The life of renegades in love...

Well, here we go. We're officially starting our blog up in Alaska. We have had a bunch of adventures already since we have been up here, and we will start sharing them with you all! To bring you up to speed real quick. We weren't able to drive up in the 4runner, turns out that a couple days before we were going to drive up, all the belts fell of the truck and the starter was shot. So, we decided to fly. We had a VERY long trip up to Skagway, AK! This is how it went down. We flew out Wednesday night from SLC to phoenix. Phoenix to Seattle. We then slept in the SEA-TAC airport for the night. That was pretty fun, but uncomfortable. We barricaded ourselves behind a payphone with the benches and chairs. It was a nice little fort we made in the airport...hehe. Early the next morning we started our milkrun in a fairly small plane. Seattle to Wrangell, AK. Wrangell to Petersburg. Petersburg to Ketchikan. Ketchikan to Juneau. Then we had lunch in the Juneau airport and caught a 6 seater propellor plane from Juneau to Haines. Finally, at three in the afternoon on Thursday we got to good old Skagway Alaska!

Life here has been great! Joanie started her job at Wells Fargo and has been doing amazing work there. She has already been recognized as an outstanding employee twice. Thats right folks, she has only been working as a teller for two weeks and she has already raised the district (most of southeast Alaska is the district) customer service rating by about 10%. The district manager called her the other day to congratulate her. Wooh! Go Joanie.

Its funny, she gets to know more of the locals then i do here in Skagway. I deal more with the tourists and things like that, but because she works at the only bank within 110 mile radius, she kinda has to get to know everyone. We will be walking the boardwalk or going down to watch the cruise ships leave and she'll have at least a few people say hi to her as we go.

As for me, life is great. Its my second year driving tour busses for Holland America/Princess of Alaska/Yukon (we just shorten the name to HAPAY, but whatever). There is just some sort of thrill about driving a HUGE bus full of a bunch of rich people that are listening to every word you say! The nice thing is that i LOVE the scenery and the history, so i love talking to anyone and everyone about it. We do a bunch of different tours up here, but one of my favorites is the one that goes about 70 miles from Skagway up the Klondike highway into British Columbia(which is beautiful...) and then into the Yukon territory. We have lunch there, and then bring them all the way back. We pass huge lakes, a desert, majestic mountains, mine-riddled hills, breathtaking valleys, and even more wonderous glaciers. All the while we get to see bears, porcupine, dall sheep, mountain goats, and an occasionally rare moose!

Yeah, you guys thought you were enjoying your summer.... We are having a blast!

One of the first things that the tourists see as their ship comes into port is the wall of graffiti on the mountain side. When a new captain first brings his ship into port, he'll send his crew out to the mountain wall to paint the ship emblem up on the rockside. Legend has it that the further up the emblem of his ship was, the more esteem the crew had for the captain. The product is a hodge-podge of ship emblems over the past 30 years. Its awesome. Another tradition of the wall is for people to sneak up in the night and paint on the wall. Some of these are kind of fun to look at.

So, i will let the picture do the explaining. And well, we didn't want to be blatant with our rebel-ness, so we used our middle names. ;) Its fun to point that out to my passengers as we pull off the docks in the coach.

Another kinda funny thing is that me and joanie don't really have any good way of getting around except for some bikes we were able to track do

wn. So while most other people are driving around town in their cars, here we are, the dynamic duo biking through town causing trouble. I have this old Super Cycle that is pretty much the coolest thing since michael jackson's bejeweled glove. Seriously, and the way it rattles when i jump it off a curb just makes my heart melt.

Recently, we went up the pass to look for wildlife. Fortunately for us we didn't have to bike up the 14% grade of hill. One of our buddies let us borrow his car. So we headed up the pass around dusk. This is the best time to see wildlife! We saw 6 porcupines and a bear. This was Joanie's first bear sighting in Alaska. The funny part, is that the bear had just woken up from his long winter slumber, so he was a little drowzy. So drowzy in fact, that he was running into trees and rocks all over the place. The bears love eating dandelions, they have kind of a narcotic effect on the bears, making them sleepy. So, if you ever see a bear in Skagway this time of the year, its usually while he is on the side of the road chomping on a dandelion. This little guy was right up next to the car at one point. Really kind of cute. I could totally take down a bear like that. Especially when he's all drowzy....

I guess there was a momma bear and her three cubs on the tracks the other day. The train that runs up the pass barely saw the bears in time and slammed on the brakes. If you know anything about trains you know that its not a smart idea to slam on the brakes. All the cars collided like an accordion, and the bears were not run over. But one of the passengers in one of the car bathrooms in the back got sprayed down by a plumbing pipe that broke. Hehe. Poor guy. Anyway, bears are always causing trouble around town. The best is when we pull over the coach for the passengers to see the bear and then he will turn is butt towards the bus and take a nice big dump right in front of all the people. Yeah, way to stick it to the man, bear.

Next post might include things like a hike up to a hidden waterfall, me riding a pipe shooting water out of it, us watching the cruise ships leave at night, and maybe even a gruesome story of one of us totally ripping up a leg playing sports..... Stay tuned!