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
Monday, July 30, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
I'm going to the campground
Hello everybody. Have not been able to get to computers for a few days - have been working through days off again. But am taking today to go to one of the campgrounds for the day - taking my guitar and looking forward to sitting around a campfire, playing some music and making some more new friends. I met the campground hosts when they came to the park for a tour a couple of weeks ago and they invited me to join them on my next day off. Hope all is well. Linda should be in Arizona with the kids having a good time.
I'll try to get another book exerp typed before I have to catch my bus to the campground. These new computers we got are supposed to be faster - will see if it helps my typing go a little faster, too!!!
. . . . July 9th, 2007 - Just another walk in the park - got a day off - one out of the last 14 days but that is good for me. The more I work the faster the days go by. It is not that I want for the day to all be gone so I can come home, it's just that it helps me to be busy and keeps me from thinking of home, which I miss very much. But I can handle it. I think that I am about half way done with my great journey. I figure I should ask one of my fellow drivers friends if he might have a small day pack that I might borrow and of course he does. He says, "Plannig to do a little backpacking in the park on your day off?" Well, you know me, "Of course," I say, I'm thinking I might cut some new trails for the park district. You know what ever they need - 210 - 220 - whatever it takes. Just something 7 or 8 miles long and maybe up to about 12 or 14 thousand feet. I really don't want to go much higher than that without my personal climbing gear." So my soon-to0be X friend says, "Well, if you want, you can use my climbing gear" Great!!! With it being my day off and all I have slept in and am quite rested and my mind is fresh and sharp and with a quick responce I say, "It probably won't fit me" "Not to worry" he says " all you need is rope and a hammer" With it still being before noon and my mind razer sharp I say "Thanks anyway, but I am allergic to himp" thinking that this will surely shut him up and let me get out into the park so that I can get on with my own style of trail clearing. "Not to worry, the rope I have is nylon! - like he is Sir Edman Hillery just back from Everest. So I say, "well, in that case, I would just love to use your rope and hammer" thinking that he would start to go get his climbing gear then I could follow him and when we get to the steps I could give it that old sprained ankle stumble and say something like "hold on, this ankle might start to swell. I better get some ice on it and drink some ice tea and see how it does in an hour or two, knowing full well that I would not have time to cut 7 or 8 miles of trail then and still get back in time for supper. But I think this new X friend has mind-reading abilities. He says it's not really a hammer, it's a climbing axe. Ok, ok, just get your rope and axe and I'll use them, ok. Then, with a rather puzzled look on his face he asks do you think you'll need my peetons. Of course, I will say. I've started to turn red and spit when I talk now from anger. The nreve of this X friend. All I want to do is go for a walk in the park and he turns it into a full-blown climbing expedition. Finally, I let go of his throat and he runs to his room and is back in just two minutes with all this neatly bundled rope and pack with this chrome platted ice axe and a hole stringer of peetons or krovtons. I don't know. But he throws them at my feet and runs back toward his room mumbling something like "keep them for as long as you need them - or as long as you something. I could not hear him all that well but I think it was something like that ice hole and it freezing over. I figure it is mountain climbing talk so I just say, "Sure, no problem. It's about 1:30 and I finally get on a bus and head out into the park. It has taken a little longer to get all of my essentials packed. I had to fill two water bottles with ice and my hand got really cold pushing all those little squares of ice into the bottles so that I would have some nice cold water to drink on my hike. I wanted to be comfortable when I stopped my trail blazing. Finally I am off the bus and out in the back country - that is Alaskin for in the woods alone at last. The first thing to do is find a place to hide all the climbing gear where no one will find it. Then I remember that I am in a six million acre wilderness not in an Illinois 5 acre wood lot. In the Alaska wilds you don't need to hide climbing gear you just need to know where to find it after you lay it down. So I figure a new tree will do for me, being that I am part Alaskan now it should be no trouble finding later. Ao with all that un necessary climbing gear stashed it is off to find the best looking mountain within close waling distance that probably has never before been climbed by a half Alaskan and half Humboldt flatlander before. So I look them all over an pick out the tallest and steepest one probably in the whole Alaskan range, except for McKinly. I get very comfortable in a grove of beautifully smelling open space and I carefully plan my route to the top. I figure it should take an experienced climber about two hours to make the sumitt but someone who has read as extensive as I have should summit and be back down in about 40 minutes. So I close my eyes and explode into the brush and start my assent of the mountain, knowing that when I make the summit that I will have to come right back down so as not to miss the 3:00 bus I will need to take to go back to the front country - that is some more Alaskan - it means back to my room. I must say I don't think I have every shown more skill and grace and just shear agility in my climbing abilities in my life. It seemed like in just no time I was sittong atop of one of Alaska's more massive prepapuss - this means high mountain and boy what a view it was. Breathtaking to say the least. So, for the next 2 hours I tried to catch my breath that this mountain had taken and enjoy the view. Finally, after my 2 hour nap in mountain's valley, I happen to remember I have some ice cold water that I fixed for just this occasion. It is right there in my pack - which is right there by that new tree where all my X friends climbing gear is stashed - who needs water, I laugh - and start my descent - that means to come back down in Alaskan. My descent is amazing - it takes less than six minutes to get all most all the way back down. I think the driving rain and hail sotrm that has blown in over the back side of the mountain has helped with my rather stylish descent. Almost all of it is done in the full-tuck position. I think I started with that old standard stop - drop - and roll but I soon realized this mountain was far to tricky for standard back-home flatlander descending - I was going to need to use all my Mary Lou Rettin moves to keep from tearing all my cloths off - which would make it hard to get bvack on the bus. But when I was very close to the bottom I remembers my Timex training and went in to a full heal first butt slide with one finger pointing to my wrist just in case come other hiker might be walking the road as I came rocketing out of the road-side brush. He would know that I was merely testing my watch. But alas, no other hiker was there to wittness my 4-point landing on the road, which was a good thing - they would have probabbly wanted my autograph and I only had two hours to find my water bottle and all that useless climbing gear so that I could catch that last bus out of the park at 11:00 p.m. that night. I knew I should have brought camping equipment - not climbing - but so much for hindsight. That night I camped out in Denali is another story . . . .
I'll try to get another book exerp typed before I have to catch my bus to the campground. These new computers we got are supposed to be faster - will see if it helps my typing go a little faster, too!!!
. . . . July 9th, 2007 - Just another walk in the park - got a day off - one out of the last 14 days but that is good for me. The more I work the faster the days go by. It is not that I want for the day to all be gone so I can come home, it's just that it helps me to be busy and keeps me from thinking of home, which I miss very much. But I can handle it. I think that I am about half way done with my great journey. I figure I should ask one of my fellow drivers friends if he might have a small day pack that I might borrow and of course he does. He says, "Plannig to do a little backpacking in the park on your day off?" Well, you know me, "Of course," I say, I'm thinking I might cut some new trails for the park district. You know what ever they need - 210 - 220 - whatever it takes. Just something 7 or 8 miles long and maybe up to about 12 or 14 thousand feet. I really don't want to go much higher than that without my personal climbing gear." So my soon-to0be X friend says, "Well, if you want, you can use my climbing gear" Great!!! With it being my day off and all I have slept in and am quite rested and my mind is fresh and sharp and with a quick responce I say, "It probably won't fit me" "Not to worry" he says " all you need is rope and a hammer" With it still being before noon and my mind razer sharp I say "Thanks anyway, but I am allergic to himp" thinking that this will surely shut him up and let me get out into the park so that I can get on with my own style of trail clearing. "Not to worry, the rope I have is nylon! - like he is Sir Edman Hillery just back from Everest. So I say, "well, in that case, I would just love to use your rope and hammer" thinking that he would start to go get his climbing gear then I could follow him and when we get to the steps I could give it that old sprained ankle stumble and say something like "hold on, this ankle might start to swell. I better get some ice on it and drink some ice tea and see how it does in an hour or two, knowing full well that I would not have time to cut 7 or 8 miles of trail then and still get back in time for supper. But I think this new X friend has mind-reading abilities. He says it's not really a hammer, it's a climbing axe. Ok, ok, just get your rope and axe and I'll use them, ok. Then, with a rather puzzled look on his face he asks do you think you'll need my peetons. Of course, I will say. I've started to turn red and spit when I talk now from anger. The nreve of this X friend. All I want to do is go for a walk in the park and he turns it into a full-blown climbing expedition. Finally, I let go of his throat and he runs to his room and is back in just two minutes with all this neatly bundled rope and pack with this chrome platted ice axe and a hole stringer of peetons or krovtons. I don't know. But he throws them at my feet and runs back toward his room mumbling something like "keep them for as long as you need them - or as long as you something. I could not hear him all that well but I think it was something like that ice hole and it freezing over. I figure it is mountain climbing talk so I just say, "Sure, no problem. It's about 1:30 and I finally get on a bus and head out into the park. It has taken a little longer to get all of my essentials packed. I had to fill two water bottles with ice and my hand got really cold pushing all those little squares of ice into the bottles so that I would have some nice cold water to drink on my hike. I wanted to be comfortable when I stopped my trail blazing. Finally I am off the bus and out in the back country - that is Alaskin for in the woods alone at last. The first thing to do is find a place to hide all the climbing gear where no one will find it. Then I remember that I am in a six million acre wilderness not in an Illinois 5 acre wood lot. In the Alaska wilds you don't need to hide climbing gear you just need to know where to find it after you lay it down. So I figure a new tree will do for me, being that I am part Alaskan now it should be no trouble finding later. Ao with all that un necessary climbing gear stashed it is off to find the best looking mountain within close waling distance that probably has never before been climbed by a half Alaskan and half Humboldt flatlander before. So I look them all over an pick out the tallest and steepest one probably in the whole Alaskan range, except for McKinly. I get very comfortable in a grove of beautifully smelling open space and I carefully plan my route to the top. I figure it should take an experienced climber about two hours to make the sumitt but someone who has read as extensive as I have should summit and be back down in about 40 minutes. So I close my eyes and explode into the brush and start my assent of the mountain, knowing that when I make the summit that I will have to come right back down so as not to miss the 3:00 bus I will need to take to go back to the front country - that is some more Alaskan - it means back to my room. I must say I don't think I have every shown more skill and grace and just shear agility in my climbing abilities in my life. It seemed like in just no time I was sittong atop of one of Alaska's more massive prepapuss - this means high mountain and boy what a view it was. Breathtaking to say the least. So, for the next 2 hours I tried to catch my breath that this mountain had taken and enjoy the view. Finally, after my 2 hour nap in mountain's valley, I happen to remember I have some ice cold water that I fixed for just this occasion. It is right there in my pack - which is right there by that new tree where all my X friends climbing gear is stashed - who needs water, I laugh - and start my descent - that means to come back down in Alaskan. My descent is amazing - it takes less than six minutes to get all most all the way back down. I think the driving rain and hail sotrm that has blown in over the back side of the mountain has helped with my rather stylish descent. Almost all of it is done in the full-tuck position. I think I started with that old standard stop - drop - and roll but I soon realized this mountain was far to tricky for standard back-home flatlander descending - I was going to need to use all my Mary Lou Rettin moves to keep from tearing all my cloths off - which would make it hard to get bvack on the bus. But when I was very close to the bottom I remembers my Timex training and went in to a full heal first butt slide with one finger pointing to my wrist just in case come other hiker might be walking the road as I came rocketing out of the road-side brush. He would know that I was merely testing my watch. But alas, no other hiker was there to wittness my 4-point landing on the road, which was a good thing - they would have probabbly wanted my autograph and I only had two hours to find my water bottle and all that useless climbing gear so that I could catch that last bus out of the park at 11:00 p.m. that night. I knew I should have brought camping equipment - not climbing - but so much for hindsight. That night I camped out in Denali is another story . . . .
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Hello Everyone - hope you all had a good 4th! I had to work but it was a good day - good group of people and I got back to camp early enough in the day to enjoy the cook-out they had for all of the staff. I guess when it gets dark they will have the fireworks! Ended up having to work one of my days off this week on Thursday, but on my Friday off I did something different for the first time - I went "hiking"!! Had my first encounter solo with a grizzly while I was up there - talk about the hair standing up on the back of your neck. He was across a creek from where I emerged from some woods. He was digging along the edge of the water - stopped and looked up at me and then went on about his business. I back stepped into the woods and went further towards the road before coming out of the woods again. He had gone the opposite way. Got some pictures of him, though.
It is REALLY good to read your blogs - keep 'em coming!
. . . . it continues
It is June 26th at 1:50 in the afternoon and I must head out soon - the trail calls. A new day in the wilderness and I think I shall go back to my old bait. Yesterday's didn't work as well. The good thing about the bait and the catch is that it is never the same. I had been using the same bait for two weeks - and it has worked well - but I changed strategies yesterday and it did not work as well. No one wanted to get their picture taken with me when we were back safely off the road and their gratuities were not up to par. So it is back to the old red wigglers and barbless hooks. I find great joy in just being able to make tracks toward the high one every day. It is like falling from the heights of the eagle at Six Flags with arms stretched high and a scream of terror coming from a face that will soon be all smiles. But to set the hook on 20 to 30 people and have them all eating out of your hand is quite exhilarating. Just like the wide, wide world of sports - you know the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. I have had both. Twice I have been asked if I am Amish and yesterday I was asked if my wife was Amish, which was a first. I guess I should stop telling people that I am from Cooks Mills, a small Amish community in central Illinois!! The trick is to chum with lots of facts and figures to start with but you need to keep a close eye on them in the review mirror. If they start to nod, I throw in a quick story about some Paul Bunyan type local that was the first to climb Mt. McKinley with a pack full of jelly donuts, Pepsi cola and carrying a 14 foot long flag pole to raise his gangs colors on. They all love these stories but you have to be very careful not to give them too much homespun all at once. There might just be a brave soul sitting in the back of the bus that you didn't recognise as such when they got on. That is the first thing you do each trip out as they give me their ticket - I always look them over very closely and make sure that I have only vacationers getting on the bus. For the most part, they are easy to spot - most have that "where's your mother" look about them or the dreaded fly-catcher face with mouth open, humped shoulders, pants pulled up way past their waist giving them the nine inch high water look. I've learned to spot most of them before I ever get off the bus to greet them. I sit up much higher than the group standing there awaiting their journey and can look down on them when I pull up. If I see that with every other person standing there I can only the top of heads then I know I have all fly-catchers and their wives. Now, a fly-catchers wife wouldn't dare ask a question of me without first elbowing her pet fly-catcher at least four times and asking him the question loud enough for the bus behind us to hear, so this gives me lots of time to drift back to the facts and figures - not one of my stories here - too many back-woods stories all at once and they will get brave and start to think they know me (or more than me). Then the first thing you know they will ask, rather skeptically, "Are you from Alaska"? That is when I have to show them some of what I am using for bait. I've only had this happen four or five times and it is always when we stop for a break and one who has become brave will attempt to trip me up and ask me what the Latin pronunciation of grissley
is. Without hesitation I will tell them Urssus Arctos. This is a trick question because they have all been told this earlier by a park ranger - this brave traveler if just seeing if I know. They figure that when I don't, THEY can tell ME - right after they rip off their shirt and expose their blue chest with "super vacationer" written in capital letters. This in turn, they think, will give them some sort of super powers, just like when they are mowing the lawn at home and they cannot hear their wife yelling at them to not throw grass into her flower garden. I've had a few of these super vacation heroes before. They are the easiest to spot for when they first get on the bus they find a need to tell everyone else that they are on vacation and have been for five weeks already - like this will give a higher pecking order among the other passengers. Invariably, at the first stop, they will get off the bus and wait for all the rest to get off and then, with a smile that would rival the Joker from Batman and one hand tightly gripping their collar ask, "so, can you tell me the Latin name for grizzley?" At first I give him that 'deer in the headlights' look - like I've just been asked the 64 million dollar question and I don't have a clue to the answer - and then, just as he starts to rip the front of his shirt open I'll say Urssus Arctos - but it is too late for him to stop - he's already ripped the first three buttons and half the sleeve off and then he realizes that my Latin pronunciation rivals even that of Vinnie (the Pope) and he stops in mid-rip and returns to his fly-catcher posture. Now he must go back to the back of the bus and tell his wife that I must have studied for the priesthood because my Latin is impeccable and all she wants to know, with her elbow penetrating his ribcage like a locomotive wheel crank, is how did you tear your shirt!
It doesn't matter in which order I cast out bait or if I just chum big or little pieces a bit, the trick is not to set the hook until I am on the way back - to keep them steadily feeding and presently I have gotten really good at it. Tell them something unbelievable when we first start out, which I do, like "Today is my first day" They all know in their hearts that this cannot be true. There is no way the National Park Service would let them be taken out into the wilderness by someone who had never been there before. So it's lots of "Sure, we know, sure" The chum is in the water and they are all swimming around the bait. So for the next seven hours I chum and cast with facts and figures and stories of gold and back woods adventures and the names of plants and trees, animals' habits - if they migrate or change color in the winter - do the wolves eat them or can a grizzley outrun a dall sheep and that we have 37 mammals, 167 birds, 670 plants and one amphibian. And on and on and on I go until I think they can hold no more. We are on the way back, just before we go back over Polychrome, which is a mountain sitting about 6,000 feet high with no guard rails on the road and just enough room for one bus to get down in most places. The way is straight down and around and down. This is a great time to set the hook because all are very quiet and scared - some hide their head under their coat and won't look. This is a great time to act like I am not paying attention and that is when I tell them I am from Illinois - a little town called Cooks Mills and that today really is my first day and I make them all believe it too. I know I've done a good job of feeding them info and that they believe me by the way then applaud and cheer. When we get back, even the super vacationer's wife wants to get her picture taken with me and her shirt-torn fly-catcher husband. Life is good.
It is REALLY good to read your blogs - keep 'em coming!
. . . . it continues
It is June 26th at 1:50 in the afternoon and I must head out soon - the trail calls. A new day in the wilderness and I think I shall go back to my old bait. Yesterday's didn't work as well. The good thing about the bait and the catch is that it is never the same. I had been using the same bait for two weeks - and it has worked well - but I changed strategies yesterday and it did not work as well. No one wanted to get their picture taken with me when we were back safely off the road and their gratuities were not up to par. So it is back to the old red wigglers and barbless hooks. I find great joy in just being able to make tracks toward the high one every day. It is like falling from the heights of the eagle at Six Flags with arms stretched high and a scream of terror coming from a face that will soon be all smiles. But to set the hook on 20 to 30 people and have them all eating out of your hand is quite exhilarating. Just like the wide, wide world of sports - you know the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. I have had both. Twice I have been asked if I am Amish and yesterday I was asked if my wife was Amish, which was a first. I guess I should stop telling people that I am from Cooks Mills, a small Amish community in central Illinois!! The trick is to chum with lots of facts and figures to start with but you need to keep a close eye on them in the review mirror. If they start to nod, I throw in a quick story about some Paul Bunyan type local that was the first to climb Mt. McKinley with a pack full of jelly donuts, Pepsi cola and carrying a 14 foot long flag pole to raise his gangs colors on. They all love these stories but you have to be very careful not to give them too much homespun all at once. There might just be a brave soul sitting in the back of the bus that you didn't recognise as such when they got on. That is the first thing you do each trip out as they give me their ticket - I always look them over very closely and make sure that I have only vacationers getting on the bus. For the most part, they are easy to spot - most have that "where's your mother" look about them or the dreaded fly-catcher face with mouth open, humped shoulders, pants pulled up way past their waist giving them the nine inch high water look. I've learned to spot most of them before I ever get off the bus to greet them. I sit up much higher than the group standing there awaiting their journey and can look down on them when I pull up. If I see that with every other person standing there I can only the top of heads then I know I have all fly-catchers and their wives. Now, a fly-catchers wife wouldn't dare ask a question of me without first elbowing her pet fly-catcher at least four times and asking him the question loud enough for the bus behind us to hear, so this gives me lots of time to drift back to the facts and figures - not one of my stories here - too many back-woods stories all at once and they will get brave and start to think they know me (or more than me). Then the first thing you know they will ask, rather skeptically, "Are you from Alaska"? That is when I have to show them some of what I am using for bait. I've only had this happen four or five times and it is always when we stop for a break and one who has become brave will attempt to trip me up and ask me what the Latin pronunciation of grissley
is. Without hesitation I will tell them Urssus Arctos. This is a trick question because they have all been told this earlier by a park ranger - this brave traveler if just seeing if I know. They figure that when I don't, THEY can tell ME - right after they rip off their shirt and expose their blue chest with "super vacationer" written in capital letters. This in turn, they think, will give them some sort of super powers, just like when they are mowing the lawn at home and they cannot hear their wife yelling at them to not throw grass into her flower garden. I've had a few of these super vacation heroes before. They are the easiest to spot for when they first get on the bus they find a need to tell everyone else that they are on vacation and have been for five weeks already - like this will give a higher pecking order among the other passengers. Invariably, at the first stop, they will get off the bus and wait for all the rest to get off and then, with a smile that would rival the Joker from Batman and one hand tightly gripping their collar ask, "so, can you tell me the Latin name for grizzley?" At first I give him that 'deer in the headlights' look - like I've just been asked the 64 million dollar question and I don't have a clue to the answer - and then, just as he starts to rip the front of his shirt open I'll say Urssus Arctos - but it is too late for him to stop - he's already ripped the first three buttons and half the sleeve off and then he realizes that my Latin pronunciation rivals even that of Vinnie (the Pope) and he stops in mid-rip and returns to his fly-catcher posture. Now he must go back to the back of the bus and tell his wife that I must have studied for the priesthood because my Latin is impeccable and all she wants to know, with her elbow penetrating his ribcage like a locomotive wheel crank, is how did you tear your shirt!
It doesn't matter in which order I cast out bait or if I just chum big or little pieces a bit, the trick is not to set the hook until I am on the way back - to keep them steadily feeding and presently I have gotten really good at it. Tell them something unbelievable when we first start out, which I do, like "Today is my first day" They all know in their hearts that this cannot be true. There is no way the National Park Service would let them be taken out into the wilderness by someone who had never been there before. So it's lots of "Sure, we know, sure" The chum is in the water and they are all swimming around the bait. So for the next seven hours I chum and cast with facts and figures and stories of gold and back woods adventures and the names of plants and trees, animals' habits - if they migrate or change color in the winter - do the wolves eat them or can a grizzley outrun a dall sheep and that we have 37 mammals, 167 birds, 670 plants and one amphibian. And on and on and on I go until I think they can hold no more. We are on the way back, just before we go back over Polychrome, which is a mountain sitting about 6,000 feet high with no guard rails on the road and just enough room for one bus to get down in most places. The way is straight down and around and down. This is a great time to set the hook because all are very quiet and scared - some hide their head under their coat and won't look. This is a great time to act like I am not paying attention and that is when I tell them I am from Illinois - a little town called Cooks Mills and that today really is my first day and I make them all believe it too. I know I've done a good job of feeding them info and that they believe me by the way then applaud and cheer. When we get back, even the super vacationer's wife wants to get her picture taken with me and her shirt-torn fly-catcher husband. Life is good.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Continuing your favorite book:
It was June 21st - the first day of summer and my first day off in ten days. But, the day is only half over and they can still come find me. All of my work cloths are in the washing machine and with that I find security that I have a good excuse to get out of work if they to dome looking. There is a new and different gloom over camp this morning. There are furrowed brows on most faces for there is a darkness to the air which brings a tear to the eye and makes your nose run. This is new for me. It seems that every day there is something new for me in this place to which I have come. There is a fire - and fire is the one thing that all take very seriously here. There is talk at breakfast of the thunderstorm that came over the primrose last night. I had just made it in off the trail when the storm blew into camp and lightening lit up the storm-darkened sky. I paid not that much attention to it. My only thought were to finish dinner before the rain came. It is so strange for me to perceive the consequences of just a simple summer thunderstorm that rambled through last night at supper time. But all of the talk this morning is of the smoke that fills the air and blocks out the sun. There is talk of who will run the shuttle - the park service or us VTS drivers and when will they make a call for volunteers to help with the fire. Will they take our heavy equipment from here to build fire breaks or use our buses to evacuate people. I think to myself, but it was only a little thunderstorm. At home it would get very little talk around the counter by the old boys at the golf course. But where the woods are filled with years of dropped spruce needles and dried dead trees that have been waiting for decades to burn because they will not rot or decay - to burn is all that they have left to do to complete their cycle of life. Still people keep coming by and all ask the same question - "Is there a fire?" These are the night people who are just now crawling from their bunks because the smell of smoke is too strong for them to sleep through. It is strange how the whole morning has past and coffee and coffee has been drank but the talk is all the same. It is of fire - fires of '04 and '05 and of '06 which was the worst year and all of the old hands here have their own story to tell of what they did and where they were when the last fire broke. The story telling goes round the table like the lazy susan of the 50's on taco night so supper could be finished in time to watch Gunsmoke or the Jackie Gleason Show and on they go. We talk through breakfast and into lunch. The table talkers have come and gone but I have stayed through all for I am new and need to hear more. Then the first ranger we have seen comes to the table. Everyone is alert to what he has to say. We have all moved just a little closer to the front of our chairs and our coffee cups have been moved just a little closer to the center of the table. We are all like 4th graders at Christmas, sitting in school waiting for the teacher to tell us that Santa has been seen in the halls and we all need to go to the gym. Then, at last, he finishes his first long sip of coffee and looks up at all of our faces and he knows what is expected of him.......so he does his duty. "Three fires," he says, "one big one and two small ones in Euracks Creek but the park road is still open at the east for. The mountain was not out. Not many riders today. The two small ones should be no problem but we'll have to wait and see about the other. All total we now have 52 separate fires burning in Alaska today. There's one big fire at Homer down on the Key Nine Peninsula but it is far from us. The smoke is unreal. It has my nose running like a faucet and my eyes too. The last wave of lunch eaters are in off the road. All veterans of many years say it will burn for a month - 'till fair time - then rain. Just like the Coles County Fair I think to myself. I need to find a wildflower key book and get some more studying done so I have decided to let nature take its coarse and let the veterans at the lunch table fire campaign fight on - for I have learned all I can over this breakfast and lunch debate - oh how with this dose of table talk I can relate back to the great deal of time spent around many a breakfast and lunch table speculating on the moving of the Blue Bird Diner. . . .
It was June 21st - the first day of summer and my first day off in ten days. But, the day is only half over and they can still come find me. All of my work cloths are in the washing machine and with that I find security that I have a good excuse to get out of work if they to dome looking. There is a new and different gloom over camp this morning. There are furrowed brows on most faces for there is a darkness to the air which brings a tear to the eye and makes your nose run. This is new for me. It seems that every day there is something new for me in this place to which I have come. There is a fire - and fire is the one thing that all take very seriously here. There is talk at breakfast of the thunderstorm that came over the primrose last night. I had just made it in off the trail when the storm blew into camp and lightening lit up the storm-darkened sky. I paid not that much attention to it. My only thought were to finish dinner before the rain came. It is so strange for me to perceive the consequences of just a simple summer thunderstorm that rambled through last night at supper time. But all of the talk this morning is of the smoke that fills the air and blocks out the sun. There is talk of who will run the shuttle - the park service or us VTS drivers and when will they make a call for volunteers to help with the fire. Will they take our heavy equipment from here to build fire breaks or use our buses to evacuate people. I think to myself, but it was only a little thunderstorm. At home it would get very little talk around the counter by the old boys at the golf course. But where the woods are filled with years of dropped spruce needles and dried dead trees that have been waiting for decades to burn because they will not rot or decay - to burn is all that they have left to do to complete their cycle of life. Still people keep coming by and all ask the same question - "Is there a fire?" These are the night people who are just now crawling from their bunks because the smell of smoke is too strong for them to sleep through. It is strange how the whole morning has past and coffee and coffee has been drank but the talk is all the same. It is of fire - fires of '04 and '05 and of '06 which was the worst year and all of the old hands here have their own story to tell of what they did and where they were when the last fire broke. The story telling goes round the table like the lazy susan of the 50's on taco night so supper could be finished in time to watch Gunsmoke or the Jackie Gleason Show and on they go. We talk through breakfast and into lunch. The table talkers have come and gone but I have stayed through all for I am new and need to hear more. Then the first ranger we have seen comes to the table. Everyone is alert to what he has to say. We have all moved just a little closer to the front of our chairs and our coffee cups have been moved just a little closer to the center of the table. We are all like 4th graders at Christmas, sitting in school waiting for the teacher to tell us that Santa has been seen in the halls and we all need to go to the gym. Then, at last, he finishes his first long sip of coffee and looks up at all of our faces and he knows what is expected of him.......so he does his duty. "Three fires," he says, "one big one and two small ones in Euracks Creek but the park road is still open at the east for. The mountain was not out. Not many riders today. The two small ones should be no problem but we'll have to wait and see about the other. All total we now have 52 separate fires burning in Alaska today. There's one big fire at Homer down on the Key Nine Peninsula but it is far from us. The smoke is unreal. It has my nose running like a faucet and my eyes too. The last wave of lunch eaters are in off the road. All veterans of many years say it will burn for a month - 'till fair time - then rain. Just like the Coles County Fair I think to myself. I need to find a wildflower key book and get some more studying done so I have decided to let nature take its coarse and let the veterans at the lunch table fire campaign fight on - for I have learned all I can over this breakfast and lunch debate - oh how with this dose of table talk I can relate back to the great deal of time spent around many a breakfast and lunch table speculating on the moving of the Blue Bird Diner. . . .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)