Lost & Found, Changes & Diaspora

Bove Island

LOST: Our camera. Soon after the last blog entry, our camera went missing. I searched every jacket, every drawer, every tote bag and backpack, checked every vehicle we've driven and asked at every location where we might have left it. What this means for you is a whole lot less photos in the blog and for us for September...including the glorious autumn colors. I'd always been a New England snob about that region having the quintessential autumn foliage. The leaves are changed in the Yukon and changing here in Skagway and have been stunning. So, I did the next best thing and stole this off of FB of a friend's trip in the Yukon. Sadly, I don't even remember who posted this, but I am grateful they posted it.

One of the things that drivers do when they take a trip to Caribou Crossing is promote the dog cart ride. For their promotional efforts, they earn Caribou Bucks. So Mike has been earning some bucks up in the Yukon and telling me we should go spend them. He got a Yukon trip one day and it happened to be one of my days off. This time, we didn't tell his passengers that his wife was on board. Seems that last time I took the trip and did let some folks know, they felt it was a set-up of some sort. He makes a lot of wife jokes. It doesn't matter if I'm the butt of the jokes. What matters is that his passengers have fun....no matter what. And if they have fun, they may be more inclined to tip. As I've said to him all summer each morning: "Be safe. Have fun. Be charming." Be charming=Make a lot of tips.

Sadly it was raining on and off the day we went up to the Yukon. I wish I had a really good photographer's skill (let alone any camera besides my phone) to capture the vision of that day: Mountainsides cloaked in golds and oranges, reflected in a still lake like "a watercolor in the rain." I actually felt dizzy in the kaleidoscope of the reflection. But it was a fun trip and I enjoyed my shopping trip spending his Caribou Bucks. We're not much on accumulating "stuff," but it was fun to shop for a few mementos of the summer both for ourselves and mostly for family.

CHANGES: Since Sales & Service closed, I've been driving the sprinter:The Sprinter

Some days have been cold and dismal. Some days have been unbelievably spectacular with some record highs in the high 60's. There have been a lot of shuttles up to Jewell Gardens, an occasional trip up to Fraser (27.7 miles north to Canadian Customs) and one tour. The tour was a charter tour of about 10 people plus their tour guide from Thailand. A word to the wise: If you are traveling abroad, make sure you have the proper visa for ALL the countries you are visiting.

I picked this tour up...not at the dock, but at the airport. None of them had the proper visa to be in Canada, so they could only fly into the U.S. and then board the Norwegian Star here in Skagway for the rest of its journey down to Seattle with stops only in the U.S. I picked the people ...and all of their luggage up and loaded them into the sprinter. Now I'm not exactly the most spatially gifted person in the world. Somehow, I managed to get ALL of their luggage into the back of the sprinter. I deserved a medal just for that.

Their tour guide spoke some English, the rest of the folks: none. Picture this: Here I was touring this disgruntled group who have missed have their cruise. It was raining. It was buggy. They could care less about what I had to say about the town of the Gold Rush of 1898 and didn't want to be outside in the rain to take photographs. Their tour guide just kept saying, "It's a nightmare! A nightmare!"

Finally it was time to just call it all short at the Gold Dredge where they had no interest in panning for gold. They just wanted to be warm and on their ship. I radio'ed to dispatch about whether or not the ship knew that these folks were arriving with all of their luggage. The response was to check with the shore excursion manager from the ship when I arrived at the dock. I was met with a blank stare by shore-ex and he called the ship. The answer was "10 minutes and an escort with trolleys for the luggage would arrive." 10 minutes later and then again 30 minutes later, Goki (the tour guide) and I were checking with shore-ex for an update. ("A nightmare! A nightmare!") Meantime, these 10 passengers are looking more and more glum. Eventually, the trolley and escorts arrived and happily the escorts unloaded all the luggage. My first official tour was definitely not enjoyable for me although the people weren't angry or nasty to me....or if they were, I don't speak Thai so I was happily oblivious to any grumbles or insults. And I did get a $20 tip!

But driving the sprinter keeps me employed and earning some money and that can't be a bad thing. One of the fun things about having the morning employee shuttle was the chance to send off the drivers with the same good will wish that I've given to Mike all summer: "Be safe. Have fun. Be Charming. Make lots of tips."

I am looking forward to hopefully being a driver guide next year driving the big bus rather than the short bus. Since it was so extraordinarily beautiful this past week, more people than ever had left the ship to explore Skagway making it more and more like Main Street Disney than ever. It was the busiest day I'd ever seen it. It truly is Darwinism in action as Mike calls it. We've all gotten used to people obliviously crossing the street in front of traffic. This one day there were people walking straight down the middle of the street with vehicles nipping at their heels.

This same day I was about to make a slight right onto the Broadway dock. On the right of the entrance were a couple. The man was taking a photograph of his wife with the ship in the background. No problem. Another couple were crossing the entrance and the man in that couple offered to take a photo of the first couple together...with the ship in the background. No problem. Couple #2's wife just STOPPED. In the MIDDLE of the entrance! There were some tourists who had seen me approaching and stopped to the side of the entrance to allow me to make the turn. They watched this whole scenario. One man pantomimed I should beep my horn. Mostly we try not to beep at the tourists. (If we started beeping once, there would be nothing but a symphony of horns all day long.) So I pantomimed I really couldn't. The tourist pantomimed back that he would gladly push the woman under my wheels. At that I pantomimed no and laughed uproariously. He even came over the window to talk about it! Welcome to Skagway! At least I got a good laugh out of it all.

Mike, as ever, is my hero. And recently he got to be a hero at Liarsville. In addition to the Gold Dredge, you can also pan for gold at Liarsville. Gold was never found in Skagway. It was found 600 miles north in the Klondike gold fields of the Yukon Territory at Bonanza Creek, aka Rabbit Creek. So when you gold pan in Skagway, it's at a vendor's location and the pans are seeded with real gold. You are given a rusty old pan with some gravel that has been seeded. The drivers help pass out the pans and assist the tourists with their panning experience.

One day, a girl who works at Liarsville was carrying the pans. She tripped and several pans went over...into the creek. A couple went upside down immediately and a few more were floating. Mike is a hero. Despite being in his work uniform, he dove to rescue the pans before they lost their gravel and gold. That's just Mike. (It's worth clicking and enlarging this photo to see the pans in the water.)


The Gold Dredge folks gave their employees a party day one non-ship day by hiring our company to drive a busload of their employees up to Whitehorse for a day trip. This excursion included bowling which wasn't candlestick or duckpins, but something completely different. It also included a trip to the hot springs (in the pouring rain) where Mike showed all those young people who's a stud by balancing on his hands.

This party bus was a lot of fun for him, but was a very long day. But he DID get to go to the hot springs.

The biggest change of all so far is moving. Yesterday was a company-wide cleaning day in all of the residences. We encountered many science experiments as we cleaned out the refrigerators. But I have to say that it all looks as clean as it did when we arrived. It was dingy when we arrived, but that was due to age (and the green walls in the kitchen) and not due to filth. Cleaning it all was an adventure. It was enough of an adventure that it makes me want to set some new rules for next year: 1) Everyone should label ALL their food. That way if it's still good, we'll know who to ask if they still want it. 2) Put a sharpie in the kitchen on a string so all food CAN be labeled. 3) Have a major cleaning day halfway through the season so it isn't so dire and there are more people to heft the load.

We've all accumulated as we've been here. Some order stuff online just so that they can get mail. Others took advantage of sales or promotions. Some stuff needed to be purchased 'cause of not knowing what they'd really need. We've accumulated souvenirs for people, a few neat things we needed that we'd purchased at the community garage sale and too much miscellaneous food. We'd arrived here with some food and the idea was to eat down what we had rather than purchasing new stuff. But then as people left we accumulated more of their discarded food stuff.

So packing was an adventure as to what will NEVER come out of the truck until we get home vs what will we need for the next 10 days here and the ride home. There has been a pervasive feeling from many of our co-workers of "I can't wait to get out of here." I never understood that. I have been in NO rush to leave here. But I finally began to get it yesterday morning. This leads to the

DIASPORA. So many people have left that it's just gotten very odd here. The gift and jewelry stores are half empty of their inventories. As people have left, each leaving seems a poignant loss. At the same time, it's like they were a pebble dropped into a pond. The pond swallows them up and the surface has reformed as if they'd never been here. The little groups of friends lose members and then regroup after each departure. And now we've moved.

I understand the need to close up a building, empty the water pipes, and cut costs by turning off the electricity. There really is no need to have a few of us hither, thither and yon. Better to consolidate us. And so we packed up and left our home at the Westmark...with our own bathroom and moved to MP2 aka The Shop House. Now the good thing about the shop house is that it is at the bus yard, so there is no employee shuttle to get people to their buses. Another good thing is a living room/dining room and large bright kitchen. This really makes for far more community than we had at the Westmark. And the people here are great people.

However, the room is smaller. It has two twin beds pushed together with linens that don't exactly fit. The bathroom is out in the hall and consists of three individual bathrooms (on the 2nd floor where we are). Each bathroom has a sink, toilet and shower. I miss my own bathroom already. But it IS only 10 days. There's no desk in our rooms, so to sit and type means going downstairs to blog while all kinds of "community" is going on around me. We don't have our own t.v. And it's no longer a very quick walk to the store. But it's only 10 days.

Today, a few drivers flew to Juneau to help out there. A few more (like Mike) got inventory duty at the shop house. They got to count every belt, nut, bolt, screw, tool, etc., etc., etc. That meant I got to do the move mostly by myself although we were able to move a few things over last night and he helped with the heavy suitcase today. There are 4 more ship days with no more than 2 ships on any given day. The driving on those days should be fairly light which is good since the diaspora will continue even before the final ship day. And then there are two exciting days of washing buses this coming Saturday and Sunday. Next year, remind me to set my end contract date to 2 weeks before the end of the season and avoid division wide cleaning day, inventory and moving.

We've pretty much figured out which route we're planning to take: down the Alaska highway towards Jasper/Banff. This way we'll get to stop at Liard Hot Springs and see Jasper/Banff. We want to be back in the U.S. by mid-day Sunday, the 3rd so Mike can catch the Jets game at a sports bar. We'll head on down through Utah and stop and visit family and friends in Las Vegas before getting back to Peoria.

But in these next 10 days, we'll revel in the cloudless skies as the temperatures range from 30's to 50's instead of 40's to 60's. It is absolutely stunning outside and people are in sleeveless tops and shorts at 54 degrees! We'll enjoy the last of the tourists. And finally Mike is looking forward to participating in the Skagway town tradition of mooning the final ship for the season. I have told him that I do not plan to participate. It just doesn't seem to me an activity that I will regret not having joined in on.

So am I ready to go home? Yes and no. I'm not ready to leave this beautiful place. I am ready to see family and friends. It has been a wonderful summer and I am so glad to have had this experience in "the last frontier." I haven't seen much of Alaska at all, but what I have experienced here and in our travels has been wonderful. And know what else is wonderful?

and FOUND: Our camera was found!!!! Where? In the dumbest place imaginable. Right there in our room. It had fallen down by the desk into the little nest of empty plastic bags we had stashed for use as future garbage bags. Meantime, it turns out that the photos from my phone haven't been half bad. It's a good thing to have a camera for the travels back down south. Thank you for reading. There may be a post-travel blog, or not....but I am grateful that you have been here for me to share this experience with you. I wish I could have brought all my family and friends with me to live as we have lived these past few months.

Mike being charming