Monday, July 13, 2009

sorry its been a while

“What are the house’s that the dog’s live in called?” “Do you have electricity up here?” “Who names the dogs?” “see those huge cracks in the ice? Those average about 100-200 ft deep… - Do you let the dogs run around?” …. Its been a long few weeks of ridiculous questions! Haha I had a week of horrible tours, to the point that I was absolutely dreading the next unloading of people off the helicopter… Then you’ll get the most talkative, intelligent questions and you have a great time, This makes it all worth while! I am sore and tired, after shoveling ice and wet snow all day and running tours, we generally average about 20-50 people a day, Last Thursday we had 73 people!!! Omg that was a looooooooong day! The other frustrating thing is the rich snobs that come up… We had a guy and his wife bring his youngest of 6 kids with her 8 kids on their private jet to Alaska… They also brought their $1.7 mil helicopter to privately fly up to the ice and get a tour. Now they own Idaho Potatoes, and Husband and wife take one of their kids and their families (one with 13 kids) on a vacation every year rotating who gets to go, and continued to talk about how much money they have and how much they have spent, at the end of the 3 undivided attention hours on the ice, they got on the helicopter and said “Bye”… No tip, no Thanks… Rick, Matt and I were like… you’ve got to be kidding me! Ridiculous!!! What I’ve learned so far is that it’s the people who this is their one vacation that they’ve spent the entire year saving for that really can’t afford to tip you who hand you $20 at the end saying that this was great and the experience of a life time.I’ve decided not to go and work as a handler this winter. I cannot get myself more that 50% positive that this is what I want to do, If I’m going to handle for someone I want to go into it with 90% enthusiasm and want to do this. Being a handler for someone would give me the experience of a life time, but it’s a 24/7 lifestyle of early mornings, late nights, scooping poop, dog care, harnessing and running dogs for long miles, becoming attached to a dog one day and then it not being there the next. So I’m going to step back this winter and see if it is really something that I want to be a large part of my life. I know that I will probably always have a small rec. team starting with my girl Dre. We’ll see.I came down on Sunday early afternoon and met Brian (Pilot) and Matt at the Heritage drive thru coffee house near the apt and they were on their way to hike around downtown. So I ran back to the apt an got a quick shower in grabbed my water bottle and we headed off downtown the whole time joking about the stupid questions we get asked and laughing. Brian took us up the steepest hills down town past houses set in the hill side secluded from the busy tourist’s buying souvenirs, to the first road built in Juneau and the old gold mines and mills and shafts where they still get tourists to pay to pan for gold, and still find flakes here and there! We hikes up around Mt. Juneau and saw water –falls and streams the color of Caribbean bright blue sea water. I felt at home, and I would recommend everyone come visit because as Mumma predicted, I’ve most likely found my new home, at least for a whileJ

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