The Vacation is Almost Over

All the newbie Observers and I have been locked up in our small little bunk house since Monday with readings and homework. Taking only an hour for dinner some where local and within walking distance, and then back to the bunkhouse for reading and homework sheets. I had to get out. So Wednesday night I quickly started with my homework right after class, and got it done before 9:00 for the first time since I'd been here. I talked one of my new friends in the house to come with me to an ale house that had a local band playing last night. Local beer, old people dancing to cover songs and songs that sound like cover songs, and meeting new people from around the world who came here for all different reasons. And then I remembered my buddy from Lewiston, Joey D "remix" was going to be in town sometime this week driving threw on his way to Montana. To my luck, Joey D was sitting around in his hotel room in Anchorage needing a beer. Joey D, Mark, and Myself started our journey to relaxing with a local, cold brew and meeting some people sitting next to the bar. For those of you who know Joey D, you know how the night went; great one liners from out of now where, and questions of whether of not I think the band will let him play the tambourine. I miss the kid a ton. He was one his way from Kodak Island to Kalisbell, Montana. I wish him and his wife Jordan the best.

This city is so beautiful. Actually, the city is just a city with a lot of public drunkenness at all times of the day. There are more homeless and wondering people then I expected. I was told on the plane to be prepared to see that, but its true. What makes this city so breath taking is the surrounding areas of the city. It takes 15 to 20 minutes by car from downtown to get out side the city and to a peak that overlooks the entire city of Anchorage with a view of Mt. McKinley, and the two inlets that surround the city, Turnagain Arm and Kink Arm. At most points in Turnagain Arm, the water is only 30 feet of so deep. At low tide you can almost walk across it. There are so many hiking trails and endless mountains to climb. You could be here for a month with nothing to do but scale the outside of Anchorage and surrounding cities, and still find things to come back to do.

I didn't go, but 5 of the other new hires went on a train ride from Anchorage to Seward which is 2 and half hours by car, but 4 glorious hours by train. They told me that the viewing cars were pretty much all windows and you were riding the train through mountain sides to a glacier park. They took of their shoes and had to walk across part of the glacier to get to the other side of the trail. The pictures they brought back have some of the most amazing blues and whites inside the snow caps and glaciers. There are multiple hiking trails that take you the tops of all sorts of cliffs and mountain ranges and glacier sites. All of them want to go back next weekend just to go on some of the trails they couldn't last Saturday. There is also this canoe trip that is available during the Beluga whale season where you canoe along side the whales through these glacial caverns. I am going to have to find a way to do that at some point during my break between contracts and time spent in Dutch Harbor or the Bearing Sea. It's the ability to do something so grand as canoe with Beluga whales that makes this place magical for a science nerd.

It hit me the other day that in less then two weeks I'm going to be flying out to Dutch Harbor and not leaving there until late November. All these great friends I've now met, I'm going to have to say good-bye to because there is no knowing if I'll see them in Dutch or back in Anchorage or Seattle for our debriefing right before Thanksgiving. For the past week, this has kind of felt like a vacation with some school thrown in. Now it's finally starting to feel like a job and suddenly I am reminded why they have to pay this much money to get someone to come to this great city. 2 and a half months of near solitude are in the near future. I was ready for it before, I'll be ready for it again. Only I didn't expect to meet the people I did here in Anchorage. I didn't expect that I would leave something behind here before going the job I flew here for. From the local people who treated me so kindly, and the few that I would call a friend, to my new room mates who are all different but make our 2 bedroom beat up bunk house feel like home.

I'm excited to see what life is going to be like on the Bearing Sea in a little boat and bigger boats. I am also going to miss the fun I've had here with some great people who I've made some tight bonds with. I'm going to get the adventure I signed up for though. Fall is coming, and that means wind. Pacific Cod season is around the corner and the end of Pollock (what Krab and McDonald's fish fillets are made out of) is coming up.

Sorry I haven't posted any pictures up yet. I haven't gone out on any hikes had a camera that could capture what it is that you see here. you need a lens that gets a 180 degree view. There are no views within the eye sight of a camera. By this weekend I'll have some up though. Thank you for the comments, it humbles me to think that there are people back home that are thinking of me and wanting to read what I am up to. I appreciate it.

- Casey