It's been a while!!!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Hi everyone. Had a short run today and so am in early enough to get to the computers - and so far there is no waiting line. It has been a while since I have got on the internet - we've been having several meetings the last two or three weeks which has taken up some time - the internet was down for a while there - so all things considered, I just haven't got to you in some time. Just talked with Linda a little bit ago. She is feeling a little better - wish it was a LOT better but that kind of injury just takes a while to heal up. It has been especially difficult to be apart this past week knowing she doesn't feel well. I should be there taking care of her. I keep telling myself that June and July went really fast so we can make it through August and half of September. I'm thinking we will either not be doing this again or be doing it together.
Have talked with the kids a couple of times lately. They are all doing good. Hollie is about to wrap up her summer teaching job at the community college and getting ready to go back to her fifth graders before long. Sara was in Phoenix last week and will be again this next week for more schooling with her job, which she loves. Bill is still hard at it with the cable boys - I even got a picture of him that they took when Linda was out there over the 4th of July - he was pretty high up that pole about a block or so away from their house. Proof that he really does what he says he does!! Ha!! Had a really nice visit with Connie and Joe Buescher last weekend. They are on a land/cruise trip with brother and sister in law. I saw them on the road in the park and then we met up and went to the Salmon Bake for a nice meal and good conversation. It was really great to see friends from home in this setting. Jim and Sherry will be here later in August for a few days. Looking forward to their arrival. Well, I haven't been on the computer for a while but I have jotted down some notes - not as many as I should have, but then we have been way too busy with the union meetings - we did take a strike vote - voted to strike - have not set a date to do it though - maybe it will be tomorrow and I will come home!!! I don't really know just what will happen - nothing probably - just taking this whole work/strike thing a day at a time. It was really great to hear from my bud Joe. Sounds like I'm missing some pretty important "meetings" at home. Hope Joe and Judy have a great visit with their grandkids.
From my notes . . .
June 24, 2008
Just a note to let everyone know what is going on in Denali land. Work is good and I am feeling much better finally - still only working five days a week though so that I can get rested up before the peak season starts in earnest. Lots has been happening on the road. The wildlife has been incredible. The snow shoe hare is everywhere. Normally, numbers for the hare is about 25 to 50 per square mile, but they are in a boom cycle and there is about 2500 per square mile. That is a lot of food for all the other animals - and they are quite healthy. I pass at least eight fox dens every day and they all have at least five kits. In the early mornings they are all out playing as we head out into the park - and fox kits can put on quite a show. There are lots of Canadian Lynx this year also. I have seen five this year already and that is a lot of sightings. There are other drivers who have been coming here for years and have never seen one. I have a calibrated eye ball - it's the Indian in me that gives me that keen eye perspective. The moose have started calving again and there are a lot of twins. We have one set of twins close to my camp. We don't move when we see them passing through, that way they don't feel threatened. But there are grizzly tracks just behind my room - they have come down to the front country to hunt the newborn calves. The moose come down to the front country to calf where there are more people and less bears. But the bears have such a great sense of smell that they are starting to follow the newborn scent - the young calf is one of their springtime food sources and they are good at finding them within the first week after being born. The cycle of life!
We had quite a bear incident two days ago. We had a large male attack a smaller male and tried to kill it right on the road - just on the east side of Stony. It was incredibly violent. The power of a grizzly is unbelievable. The bigger one, maybe 400 pounds, picked up the smaller bear by the neck and shook it like a little rag doll. The smaller one was trying to fight back and did get in a couple of swipes on the larger one. But the injuries to the little one included a hunk out of its back and out of its hip and leg, and one ear was torn. It finally got away from the bigger bear and got under a bus up by the motor and the bigger bear could not get to him. After about 15 minutes the bigger one walked away and the little one was able to still walk and headed off in the opposite direction as soon as it was safe for it to come out from under the bus. The sound that two grizzlies make when fighting is frightening and the speed at which one can move is unbelievable. They say a grizzly can run as fast as 35 mph for a short distance but can run for miles at about 20 mph. There were several people that witnessed this attack and some had movie cameras, so we are watching the Internet for a posing on U tube of the fight in Denali. If I find it, I will let you know. We had two employees who were out in the park on their day off and had also gotten it on video.
The cotton seeds are falling and it looks as if it is snowing outside when the sun is shinning. I took pictures, but don't know if it will show up enough to do it justice. But the sun highlights the seeds as they float through the air.
Good news earlier this week - the two girls that have been missing for six days were found. What a relief! They worked for one of the lodges in the front country. I had the parents of the two girls boss on my bus that day after they were found. They were only ten miles from Anderson, Alaska when they were located, so what happened was they walked south when they were supposed to go north. Six days in the wilderness of Denali is no little walk in the park. They were very lucky not to have drowned in stream crossings or fallen into Savage River Canyon - not to mention the predators. They were very lucky!!!
. . . T I M E . . . . .
I am working on a new time system. It is a new way to measure days to weeks, weeks to months and months to a year - all to preserve dryer time. Only two dryers for about 120 people - that's a lot of dirty socks - so we all have to do our part - it's all about the environment and the human footprint (and my feet are pretty big) so I'm doing my best. The way I've got it figured is that Hollie says, "Dad, how many days have you been wearing that sweatshirt?" and I always tell her just a week. So I think it is like dog years but backwards - so an hour is like one minute and a day is like ten minutes and a week is around 2 hours and I have 78 loads worth of 2X Ultra Tide with Color Clean Bleach and 110 days worth of clothes wearing time, not counting by bathrobe time, so dividing 110 by 78 which equals 1.4 times 10 which is 14 plus 2 is 16 which is the number of days I can wear my Rural King Sweatshirt until it has to be washed - plus add in the number of bathrobe days into the formula which is 19 divided by 4 (because one year in people time equals 4 years in dog time) so that's another 4.75 days which can be added in so that makes a grand total of 20.75 days in a row I can wear the same Rural King Sweatshirt without having to wash it. This is the power of meditation.
July 14, 2008
A cold and rainy day. I have the day off so laundry needs to be done and a walk to the post office is in the schedule. Was planning to go for a hike on the back side of Polychrome, but too much rain has fallen so the chance for a rock slide is possible - so I will stay off Poly today and wait for better weather. Called home last night to talk to Linda and found out that Joe & Connie Buescher are coming to Denali next Saturday. Hopefully I will get to see them on Sunday - maybe for dinner - I am like a kid in a candy store I am so excited to see someone from home. I can't wait. Hopefully the weather will change and it will warm up before next Saturday so they will have a nice day to go into the park. I have caught a cold!! Can you believe it!!! Most everyone has a head cold going on right now. I feel miserable but in 10 days it will be gone and 10 more days will have passed - not like I am counting the days or anything. It has been a long summer but I try not to think of how much longer I will be away from home.
July 15, 2008
The weather has changed and we have a nice day for a change. Yesterday the weather forecast was for party cloudy so it rained hard all day with a high of only 45 degrees, so it felt damn cold! You would not believe how bad the weather has been this year compared to last year. Last year, every day was like a beautiful fall day back home. This year, nine days out of the last two months has been nice. We've had a lot of rain - we've had snow (as late as two weeks ago!) - and just chilly weather.
THE TABLE . . . . .
A group of fellows crowded around the square table that sat in the far back corner, where the light was dim and the windows were closed tight to keep in the secrets of the day. Their society was secret - their membership select. This was a group of men who held the destiny of many people's faith in their hands daily - the Old Bunch as they were called, were the best of the best. A group that had been pulled together by their common interest - all with similar interests but all from different backgrounds. A more diverse group could not be found anywhere. They were all quick-witted and all had that still grey stare that people noticed - and you didn't cut in front of a person with a cook gray stare when they were in line at the dessert bar. A nicer bunch could not be found anywhere, but there was something different with this bunch - they were all captains of their own ships, generals from great battles, leaders - men among men and all that kind of stuff. A secret society, maybe, but they had no secrets at this table. It was like a game of scrabble every night - the first story of the day being topped by the next and on it would go, night after night, until that one night when it happened. A pimping was in order. The first to go was Randy the Bull, a man who could eat enough greens and lettuce in one sitting to keep a small caribou herd alive for an entire winter, and then have three helpings of bread pudding. No one more health conscious could be found. He was first with his tale of the one-legged lumber jack who fell to his death when his dentures popped out of his mouth as he topped a hundred foot spruce. That's a good one and "yep", "yep", "yep", "yep" was heard from all, which is a sign of approval. Next came the Phoenix Flyer, who only spoke the truth because his stories were from a time of legends. Legends of great fish caught. A bush plane crashing in the back country and then he would walk for two years to reach the coast and the building of a signal fire to get a passing ship to stop and pick him up. But the ship was the Valdez and it was having some trouble navigating some rocks so he just walked on around the shoreline till he came to the nearest phone booth and called a cab. "Yep", "Yep", "Yep", "Yep" and the Arizona Flyer pushed back from the table, folded his arms over his chest and looked over the top of his glass and no one said a word - dead silence for at least 10 seconds - anybody for some more bread pudding? Next to speak was the Minnesota Flash. His story was precise and his dictation exact with "Ha!!" and "Bygolle" being used in every sentence. A bobcat discovered in a trap out in the boundry waters and what to do about it - they didn't want to shoot it and they couldn't just let it go for fear of it attacking them, so it was decided to put one of their packs down over it and then take the trap off. So it was done. But who would let it out of the pack - not a volunteer in the bunch. Let's take it to town and put it on the corner and someone will walk by and want to see what's inside. What a plan. On the corner the pack was placed and a car came to a screeching halt then sped away for only a block and then the car stopped, all four doors flew open - free at last, free at last. "Yep", "Yep", "Yep", "Yep" More bread pudding, anybody? Murphy was next. A man with considerable intellect and who believed in reincarnation. He had once been a history teacher. His hat was cocked to one side, his cookie duster of a mustache obtained half of what he had tried to eat that night - but when Murph the Mouth started to talk, people listened. They had to because it was hard to understand what he was saying with one foot in his mouth, but it seemed as though he had at least one foot in his mouth at all times. Livestock is one of those things you have to be careful about when you are table talking, but a goat was the main subject of this tale of days gone by. A goat at the Catholic Academy. A goat in the dorm at Christmas time when all went home. A goat running free in a college dorm. The head-master was the first to return from the Christmas break, the first to be confronted by the goat. More bread pudding anybody? Randy asked. Someone would have to confess and be punished. No one would tell. No one confessed, so all were punished. But after Sunday mass - my confession was given, "forgive me father for I have sinned" "Yep", "Yep", "Yep", "Yep" We are all out of bread pudding but there is some apple crisp. No one move - I've got an ice cream scooper and I'm not afraid to use it! So ice cream and crisp all around? "Yep", "Yep", "Yep", "Yep". A plan was hatched up by the Quiet One, who listened more than he talked, but when he did talk, they were good ones. I have something to say - listen, fellas, there is a pimping in order for a bragger from another table - a lesson that needs to be touch. We'll tell him of our new plan and see if he will join in. It's a plan to get more zing at the end of the day. All of you agree with me when this Alaskan Bragger tries to join in. The trap was set, he was not long in taking the bait. As he walked by the table he asked how you all do today - I did quite well of course. We have a new way of rakin' it in - we put up a sign "will work for food" - evokes sympathy that is separating them from their tens and twentys like you can't believe. Just suck in your cheeks and look faint at the end of the day and those little old ladies will give their husbands a shove to the side and tell them to open that purse of my you are carrying and give that nice young man a tip. You won't believe how much one little sign can make such a difference. Can we do that? the old bragger asked? Sure we can, we just can't ask for tips. Try it and you will be doing 150 to 200 a day like all of us have since we started with our signs two weeks ago. No kidding, you guys all doing that good with just a sign that says "will work for food" "Yep!" You want some bread pudding? "Yep", "Yep", "Yep", "Yep", "Yep"
Well, I gotta go. This has taken me a while. I will try to get back to the computer again in a week or so. Let me hear from you with your stories from home and what you are doing. I miss you all and look forward to your blog comments and getting mail is good, too.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Hello Family and Friends
It is June 26th. I tried to get in here on my days off this week, but my timing was off and couldn't get on line when I was free. Got in early enough today from the run into the park that I think I can get posted before I get booted out of here. I have current news, but to think and write I'm not very quick, I need to see it written down - so I will just type the notes I have been writing. This may be confusing because my notes date back a few days but I think you can follow the dates listed as I continue my saga.
I will get all of the latest happenings written down before I blog again so I can just type it all from my notebook.
Continuing on from last blog . . . .
June 10, 2008
Tomorrow is Hollie's birthday. I have talked to her Mom and hear she is going to get the three F's - flipflops, fingernail polish and food (chocolate dipped strawberries while having a pedicure). In Hollie land these are the three essentials. It is good to know that she has moved on - it used to be her main goals were to have her own corner, run a cash register and adopt every stray dog in the world. I am so proud of her and also proud of the choices she has made in her adult life. Ok, I know that at one time she could have had a great career on the pole, but she opted for the horse shit at Rockome and worked her way thru school. It is something how your kid can make you so proud. Happy Birthday, Hollie.
100's
I am in training again. Have made a lot of contacts here and have learned that you need to plan well in advance for things that you would like to do. That is a little out of the ordinary for a flatlander, but I don't want to leave any stone uncovered that won't fit in my pocket. It is what you know and who you know and how much you can do for them that is important. As a flatlander, it has come to my attention that they have a Junior Alaskan Program here where you can get all the basics to become a sourdough in just a few short weeks. So I have made a decision that I will try to complete all of the required courses this summer - that includes iddaron mushing from some place in the bush to Fairbanks to bring back some rare serum or medicine to save some famous flatlander or just to get a summer supply of 100 bottles of Nyquill for everyone park side. I have a profound knowledge of mush - yellow and white. One of the first requirements, and the second most important thing, is to have a good platform to support you in case your dogs get lost. I don't have to worry about this just yet, as I have not aquired a sled or a team as of yet - but I have learned not to get to involved in the details at this point - in time it can all happen (with the right increments of hundreds). I have found that everything is possible in Alaska with the right hundreds of the right things. Everything is based on hundreds. It is the Alaskan numerical system for everything. Someone will say, "let's go get a hundred dollars worth of gas, drive 300 miles to town and back to get 200 cheeseburgers and a hundred gallons of beer and have a party for one hundred friends. The Alaskan numerical system - it works for everything. A hundred pounds of salmon is what I am working on now. That is what it will take to get to Fairbanks so I will have to find something to trade for a hundred pounds of salmon to feed the dogs. The only thing I have is a hundred riders every other day - so I have found a way to trade them to an airplane pilot who flys sightseeing trips over the mountain. I think this is going to work real well for both my salmon and my McKinley climb at the end of the year. And all of this is in the junion Alaskan Class I am taking. Hopefully I can have my dog mushing out of the way by mid-summer. It is required that you have it completed within the first 100 days. Log rolling and axe throwing is this weekend. I am looking forward to log rolling, as I have had some experience at falling off of logs. And really, all that is required is 100 revolutions without stopping in order to pass the log rolling part of the course. And axe throwing will be easy for me if I can throw under-handed. It should be just like using a pitching wedge from twenty-five yards out. All of this depends on my being able to trade 100 people out of all that ride my bus this summer to the mountain climbing people. This McKinley thing is going to take a lot of working out, but all I need to be able to do is climb a hunderd feet an hour - and who can't walk 100 feet an hour. So, what I am doing is this - when people on my bus ask if I have ever been on one of those airplanes that fly around the mountain, I tell them yes and that they should too. "Go see Hundo", I tell them, "over at Telketnia Air and tell him that Monty sent you". This way I build up flying time with Hundo. All I need is 100 referrals and I will have enought to trade for up to at least 7 thousand feet, where they can land on the glacier and I can start my climb of McKinley. That would only leave one thousand, one hundred feet to climb to reach the summit and at 100 feet per hour I only have to climb about 500 feet per day. I should have at least three days to get to the top and back down to the 7 thousand foot camp, where an Attabasken Indian will take me down to Kantishna for only 100 bottles of Nyquill. And all of this will be possible just because of the junior Alaskan class I've been taking this summer.
Last summer none of these exciting adventures were possible for me because of all of the restrictions that had been placed on me. There must have been at least a hundred things that I was told I could not even think about doing. But this year when I left home, she didn't say "Don't even think about it!"
June 14th
Father's day is tomorrow. The kids have sent me a Father's Day package but I can't get to the post office until Monday. It is hard to wait but the post office is not open on Sunday and I have to go inside to get the package. My box for letters and postcards is outside where I can get to it whenever - that is where they have all their summer resident's boxes. I sure miss the kids a lot, but knowing they are doing well helps me a great deal. I don't worry as much as I used to. I have kind of accepted that they have grown up and can take care of themselves.
Have had some really great wildlife days - yesterday was a hummer with 9 bears, 2 wolfs, a linx, lots of carabu and 2 foxes. Lots of dall sheep and 2 big rams. Had a long day earlier in the week - bus broke down on Government Hill and had to wait for another bus, transfer passengers and then continue the tour - but we saw all the wildlife except for a wolf that day so it was good, just long.
Had a new one for me - went to my first union meeting. I didn't know what to expect during the meeting but I knew what to do after it was over. My brothers-in-law taught me well what it is you do once union meetings are over - so I called in sick the next morning! Ha ha!
Hoping everyone is doing good. Sure do miss you all. Give me a "blog" when you can. I'll continue with my notes now.
Krumangen
Day 17 - no buggers. ( I'm sure that all flatlander keep stats.)
I have had no grand slams yet this year, but have come close three times. There is a change in the air and I feel it is a change that calls for short pants with white socks - with home being the place you want to run for and hear the crowd roar as you touch the bags, to have the power in that wood again and know you can go for the fence. You can touch them all and have no fear in going from first to third or center to the plate. It is a time of spring and I think it's here at last. The cold that had gripped my bones has started to thaw and the chill that has been upon me is gone. There is a change that has started to come over me as well - a metamorphasis - and I don't know if I can stop it. I think I am going to the dark side, a place that hides deep inside us all - it's a demon - and I think it is coming out of me. I am having trouble just writing about it. There is no one here I can talk to about it. No one here would understand what I am trying to tell them because no one knows me here. No one knows what I am really like - no one knows who I am - not like my buds and my friends in the flatland. It is a bad feeling for me to write down - a hard emotion to express. But I have signs. Signs that I am changing. There are things I am doing that I have never done before. It's like the boy of summer has left and responsibility has crept inside of me - or maybe it's the "M" word - maturity. Yes, the "M" word!! There are clues that it is happening to me. You see, I have started hanging up my pants at night - on a hanger - not just on the back of the chair. I've started picking up my socks when I take them off and have even gone as far as to hang up my shirt. I know this would not seem strange at all to these people up here in the north land. But to the people that know me, this is not right. It's like I have some other person from the dark side inside of me trying to come out. I think it all started when I became a vegetarian. I think I have become health concious. I consider my body as a temple now - ever since I started reading the word of the Sholmay. Yes, I have a new vegan lifestyle. I'm trying new foods - sprouts - spinach, okra, blue ribbon, wheat germ. I have started chanting in the evenings! - getting involved with the other followers of the jolly llama - real fun bunch. I am glad I have an orange bathrode. A friend here has loaned me a spare rug, which is nice, but I am having trouble sitting with my legs crossed. My legs go to sleep and I fall over into the person chanting next to me, then they fall into the person next to them - it's the domino effect. They are in deep meditation and chanting and don't even realize they have fallen over and I start to set them back up without messing up their bathrobes. But the problem has been solved. I just take my rug and go sit up againt the wall, fold the edges up under me when no one is looking and sit on it that way. My butt doesn't get tired and my legs don't fall asleep as fast. Chanting is harder than it looks and I'm not that good at it yet. Most everyone chants in "F" and you know me and Ike - everyting in "C"!! So I've been off key a little but they've been kind and have overlooked me breaking off into the chorus of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" every once in a while when I really get my hum on. I am light headed a lot these days since I went vegin and just today I noticed I was wearing white socks with brown shoes. The next thing you know I'll be wearing my pants pulled up to the middle of my stomach - and just today I was told no more wearing my orange bathrobe to work with white socks. What is wrong with white socks. If only I had a set of suspenders - a good belt is hard to find these days. And I have to trim my eyebrows every other day. What's up with that!! The only add I can read in my AARP magazine without my bifocals are the ones for hearing aids - and why are my legs as white as my ass checks - they're even whiter than my socks. And why do I go to bed at 7:30 and what do bags under your eyes really look like. . . . . and does touching them all mean you have to see them, too? I can't remember the last time I pissed over a fence and thank God for automatics - the stick shift should be outlawed. And I don't leave anything on my plate these days. Me and Dave Blethroade's high school health teacher was right - STATS - everyone keeps them, some are just different than others.
I will get all of the latest happenings written down before I blog again so I can just type it all from my notebook.
Continuing on from last blog . . . .
June 10, 2008
Tomorrow is Hollie's birthday. I have talked to her Mom and hear she is going to get the three F's - flipflops, fingernail polish and food (chocolate dipped strawberries while having a pedicure). In Hollie land these are the three essentials. It is good to know that she has moved on - it used to be her main goals were to have her own corner, run a cash register and adopt every stray dog in the world. I am so proud of her and also proud of the choices she has made in her adult life. Ok, I know that at one time she could have had a great career on the pole, but she opted for the horse shit at Rockome and worked her way thru school. It is something how your kid can make you so proud. Happy Birthday, Hollie.
100's
I am in training again. Have made a lot of contacts here and have learned that you need to plan well in advance for things that you would like to do. That is a little out of the ordinary for a flatlander, but I don't want to leave any stone uncovered that won't fit in my pocket. It is what you know and who you know and how much you can do for them that is important. As a flatlander, it has come to my attention that they have a Junior Alaskan Program here where you can get all the basics to become a sourdough in just a few short weeks. So I have made a decision that I will try to complete all of the required courses this summer - that includes iddaron mushing from some place in the bush to Fairbanks to bring back some rare serum or medicine to save some famous flatlander or just to get a summer supply of 100 bottles of Nyquill for everyone park side. I have a profound knowledge of mush - yellow and white. One of the first requirements, and the second most important thing, is to have a good platform to support you in case your dogs get lost. I don't have to worry about this just yet, as I have not aquired a sled or a team as of yet - but I have learned not to get to involved in the details at this point - in time it can all happen (with the right increments of hundreds). I have found that everything is possible in Alaska with the right hundreds of the right things. Everything is based on hundreds. It is the Alaskan numerical system for everything. Someone will say, "let's go get a hundred dollars worth of gas, drive 300 miles to town and back to get 200 cheeseburgers and a hundred gallons of beer and have a party for one hundred friends. The Alaskan numerical system - it works for everything. A hundred pounds of salmon is what I am working on now. That is what it will take to get to Fairbanks so I will have to find something to trade for a hundred pounds of salmon to feed the dogs. The only thing I have is a hundred riders every other day - so I have found a way to trade them to an airplane pilot who flys sightseeing trips over the mountain. I think this is going to work real well for both my salmon and my McKinley climb at the end of the year. And all of this is in the junion Alaskan Class I am taking. Hopefully I can have my dog mushing out of the way by mid-summer. It is required that you have it completed within the first 100 days. Log rolling and axe throwing is this weekend. I am looking forward to log rolling, as I have had some experience at falling off of logs. And really, all that is required is 100 revolutions without stopping in order to pass the log rolling part of the course. And axe throwing will be easy for me if I can throw under-handed. It should be just like using a pitching wedge from twenty-five yards out. All of this depends on my being able to trade 100 people out of all that ride my bus this summer to the mountain climbing people. This McKinley thing is going to take a lot of working out, but all I need to be able to do is climb a hunderd feet an hour - and who can't walk 100 feet an hour. So, what I am doing is this - when people on my bus ask if I have ever been on one of those airplanes that fly around the mountain, I tell them yes and that they should too. "Go see Hundo", I tell them, "over at Telketnia Air and tell him that Monty sent you". This way I build up flying time with Hundo. All I need is 100 referrals and I will have enought to trade for up to at least 7 thousand feet, where they can land on the glacier and I can start my climb of McKinley. That would only leave one thousand, one hundred feet to climb to reach the summit and at 100 feet per hour I only have to climb about 500 feet per day. I should have at least three days to get to the top and back down to the 7 thousand foot camp, where an Attabasken Indian will take me down to Kantishna for only 100 bottles of Nyquill. And all of this will be possible just because of the junior Alaskan class I've been taking this summer.
Last summer none of these exciting adventures were possible for me because of all of the restrictions that had been placed on me. There must have been at least a hundred things that I was told I could not even think about doing. But this year when I left home, she didn't say "Don't even think about it!"
June 14th
Father's day is tomorrow. The kids have sent me a Father's Day package but I can't get to the post office until Monday. It is hard to wait but the post office is not open on Sunday and I have to go inside to get the package. My box for letters and postcards is outside where I can get to it whenever - that is where they have all their summer resident's boxes. I sure miss the kids a lot, but knowing they are doing well helps me a great deal. I don't worry as much as I used to. I have kind of accepted that they have grown up and can take care of themselves.
Have had some really great wildlife days - yesterday was a hummer with 9 bears, 2 wolfs, a linx, lots of carabu and 2 foxes. Lots of dall sheep and 2 big rams. Had a long day earlier in the week - bus broke down on Government Hill and had to wait for another bus, transfer passengers and then continue the tour - but we saw all the wildlife except for a wolf that day so it was good, just long.
Had a new one for me - went to my first union meeting. I didn't know what to expect during the meeting but I knew what to do after it was over. My brothers-in-law taught me well what it is you do once union meetings are over - so I called in sick the next morning! Ha ha!
Hoping everyone is doing good. Sure do miss you all. Give me a "blog" when you can. I'll continue with my notes now.
Krumangen
Day 17 - no buggers. ( I'm sure that all flatlander keep stats.)
I have had no grand slams yet this year, but have come close three times. There is a change in the air and I feel it is a change that calls for short pants with white socks - with home being the place you want to run for and hear the crowd roar as you touch the bags, to have the power in that wood again and know you can go for the fence. You can touch them all and have no fear in going from first to third or center to the plate. It is a time of spring and I think it's here at last. The cold that had gripped my bones has started to thaw and the chill that has been upon me is gone. There is a change that has started to come over me as well - a metamorphasis - and I don't know if I can stop it. I think I am going to the dark side, a place that hides deep inside us all - it's a demon - and I think it is coming out of me. I am having trouble just writing about it. There is no one here I can talk to about it. No one here would understand what I am trying to tell them because no one knows me here. No one knows what I am really like - no one knows who I am - not like my buds and my friends in the flatland. It is a bad feeling for me to write down - a hard emotion to express. But I have signs. Signs that I am changing. There are things I am doing that I have never done before. It's like the boy of summer has left and responsibility has crept inside of me - or maybe it's the "M" word - maturity. Yes, the "M" word!! There are clues that it is happening to me. You see, I have started hanging up my pants at night - on a hanger - not just on the back of the chair. I've started picking up my socks when I take them off and have even gone as far as to hang up my shirt. I know this would not seem strange at all to these people up here in the north land. But to the people that know me, this is not right. It's like I have some other person from the dark side inside of me trying to come out. I think it all started when I became a vegetarian. I think I have become health concious. I consider my body as a temple now - ever since I started reading the word of the Sholmay. Yes, I have a new vegan lifestyle. I'm trying new foods - sprouts - spinach, okra, blue ribbon, wheat germ. I have started chanting in the evenings! - getting involved with the other followers of the jolly llama - real fun bunch. I am glad I have an orange bathrode. A friend here has loaned me a spare rug, which is nice, but I am having trouble sitting with my legs crossed. My legs go to sleep and I fall over into the person chanting next to me, then they fall into the person next to them - it's the domino effect. They are in deep meditation and chanting and don't even realize they have fallen over and I start to set them back up without messing up their bathrobes. But the problem has been solved. I just take my rug and go sit up againt the wall, fold the edges up under me when no one is looking and sit on it that way. My butt doesn't get tired and my legs don't fall asleep as fast. Chanting is harder than it looks and I'm not that good at it yet. Most everyone chants in "F" and you know me and Ike - everyting in "C"!! So I've been off key a little but they've been kind and have overlooked me breaking off into the chorus of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" every once in a while when I really get my hum on. I am light headed a lot these days since I went vegin and just today I noticed I was wearing white socks with brown shoes. The next thing you know I'll be wearing my pants pulled up to the middle of my stomach - and just today I was told no more wearing my orange bathrobe to work with white socks. What is wrong with white socks. If only I had a set of suspenders - a good belt is hard to find these days. And I have to trim my eyebrows every other day. What's up with that!! The only add I can read in my AARP magazine without my bifocals are the ones for hearing aids - and why are my legs as white as my ass checks - they're even whiter than my socks. And why do I go to bed at 7:30 and what do bags under your eyes really look like. . . . . and does touching them all mean you have to see them, too? I can't remember the last time I pissed over a fence and thank God for automatics - the stick shift should be outlawed. And I don't leave anything on my plate these days. Me and Dave Blethroade's high school health teacher was right - STATS - everyone keeps them, some are just different than others.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The adventures continue
Hi Family and Friends,
Am off work today, Monday, June 16th. Got my laundry done - finally - and thought I would post some more of the notes I've been jotting down. Am feeling better but these days off are very long!! Talked to the kids yesterday on Father's Day. They went to Cracker Barrell to have their Sunday only served southern fried chicken to celebrate for me. Was great to talk to them. They are all doing great and have been adding to their blog, too. If you haven't yet gotten on their blog you should. It helps keep up on what they are doing plus they know how to put pictures on theirs! Linda told me about David Tate. What a shame - he was so young - we had a lot of fun times golfing with David, didn't we - he'll be missed. She also sent me some pictures of all of the flooding - wow! I cannot remember the bridge at Cooks Mills ever flooding over before. Hopefully your rain will back off big time for a while. Well, here we go with the writing:
June 1, 2008
It is hard to know where to start - the miles have been many, some hard and some easy - but none without you in my mind and heart. There has been much doubt in my mind as to why I have come back to this far-off place, where winter still hangs on like an ingrown toe nail that you keep stubbing. You can put up with it most of the time but you just can't kick anything quite as hard as you woud like. I will miss your birthday again, Linda, but you should have some flowers for your desk. Not quite the same but we can celebrate when I am home.
June 5, 2008
Last day of training. We drove all the way to Fish Creek just so we could train on the four mile stretch of road out to Ileson. It is a very dangerous and tricky part of the park road so we drive it over and over without people on so we can re-learn the road without distraction. It has been a very long day and I'm going to eat supper and turn in
June 6, 2008
Sittout outside on the back of the Murie Center. Still need a coat on over a sweatshirt if you are sitting still. Don't remember it staying this cold this late last year. But it has not snowed for five days and the sun comes and goes to try to warm us.
HATS . . . .
There is one thing that I have noticed up here that is totally different from home and that is hats. And I do mean different hats. Some are hard to describe. It seems as if people use them to help personify their personality. We have all kinds - not to say they are out of place, but they are unique to the person who wears them. The tourist men all wear a ball cap with the word Alaska on the front so that everyone will know that they are in Alaska - and I suppose so that they can do a quick check to remind themselves where they are. You have to keep in mind that the average age of tourists that come up here is 65. Not that that is old, but it is the right age for men to start taking their hats off to find out where they are. There is also that bracket of men that wear both the hat and the sweatshirt that say Alaska, and in most cases these men are also carrying their wives purses, and can be found staring into space with their mouths half open standing in line waiting for the right bus to take them back to their hotel, which they cannot pronounce the name of but their wife has a canvas tote bag from their hotel so they can just point at the name on the bag and ask the driver, "do you go here?" I love to say "no" then watch as the wife goes into full fly-catching mode with that "how will we ever get back to Cleveland from here" look on her face. But I always give in and tell them which bus to get on so they don't miss the salad bar opening and the start of the sing-along. They all know all of the words to "Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah" and "I've been Working on the Railroad". Lawrence rules with this crowd! The tote-bag crowd I call them. Then there is the fly fishermen's hat. That's the guy who just bought the hat down in Skagway to impress all his friends back at the local bait shop. He can't wait to get home and show off all his new blue gill lures he has pinned through his new hat. You can always tell it is a new hat by all the bandaids on the guy's hands. You see, he keeps taking his hat off to tell where he is at and gets his hands caught on his new fishing lures. I say a fella with one hand that has at least seven bandaids on it and the other hand in a sling (with his wife's purse around his neck) is the true vacation fisherman. The bird lovers hat is another one that is hard to miss. They have this big floppy brim on them with a chin strap. Pray tell what the chin strap is for. Maybe if they see the right bird they will be able to fly also. These hats also have face netting that folds up in the brim. I guess this netting is to help them stay on their diet. You can always tell you are at dinner with a birder who has just purchased the ultimate bird-watching hat because they can't figure out how to get the netting to stay up in the brim after they have unrolled it. One of the best of the all time hats is the Alaskan wildlife hat. In my opinion, the moose is by far the best. What you have is a nice brown fur cap with a set of moose antlers sticking out the sides. The most common wearer of this hat is the guy with the World War II Cheerleader for a wife who has had three face lifts and looks at least thirty years younger than him. It is as if this hat gives him some new-found supply of testosterone - they spend a lot of time putting their head down and making cow sounds like they are going to goor something. Let me say this - there is nothing more touristy than some guy in a wolf or bear hat - but the one in a moose hat with the antlers is the best - and this macho "moose" guy is carrying his wife's purse!!! Next there is the Sherlock Holmes hat. Now this one is worn by both men and women - big bill in the front and in the back and inveriably one will leave the price tag on the under side of the back bill but put the hat on backwards. Not always, but most of the time they are traveling with another couple who have binoculars around their necks and nets over their faces. Not to be outdone - both the man and the woman will be holding a marshim pipe. The ever-present Elmer Fudd hat can also be seen in the gift shops in Glidder Gulch - with the red plaid out-numbering the green plaid four to one. Almost always, the men wearing this hat will have one ear flap up and one down. This is so they will be at least half way ready to go to the next gift shop at a moment's notice and can do so with only one hand needed to pull the "up" flap back down, freeing his other hand for - you're right - carrying is wife's purse. Then there is the photographer's hat. This hat has many categories of human under them. Mostly you've got the professional photographer with the 1000mm lens that looks a lot like a leaf blower, who's carrying a tripod and a back pack that is big enough to make an attempt at climbing Mount Foucker. This guy has everything he is wearing two sizes too big for him - shirt, vest, pants - but not his hat. It is this foreign legion style with a black bill, white top and a washcloth type thing hanging from the back. Most of these people don't carry a purse, though. I could go on and on. My powers of observation are exceptional - maybe it is my own little idiosinkricy or just my left-threaded way. Probably the best hat of them all is the Australian style bush hat, worn exclusively by people from Georgia and Alabama, all trying to talk like Crockadille Dundee with a southern accent. This hat is easy to spot in a crowd because the person wearing it is usually pulling a fold-up shopping cart that will have his wife's purse AND his sister-in-laws purse in it. I love to say "Good day, Mate, out for a walk about" in my best accent from down under. It seems, though, that every time I get a chance to do this, I say it at the same time they've been told to get something out of their wife's purse in the shopping cart and they don't hear me. Hats, hats, hats - none like Ivan's or Kenney's bucket hats though. Maybe they are just too flatlandish for up here, I don't know. But what I do know is that the one common demononator among the hat-wearing men I am encountering during my Alaskan adventure is the number of them that carry a purse!
Got a couple of folks waiting to use a computer so I'll stop for now. Will try to write more again tomorrow, as I am off then too. Monday and Tuesday is my weekend with this run I'm on now. Take care everyone - I miss you - hopefully you can comment back to me on the blog.
Monty
Am off work today, Monday, June 16th. Got my laundry done - finally - and thought I would post some more of the notes I've been jotting down. Am feeling better but these days off are very long!! Talked to the kids yesterday on Father's Day. They went to Cracker Barrell to have their Sunday only served southern fried chicken to celebrate for me. Was great to talk to them. They are all doing great and have been adding to their blog, too. If you haven't yet gotten on their blog you should. It helps keep up on what they are doing plus they know how to put pictures on theirs! Linda told me about David Tate. What a shame - he was so young - we had a lot of fun times golfing with David, didn't we - he'll be missed. She also sent me some pictures of all of the flooding - wow! I cannot remember the bridge at Cooks Mills ever flooding over before. Hopefully your rain will back off big time for a while. Well, here we go with the writing:
June 1, 2008
It is hard to know where to start - the miles have been many, some hard and some easy - but none without you in my mind and heart. There has been much doubt in my mind as to why I have come back to this far-off place, where winter still hangs on like an ingrown toe nail that you keep stubbing. You can put up with it most of the time but you just can't kick anything quite as hard as you woud like. I will miss your birthday again, Linda, but you should have some flowers for your desk. Not quite the same but we can celebrate when I am home.
June 5, 2008
Last day of training. We drove all the way to Fish Creek just so we could train on the four mile stretch of road out to Ileson. It is a very dangerous and tricky part of the park road so we drive it over and over without people on so we can re-learn the road without distraction. It has been a very long day and I'm going to eat supper and turn in
June 6, 2008
Sittout outside on the back of the Murie Center. Still need a coat on over a sweatshirt if you are sitting still. Don't remember it staying this cold this late last year. But it has not snowed for five days and the sun comes and goes to try to warm us.
HATS . . . .
There is one thing that I have noticed up here that is totally different from home and that is hats. And I do mean different hats. Some are hard to describe. It seems as if people use them to help personify their personality. We have all kinds - not to say they are out of place, but they are unique to the person who wears them. The tourist men all wear a ball cap with the word Alaska on the front so that everyone will know that they are in Alaska - and I suppose so that they can do a quick check to remind themselves where they are. You have to keep in mind that the average age of tourists that come up here is 65. Not that that is old, but it is the right age for men to start taking their hats off to find out where they are. There is also that bracket of men that wear both the hat and the sweatshirt that say Alaska, and in most cases these men are also carrying their wives purses, and can be found staring into space with their mouths half open standing in line waiting for the right bus to take them back to their hotel, which they cannot pronounce the name of but their wife has a canvas tote bag from their hotel so they can just point at the name on the bag and ask the driver, "do you go here?" I love to say "no" then watch as the wife goes into full fly-catching mode with that "how will we ever get back to Cleveland from here" look on her face. But I always give in and tell them which bus to get on so they don't miss the salad bar opening and the start of the sing-along. They all know all of the words to "Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah" and "I've been Working on the Railroad". Lawrence rules with this crowd! The tote-bag crowd I call them. Then there is the fly fishermen's hat. That's the guy who just bought the hat down in Skagway to impress all his friends back at the local bait shop. He can't wait to get home and show off all his new blue gill lures he has pinned through his new hat. You can always tell it is a new hat by all the bandaids on the guy's hands. You see, he keeps taking his hat off to tell where he is at and gets his hands caught on his new fishing lures. I say a fella with one hand that has at least seven bandaids on it and the other hand in a sling (with his wife's purse around his neck) is the true vacation fisherman. The bird lovers hat is another one that is hard to miss. They have this big floppy brim on them with a chin strap. Pray tell what the chin strap is for. Maybe if they see the right bird they will be able to fly also. These hats also have face netting that folds up in the brim. I guess this netting is to help them stay on their diet. You can always tell you are at dinner with a birder who has just purchased the ultimate bird-watching hat because they can't figure out how to get the netting to stay up in the brim after they have unrolled it. One of the best of the all time hats is the Alaskan wildlife hat. In my opinion, the moose is by far the best. What you have is a nice brown fur cap with a set of moose antlers sticking out the sides. The most common wearer of this hat is the guy with the World War II Cheerleader for a wife who has had three face lifts and looks at least thirty years younger than him. It is as if this hat gives him some new-found supply of testosterone - they spend a lot of time putting their head down and making cow sounds like they are going to goor something. Let me say this - there is nothing more touristy than some guy in a wolf or bear hat - but the one in a moose hat with the antlers is the best - and this macho "moose" guy is carrying his wife's purse!!! Next there is the Sherlock Holmes hat. Now this one is worn by both men and women - big bill in the front and in the back and inveriably one will leave the price tag on the under side of the back bill but put the hat on backwards. Not always, but most of the time they are traveling with another couple who have binoculars around their necks and nets over their faces. Not to be outdone - both the man and the woman will be holding a marshim pipe. The ever-present Elmer Fudd hat can also be seen in the gift shops in Glidder Gulch - with the red plaid out-numbering the green plaid four to one. Almost always, the men wearing this hat will have one ear flap up and one down. This is so they will be at least half way ready to go to the next gift shop at a moment's notice and can do so with only one hand needed to pull the "up" flap back down, freeing his other hand for - you're right - carrying is wife's purse. Then there is the photographer's hat. This hat has many categories of human under them. Mostly you've got the professional photographer with the 1000mm lens that looks a lot like a leaf blower, who's carrying a tripod and a back pack that is big enough to make an attempt at climbing Mount Foucker. This guy has everything he is wearing two sizes too big for him - shirt, vest, pants - but not his hat. It is this foreign legion style with a black bill, white top and a washcloth type thing hanging from the back. Most of these people don't carry a purse, though. I could go on and on. My powers of observation are exceptional - maybe it is my own little idiosinkricy or just my left-threaded way. Probably the best hat of them all is the Australian style bush hat, worn exclusively by people from Georgia and Alabama, all trying to talk like Crockadille Dundee with a southern accent. This hat is easy to spot in a crowd because the person wearing it is usually pulling a fold-up shopping cart that will have his wife's purse AND his sister-in-laws purse in it. I love to say "Good day, Mate, out for a walk about" in my best accent from down under. It seems, though, that every time I get a chance to do this, I say it at the same time they've been told to get something out of their wife's purse in the shopping cart and they don't hear me. Hats, hats, hats - none like Ivan's or Kenney's bucket hats though. Maybe they are just too flatlandish for up here, I don't know. But what I do know is that the one common demononator among the hat-wearing men I am encountering during my Alaskan adventure is the number of them that carry a purse!
Got a couple of folks waiting to use a computer so I'll stop for now. Will try to write more again tomorrow, as I am off then too. Monday and Tuesday is my weekend with this run I'm on now. Take care everyone - I miss you - hopefully you can comment back to me on the blog.
Monty
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Greetings from Denali
Today is Saturday, June 7th. Sorry it has been almost a month since I arrived in Alaska and I have not gotten anything posted until today. When I have had some time off, I have had to rest. This pneumonia just won't go completely away. I am finally feeling a little better I think. Had to have the doc from home phone in more medication to Fairbanks for me and I just finished taking the fourth round of antibiotics yesterday. Hopefully this will do the trick. I was to have had Thursday and Friday off and planned to gather up all of my notes (I have been jotting down notes since I arrived) and get to a computer on Friday. Then I got called to drive Friday. My run today was earlier than most days and was back in much earlier, so hopefully I can get everything typed before the lines get too long waiting on a computer.
May 10, 2008
A long day yesterday. Last minute packing and getting the last jobs out of the print shop. I needed to leave by 11:30 to head to town to meet Linda for lunch. Was done with cleaning the press at 11:45 - a quick shower is all I had time for. Not what I had in mind - I didn't have time to get in the hot tub - so much for some of the amenities of home for the last time. Didn't even have time to play with the dog - just told her I'd be back tomorrow - She is going to be PISSED! Had lunch with Linda and Bill - was sure good to see him for a little while before I left - and then it was off to the airport. Linda and I made it to O'Hare on time - no traffic delays - so we had time to set in the airport and hold hands and dry on each other's shoulder. It was a tough goodbye for the both of us. Last year was all so new - this year we both know how long 4 1/2 months can be when we are not together. But we are one even if we are apart.
Arrived in Anchorage about 11:00 p.m. after a 6 1/2 hour flight. It was long and uncomfortable. I had requested an aisle seat but ended up with a middle seat - between two good sized bubbas who were sitting side by side when I got to my seat. I like to get on the plane as late as I can when I take my guitar on board - then all the people already on think I am some kind of rock star from the flatlands. If someone asks, I've got this big story to tell them about having to go replace Arlo Guthrie's backup singer, who has come down with booblonic plague - or food poisoning - depending on how gullable the person appears to be - or if they even know who Arlo Guthrie is. Lots of variables in my presentations. But, these two bubbas are having a Gulf War reunion when I walk up to take my seat. The guy in the middle says "I've got this cast on my leg, is it alright if we change places and I take your aisle seat?" Being the good natured flatlander I say no problem. (thinking it will be easier to tell both of them my Arlo Guthrie story if I'm in the middle). So much for that thought. Not long before it was apparent that there were no Arlo fans in the bunch. But we were not long in the air when I find out that the one with the broken leg has just gotten off a whaling ship where he was the first mate boson captan something or other and had been put adrift by his crew for snoring so loud he had kept all awake for days. The other bubba was a Pentecostal preacher who thought he could save me from the demons of drink after my third crown and coke - which I was drinking to kill the pan in my left ear. I let him go through his entire sermon on the evils of alcohol just to be nice, but I finally had to shut him up. I told him I was only drinking the crown to get the bottles. That was how I made my living. That I was an artist and that I painted beautiful pictures on the small bottles and attached them to a macrame necklace - and that they highly resembled scrimsaw carvings. Next thing I know, while I am still talking to the preacher, both bubbas are snoring. Not a good way to spend a six and a half hour flight. But I made it with all of my belongings. At last I was able to stand up and move around, got my luggage and hailed a cab - and it is still before sunset, so it has really been a long day. Something that I will need to get used to again.
The sagga begins . . . .
The long trek was over, so I thought. Now it would be just a matter of falling into a rhythm after I make it back to my cabin - and the park this year will be much easier - I will no where I am going once I get to Denali and what is going to happen the first day and the next day and the next. This year I will know where I go to eat and sleep and the same of the places that I am supposed to be in ten minutes. I will know people's names and what all the acronyms mean. If someone asks about what is going on out at Savage or Heeley, I will know what they are talking about - what a difference. But there are still new things for me to experience, which is why I am back here. This is a big place. A different kind of place - with different customs and ways of life. So, why not try one on my first day - a different experience that is. The Midnight Sun Mission - or - I know - to stay in a hobo camp down by the railroad yard! But I had too much stuff to get over all the tracks - it is a big switching yard - and to take a cab to an empty box car would just take all the fun out of hoboing, in my way of thinking. Besides, I have left home without my red bandanna and no self-respecting hobo with any sand at all would be seen out in public without is red bandanna - image is everything when you are hoboing - so it is nix nix to spending the night in a box car. So I have to bring all my skills of living off the land in to play to make it through the night. I know from all my past training in Biloxi that a man needs food, shelter & drink, as well as ESPN, Fox News and the cooking channel - these are the necessities of life. But in downtown Anchorage at midnight with no red bandanna I see only one option open to me, seeing as the Hyatt is $375.oo per night and the night is half over and negotiating any difference while the cabbie's meter is running is not a good thing to do. When in Rome, do as the Romans do - ask the cabbie "know of any place a flatlander can get a room for the rest of the night without spending my income stimulus check?" Cabbies know all this kind of stuff "Have you tried the Midnight Sun Mission?" No wanting to seem like a total stranger to town, I say no, but do you think a place as nice as the Midnight Sun Mission would still have a room? Sure, he says, do you want me to call and see? No, I say, let's just whip on over there. If Father Dolapp is still running things there, I am sure he will find me a room. OK says the cabby, who has introduced himself as Alaskan Jesus -which seems really strange to me. Everyone up here is called Alaskan something. I've run into an Alaskan Johnny, an Alaskan Slimm and and Alaskan Fatty. I think when I get home I will have my name changed to Alaskan Monty. Has kind of a ring to it. Sleep is trying to creep into my head, but as Walt Whitman said, "I have miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep." Almost sundown now and there it is - a flickering blue neon light with only the "d" and the "sion" lights on all the time - but occasionally the M and the G light up. What a welcoming sight! "Home at last" says AK Jesus, "been nice having you along tonight, and look - the 'Come on In' sign is in the front window - that means they still have beds open - you are in luck - don't mean they will still have soup left though" Airplane ticket $800.00 - Cab ride $65.00 - Cabby's tip $10.00 - One night in the Midnight Sun Mission - PRICELESS!!!
May 11, 2008
Trip to the park on the Yukon Trail was long - over five hours sitting in a van with 12 other people - only stopping twice, once about 30 miles out and the next about 190 miles out. But on the south side of the Alaska Range we started to get into the snow and everything was beautiful. At trapper creek we saw the mountain and it was clear all the way to the north side - what a sight to see her all the way 'till we went around the outer range.
May 14, 2008
Cold this morning and a heavy frost covers the road bed - the water in the creek was frozen but the sun was high at 7:00 a.m. and the sky was blue and bright. The air was cold in my lungs when I breath it in and I could feel it in my chest. The last few days have been long - the classroom part of training is long and trying and can be over-whelming as well as boring at times. But this afternoon we start behind the wheel training which will make the day go by faster and break the boredom of the orientation. I am scheduled to start training with Wendy Hester who is a fifteen year veteran who I took my first drive out into the park with last year. She is an older lady and will be a good person to start training with this year. I don't know what we will start on but we will have about ten more days of driving training before I will be alone. We have a bid tonight at 7:00 - we'll see what I get
May 17, 2008
Tired tonight - training on the park road all day - 7 1/2 hours of driving. I was saying to myself, what am I doing all this way from home again putting myself through all this training when I could be home doing what a normal person my age should be doing. I should be thinking about retiring - not starting a new career in Alaska. But then I start up Polychrome and two old dall rams were laying in the road - they moved thank goodness. Then, about ten more miles down the road it was snowing so hard it was a total white out for about five minutes so we had to stop. It cleared and on I went. The park is still all covered in snow - about three feet deep down where I live but up on the park road everything is white. On my way back from Toklat I started up Primrose and saw a grizzly - she was walking up the road right in front of me - I slowed down a little and crept closer and then there was two, then three, then four - you guessed it - my first bear sighting of the year was the triplets born last season and their momma. What a sight to see them again and I can't put into words the way I felt seeing them again. All were healthy and getting bigger. Two will be as big as momma by the end of July and of course the little one had to show off by trying to catch a hare that ran past - it was an incredible sight. I just stopped the bus and sat and watched them. They started digging for roots - that is their main food source this time of year - no grass or berries because everything is still under snow. Then they started moving right towards the bus - they kept walking my way - I had the driver's window open all the way and as they walked by they were so close I could hear them breathing. You can't imagine what a rush it is to have four grizzly bears walk past you so close you can hear their breath and their claws clicking as they walk. So I guess I know why I am back up here.
May 18, 2008
Just time for a short note after I called home. I was sitting on the third step of our EDARX talking to Linda when this cow moose and her year-old calf just came out of the woods and walked by me at about seven feet away - liked to scared me to death. All I could say to Linda as they walked by was "oh my,oh my, oh my,you cannot believe how big a full-grown moose is strolling by just 7 feet away - oh my!!!!!!!!!!
May 19, 2008
The last cold days of winter's shivers have just left my teeth, I hope, for all the garden food that was put up last year is gone and there is only three days of wood left in the wood box. All of last year's moose is gone and I have eaten all but one pair of boots and all my socks. There is hope!! The "Rold Gold" man has been seen down in the front country so all is not lost. Besides, that is the way you are to write when its springtime in Alaska. Below freezing last night but it is warm today when the sun is out from behind the clouds. Today was the last day of training until they get the road clear of ice from Toklat to Ileson - hopefully by the 25th so we can get that part of our training finished. But I am cleared all the way to Toklat and have my first run on Friday the 23rd. I have a 9:30 a.m. run first of the year. My spirits are a lot better. On the way back in from training run, I was reminded just how spectacular this place is. The beauty of this place cannot be described- it helps so much with the home sickness. I have taken to writing notes to myself when I have time then I will try to put it all down at once. I just don't know if it will make any sense - we'll see if I can tie it together. But dileria ravages my body and my mind fades from reality to fiction and then back. I have started to hear voices of past Atabaske Chiefs and Elders of days gone by from the great fishing villages on the Tananall - so return with me to those thrilling days of yesterday, back before electric start snowmobiles and direct T.V. - back in a more simpler time when a man of the north could pull start his snowmobile and didn't mind going out and turning the antenna to pick up his favorite rerun of old-time radio. These are the days I remember, the days that were full of hardship. Like last spring, which I remember as if it were only last spring. Back when I was but just a young whipper snapper of a flatlander with not even as much as a stone in my pocket. But look at me now, I have a whole pocketfull of rocks now. A man with rocks in his pockets is a man who knows not to go swimming with his pants on - and not to stay overnight at a friends house with a large picture window. There is a great deal of symbolism in my thinking today. I hope you can see it for I cannot, for my eyes are full of tears and are red and irritated and I must admit - I'm having some trouble writing. Not to worry though, I am not losing my vision or anything like that - no it is just that I've been working on this jigsaw puzzle of a snow scene here in the park for the last three evenings. But I just found out today from one of the Tribal Elders or the Bartender at the Spike, I don't know what he likes to be known as - but anyway he asked if he could borrow some rocks last night and I said sure, seeing as I have plenty this year and I was getting tired of throwing rocks by myself at this puzzle and him being an Elder and me getting a sore right arm. That is one good thing up here, people are willing to help you with almost anything. I know that sooner or later I would have figured out that it was no a snow scene of the park for people with pockets full of rocks to be working on. Besides, I may be suffering from frost bite on all my finger tips, throwing off all sense of feeling I may have in my fingers, which would be a must for working this kind of jigsaw puzzle, which I would have seen if I had not had this bad case of tired red eye brought on by snow blindness caught while trying to turn the antenna to bring in public radio for the hearing impaired.
May 10, 2008
A long day yesterday. Last minute packing and getting the last jobs out of the print shop. I needed to leave by 11:30 to head to town to meet Linda for lunch. Was done with cleaning the press at 11:45 - a quick shower is all I had time for. Not what I had in mind - I didn't have time to get in the hot tub - so much for some of the amenities of home for the last time. Didn't even have time to play with the dog - just told her I'd be back tomorrow - She is going to be PISSED! Had lunch with Linda and Bill - was sure good to see him for a little while before I left - and then it was off to the airport. Linda and I made it to O'Hare on time - no traffic delays - so we had time to set in the airport and hold hands and dry on each other's shoulder. It was a tough goodbye for the both of us. Last year was all so new - this year we both know how long 4 1/2 months can be when we are not together. But we are one even if we are apart.
Arrived in Anchorage about 11:00 p.m. after a 6 1/2 hour flight. It was long and uncomfortable. I had requested an aisle seat but ended up with a middle seat - between two good sized bubbas who were sitting side by side when I got to my seat. I like to get on the plane as late as I can when I take my guitar on board - then all the people already on think I am some kind of rock star from the flatlands. If someone asks, I've got this big story to tell them about having to go replace Arlo Guthrie's backup singer, who has come down with booblonic plague - or food poisoning - depending on how gullable the person appears to be - or if they even know who Arlo Guthrie is. Lots of variables in my presentations. But, these two bubbas are having a Gulf War reunion when I walk up to take my seat. The guy in the middle says "I've got this cast on my leg, is it alright if we change places and I take your aisle seat?" Being the good natured flatlander I say no problem. (thinking it will be easier to tell both of them my Arlo Guthrie story if I'm in the middle). So much for that thought. Not long before it was apparent that there were no Arlo fans in the bunch. But we were not long in the air when I find out that the one with the broken leg has just gotten off a whaling ship where he was the first mate boson captan something or other and had been put adrift by his crew for snoring so loud he had kept all awake for days. The other bubba was a Pentecostal preacher who thought he could save me from the demons of drink after my third crown and coke - which I was drinking to kill the pan in my left ear. I let him go through his entire sermon on the evils of alcohol just to be nice, but I finally had to shut him up. I told him I was only drinking the crown to get the bottles. That was how I made my living. That I was an artist and that I painted beautiful pictures on the small bottles and attached them to a macrame necklace - and that they highly resembled scrimsaw carvings. Next thing I know, while I am still talking to the preacher, both bubbas are snoring. Not a good way to spend a six and a half hour flight. But I made it with all of my belongings. At last I was able to stand up and move around, got my luggage and hailed a cab - and it is still before sunset, so it has really been a long day. Something that I will need to get used to again.
The sagga begins . . . .
The long trek was over, so I thought. Now it would be just a matter of falling into a rhythm after I make it back to my cabin - and the park this year will be much easier - I will no where I am going once I get to Denali and what is going to happen the first day and the next day and the next. This year I will know where I go to eat and sleep and the same of the places that I am supposed to be in ten minutes. I will know people's names and what all the acronyms mean. If someone asks about what is going on out at Savage or Heeley, I will know what they are talking about - what a difference. But there are still new things for me to experience, which is why I am back here. This is a big place. A different kind of place - with different customs and ways of life. So, why not try one on my first day - a different experience that is. The Midnight Sun Mission - or - I know - to stay in a hobo camp down by the railroad yard! But I had too much stuff to get over all the tracks - it is a big switching yard - and to take a cab to an empty box car would just take all the fun out of hoboing, in my way of thinking. Besides, I have left home without my red bandanna and no self-respecting hobo with any sand at all would be seen out in public without is red bandanna - image is everything when you are hoboing - so it is nix nix to spending the night in a box car. So I have to bring all my skills of living off the land in to play to make it through the night. I know from all my past training in Biloxi that a man needs food, shelter & drink, as well as ESPN, Fox News and the cooking channel - these are the necessities of life. But in downtown Anchorage at midnight with no red bandanna I see only one option open to me, seeing as the Hyatt is $375.oo per night and the night is half over and negotiating any difference while the cabbie's meter is running is not a good thing to do. When in Rome, do as the Romans do - ask the cabbie "know of any place a flatlander can get a room for the rest of the night without spending my income stimulus check?" Cabbies know all this kind of stuff "Have you tried the Midnight Sun Mission?" No wanting to seem like a total stranger to town, I say no, but do you think a place as nice as the Midnight Sun Mission would still have a room? Sure, he says, do you want me to call and see? No, I say, let's just whip on over there. If Father Dolapp is still running things there, I am sure he will find me a room. OK says the cabby, who has introduced himself as Alaskan Jesus -which seems really strange to me. Everyone up here is called Alaskan something. I've run into an Alaskan Johnny, an Alaskan Slimm and and Alaskan Fatty. I think when I get home I will have my name changed to Alaskan Monty. Has kind of a ring to it. Sleep is trying to creep into my head, but as Walt Whitman said, "I have miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep." Almost sundown now and there it is - a flickering blue neon light with only the "d" and the "sion" lights on all the time - but occasionally the M and the G light up. What a welcoming sight! "Home at last" says AK Jesus, "been nice having you along tonight, and look - the 'Come on In' sign is in the front window - that means they still have beds open - you are in luck - don't mean they will still have soup left though" Airplane ticket $800.00 - Cab ride $65.00 - Cabby's tip $10.00 - One night in the Midnight Sun Mission - PRICELESS!!!
May 11, 2008
Trip to the park on the Yukon Trail was long - over five hours sitting in a van with 12 other people - only stopping twice, once about 30 miles out and the next about 190 miles out. But on the south side of the Alaska Range we started to get into the snow and everything was beautiful. At trapper creek we saw the mountain and it was clear all the way to the north side - what a sight to see her all the way 'till we went around the outer range.
May 14, 2008
Cold this morning and a heavy frost covers the road bed - the water in the creek was frozen but the sun was high at 7:00 a.m. and the sky was blue and bright. The air was cold in my lungs when I breath it in and I could feel it in my chest. The last few days have been long - the classroom part of training is long and trying and can be over-whelming as well as boring at times. But this afternoon we start behind the wheel training which will make the day go by faster and break the boredom of the orientation. I am scheduled to start training with Wendy Hester who is a fifteen year veteran who I took my first drive out into the park with last year. She is an older lady and will be a good person to start training with this year. I don't know what we will start on but we will have about ten more days of driving training before I will be alone. We have a bid tonight at 7:00 - we'll see what I get
May 17, 2008
Tired tonight - training on the park road all day - 7 1/2 hours of driving. I was saying to myself, what am I doing all this way from home again putting myself through all this training when I could be home doing what a normal person my age should be doing. I should be thinking about retiring - not starting a new career in Alaska. But then I start up Polychrome and two old dall rams were laying in the road - they moved thank goodness. Then, about ten more miles down the road it was snowing so hard it was a total white out for about five minutes so we had to stop. It cleared and on I went. The park is still all covered in snow - about three feet deep down where I live but up on the park road everything is white. On my way back from Toklat I started up Primrose and saw a grizzly - she was walking up the road right in front of me - I slowed down a little and crept closer and then there was two, then three, then four - you guessed it - my first bear sighting of the year was the triplets born last season and their momma. What a sight to see them again and I can't put into words the way I felt seeing them again. All were healthy and getting bigger. Two will be as big as momma by the end of July and of course the little one had to show off by trying to catch a hare that ran past - it was an incredible sight. I just stopped the bus and sat and watched them. They started digging for roots - that is their main food source this time of year - no grass or berries because everything is still under snow. Then they started moving right towards the bus - they kept walking my way - I had the driver's window open all the way and as they walked by they were so close I could hear them breathing. You can't imagine what a rush it is to have four grizzly bears walk past you so close you can hear their breath and their claws clicking as they walk. So I guess I know why I am back up here.
May 18, 2008
Just time for a short note after I called home. I was sitting on the third step of our EDARX talking to Linda when this cow moose and her year-old calf just came out of the woods and walked by me at about seven feet away - liked to scared me to death. All I could say to Linda as they walked by was "oh my,oh my, oh my,you cannot believe how big a full-grown moose is strolling by just 7 feet away - oh my!!!!!!!!!!
May 19, 2008
The last cold days of winter's shivers have just left my teeth, I hope, for all the garden food that was put up last year is gone and there is only three days of wood left in the wood box. All of last year's moose is gone and I have eaten all but one pair of boots and all my socks. There is hope!! The "Rold Gold" man has been seen down in the front country so all is not lost. Besides, that is the way you are to write when its springtime in Alaska. Below freezing last night but it is warm today when the sun is out from behind the clouds. Today was the last day of training until they get the road clear of ice from Toklat to Ileson - hopefully by the 25th so we can get that part of our training finished. But I am cleared all the way to Toklat and have my first run on Friday the 23rd. I have a 9:30 a.m. run first of the year. My spirits are a lot better. On the way back in from training run, I was reminded just how spectacular this place is. The beauty of this place cannot be described- it helps so much with the home sickness. I have taken to writing notes to myself when I have time then I will try to put it all down at once. I just don't know if it will make any sense - we'll see if I can tie it together. But dileria ravages my body and my mind fades from reality to fiction and then back. I have started to hear voices of past Atabaske Chiefs and Elders of days gone by from the great fishing villages on the Tananall - so return with me to those thrilling days of yesterday, back before electric start snowmobiles and direct T.V. - back in a more simpler time when a man of the north could pull start his snowmobile and didn't mind going out and turning the antenna to pick up his favorite rerun of old-time radio. These are the days I remember, the days that were full of hardship. Like last spring, which I remember as if it were only last spring. Back when I was but just a young whipper snapper of a flatlander with not even as much as a stone in my pocket. But look at me now, I have a whole pocketfull of rocks now. A man with rocks in his pockets is a man who knows not to go swimming with his pants on - and not to stay overnight at a friends house with a large picture window. There is a great deal of symbolism in my thinking today. I hope you can see it for I cannot, for my eyes are full of tears and are red and irritated and I must admit - I'm having some trouble writing. Not to worry though, I am not losing my vision or anything like that - no it is just that I've been working on this jigsaw puzzle of a snow scene here in the park for the last three evenings. But I just found out today from one of the Tribal Elders or the Bartender at the Spike, I don't know what he likes to be known as - but anyway he asked if he could borrow some rocks last night and I said sure, seeing as I have plenty this year and I was getting tired of throwing rocks by myself at this puzzle and him being an Elder and me getting a sore right arm. That is one good thing up here, people are willing to help you with almost anything. I know that sooner or later I would have figured out that it was no a snow scene of the park for people with pockets full of rocks to be working on. Besides, I may be suffering from frost bite on all my finger tips, throwing off all sense of feeling I may have in my fingers, which would be a must for working this kind of jigsaw puzzle, which I would have seen if I had not had this bad case of tired red eye brought on by snow blindness caught while trying to turn the antenna to bring in public radio for the hearing impaired.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
The end of a great adventure - or is it????
Hello everyone
Well, tomorrow I will take my last run into the park for the season. Going to Fish Creek - its way up there. It's hard to believe it has been almost four months since I left home, and then at the same time it has been almost forever. I ran out of deoderant Monday! Can you believe that?!? I had to go to the mercantile and get me some more - one thing you cannot do without is deoderant! Did laundry for the last time last Saturday. I had run out of laundry detergent, too, but that's not a problem - just use hotter water and lots of dryer sheets! Spent last Sunday afternoon and evening with Gary and Pamela at the campground. They have become good friends and I will miss them. They should have a really beautiful drive home. Some people left today and so we all went to the local pub last night for some good-bye toddies. It has been rather cool - I think winter is just around the corner for this place.
I'm sending you one last piece of writing. Hope you have enjoyed reading and much as I have enjoyed writing. Who knows, maybe I will put it all together in a book some day.
I have missed all of you terribly and am excited to get back home. I have a lot of catching up to do with all of you and a few rounds to buy. Looking forward to some fall golf and, of course, some hunting. I'll be catching a bus to Anchorage Friday and then a non-stop flight to Chicago via Alaska Airlines. I guess I'm going to lose three hours on my flight home - that will take some time to adjust - and Linda tells me it's getting dark there at night!! Ha!! It will probably take some getting used to going to bed when it's dark outside. We may have to leave all the lights on in the house so I can fall asleep. I understand there is going to be a party in a couple of weeks - see you then, if not before.
The final chapter??
. . . . . Coming to this far-off land has been a trip of unknowns, a path that I needed to walk. I was afraid of stumbling as I went along, but I had to travel it - I was possessed by injustice. It had rung loud and continuously inside of me and the sound had begun to swell like the vibration of a great bell and I was in fear of it eventually filling my whole subconscious being. This sound that kept hold of me operates slowly, like the germ of a cancer. It breeds within and sends out tentacles and grows. Their first effect is not desperation but rather a restlessness. I find myself feeling that something is obscurely yet radically wrong with my life. I have learned that I am not wrong. I have no control over what others may do or have done. I control my own destiny. I need to cure my own cancer - chase away my own demons. I have made it this far with the help of my always loving wife and kids and no doubt I will make it back down the path that has a start and a finish. Time can cure all they say. I know that change can also cure. I am not McCarther, but I saw and I concurred. I will soon return home from my far away summer place, sleep in my own bed and feel the touch of my loved ones - return to a more normal life. Still, only then will I know if I have cut the tentacles of the cancer that have tried to choke me.
I have tried to put into words some of what I have felt while being in the north land but I have so many things to tell of what I have seen. Incredible sights. Dall sheep smacking heads together on top of a mountain that is five thousand feet high and one slip or false step and they would fall. Golden Eagles locking talons at eight thousand feet and falling to the earth - letting go just before hitting the ground. A female grizzly turning and slapping a male as if to say "not now, I've got a headache!" Parka squirrels standing to attention while on look-out duty for Merlin falcon and sounding their alarm when danger is near. Twin calf moose being born just 60 yards from my front door and walking by on wobbly legs that were not quite sure what they were doing. Now I see only one of them and it is unbelievable how much it has grown. The bulls have started to shed their velvet and their massive antlers are snow white, some as large as 60 to 70 inches across. The caribou's antlers have turned blood red in the progression of the seasons. The pica has stuffed his den with grass that he has gathered all summer and it has dried into hay and he is ready for the long winter. The fireweed has bloomed and shriveled and beckons the end of summer. The Arctic tern has started its 25,000 mile trip back to Antarctica. Nature's loom has been woven with its colors of spring, then summer and they have faded - now the crimson colors of fall dominate all that the eye can see. All this I have seen and more, much more, and still there is more out there to see and try to understand.
Time cures all and time concurs all and my time has all but ended here. I will leave soon and all that I have seen and done I will take with me in my memories. My memories will be like a door blowing in the wind - sometimes sucked open and sometimes blown shut. But if you find it closed, all you have to do is knock - and it will open.
Well, tomorrow I will take my last run into the park for the season. Going to Fish Creek - its way up there. It's hard to believe it has been almost four months since I left home, and then at the same time it has been almost forever. I ran out of deoderant Monday! Can you believe that?!? I had to go to the mercantile and get me some more - one thing you cannot do without is deoderant! Did laundry for the last time last Saturday. I had run out of laundry detergent, too, but that's not a problem - just use hotter water and lots of dryer sheets! Spent last Sunday afternoon and evening with Gary and Pamela at the campground. They have become good friends and I will miss them. They should have a really beautiful drive home. Some people left today and so we all went to the local pub last night for some good-bye toddies. It has been rather cool - I think winter is just around the corner for this place.
I'm sending you one last piece of writing. Hope you have enjoyed reading and much as I have enjoyed writing. Who knows, maybe I will put it all together in a book some day.
I have missed all of you terribly and am excited to get back home. I have a lot of catching up to do with all of you and a few rounds to buy. Looking forward to some fall golf and, of course, some hunting. I'll be catching a bus to Anchorage Friday and then a non-stop flight to Chicago via Alaska Airlines. I guess I'm going to lose three hours on my flight home - that will take some time to adjust - and Linda tells me it's getting dark there at night!! Ha!! It will probably take some getting used to going to bed when it's dark outside. We may have to leave all the lights on in the house so I can fall asleep. I understand there is going to be a party in a couple of weeks - see you then, if not before.
The final chapter??
. . . . . Coming to this far-off land has been a trip of unknowns, a path that I needed to walk. I was afraid of stumbling as I went along, but I had to travel it - I was possessed by injustice. It had rung loud and continuously inside of me and the sound had begun to swell like the vibration of a great bell and I was in fear of it eventually filling my whole subconscious being. This sound that kept hold of me operates slowly, like the germ of a cancer. It breeds within and sends out tentacles and grows. Their first effect is not desperation but rather a restlessness. I find myself feeling that something is obscurely yet radically wrong with my life. I have learned that I am not wrong. I have no control over what others may do or have done. I control my own destiny. I need to cure my own cancer - chase away my own demons. I have made it this far with the help of my always loving wife and kids and no doubt I will make it back down the path that has a start and a finish. Time can cure all they say. I know that change can also cure. I am not McCarther, but I saw and I concurred. I will soon return home from my far away summer place, sleep in my own bed and feel the touch of my loved ones - return to a more normal life. Still, only then will I know if I have cut the tentacles of the cancer that have tried to choke me.
I have tried to put into words some of what I have felt while being in the north land but I have so many things to tell of what I have seen. Incredible sights. Dall sheep smacking heads together on top of a mountain that is five thousand feet high and one slip or false step and they would fall. Golden Eagles locking talons at eight thousand feet and falling to the earth - letting go just before hitting the ground. A female grizzly turning and slapping a male as if to say "not now, I've got a headache!" Parka squirrels standing to attention while on look-out duty for Merlin falcon and sounding their alarm when danger is near. Twin calf moose being born just 60 yards from my front door and walking by on wobbly legs that were not quite sure what they were doing. Now I see only one of them and it is unbelievable how much it has grown. The bulls have started to shed their velvet and their massive antlers are snow white, some as large as 60 to 70 inches across. The caribou's antlers have turned blood red in the progression of the seasons. The pica has stuffed his den with grass that he has gathered all summer and it has dried into hay and he is ready for the long winter. The fireweed has bloomed and shriveled and beckons the end of summer. The Arctic tern has started its 25,000 mile trip back to Antarctica. Nature's loom has been woven with its colors of spring, then summer and they have faded - now the crimson colors of fall dominate all that the eye can see. All this I have seen and more, much more, and still there is more out there to see and try to understand.
Time cures all and time concurs all and my time has all but ended here. I will leave soon and all that I have seen and done I will take with me in my memories. My memories will be like a door blowing in the wind - sometimes sucked open and sometimes blown shut. But if you find it closed, all you have to do is knock - and it will open.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Hello every body! I can't believe it has been over a month since I have had time to really sit down at the computer and write to you. Part of the time the computers have been down - the rest of the time I have just been really busy. Tomorrow I have a day off and no one has asked me to take their run yet so I am going to send you some more of your favorite stories! I have been writing - just not getting anything on the computer.
Last Saturday was Christmas here!! Linda had sent me some ornaments earlier in the summer - everyone used the ornaments they brought or had someone mail them, like I did, to decorate the tree. We had a really good Christmas dinner - all the trimmings and then some. All weekend long we would wish each other a "Merry Christmas" as we passed. Our passengers were a little confused until we explained that we have the Christmas holiday together before we all leave to go back to wherever home is. It was really nice. Have been going to the campground some and playing guitar and enjoying a good campfire. Can't wait to get home and go camping with Linda and Bristol. Only three weeks left for this flatlander. It gets a little harder the closer it gets - my friend Mark (who is a veteran at this) tells me that the days are long but the weeks go fast. I don't know if I'll be back at the computer again after this afternoon but I will sure try. Want to tell you that there are webcam sites out there on the internet that you can go to and see live photos of Mt. McKinley each day. You can get an idea of the weather I'm experiencing. The web camera is set up at Wonder Lake.
Hey, Hollie, Bill, Sara - only 19 more "wake-ups"!!!!!!!
The saga continues . . .
. . . . . . it has been many days since I have set pen to paper. My adventure is starting to almost feel like work. Logged 62 hours last week but did get one day off (laundry day) - lots of overtime this month. But I still have my evenings free to wander the hills and mountain sides. I have come to know this area like the back of my hand. Speaking of hands, with the hours I've been driving lately I have taken to wearing gloves all the time and it has helped with the healing of my hands from all that fast dismount stuff I did on my last climbing expedition. I have become quite the expert on grizzly bears since my arrival. I have always been somewhat of an expert on your common old black bear - and the Chicago Bears - and riding bear back - and going bear foot, just to name a few. But this grizzly is a whole different breed. Their temperment is quite different, we'll say, from bear footin'. Up here it is a full-time job just getting from my room to the mess hall without coming in contact with a rock that can give you a career-ending stone bruise. I know that all I would have to do is put my shoes on, but I want to show off all my bear knowledge whereever I go and how better to do that than going bearfooted when I am not working! I don't know, though, what with the temperature dropping more and more with each passing day - I think I need to think of a different way to project my bear knowledge. The Chicago Bears is out, thanks to my son-in-law, Bill. I had a perfectly good Chicago Bear's blanket in the camper for over two years - he left it there all that time. I took care of it for all that time so I thought it should be mine and I was going to take it to Alaska with me (Linda says, "No you are not taking that - it is Bills). Sure enough, he evoked some silly "I don't mind if you use it when you are at my house" . . . . all the while knowing that with me taking care of it for all those months that by Man Law it is rightfully mine!!! My wife and son won that one!!! So, showing off my Chicago Bears savvy is out. It seems that every one up here is an expert on something or another and with me just fresh from the flatlands I have been trying to find my one true Alaska nitch. And the more I think about it, it has to be bears. Why, just the other day I was out on one of my exploring trips and came face to face with a monster of a grizzly - what a sight to see! With all my bear know how, I knew just how to act as we were eye to eye. Running away from this beast bear footed was out of the question - and without a good Bear's blanket to throw over it so as to blind it momentarily so I could make a quick get away was going to be hard, shoes or no shoes, if it could see me run it would take chase! Being a quick thinker, I also realized bearback riding was out of the question. I had forgotten to put on any gold bond and I knew there was going to be some chaffing involved on my part should I jump on it's back and I was not looking forward to several weeks of recovery from chaffing. I have just finished a three-day battle of swamp ass brought on by a bad batch of refried beans. I was fearful of cross-contamination. Besides, I was sure that the National Parks Department has some law in the books somewhere making it a felony to ride a grizzly bear. The only thing that I could think of at this point is Barry Manalow. So, I dropped to one knee and gave him my best rendition of "Mandy" then went right into an Al Jolson's still of the Coppa, Coppa Cabanna and before I could finish the last verse of "You Light up my Life" it was gone. It is true. Everyone up here is an expert on something. Mine is chaffing.
07/06/2007 ..... reading on . .
Things are changing. The weather, the trees and bushes, the animals, the people - everything is changing, even me. There is no Dr. Jeckel/Mr. Hide thing going on with me, it's just that by day I am a mild-mannered tour driver with lots of info that I gladly spout like there is no tomorrow. It is hard to shut me up. I find myself talking to people even after they get off the bus and are trying to get to their car and go home. They have asked me questions all day and I have answered them, but always looking in the rear-view mirror and now I can talk face to face and they have no time for me. It's like being inside a Christmas snow globe. I have been wound up and scattered all around on the little frozen pond, in a perfect figure eight, on one leg, while singing a version of White Christmas that sounds just like Bing. All this while a steady snow is falling. I have been perfect performing at the top of my game and then the snow stops falling, my singing starts to sound like Puff Daddy and I fall on my ass!! Maybe I just need to be holding my loves hand and sitting side by side on the couch and talk of how the yard looks after I mowed or apologize for not getting the trash down to the road today because I went and played golf. I think that I am just a little homesick. But the days are short now and my time will come - I need not dwell on these thoughts for it will only make the time seem longer. Still the change continues. The park has lost its hillside of wild flowers and the willows have started to turn to gold. The blueberries have ripened and the air on the primrose has the smell of blueberry pie. The soap berries are also ripe and the sides of the drainage meadows are red with them. The fire weed has bloomed clear to the top and only its purple stem is left to sway in the wind, waving goodby to summer. The cotton weed with its silky tufts of snow-white cotton seem to welcome the fall. Its tops have grown and festered so that now they are ready to keep the rest of the plant warm throughout the onset of fall. But it will all surrender to the long season of the dark and I will be gone, unable to see the changes that will take place. I wonder if I will think of this place after I have gone back to my home, I wonder. Time will tell. I have a passion for this place now. I still see new beauty each day, sometimes in very strange places. Before it was newness and unfamiliarity. But now the wild life seem so much different, the newness has worn off and a feeling of their true magnificence makes me smile each time I see them. They are truly something to behold. I tell people every day that these dall sheep are found no place on earth but here and I get to see them almost every day and it has sunk in that I am so very lucky to have this opportunity. I can't explain the feeling I get when I see some of the sights that I see. Two days ago there was a 500 pound grizzly laying in the ditch right next to the road - its' back feet were almost on the road - I just pulled the bus up to it and opened the door as if it were no big deal to see a grizzly asleep alongside the road. I was no more excited than if it was a horse sleeping in the field over by Borntragers, until later, when all the people were gone and all I could think of was . . . I wonder if he had any Grey Poupon . . . .
8-14-2007 and then,
I know I'm repeating myself but the times are changing is all I can say. Last Thursday was a first for me. Went to bed early - was tired and I needed a nap - so I figure a good ten hour nap would do nicely. I turned in about 8:00 p.m. and just got to sleep when I was awakened by a knock on the door. They needed someone for a secret mission. I figure they were looking for someone with expert climbing skills, or vast knowledge of bears (all kinds) or maybe just an all-around outdoor professional. I knew that it was important, I could tell by the way they knocked on the door - you know, the kind of knock that sends chills through your blood - the kind of knock that could wake the dead. It was a rattattatt knock, sounding just like the old thomson submachine gun that me and Mike used to use for hunting rabbits back in Dovall Black's back pasture, just north of the Flat Branch. OH!!! I remember those days fondly. It seems there was always a slight skiff of snow on the ground and you could always see your breath, even in August. I think it had something to do with being north of the flat branch - it was always colder there. It's funny how this global warming is affecting our climate today, but back in those days it seemed like there was always a skiff of snow to be found. And that is where my Apache tracking skills would come in handy. There's an art to tracking and not many men have the seven senses like me. It was once said that I could track smoke to fire or rain to a puddle or snow to sleet. I can't remember all the things they used to say I could track, I just know that if there was snow in Dovell's pasture in August that I was the guy they always came to and I always got the job done. So I was not surprised when they came knocking on my door clear up here in Alaska. I figure they heard about my tracking ability and needed someone for a rescue mission. It's funny how I can tell all of this from just a knock on my door while I am asleep. But you know, rescuing is one of the things I do best. I can't remember all of the rescuing I've done in my days - like the time I rescued CP from the Mosse after his one-holer. What a mission. And feats like that can span a country. And then there was the time when I rescued the Shriver boys from the boat. My memory of that rescue is not as clear - can't recall if it was sinking or on fire or both - neither scenario would stop me from rescuing. And then there was the time - well, I don't need to say any more for fear of embarrassing some of the people I've saved in the past. There is that fine fog that can possess a man's mind when he is in between sleep and slumber. A fog that can change fiction to facts and half-truths to truths. A fog that can make you think you are in the bathroom when you're not. But within a second the fog can lift and you can say, "Is there someone knocking or is the sound of the rain on your shoes or the sound of rain on your guitar case". But with the fog just nearly lifted it is hard to tell. A warm relief comes over me. Then, at last, I am awake and go to the door - it has all been one of my Sioux visitations - like Sitting Bull might have had. But then, I doubt if he ever tried to take a ten-hour nap.
Last Saturday was Christmas here!! Linda had sent me some ornaments earlier in the summer - everyone used the ornaments they brought or had someone mail them, like I did, to decorate the tree. We had a really good Christmas dinner - all the trimmings and then some. All weekend long we would wish each other a "Merry Christmas" as we passed. Our passengers were a little confused until we explained that we have the Christmas holiday together before we all leave to go back to wherever home is. It was really nice. Have been going to the campground some and playing guitar and enjoying a good campfire. Can't wait to get home and go camping with Linda and Bristol. Only three weeks left for this flatlander. It gets a little harder the closer it gets - my friend Mark (who is a veteran at this) tells me that the days are long but the weeks go fast. I don't know if I'll be back at the computer again after this afternoon but I will sure try. Want to tell you that there are webcam sites out there on the internet that you can go to and see live photos of Mt. McKinley each day. You can get an idea of the weather I'm experiencing. The web camera is set up at Wonder Lake.
Hey, Hollie, Bill, Sara - only 19 more "wake-ups"!!!!!!!
The saga continues . . .
. . . . . . it has been many days since I have set pen to paper. My adventure is starting to almost feel like work. Logged 62 hours last week but did get one day off (laundry day) - lots of overtime this month. But I still have my evenings free to wander the hills and mountain sides. I have come to know this area like the back of my hand. Speaking of hands, with the hours I've been driving lately I have taken to wearing gloves all the time and it has helped with the healing of my hands from all that fast dismount stuff I did on my last climbing expedition. I have become quite the expert on grizzly bears since my arrival. I have always been somewhat of an expert on your common old black bear - and the Chicago Bears - and riding bear back - and going bear foot, just to name a few. But this grizzly is a whole different breed. Their temperment is quite different, we'll say, from bear footin'. Up here it is a full-time job just getting from my room to the mess hall without coming in contact with a rock that can give you a career-ending stone bruise. I know that all I would have to do is put my shoes on, but I want to show off all my bear knowledge whereever I go and how better to do that than going bearfooted when I am not working! I don't know, though, what with the temperature dropping more and more with each passing day - I think I need to think of a different way to project my bear knowledge. The Chicago Bears is out, thanks to my son-in-law, Bill. I had a perfectly good Chicago Bear's blanket in the camper for over two years - he left it there all that time. I took care of it for all that time so I thought it should be mine and I was going to take it to Alaska with me (Linda says, "No you are not taking that - it is Bills). Sure enough, he evoked some silly "I don't mind if you use it when you are at my house" . . . . all the while knowing that with me taking care of it for all those months that by Man Law it is rightfully mine!!! My wife and son won that one!!! So, showing off my Chicago Bears savvy is out. It seems that every one up here is an expert on something or another and with me just fresh from the flatlands I have been trying to find my one true Alaska nitch. And the more I think about it, it has to be bears. Why, just the other day I was out on one of my exploring trips and came face to face with a monster of a grizzly - what a sight to see! With all my bear know how, I knew just how to act as we were eye to eye. Running away from this beast bear footed was out of the question - and without a good Bear's blanket to throw over it so as to blind it momentarily so I could make a quick get away was going to be hard, shoes or no shoes, if it could see me run it would take chase! Being a quick thinker, I also realized bearback riding was out of the question. I had forgotten to put on any gold bond and I knew there was going to be some chaffing involved on my part should I jump on it's back and I was not looking forward to several weeks of recovery from chaffing. I have just finished a three-day battle of swamp ass brought on by a bad batch of refried beans. I was fearful of cross-contamination. Besides, I was sure that the National Parks Department has some law in the books somewhere making it a felony to ride a grizzly bear. The only thing that I could think of at this point is Barry Manalow. So, I dropped to one knee and gave him my best rendition of "Mandy" then went right into an Al Jolson's still of the Coppa, Coppa Cabanna and before I could finish the last verse of "You Light up my Life" it was gone. It is true. Everyone up here is an expert on something. Mine is chaffing.
07/06/2007 ..... reading on . .
Things are changing. The weather, the trees and bushes, the animals, the people - everything is changing, even me. There is no Dr. Jeckel/Mr. Hide thing going on with me, it's just that by day I am a mild-mannered tour driver with lots of info that I gladly spout like there is no tomorrow. It is hard to shut me up. I find myself talking to people even after they get off the bus and are trying to get to their car and go home. They have asked me questions all day and I have answered them, but always looking in the rear-view mirror and now I can talk face to face and they have no time for me. It's like being inside a Christmas snow globe. I have been wound up and scattered all around on the little frozen pond, in a perfect figure eight, on one leg, while singing a version of White Christmas that sounds just like Bing. All this while a steady snow is falling. I have been perfect performing at the top of my game and then the snow stops falling, my singing starts to sound like Puff Daddy and I fall on my ass!! Maybe I just need to be holding my loves hand and sitting side by side on the couch and talk of how the yard looks after I mowed or apologize for not getting the trash down to the road today because I went and played golf. I think that I am just a little homesick. But the days are short now and my time will come - I need not dwell on these thoughts for it will only make the time seem longer. Still the change continues. The park has lost its hillside of wild flowers and the willows have started to turn to gold. The blueberries have ripened and the air on the primrose has the smell of blueberry pie. The soap berries are also ripe and the sides of the drainage meadows are red with them. The fire weed has bloomed clear to the top and only its purple stem is left to sway in the wind, waving goodby to summer. The cotton weed with its silky tufts of snow-white cotton seem to welcome the fall. Its tops have grown and festered so that now they are ready to keep the rest of the plant warm throughout the onset of fall. But it will all surrender to the long season of the dark and I will be gone, unable to see the changes that will take place. I wonder if I will think of this place after I have gone back to my home, I wonder. Time will tell. I have a passion for this place now. I still see new beauty each day, sometimes in very strange places. Before it was newness and unfamiliarity. But now the wild life seem so much different, the newness has worn off and a feeling of their true magnificence makes me smile each time I see them. They are truly something to behold. I tell people every day that these dall sheep are found no place on earth but here and I get to see them almost every day and it has sunk in that I am so very lucky to have this opportunity. I can't explain the feeling I get when I see some of the sights that I see. Two days ago there was a 500 pound grizzly laying in the ditch right next to the road - its' back feet were almost on the road - I just pulled the bus up to it and opened the door as if it were no big deal to see a grizzly asleep alongside the road. I was no more excited than if it was a horse sleeping in the field over by Borntragers, until later, when all the people were gone and all I could think of was . . . I wonder if he had any Grey Poupon . . . .
8-14-2007 and then,
I know I'm repeating myself but the times are changing is all I can say. Last Thursday was a first for me. Went to bed early - was tired and I needed a nap - so I figure a good ten hour nap would do nicely. I turned in about 8:00 p.m. and just got to sleep when I was awakened by a knock on the door. They needed someone for a secret mission. I figure they were looking for someone with expert climbing skills, or vast knowledge of bears (all kinds) or maybe just an all-around outdoor professional. I knew that it was important, I could tell by the way they knocked on the door - you know, the kind of knock that sends chills through your blood - the kind of knock that could wake the dead. It was a rattattatt knock, sounding just like the old thomson submachine gun that me and Mike used to use for hunting rabbits back in Dovall Black's back pasture, just north of the Flat Branch. OH!!! I remember those days fondly. It seems there was always a slight skiff of snow on the ground and you could always see your breath, even in August. I think it had something to do with being north of the flat branch - it was always colder there. It's funny how this global warming is affecting our climate today, but back in those days it seemed like there was always a skiff of snow to be found. And that is where my Apache tracking skills would come in handy. There's an art to tracking and not many men have the seven senses like me. It was once said that I could track smoke to fire or rain to a puddle or snow to sleet. I can't remember all the things they used to say I could track, I just know that if there was snow in Dovell's pasture in August that I was the guy they always came to and I always got the job done. So I was not surprised when they came knocking on my door clear up here in Alaska. I figure they heard about my tracking ability and needed someone for a rescue mission. It's funny how I can tell all of this from just a knock on my door while I am asleep. But you know, rescuing is one of the things I do best. I can't remember all of the rescuing I've done in my days - like the time I rescued CP from the Mosse after his one-holer. What a mission. And feats like that can span a country. And then there was the time when I rescued the Shriver boys from the boat. My memory of that rescue is not as clear - can't recall if it was sinking or on fire or both - neither scenario would stop me from rescuing. And then there was the time - well, I don't need to say any more for fear of embarrassing some of the people I've saved in the past. There is that fine fog that can possess a man's mind when he is in between sleep and slumber. A fog that can change fiction to facts and half-truths to truths. A fog that can make you think you are in the bathroom when you're not. But within a second the fog can lift and you can say, "Is there someone knocking or is the sound of the rain on your shoes or the sound of rain on your guitar case". But with the fog just nearly lifted it is hard to tell. A warm relief comes over me. Then, at last, I am awake and go to the door - it has all been one of my Sioux visitations - like Sitting Bull might have had. But then, I doubt if he ever tried to take a ten-hour nap.
Monday, July 30, 2007
July is almost over
Hi everyone.
Sorry I have not been to the computer lately but have been very busy. Did a double run Sunday before last and worked my Thursday off again last week. Did have a very enjoyable Friday off though. Went to Anderson, Alaska with the campground hosts to a bluegrass festival. Music was really good. We stopped for a nice steak dinner before coming back to camp. Nice way to spend a day off.
I had Ricky Craven and a friend of his on my bus yesterday. They are up here on vacation and the "guys" were going to do some hiking. I could have given them some really good climbing tips - but I didn't. He was more interested in what I was doing for the summer. We talked for quite a while.
It is starting to get cooler. You can see your breath early in the mornings. I hope the Alaska winter is slow in coming - I still have six weeks to go!!!
I don't have much time and won't be able to write a short story this trip to the computer, but will try to soon.
Lots of love to you Linda, - Hollie, Bill & Sara. OK, you too Tobe. All of you! I miss you all - will write more later.
Monty
Sorry I have not been to the computer lately but have been very busy. Did a double run Sunday before last and worked my Thursday off again last week. Did have a very enjoyable Friday off though. Went to Anderson, Alaska with the campground hosts to a bluegrass festival. Music was really good. We stopped for a nice steak dinner before coming back to camp. Nice way to spend a day off.
I had Ricky Craven and a friend of his on my bus yesterday. They are up here on vacation and the "guys" were going to do some hiking. I could have given them some really good climbing tips - but I didn't. He was more interested in what I was doing for the summer. We talked for quite a while.
It is starting to get cooler. You can see your breath early in the mornings. I hope the Alaska winter is slow in coming - I still have six weeks to go!!!
I don't have much time and won't be able to write a short story this trip to the computer, but will try to soon.
Lots of love to you Linda, - Hollie, Bill & Sara. OK, you too Tobe. All of you! I miss you all - will write more later.
Monty
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