Wondering Where the Lions Are

... Had another dream about lions at the door. They were not as fighting as they were before, some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me ...




It's been a stress filled week with tests to pass, but I've been walking around with a gigantic smile on my face. This city, this state, has a feel to it that I can't put my finger on, but it makes me feel happy. I haven't been able to hike really at all. I've been too busy, or the plans just didn't line up right. That's alright. There is going to be plenty of things left for me to explore when I get up here in December before my next deployment to Dutch. I've been talking with a couple of the other cats I'm training with to see if we can get up here a week or a couple of days early so that we can take the train in the winter.

We wondered into the tourist center one day as we walked past it on the way home from dinner. We spent the next 45 minutes or so talking and plotting adventures with both of the ladies that work the desk there. They stayed like 20 minutes after closing to tell us places off the beaten path of the tourist adventures and told stories that made our mouths water and our adventurous bones quiver. Things like guided glacier climbing and camping, snow shoeing to the glaciers, and the main attraction being the train that goes from Anchorage to Sweard to the South, and Anchorage to Fairbanks to the north. One of the ladies told us that it is completely different in the winter. The train travels through the mountains, and you travel into parts of the AK that you could never get to with a car. She also told us that is also the only train in the US that is still a whistle train, which means that at any point on the tracks and at every train station, the train is flagged down and will stop to let people on. She took the train north one weekend in the winter and there were campers who were flagging down the train in the middle of nowhere. Some of them had been lost, while others planed out ahead of time they were going to hike in one direction and camp until they reached the train tracks and hop on. I don't think I'm down with that, but from everything I've heard, its worth four times as much as they charge.

So far this experience has giving me nothing but great and exciting opportunities. I've met more fun loving and like minded people then I have met in a long time. It leaves me wondering where the lions are? When am I going to see the rub? What's the catch? I'll probably see the lions once I get to Dutch Harbor. But the more and more we train, and get to learn about all the other opportunities that come with this job, I'm going to be in a postion to see things that will have always wanted to, but probably never would without this job. I'm not sure if I'm really going to see this as a job. Maybe it'll be more like a ride-a-long you can do with a police officer, only I'm doing it with fishing boats in the Bearing, while doing collecting samples for research on the side. There will be times when the work is really difficult, and times when it is simpler. There will be times when the sea is rough, and times when it is calm. But the time out on the boat will never be same as it would have been stuck in a lab 8 to 10 hours a day with no widows and the only light being the neon ones above me. Where getting to wear a lab coat as a uniform was the only perk. I may have left the lions back in Spokane.

- Casey

PS. The top picture is of the city of anchorage on an overcast day from flat top, and the other one is the green covered mountains that surround the city to the water