I sun-burnt my hands..

...I didn't even know this was possible. So I ride a bike all day, sometimes up to ten or twelve hours a day and pretty much all of that time I'm outside and it's been like really nice up here for about a week. My PNW roots are really shinning through. I'm crispy. I don't even know what to do because it's not like I can just stay out of the sun...it's kind of my job. With that said, getting paid to be outdoors all day is awesome (with the exception of the sunburn). This photo was taken three days ago and believe me it even worse now. The cool part about the goggle tan is that everybody thinks that I'm an awesome skier, I'll put that on my resume too!

PIC: part of the red is from the wind in addition to the sun. And YES I've been wearing sunblock.

16th Annual Craft Beer and Home Brew Festival

Heck yes. For $25 I got all the micro brew I could drink from 12-5 pm. Needless to say, I was ham-boned. It was totally rad, there was like 6 different Alaskan breweries in attendance and more hippies than you could count. After the festival was over we went down to the beach were somebody was hosting a barbeque. We sat on the beach and happened to run into the mechanic for the Sockeye shop in Haines. He showed everything we needed to see in Haines and then let us stay in cabin for the night. My friend Carson and I decided to go on a whim. The festival was in Haines and it's kind of expensive to get there but it was totally worth it!

Check out the rest of the photos on my flickr site

Haines, Alaska

I can't formulate words to describe how I feel about Haines. It is unbelievably beautiful. None of these pictures do it justice. I went on a boat tour today and gave up taking pictures half-way through because something like this you have to experience to truly appreciate. It's just a damn good thing that the winters are so rough here because I would seriously consider making this my home.

During the raft trip, the guide let me do some paddling. So now I can ad river guide to my resume.

Then I took the Fast Ferry back home to Skagway. Fabulous, fabulous day!

This sh*t is Bananas...

B-A-N-A-ANAS !! On Wednesday it snowed as I was leading a tour down the pass. An older lady literally got hypothermia and had to be escorted off the pass by ambulance. I was relieved because I thought she had a heart attack or something. She was suddenly just non-responsive. It was all the rage in town so when I went out on Thursday for dance night (more on that later) and people asked where I worked, everyone was like was, "ohhh..are you the guys that had the emergency on the pass" and I was like "yes" and then they were like "you guys are f-ing crazy," and I was like, "I know." And that happened about five times around town.

Dance Night at the RO (Red Onion Saloon for all you non locals) was a total hit!! I was relieved to find out that all the guys that I live/work with like to shake it. Who knew? I was in desperate need of a good shaking and was in full form. Everything was great: DJ, booze, although there could have been a few more ladies. I think the girl to guy ratio was probably 5-1. Great for me, not so much for my housemates. It was totally awesome though, and the best news is that dance night is every Thursday!

Today is my day off but it's rainy and kind of cold. However, I heard about a garage sale in town on NPR (we only have one station here in Skagway) so I gathered up the troops and we bike ganged it down to sale which led us to two other yard/garage sales. I got a couple of shirts, a travel mug and a loose-tea dipper thing. I'm pretty stoked because loose tea is one of the things I want to learn more about. I think that I'm going to go the library and find a book on tea and then go to the health food store and buy some tea. Sorry, I'm writing out loud here.

I also have Monday off. I think that I'm going to go to Haines and find out what that's all about.

More pictures to come and soon as it clears up.

How is everyone?

PIC: Fraser, BC

Yeah

So I realized that my last entry raised a lot of questions. Where to start? Why is my job dangerous, hmm... everyone should follow the link to the Sockeye Cycles web page and check out the Klondike or Train and Bike Tour. I lead both of these tours. The tours are not dangerous to myself but to the unexpected tourist the present many inherent dangers. You don't need much imagination to realize that sending cruise passengers (they are from all different demographics now) down a 15 mile hill, where we lose 3000 feet of elevation might be dangerous. Some of these people haven't been on a bike in 30 years and have never heard of or seen hand brakes. Even after explaining how to brake you see people back peddling to no avail in attempt to stop the bike. After a five minute bike orientation we let these people ride down the hill where to one side there's a 2000 foot cliff and the other side a guard rail that is sharp enough to cut your face off. It's dangerous, I don't know how there are not more accidents. With that said, we take a lot of safety measures to HELP assure that people don't hurt themselves, but damn is all I have to say about that.

So it's dangerous, but so fun. My face is totally sun and wind burned, I'm freezing a lot, but I'm getting paid to be outside, in f-ing Alaska!

Another cool thing about my job, apart from being in Alaska and riding bikes all day is that I work for a really good guy who loves Alaska and nature in general (totaly stoner). Nearly half of my training has been on the history of Skagway, plants, animals, geology, and conservation efforts. He's paying me to take people on biking trips because he believes that if people get out there they will have more of an appreciation for nature and therefore work to preserve it. It's genius, I feel honored to work for this cause. As an employee he expects us to be extremely knowledgeable, almost experts on the area and it's history. He's paying me to ride bikes and to learn about the area. I really feel like this is move in the right direction for me. I love being outside and I love learning. Unlike other jobs that I've had where I've been expected to be an expert in a specific field, this job has actually given me the tools and the time to learn. I am extremely pleased with the job so far.

I will blog soon about Skagway and why it is so awesome. In the meantime, check out my flickr site and look for the tag "skagway" for photos.

PEACE

all is good on the hippie front

So yesterday was cinco de mayo, so of course everyone felt obligated to drink copious amounts of tequila. Never have I been so glad to be a woman. Two of my co-worker/house mates decided that at the end of the night it would be fun to give each other black eyes. I'm grateful that for the most part women don't feel compelled to do this. The best part about it is that these two guys are so proud of their black eyes that they have resolved to give each other black eyes on the fifth of every month for the summer. Although being the only lady in the Sockeye House has been fun, I'm looking forward to the other female guides showing up.

I have lots more to blog about like how cool the people are in Skagway, how ridiculously dangerous my job is, the hike I went on, etc etc but I have very little time. In the meantime, please enjoy this photo I took today.

More blogging and photos to follow......

I'm in love.......

....with Alaska! It's even better than I imagined. Quickly, I made it to Skagway yesterday. I was totally relieved to find out that of the 6 people living in the house, 4 of them are vegetarians! Guess I won't have to worry about eating meat this summer after all. Also, there are ten people employed here right now and I'm the only girl. There should be some ladies coming at the end of the month, we'll see.

Last night my boss hosted a barbecue, with sockeye salmon. It was delicious. Today, was the first day of training. We did a bunch of stuff, but the highlight was riding bikes in Dyea. Right now it's 9pm and completely light outside. The future is looking bright!

- pictures to follow -