Good Bye Skagway.......

Well Brian and I are currently sitting in the Seattle airport waiting for our flight to Salt Lake. Our adventure began yesterday......We had our last day of work on Thursday, it ended with a party at our house. Being that we start school on Monday, we were the fist of our group to end the summer and go home. Skagway has become our second home, as well as our second family. It is always a bitter sweet thing to leave. We were suppose to fly out of skagway Friday morning, being that we fly out on one of those tintsy tiny planes; the flight was cancelled due to weather. We were able to jump on the 7 hour ferry to Juneau, it ended up being late due to rough water. We missed our flight to Seattle, so we spent the night in Juneau. If all goes as planed we should be home sometime before midnight tonight. We are excited to be home! Oh and.....for those of you who know how I travel, I would like it to be on record that I have be very pleasant and enjoyable!!!!

HERE ARE A FEW PICTURES OF OUR LAST DAY

A day on the river.....

So this last Saturday we went with a bunch of people from work on a jetboat tour. It was a pretty sweet day, we took a 45 minutes catamaran ride across the canal to the town of Haines. The boat ride itself was pretty crazy. For the last few days we have had around 50 mph winds, which creates for some pretty huge waves. Once we got over to Haines we took a bus ride out to the Chilkat River. It's the shallowest navigatable river in North America, and because of the the only way to travel on it is to go in jet boats. They are boats that hold like 25 people and ride just barely if not just on top of the riverbed. We were able to go 15 miles up the river and see things like massive glaciers, eagles nests, and even a few bald eagles. Usually they see bear or moose, but we got totally skunked in that respect. After traveling up the river we stopped at a small lake for some fishing off the bank. After returning to the camp we had a weenie roast and hung out around the fire with the people we work with. It was fun to get away from town and get out into the wilderness. At the end of the day we took the catamaran back to Skagway, and this time the waves were even higher. The wind has been so bad that today 3 of the 5 cruise ships that were supposed to be in town today were unable to dock, so you know it's really bad. Well only a few more days and we'll be back in Utah.

Home in a week....

Here are a few random pictures of our time here in Alaska, one week from today and we'll be back in Utah.

The bears are back....

So one of the coolest things about living in Alaska is the wildlife that is around us all the time. Well, it's August again, which means the salmon are starting to spawn up the rivers, and when that happens the grizzly bears come down to feed. It's awesome because the bears are so set on getting as much salmon as possible, so much so that they don't even know that we are there watching them. Which means we can get up really close. We went out last week down to the rivers with a couple of our friends to watch them the other day. We only saw one, but it was sweet! The bear was running all through the river in a feeding frenzy. Sadly we are now only about a week and a half until we are done with our summer jobs. Our last day working is the 20th and we fly home the 21st. Luckily we were able to see the bears one last time before we leave.

The Hike to.....BLEEP!

Last weekend, Brian and I went on the worlds WORST hike! I honestly thought Brian was trying to kill me. It was miles and miles......and miles of straight up rocky mountain side. At one point I sat on a rock and was wishing for a bear to come eat me so that I wouldn't have to hike anymore! I do have to say, thanks to Brian it was completely worth it! It was some of the most AMAZING scenery I have seen. At the top we had a view of Skagway, Glaciers, and a lake which was crystal clear. You could see the reflection of the mountain side. The pictures I am posting does not even give a glimmer of the spectacular views we had.

Busy Life in Alaska...

So it's been a while since we have posted because it has been a crazy couple weeks for us up here. Let's recap really quick what's been going on 3000 miles away from home.... The whales are back in our waters, and Brian was able to get some pretty sweet pictures of a couple of them swimming pretty close to the docks.

Also, we were able to go eat dinner at the really fancy restaurant on one of the ships that Brian works with. It was amazing!! Now here in Skagway all our food comes to us on a barge that takes a week to get here from Seattle, so the food is not so fresh. But the food on the ship was amazing, Jenn had a perfect filet mignon, (weird...meat...oh well), and Brian had a 22 oz porterhouse. It was awesome. Then we went on a tour of the ship, including all the areas that the regular passengers don't usually get to go to. Unfortunately Brian forgot that the camera was in his pocket and this is the only picture that we got.

Also, last week we went on a camping trip up the the White Pass Summit. It's this amazing area that you can only get to by being dropped off by the train. So we took the train up and got left out in the tundra with no one around for miles and miles and miles. It was so quiet up there. We spent the day hiking around and exploring the area. We also hiked along the old Trail of '98. This is the trail that was carved out by the thousands of miners who were trying to get to the goldfields. It was really cool because since the late 1890's there haven't been very many people who have been on that trail. That night we pitched out tent in the only flat spot on the whole summit, miles away from civilization.

So yeah it's been a crazy couple of weeks, we could post for pages to talk about it all. We only have about 5 weeks left and then it's back to our winter lives of going to school in SLC. But first, some other cool quick things that happened in the last to weeks were:

We broke in and spent the night in an old caboose....

got a pool since it's been unusually hot this summer...

Went river rafting...

and came to work to find a giant pile of Bear poo waiting for us at the front door.

Happy 4th of July....

The 4th of July here in Skagway is one of the coolest times of the year. Imagine the smallest town celebration you can, and you have an idea. First we went to the parade, now since our town is so small to make the parade last longer than 20 minutes it goes down the main street, then turns the corner and comes back up the main street. The funniest ting in the parade is a lady from town who looks like Sarah Palan with a sign that says "I QUIT"!
After the parade we watched the little kid foot races, the dunk tank, the spike driving contest and participated in the egg toss. All the while eating "fair-style" food...such as corn dogs, nachos and Philly cheese's. One of the coolest things that we have on the 4th here is the fireworks! There are two towns up in our neck of the woods, there is us and 20 miles across the fjord there is Haines, but only one guy who does fireworks. Since we are way smaller than Haines we have to have our fireworks show on the 3rd. What happens is the whole town heads out to the waterfront and watches the show. this year they shot them off the end of one of the piers, as well as from the tug boat. What's cool about the fireworks is that since it is the middle of summer it never gets dark, so it starts at 11 and is barely dusk out. It was a good old time 4th of July, just the way we like it!

Happy 25th Birthday Jenn!!!

So yes today is Jennifer's big 25th birthday, (or as she likes to call it "halfway to halfway dead). Unfortunately we both have to work today, so we had her big party last night. We had a Kabob bbq, and like half the town showed up to celebrate. It was a great time, we just sat around and hung out, played a little badmitten, and then BROKE THE PINATA!! Brian gets a pinata for Jenn's b-day every year, and this year it was a giant lipstick. It was hilarious breaking it open!! Here's a slideshow of the party we had.

Happy 25th Jenn, Love Brian

Alaska Zipline....

So we got a new zipline tour in Skagway this year, so we went with the rest of the train guides to try it out. It's a pretty sweet tour, they take you up the Klondike Hwy and then there's a short hike to the lines. Once you get up there you are on the edge of the mountains and can see the whole Skagway valley below while you are zipping down. It was also a sunny day, so we could see forever! Here's a few pics of the trip:

Campout at a Glacier

This weekend we went on a little camp out up to Laughton Glacier, its this sweet area 16 miles up the train tracks from us. We went up there with our two roommates Jacqui and Julie. We started out by having the train that we work for drop us off at the trail head. Then it was an easy 2 miles hike to the cabin where we stayed the night. The forest service maintains several cabins in the forest around us that you can reserve for the night. It's a pretty sweet place, there is sleeping for 6, an oil burning stove and a fire pit. After dropping off our packs we headed out for the hike up to the glacier. It was amazing!! We have been up there a few times in the last 4 years, and its crazy to see how quickly the glaciers are receding up the mountain. It looks drastically different now than it ever has. After spending some time at the base of the glacier, and even licking the ice, we went back to base. That night we hung out by the fire, roasted hot dogs, smores and had a good time. Brian decided to try out his new hammock and slept between two trees while the girls slept in the cabin. Today we woke up, hiked back to the tracks and caught the train back to town. It was a great to get away and get into nature!!

At the trailhead

Brian in his new hammock

At the base of Laughton Glacier

The forest service cabin