Tours

In order to prepare to give tours we have been shadowing tours that more experienced employees are giving. In some cases, I have learned a lot. In other cases, these opportunities were just confidence builders; yea maybe they are a little rusty.

So far, I have been doing a lot of city shuttle runs, airport duty, and museum shuttles. However, yesterday I did do an official tour and my preparation paid off. On all my other duties, I would always give quickie tours so I could practice talking to people and practice my presentations even though it was not required. Yesterday I gave a tour and it all worked out great, I had a lot of fun and it was exciting to find that I’m not too bad at it. Some people asked me how I knew so much of if I was reading from something. Maybe they thought my driving was so bad because I must have been trying to read, or something. Any way I got many tips and it was fun to interact so much with the guests.

On June 1, I will be starting my first highway tour, it is really exciting but I still have plenty of preparing to do. I need to practice handling so many things at a time and remembering all the aspects of logistics.

Alaska has been very warm lately. It seamed like the winter cold lingered and one day I woke up and it was 80-degree summer weather. I thought I would never get to wear my shorts and sandals but at last, summer is here. Weather has forecasted worm temperatures with rain for the next week or so.

Familiarization trips rock!

Familiarization trips rock!

So lately, we have just been getting paid to drive around in a bus and see the sights. Oh and learn all the logistics, turns, and tour material.

Wednesday

We kicked off our adventure by going to the El Dorado Gold Mine. At the gold mine, the tourists get a little train ride into the permafrost cave that is frosted over all year long. Then they get a sluice box mining demonstration. Then they turn the old folks loose in the gold panning troughs to mine for their own gold. They give them a bag of dirt and guarantee the guests that they can find at least eight flakes of gold and if not they can get another bag of dirt. The dirt they give them naturally has gold in it but they always spice it up a little just to make the guests happy.

After the El Dorado Gold mine we, Copper River guides headed out to the Copper River. Because the Denali highway is still closed, we had to come down the Richardson highway, which is not the way we would normally come with guests. We bordered the Tanana River, then passed through the Rainbow Mountains in the Alaska Mountain range and followed the Alaska Pipeline until we reached the Copper River where we spent the night.

Thursday

The Copper River is so named for the Kennecott Copper Mines near by. There are all kinds of fun things to see in at the Copper River area but we headed down to the port of Valdez the next morning to see where the Alaska Pipeline came into the port and where it fills up the oil tankers. To get to Valdez we went through the Thompson pass in the Chugach Mountain Range, we passed the Worthington Glacier and saw Bridal Veil Falls, and the Horsetail Waterfall. While in Valdez, we saw a bunch of bald eagles; a guy was feeding them fish and they were swooping down and grabbing them and flying off with them. I’m not too sure of the legality of what he was doing but it was supper cool and I got a bunch of pictures.

Friday

That same day we headed back to the Copper River lodge to spend the night again and the next morning we headed off to Kenai. We drove across the Glenn highway paralleling the Chugach mountain range to Anchorage and then we drove through town to get a good idea of what we were supposed to do in Anchorage for the day with our guests.

On the way to Anchorage on the Glenn highway, we passed through Palmer. Palmer is a quaint little town that has rather good weather and looks like Utah. It has up scale houses and a bunch of white people. Palmer was started when the government promised 102 families passage to Alaska, and farms, houses and barns when they got there. When they arrived, there were no such houses or barns and about half of the families turned around and headed for home. The other stuck it out and created the little village of Palmer. In Palmer, the world records for carrots, cabbage, and pumpkins are held. The vegetables grow so well because of the long days of photosynthesis, temperate weather, and rich soil from the glacial silt.    

After Anchorage, we drove down the Seward highway to Whittier where the cruise ships are and where we drop off our guests. To get to Whittier we had to go through a single lane tunnel that goes right through the heart of a mountain to get to the bay on the other side where the cruise ships dock. I got the chance to drive through the Whittier tunnel. The tunnel is long and straight and from the moment you enter you can see the light at the other end so of course every time we got through the tunnel the tour director on board or us will make a real cheesy joke about going to the light at the end of the tunnel.

After coming back out of the Whittier tunnel, we continued down the Seward highway on the Kenai Peninsula. The road we traveled down is located in a huge U shaped valley that had been carved out of the mountains by a glacier ten thousand years ago. The Kenai Peninsula is supper beautiful. The spruce trees are much larger, everything is greener, and there are tons of glaciers in the mountains on ether side of the road. After some time driving, we arrived at the Kenai Princess lodge, which is just absolutely beautiful, and the rooms they give us are large and spacious. Of course, these rooms are just for the guests during the season and we will be living in the driver’s housing but they are letting us chill the night in the nice hotel rooms since the season hasn’t started yet.   

Tomorrow we will be driving back through Anchorage and all the way up the Parks highway to Denali and grab the train from Denali to Fairbanks so we can get the experience that the guests will be getting on their cruise.

During the trip, we were each assigned topics to talk about for ten minutes minimum. I was assigned Salmon, fishing laws, clear vs. silt water, fish farms, hatcheries, cost recovery fishing, streams and rivers, dip net fishing, native vs. non-native fishing and hunting laws, commercial fishing vessels, and types and cycles of Salmon. I did great researching my topics and talking about them. I ended up going on for a half hour on my subjects, it was great practice, and I have tons more material to learn.

On our trip, so far we have seen moose, caribou, lynx, snow shoe hairs, dale sheep, bald eagles, and all kinds of vegetation and birds. Animal sightings have been good and the days have been supper clear so we had all the visibility we needed to see the distant mountains and glaciers. 

         

Me chillin’ on the bus.

Me in front of the Rainbow Mountains (so named for the many minerals that are 

seen along the side of the mountain) in the Alaska Mountain Range.

A distant shot of the Worthington Glacier

The Horsetail falls 

The port of Valdez

A huge wooden carving in Valdez

A Bald Eagle swooping down and grabbing a fish, it is not in 

it’s normal colors yet because it is still a juvenile.

Eagle just hanging out waiting for a free hand-out

Swooping upward after grabbing a fish

A low pass

Coming in to nab a fish

A closer look at the Worthington Glacier

The ice fields of Mattanuska Glacier

 The Kenai river about 100 feet from the Kenai Princess Lodge

        

The Huge Cedar cabin at the Kenai Princess Lodge

Travis Chillen’ next to the wood stove

The first hotel room I have ever been in with a couch

Old Man's Beard growing off the spruce trees at the Kenai Lodge

Supper crunchy pine cones at the Kenai Lodge that are

very gratifying to step on, even more so than crisp leaves

The Land of the Mid-night sun

 Saturday was a big day for the company; it was called division day. The entire Fairbanks division was out and mobile. We had about eight groups of four coaches each that drove all around town getting us familiarized with routs and duties at each station. I got to drive my own bus by my self and follow our little group around. The exercise was to get us used to the locations with other motor coaches so it would be more like the circumstances during the season with lots of motor coach traffic. It also allowed a crew to get into the “yard” the motor coach parking lot behind our offices and sweep all the gravel out from the winter. The best part of the day was that we worked many hours and got overtime on the clock.

During the week we had lots of tour practice. We were each given parts of the city tour that we had to learn and then present to our co-workers and we gave each other tips on how to improve our manner and style. The most beneficial aspect was the practice we got from actually having to do it.

On a public speaking note, Travis and I were asked to give talks for Mothers day. Our talks went very well and we were very pleased with how the turned out. It gave Travis and I an opportunity to be known in the ward and for people to get to know our names. This was probably the most free time we would have all season so it was the best time for us to give talks. Besides it gave me the opportunity to get some girls’ phone numbers, there does happen to be some BYU girls home for the summer, so we should have lots of fun.

Today we had mechanical training. We learned how to change tires on a bus, how to work some of the more obscure controls we have on the bus. How to trouble shoot simple items and how to address very detailed items we could find in our daily vehicle inspections. We also learned how to change belts on our engines and how to fuel the coaches in our facilities and what to do incase of leaks and spills.   

This evening we had vendor night. All the vendors we work with came and gave presentations of what their company does for the tourists and the gave us all kinds of food, free bees and hand outs. They all encourage us to come on free excursions during the beginning of the summer on trips when they have free room so that we get to know what they do and can help them promote their trips to the guests. The trick now is coordinating our schedules and fitting in an excursion that they will have room for us to do.

Things are really fun and I have my studying cut out for me. It is easy to miss out on sleep since it doesn’t get dark till 12 and it gets light at about 5 right now, and the problem is only getting worse. But in another light, it is always bright out side so you can go to sleep when ever you want because conditions won’t get much better no matter how long you wait. 

Fairbanks

Training, Tests, Tours and Trips. Things are finally really picking up. After a few training sessions, Travis and I became familiar with the motor coaches in Fairbanks. All the other guys have come up from Utah as well and we have moved into our apartment.

The first step for Travis and I was to get road tested by our division so that they knew for sure that we could drive a bus and hadn't just gotten our licenses on a fluke. After passing our road tests they gave us keys to the coaches. One key opens all the Princess coaches and another for all the Holland America coaches.

On Monday we took a familiarization trip to the Chena Hot Springs, a tourist destination for many, that we will be taking our guests to in the evenings. The Chena Hot Springs gets its power from a small geothermal power generator and uses its power for their restaurant, hotel facilities, ice museum, and green house. The also have an out-doors hot spring that is supplied by water from the hot spring.

In their green house they grow all the vegetables and herbs they need for their restaurant. During the winter they use a variety of special colored lights to help the plants grow since the sun could on shine for a couple hours of the day. They built the green house because vegetables are so expensive to import from the lower 48. However, even with vegetable cost cutting measures, they still charge an insane amount for a salad in the restaurant, so I decided I wasn't really that hungry since they didn't volunteer to feed us while we were there.

The Ice museum they have is year round. They keep it at 20 degrees but the ice still manages to shrink due to sublimation (the conversion of solid straight to gas). In the ice museum, a husband and wife, world class ice sculpting team, works full time constantly refurbishing their sculptures and making new exhibits. When they aren't working on the museum they are making martini glasses of ice for guests to use to sip their alcohol. In the museum they have a life size sculpture of two knights on horseback jousting, a samurai, venus, an igloo, and a xylophone. The xylophone is located in side of he igloo which provides for some very interesting acoustics when played. The xylophone is made completely of ice and is tuned perfectly to key. Also in the museum, are a couple of themed rooms where guest can spend the night in exchange for the deed to their house. The museum also has a bar and bar stools that are topped with caribou hide (the most insulating fur, with more hairs per square inch than any other animal). After a long hard day in -40 degree weather someone could come into the ice museum to warm up and kick back with a couple of hard ones, anything virgin would just freeze to your glass.

The Chena Hot Springs gets the majority of their guests durning the summer and dead of winter. Only the Japanese tourists come for the winter. The hot springs during the winter produce so much steam that you can only see a couple of feet in front of you, a perfect set up for playing hide-and-go-seek. Girls like to play with their wet hair in the hot springs too, when they lift it out of the water it freezes quickly in the 40 below air and becomes hard instantly. The Japanese tourists love to come during the winter because they believe it good luck to conceive under the northern lights, you don't want to run into a pair of them while playing hide-and-go-seek.

We have also become familiarized with the city tours. We take people downtown and tell the story of Fairbanks and point out and explain historical sites. Around town we take people to the trans-Alaska pipe line, the riverboat discovery, the El Dorado gold mine and the no. 8 gold dredge. We pick up and drop off people at the airport, train station and a variety of hotels around town.

I have to go now but I will try to continue this in the evening.
Stay tuned.