Catchin' y'all up
again!
Last week Tess and
I had the day off together, plus her friend Liz, who works on one of
the Holland America ships, was in town. We were feeling pretty lazy,
but stopped at the Alaska Mountain Guides to see if they had any open
slots on a zipline trip. They did not end up having extra spots, but
we had a nice time sitting in the cool sunshine, picking up some
snacks and the grocery store, and watching The Nanny Diaries
on my bed. It was also fun to get to know Liz a little bit! Not only
are my friends here cool, but they have cool friends!
On the 21st,
Tess and I headed out after our evening show to the Skagway Solstice
party. Meridith had the day off and had already been there for a
couple hours. Tons of townies turned out. Every time I start to think
I know everyone in Skagway, I stumble across another couple hundred
people I've never seen! It's neat. The sky stayed very light very
late – and it never really gets dark in the summer. The sun goes
down for a couple hours, but the sky remains quite twilight-y.
Anyway, we hung around for a couple hours, chatting, getting our
faces doodled on with an electric blue face paint pen, and listening
to the awesome family rock band that our friend and coworker Zach
plays guitar in. Zach recently graduated from the Skagway School and
is headed down to Oregon in the fall, but meanwhile we had the
pleasure of hearing him knock “Johnny B. Goode” out of the park!
Several days ago, I
felt a little irritable and melancholy after an evening show (for one
thing, here is a slightly petulant piece of advice from me to you: If
you're going to see a show in which you expect to hear live ragtime
piano, maybe it would be polite to refrain from sitting down and
playing extremely skilled solo jazz and ragtime at the piano in the
lobby for an hour before the show), so instead of going inside I went
to the playground right by my apartment and swung on the swings,
which was lovely. Afterward, I was lying on the ground under the
swings, contemplating existence, and two guys who looked to be about
my age walked up and sat on the swings. It turned out that they're
from California, which is always totally exciting to me. Their names
are Connor and Alvin; they go to the US Maritime Academy in the Bay
Area, are majoring in Mechanical Engineering, and are doing an
extremely-poorly-stipended 60-day internship on the Alaska State
Ferry. They're in Skagway for an hour a week! It was really great to
meet people who weren't living in Skagway, and nice to have spent
some time outside.
And now I'm up to
yesterday, which was amazing! Steph and I had the day off together,
and we called up Alaska Excursions early and got on a 10:30 am
Glacier Point tour. Meridith had done the tour twice already – once
alone and once with her friend Kate, who is in town visiting this
week – and was awed and moved by the experience. And no wonder!
First, Steph and I
met up with Wyatt, the guide for the first and last parts of our
tour, on the Railroad Dock. Wyatt and his girlfriend Hannah already
knew Tess from Blues Night at the Gold Rush Brewery, so now Wyatt has
met all of us Days of '98 girls. He's from California – as I
mentioned, I have a nose for Californians! (Actually, side note –
when we're gambling with the guests before the evening shows, we like
to diversify the blackjack or dice with trivia questions. Mostly we
ask Alaska-related questions, but I also like to ask them to guess
where I'm from. I've asked this question probably 15 times at this
point, and except for two heavily-Canadian crowds this week, someone
has gotten the answer correct every single time. I don't know
what it is, but somehow the California is written all over me! In
fact, random people on the street come up and tell me I look like a
Californian sometimes. It's weird but cool.)
Anyway, once the
big group from the Disney ship showed up, we loaded onto a boat,
which we rode 30 miles down to the Davidson Glacier.
It was the first
beautiful, warm day in over a month. The views were incredible (duh)...
...and we saw a couple of bald eagles...
...and a couple of humpback whales!
We also got to know Anna and Megan, who work for the horseback tour
arm of Alaska Excursions and were taking the tour on their day off,
like us. Megan is a professional photographer, besides working with
horses.
Once the boat
landed...
...we filed off, grabbed a sandwich and some snacks for lunch,
and loaded onto a bus, which took us to a trailhead. We donned rubber
boots and life vests, and were led on a short hike by our awesome
middle-of-the-tour guide Jake. The guides who do the part of the
tours that actually take us hiking and up to the glacier live at
Glacier Point full time over the summer. Our lovely part-time
castmate Renee did that for three summers and says it was the most
amazing thing she's ever done.
After our hike, we
filed into canoes and rowed up to the glacier. (Seriously, you do so
many different things on this tour!) Getting as close to the glacier
as possible involved some trekking over mud and through swirling
glacier runoff, which was pretty exciting.
The silt looks like molten silver.
A few weeks ago when
Meridith first went, they could go right up to the glacier and walk
on it, but at this point in the summer there is too much water in the
way. Still, we got pretty close, and we even got to eat some glacier
ice! It was pure and cold and delicious.
This picture makes me hurt.
There is something incredible about seeing a glacier,
and I have not been able to put it in words yet.
It is completely different from
anything else
I have ever seen or done.
We stayed out there
for about half an hour, then walked/canoed/hiked/boated back to
Skagway. On the return boat ride, we saw a hundreds of sea lions
sunning themselves on a big rock and playing in the water. This is a
different species of sea lion than the ones you see in San Francisco.
We also saw a bunch more whales, bringing our incredibly unusual and
lucky whale total to eight! Wyatt said the only thing that would have
made it better was an orca sighting, but that only happens 3-5 times
a summer.
Once we landed,
Steph, Megan, Anna, and I got fish and chips for dinner at the Fish
Co., which had been recommended since arrival but which none of us
had tried. It definitely lived up to its reputation, and sitting
outside in the sun eating fish and chips was a perfect cap to a
perfect day.
Not that it was
actually the cap to the day, since after that we met up with the rest
of the Days of '98 gang at the Eagles Club, where the Jons were
buying everyone drinks. We had a good time there, returned to the
house to shower and change, and went out for a couple more drinks at
the Station and Bonanza. It was great getting to hang out with
Meridith's friend Kate a little more, and some of our other Skagway
friends.
Today I had to
work, but I had the morning off, and since it was the first 80-degree
day we've ever had here, I spent a solid four hours of the day
sitting in the sun, reading and chatting with locals and listening to
the local radio broadcasting its pledge drive right outside next to
me. I couldn't be happier :)
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