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.