My New Home
Excerpt from Jari's analog diary:
5/1/05: 9:30pm
Well, this is day one at my summer home in Alaska. I'm rather disappointed; I was under the impression the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge was one large complex. Instead, it's a jumble of many smaller buildings (more than 50), my room being in one of the furthest, about a half mile walk from the gift shop (in the "Main Lodge" (dining room)), where I will be working. M first official day of work is tomorrow, and the upcoming week sems to be full of random orientations. I say random because there doesn't seem to be ay logical order...day 1 is Blood-Bourn Pathogens. But basic first aid isn't until day 3. Princess rewards system and policies are covered on day 2, and on day 4 we get our "First day at Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge" orientation. Dos this seem out of order to anyone besides me? :-3
Ah well....the snow hung around unusually late this year, so its still on the ground, even though normally it would all be melted off by now. It is melting pretty rapidly, and they say it's lost three feet in the past week. Apparently the overabundance of snow did quite a bit of damage to the lodge...eaves broken through, balconies shattered, etc. They have most of it cleaned up now (we open officially the middle of next week), but the forest around the lodge is full of shrapnel from trees that have exploded from the cold or been crushed under the weight of the snow (I can't tell which...possible both). There is a constant stream flowing out from underneath each of the snowdrifts (some more than 20ft high), combining into a merry little steam winding its way down the mountainside. In fact, this place reminds me a lot of McCall, though I'm not sure if McCall issues its employees with notices cautioning of he dangers or avalanches from the roof (I found this warning highly amusing).
Despite how they cautioned us about having nearly no storage space in our rooms, they are very roomy, perhaps twice the size of my room in the basement back home. They're double-ocupancy, though I don't seem to have a roommate, and neither does the guy who shares my bathroom (one bathroom per two rooms). I hope it stays this way; I like all this space and peace, but I've been warned that it will be filled up with Russians. I'm not sure I wanna know what this means.... The water is good here, though not quite as good as he ater back home. Whereas our water is sweet, the water here is more neutral, even a tiny bit salty.
Well, it turns out I as wrong. I was quite certain my 12 hour layover in Seattle, or the flight cancellation in Boise that required them to squeeze as many extra passengers onto our stuffed our flight as they possible (it had 36 rows, and every seat was filled...poor plane barely made it off the runway, and I don't think it broke 10,000 feet the entire trip to Seattle), or even the two extra hours we spent sitting on the runway at either airport because of "extenuating circumstances" was more than enough time for them to loose m luggage, and end up shipping it to Tahiti. I was wrong, though... It wasn't Tahiti. All my luggage arrived safely in Anchorage, but when we transferred to busses to go to the lodge (I had hoped they'd put us on their train), they cancelled another flight into Anchorage, so a couple of the employees wouldn't make it in until tomorrow early. So they decided to have one of the busses stay in Anchorage and wait, and all the passengers go on the other bus. Bet you can't guess which bus had my luggage! :-3 So yeah, I'm in Trapper Creek, and my luggage is in Anchorage. It will be here at 7:00 am tomorrow morning, I'm, informed.
I'm getting settled in slowly, I guess, and I apologize for all the typos spell-check didn't catch; I'm still getting used to this laptop keyboard. And I can't find the thermostat...I've got the windows open all the way and I'm sill miserable hot. Of course, that may just be one more random weird adverse effect of having lived on nothing but Dramamine the last two days.
--This was written my first day at Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, Sunday, May 1, 2005.
5/1/05: 9:30pm
Well, this is day one at my summer home in Alaska. I'm rather disappointed; I was under the impression the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge was one large complex. Instead, it's a jumble of many smaller buildings (more than 50), my room being in one of the furthest, about a half mile walk from the gift shop (in the "Main Lodge" (dining room)), where I will be working. M first official day of work is tomorrow, and the upcoming week sems to be full of random orientations. I say random because there doesn't seem to be ay logical order...day 1 is Blood-Bourn Pathogens. But basic first aid isn't until day 3. Princess rewards system and policies are covered on day 2, and on day 4 we get our "First day at Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge" orientation. Dos this seem out of order to anyone besides me? :-3
Ah well....the snow hung around unusually late this year, so its still on the ground, even though normally it would all be melted off by now. It is melting pretty rapidly, and they say it's lost three feet in the past week. Apparently the overabundance of snow did quite a bit of damage to the lodge...eaves broken through, balconies shattered, etc. They have most of it cleaned up now (we open officially the middle of next week), but the forest around the lodge is full of shrapnel from trees that have exploded from the cold or been crushed under the weight of the snow (I can't tell which...possible both). There is a constant stream flowing out from underneath each of the snowdrifts (some more than 20ft high), combining into a merry little steam winding its way down the mountainside. In fact, this place reminds me a lot of McCall, though I'm not sure if McCall issues its employees with notices cautioning of he dangers or avalanches from the roof (I found this warning highly amusing).
Despite how they cautioned us about having nearly no storage space in our rooms, they are very roomy, perhaps twice the size of my room in the basement back home. They're double-ocupancy, though I don't seem to have a roommate, and neither does the guy who shares my bathroom (one bathroom per two rooms). I hope it stays this way; I like all this space and peace, but I've been warned that it will be filled up with Russians. I'm not sure I wanna know what this means.... The water is good here, though not quite as good as he ater back home. Whereas our water is sweet, the water here is more neutral, even a tiny bit salty.
Well, it turns out I as wrong. I was quite certain my 12 hour layover in Seattle, or the flight cancellation in Boise that required them to squeeze as many extra passengers onto our stuffed our flight as they possible (it had 36 rows, and every seat was filled...poor plane barely made it off the runway, and I don't think it broke 10,000 feet the entire trip to Seattle), or even the two extra hours we spent sitting on the runway at either airport because of "extenuating circumstances" was more than enough time for them to loose m luggage, and end up shipping it to Tahiti. I was wrong, though... It wasn't Tahiti. All my luggage arrived safely in Anchorage, but when we transferred to busses to go to the lodge (I had hoped they'd put us on their train), they cancelled another flight into Anchorage, so a couple of the employees wouldn't make it in until tomorrow early. So they decided to have one of the busses stay in Anchorage and wait, and all the passengers go on the other bus. Bet you can't guess which bus had my luggage! :-3 So yeah, I'm in Trapper Creek, and my luggage is in Anchorage. It will be here at 7:00 am tomorrow morning, I'm, informed.
I'm getting settled in slowly, I guess, and I apologize for all the typos spell-check didn't catch; I'm still getting used to this laptop keyboard. And I can't find the thermostat...I've got the windows open all the way and I'm sill miserable hot. Of course, that may just be one more random weird adverse effect of having lived on nothing but Dramamine the last two days.
--This was written my first day at Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, Sunday, May 1, 2005.