lb range (our favorite); Silvers or Coho; Pink or Humpback or Humpies; and Chum Salmon or Dog Salmon. The Chum are called Dog salmon because they are used for dog food up here. We did notice a store in the lower 48 selling an Alaskan Salmon called Keta. After a little research we discovered that this is also another name for Dog Salmon. Ah yes, marketing! Salmon will run in schools up the different rivers here in Alaska. The Kings wander up all summer long. Then the Reds start and the Kings slow down, then the Reds slow down and the Kings take center stage again. In July the Reds make a second run and then in August the Reds slow and the Silvers start up until fall hunting season.

The deck was started Memorial Day Weekend and finished by the end of June. For the Fourth of July weekend we started Jude's workshop. Amanda and Julius have a friend, Ron Lilly, who is in the process of getting out of the Army and is still hanging around up here waiting to be discharged. This has been good news for us. He is a member of a combat engineer team, meaning he knows how to build things!! He was here all of Memorial Day weekend running equipment and on July 3, helping me get the rafters and roof put on Jude's Yarn Shop. If he is still here for Labor Day, I think I need to give him a rest!!

Anyway, life in Alaska and the title to the posting. About 2 weeks ago Amanda called us up and asked if we wanted to go dip-netting. Dip-netting is for Alaska residents only and has the proper name of Personal Use Salmon Fishing. The limits are larger, 25 fish for the head of household and 10 fish for each additional person living in the house. It involves getting a large landing type net, 4 feet across, a set of chest waders, and getting out in the ocean at the mouth of a river and wait for the fish (salmon) to swim in the net. Now this may not seem very sporting, but it is still challenging and a bunch "sportier" than the commercial guys with their gill nets. The challenge is not only getting a fish to swim into your net, but not to have the waves go over the top of your waders or down your sleeves. I was successful at keeping the inside of my waders dry, but not me sleeves. Great fun in 55 degrees and a light rain. There must have been 2-3000 people there. Looked sort of like a big tail gate party except with fish. On the first day, Julius, the non-fisherman got 4, Jude got 2, I got 1 and Amanda got a flounder. The next day we went out and got a total of 18 more fish. Yes, our freezer is getting full. Later that week I went down with a friend, he got 6 and I picked up one more. I stayed dry, he poured water out of his waders!!

Again, back to the title. When we got home from our dip-netting experience I went out on the deck to just look around. We have 4 flower pots on the deck, two with Geraniums and two with Impatiens. Perhaps to be more correct I should say two with Geraniums and two with a bunch of chewed up plants. It seems that the moose had come by and ate all of the flowers off of the Inpatients but did not eat the Geraniums. Looks like next year it will be all Geraniums. Maybe that explains why it was so hard to find any Impatiens for sale at the beginning of the year.

Yesterday we were getting ready to go somewhere when I looked out the window and saw momma moose with two calves right across the street. They munched over there for a while, crossed the street and munched on the underbrush in my neighbor's yard, came walking right towards us and went through our back yard and stopped just to the edge of our grass area and were munching on our underbrush. We must have watched them for 30-40 minutes. I will never get over the thrill of seeing the moose up here and the dolphins down on Grand Isle.

Yesterday a new stream was opened to dip-netting and it is 10 miles down the road from our house. It seems that this stream has not been opened since the mid 90s. Guess we will have to try it out today!

That's all for now, but with the major projects done I plan on updating soon with information about our house and our jobs with Princess Cruise Lines.

Rob