Goodbye Skagway...Hello Utah....

Well after another great summer working in Alaska, it's time for us to go back to Utah and back to school. We've had a lot of fun this year, we saw lots of bears, both sets of parents came up to visit, and we saw the sun 3 times! Anyways we're back in Salt Lake now, and school started today. We are now living in the student apartments, which aren't really that bad. In fact they are identical to when Brian's parents lived in them 26 years ago. But the price is right and it's close enough so Brian can ride his bike to school. So goodbye for another winter Skagway, hopefully we'll see ya again summer of '09

We're off to see the bears....

So Jenn won a contest at work and the

prize was a trip away for the night. All the way across the ocean, 20 miles to Haines, AK. It was a pretty cool trip, we took a fast ferry over there, and checked into what we're pretty sure is the hotel that inspired the movie "The Shining". After settling in the room we ate dinner at a little local restaurant, and then took off for our twilight bear watching tour. It's right smack in the middle of the salmon runs right now, which means the bears are out in full force. Mainly the Brown bears are the ones that we see in the area. The guide we were with took us out to the Chilkoot River where we immediately saw a 4 year old brown bear hanging out in the deep grass. Throughout the night we also saw another 4 year old, as well as a sow with her two cubs. It was a great trip, but unfortunately we had to come back the next day to work. Well Brian had to go back to work, Jenn is done for the season and will be flying out tomorrow with Brian following this Thursday.

Heli-Camping...

Well it's getting closer and closer to the end of our summer season up here in Skagway, Ak and like last summer Brian and the rest of the Dock Reps went out on a campout. This year they went Heli-Camping (where a helicopter drops you off at the top of the trail). They went up that way and then back by the train the next morning. It was a great time, after getting a quick ride in the chopper up to the Laughton Glacier trailhead they hiked up to the US Park Service cabin. Then it was off to the Laughton Glacier. It's a pretty sweet hike that almost immediatly has a visual of the massive sheet of ice. More than the chopper ride, or the hiking on the glacier, the best part was just to be away from town (and tourists) for one night.

Tourist For A Day.......

Well, if you haven't hung out with us in a while then you might not know about our complete annoyance with tourists this year. Don't get us wrong, we realize that they are the one's paying our bills, but this year it seems they are more annoying than usual. All this said we decided that us and the Quackenbush's would be tourists yesterday. This does not mean that we stood in the middle of the road taking pictures, or asking over and over again how to get out free train charm, it means we finally took advantage of a couple tours offered here in Skagway. First we decided to go Glacier Country flight seeing. This is probably one of the coolest things you can do up here (besides the train of course...). The tour takes you over several of the large glaciers in the are, and finished off with the Mead Glacier which is part of the Juneau Ice Fields. It is easily some of the most amazing scenery that we've ever encountered. The pictures turned out cool, but don't really do it justice. After doing that we went across the fjord over the the city of Haines to float the Chilkat River. This river is pretty cool because it has the largest concentration of bald eagles in the world. Also, on the bus ride out to the river we had a pretty sweet encounter with one of the largest brown bears I've ever seen. It was fishing on the creek bed for salmon, while her two cubs watched. I've attached a quick video of the bear getting a fish and taking it into the woods for her cubs. It's a little shaky cause we were in a bus seeing it, also the sound is of everyone on the bus so i recommend turning it down. All in all it was nice to get away from work for a day and see some of the amazing things we have around us up here in Alaska.

The Larsen's Come To Town....

Well this is turning out to be the summer of family. Again we have been trying to convince our families to come and visit us the last three years we've been living in Skagway, and this year they finally listened. Brian's Mom and Dad were hear last month, and last week Jenn's Mom, Dad and brother Eric came up to stay with us. It was a great time for all of us, after a long flight and ferry ride the Larsen's went from the 112 degree heat of Phoenix to the balmy 45 degree heat of Skagway. We were really excited for them to be able to see what we've been doing up here, and also to get the Alaskan experience. Like when Brian's parents were in town Ed, Linda, and Eric were able to do most of the tours we offer here in town. Also one day Brian, Eric, and Ed went sport fishing out in the fjord for salmon, they caught a bunch, Brian's being the smallest (mainly cause he let Ed bring in his big fish). The also saw the glaciers from the air and the water, had a trip though the brothel, and panned for gold. We even were able to see a couple bears on the side of the road. Needless to say by the time we put them back on the ferry out of town this morning we had totally wore them out! It was a great time.

Look out Skagway...Brian is a Fireman

So Brian decided that it was finally time to give back to the great city of Skagway and become a volunteer firefighter. Mainly he is working on the EMS team, but when you join one you're automatically on the other. So far the main excitement has been meetings every tuesday, and competeing in the sport fishing tourniment...(he didn't catch anything). Brian wants to become a physicians assistant, so working with the ambulance is a great learning experiance. It's pretty exciting stuff working on the ambulance, mostly it is older people who get exausted walking through our 20 blocks in town, and people tripping on the boardwalks.

the hart's come to town

Well it took three years of us coming to work up in Alaksa for our parents to finally decide to come and visit. Brian's Dad and Mom came up last week to visit, and Jenn's parents and brother will be here later this month. It was a great time for Brian's parents to come because the weather was pretty nice most of the time, although it did piss rain one day so they could see that too.

We were able to get them on lots of the shore trips that the cruise ship passengers take when they come here. They were able to go Kayaking, take a streetcar ride, go through a brothel, have a salmon cook-out at an old gold camp, take a flight over the glacier icefields, and then canoe out to one of the glaciers. Oh and of course they got to ride the train. In addition to seeing everything that there is to see here in Skagway they were here on the 4th of July and were able to take part in all the small town festivities.

Here's some pictures we've taken up in Alaska....

Happy 4th of July

Well, it's the 4th of July and Skagway has a pretty sweet celebration. It is the ultimate in small town parties!! First there was the fireworks show out over the fjord, thing is, it doesn't really ever get dark here so the fireworks go off at dusk (11:30pm). Also since the town across the bay has more people, and there's only one guy that does fireworks our show has to be on the 3rd. All that said it's still pretty cool.

On the actual holiday we have the small town parade, the town of Skagway is so small that the parade goes down the main road, turns and then comes back the same road. All of it takes about 35 minutes.

After the parade the town broke the Guiness World Record of largest egg toss. Pretty awesome right?

We've finally got our blog up and running...

Well we decided to start a blog a while ago, but with our busy work/play schedules it never really got past naming it. So after 3 months of saying we need to get to it here we go! We are up in Skagway Alaska again for our third summer, this year we are working for the White Pass Railroad. It's a tourist railway, with cruise ship passengers being our main customers. It's a pretty sweet gig, we work in paradise for 4 months out of the year, and it basically pays for our school in the winter. This year has been pretty awesome! We've been able to see tons of stuff that most people will never see until they are old and take a cruise.