Amy & Eros in Alaska: July 2005

The final post?

Sorry to everyone who needs closure on the blog. I think that since we got back we haven't really wanted it to end so we just put it off. But I really wanted to put some last pictures and the narrative of our valdez trip before we forgot everything.

So as I said in the previous post, we were finishing up with the kids and going on a nice river boat cruise. The cruise food was REALLY good...quite a surprise for some reason. The kids had a lot of fun and it was a great way to end the program. After the awards banquet, we got back to the dorm and had everyone packing up their stuff. They all had to clean out their rooms and vaccuum and all that stuff that we had to do when moving out of the dorm. Pretty much everyone was out of their room by around midnight. So all the doors were locked and all the kids were down in the common areas either watching a movie or playing pool, or just hanging out on the floor trying to sleep. A lot of people were also going around getting yearbooks signed (the program puts out a yearbook for them). Amy and I were hastily trying to pack up the office because we were trying to get out of there once the kids were gone and we said we'd do a little extra work so we didn't screw the other RMs. THe first batch of kids left at 5am and once that started all the kids starting getting emotional and crying because their friends were leaving. I think it finally hit them that it was over and that they had to go home.

We were finally able to get out of there by 12:30 (much later than we expected, but that was alright). So we were on the road to Valdez by around 1:30 (still no sleep remeber). The drive down was (as everyone said) amazing. The coolest part was that our cheapo rental car got upgraded to a small SUV (Ford Escape) so we had a bunch of room and 4wd. So we were able to take some side roads couple of times on the way down to Valdez. That way, we were able to see some really neat landscapes. There was also a really cool glacier that we were able to go right up to and touch. I was trying to convince Amy for us to grab some glacier ice to put in our cooler, but she wasn't going for it.

Our plan was to get to Valdez and camp, but, our camping drive died as soon as it started raining and we realized we hadn't slept in 40 hours...so we bit the bullet and found the cheapest hotel we could, 85 bucks! And our room had a boston baked bean permantly melded with the carpet...not pleasant, but they had a soft bed. So we ended up sleeping until 12:30 on Saturday and woke up to and overcast, foggy, rainy day. But after being refreshed with sleep, we went out to start pricing some kayak trips. Valdez kayaking in one word...EXPENSIVE! to go to one of the glaciers cost 125 bucks! The two cheaper ones were 75 and 55...but those were essentially just kayaking around the valdez harbor. So we didn't get to go kayaking, but we did find a cool wildlife cruise that included lunch for 85 bucks, so we did that instead. It was very cool, we saw otters, puffins, bald eagles, sea lions, seals, and humback whales (pretty much everything on the list)!! We also went up to a glacier and were able to see all the icebergs and the ice field and everything...it was well worth it. I got ahead of myself though...we did all that stuff on Sunday, on Saturday after we booked out awesome boat trip, we went and did some fishing. The salmon were literally jumping out of the water...it was hilarious. It took Amy about 3 minutes to hook one. Who said fishing was hard? This things were just begging to be caught. So we caught about 10-12, but we only kept 6. Then we found out that it was going to cost something like 85 bucks to freeze it and ship. So we just had them freeze them and then we carried them on the plane. So we do have some fresh salmon here in Chicago.

After our wildlife cruise, we began our drive back to Fairbanks for our flight. The drive back from Valdez was a little brutal...there was a lot of fog and it rained pretty much the whole time. Plus, we didn't leave until 9pm and there was actually some darkness so it was hard to stay awake. We were able to alternate napping and driving though and we made it back safe and sound, although I did almost hit a rabbit, Amy almost hit a owl that was just sitting in the middle of the road and a moose was hanging out on the shoulder which was pretty scary.

So that's pretty much it...we ended our Alaskan experience in a great way. We saw some great wildlife and the terrain is just beautiful. The sad thing about Alaska is that it's pretty expensive so there are really no young people there. The expense is a huge part of why it's all cruises with old people. It's also kind of sad because there are soooo many cool things to see and do and a younger cheaper traveller could make it that much cooler. But alas, I don't see it getting cheaper any time soon.

Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting, it really made us feel loved and missed (whether that's true or not doesn't matter I guess). It's great to be back, but now the next adventure of moving to NY begins.

We're going to post some pics here, but the entire trip will eventually be posted at http://photos.yahoo.com/amyloufaust

Humpback whale!! Yes, I know it looks like any grainy picture of the loch ness monster...but it's a whale really. We couldn't get them to breech for us...I was very dissapointed.

This is the ice field. It's the area before the glacier that is pretty much taken up by the glacial ice that has broken off (same as what an iceberg is). We couldn't get to the face of the glacier because of it.

This is on the way to the glacier...the blue on these icebergs is amazing! This was just floating around in the water.

Here are some real fisherman. That's a lot of fish!

These are mostly male sea-lions that weren't good enough for the females. I'd lie around all day working on my tan too.

Makes me want to go mail something right now.

Aren't otters cute? A group of them is called a raft...awesome.

The fish were definitely biting...that's called a "stringer o' fish" for the non-fisherman out there.

Amy posing by the glacier on the way to Valdez. That's like 500 year old ice people!!

Eros' awesome boobie trap. Ain't nobody foolin' the old man tonight!

Let the Insanity Begin

Amy:
I don't have much time, since I have to take a student to the dentist this morning for last-minute fillings, but the insanity of the next 30 or so hours is about to begin. We are not allowed to sleep more than a catnap until tomorrow night. No kidding.

Finals for students ended yesterday, so they've been wired since. Last night, after our last clan outing, was spent setting booby-traps for students and other staff members, and dishing out creative punishments for students that pissed us off. Yes, RM revenge, it was. I turned in around 2, but I'm sure Eros will have some stories about stuff that went on later. Ha. Just try us, punks.

Eros:

Last night me and 2 other guy RM's decided to cut the crap that happens at night. So we stayed up until 3am watching the rooms. Everytime someone came out we made them sit outside their door for 20 minutes without talking. That only happened 4 times. At around 1am I strung some twine connecting everyone's door to each other. Then I put a little cup full of coins all along the long strand. So everytime someone opened their door, it made some noise to both scare them and wake us up. That only happened twice, but it was pretty funny to see their reaction.

Now today we are going on a fun little river boat cruise and will have an awards banquet for the students. The river boat is supposed to be pretty cool with some really good food. The cafeteria food was getting a little old, even they were running out of ideas. Today for lunch they had burritos stuffed with lasagna, creative use of leftovers guys. So we can't wait for that.

After the river boat and banquet, we are going to be kicking everyone out of their rooms and we are all staying up all night in the lobby watching movies and singing a little kareoke. The first batch of students leave for the airport at 5am. So we plan on being awake for at least 36 hours. We also need to be packing up stuff because Amy and I are going to leave early to take a road trip to valdez. So until then...I hope you all sleep well. Stay tuned for "Sleep is for Suckers Part 2".

I may not have a boyfriend after posting this, but this is possibly the cutest and funniest picture I've ever seen of Eros. We will have another contest to see who can post the funniest caption. Hell, I don't even know who took this, but it was truly my second Moment of Zen for the day.

Last Day Off...

...Well, until the big month-long period of unemployment that follows our stint up here in Alaska. Another one of my students went home yesterday, bringing the grand total of students in my clan to six from ten. This one had a death in the family, so I'm not taking it personally just yet. He was very upset, but by the evening he really didn't want to go home since there's only a few days left. Eros and I went biking all over town again today to try to buy some gifts to bring home, but everything was touristy crapola and since we're practically natives we scoffed at the prices for smoked salmon and decided to just catch some ourselves and have it shipped home instead. Seriously.

We got caught in a deluge on our bikes on the way home, which was fun, and then went over to Ken & Chelsea's place for a big salmon BBQ. Sweeeet. Seriously, Midwest salmon completely, utterly, 100% sucks. We dined on a freshly caught 30-pound king salmon that Chelsea's dad grilled to perfection. Oh, that was tasty.

So now Eros ran off to play a pick-up game of frisbee with some local frisbee geeks (he's had a sick craving to play frisbee the whole time we've been here), and I'm just trying to lay low so no one bothers me. We might sneak out for a beer later, but don't tell anyone, ok?

Oh, yeah. We're coming in on Monday night. Anyone want to pick us up at the airport? Hmm? You'll get the first crack at whatever wild game we can bring on the plane...

R.I.P. Chirpy :(

Yeah, Chirpy, my little birdie, died. I forgot to mention it earlier, but he went to little birdie heaven on Friday. I have no idea what happened - he was strong and happy Thursday night, and I found a lady to take him on Friday afternoon, but by the time we were set up with a time and exchange location he kicked the bucket. I was very sad and made Eros dig the hole. That was very nice of him.

The last fun-filled weekend.

Amy here:
I'd like to start off by wishing my friends Heath and Kylee a very happy wedding day. Yay! Anyone have news about that? I actually looked a newspaper yesterday and saw that there are like 3,000 hurricanes heading toward the three places in the south where I know people are vacationing, so that was a bit disconcerting. Although I find it a little funny that we're in Alaska enjoying beautiful sunny summer days while everyone in the tropics are being evacuated and such. C'est la vie, non?

So Friday was pretty normal, just took the group shopping at the "mall", and then got them up early on Saturday for some sweet community service. We went out to a migratory bird sanctuary and worked on some boreal forest trail building, and though everyone bitched about getting woke up at 8:30 on a Saturday they all felt pretty good about it afterwards. Saturday night was Girls/Boys Night Out, so we kicked the boys out to go get sweaty and play video games and the ladies had a spa night. Nothing like reinforcing gender stereotypes while they're young. Ours was really fun until we decided to have an open panel where the girls could ask us any questions they wanted via an anonymous question box. This was amusing until a couple of the RM's turned it into an STD awareness program (?). I was incredibly pissed because everyone was having such a great time, and then it's like, "So, Joanne, how exactly CAN you prevent the clap?". It was a bit of a buzzkill, and I was enraged that the male faction wasn't expected to do any kind of awareness because, "They're boys." What kind of bullshit is that?

Then we watched Coyote Ugly. Girl Power!
(That was NOT, I repeat, NOT my choice of movie.)

After everyone went to bed I sulked for about two hours and then went to sleep. Eros - any comments?

Yes...first off, boys night rocked!! It was waaaay cooler than STD girl night. We started off the evening playing dodgeball...well actually we started off dodging wrenches then we moved up to balls. After about an hour of that the kids and 3 of the guy RM's played kickball while another RM and I went to the big auditorium to set up the game consoles (2 PS2s and 2 Xboxes). If you'll notice on the pics below, the setup in the middle and the far left are each playing Halo 2 (they were networked together so we had 5 people playing at once). The big screen on the far right is playing a basketball game and the tiny screen on the left is playing a racing game. It was an awesome setup. Plus, the funny part was that we had them all convinced that we were going to the opera. They were so pissed before they got into the room.

Today was pretty low key, Amy and I spent about 3 hours at a coffee shop with 4 students so they could study for ther upcoming finals. The coffee in Alaska really isn't the best, but this place has a cappuccino that will rival Chicago. That was about it.

Since we are on our last week, I'm looking forward to coming home to Chicago to see everyone. Plus the big move is going to be going on which will be horrendous. If anyone has heard of any jobs in the NY area, please let me know because at this point I may be working at a coffee house myself once we get there.

Later

Ladie's night. Super cute.

Pre-boy's night out. Yep - we have some trannie's on our hands. But, geez, aren't they lovely? One was being punished, but the other two did it of their own volition.

This is the Boy's Night Out X-box/Playstation super-setup projector arcade. They were so cool.

Our community service - it looks rickety, but this is just a little path for the wheelbarrows. We lost at least a pint of blood each to the mosquitos.

That's us in our raft - can't you just see our guide's bulging triceps from here?

Here we come, ready either to save the world or go for a moon walk. Or just go rafting - either way, we looked totally rad.

This is Eros attempting to fish on our day off last week. Doesn't he look like a mountain man though?

This job is like - A rollercoaster baby, baby

Amy:
Today was a beautiful sunny day in Fairbanks. Recent rains have chased away the icky smoke. I got to go kayaking with Eros's group (he'll tell you about that). My birdie is still alive and well. My tan had a chance to rejuvenate after basking in my kayak all day in the middle of the Chena River. Ahh...

Then two girls had suicides in their families and I was the random first responder to both. Messy. I won't go into that.

Congratulations to my brother the ranger for winning the Mystery Animal Contest, by indentifying the furry little creature as the hoary marmot. When I told someone here that I saw a hoary marmot in Denali, they thought I said it was a whorey marmot and was making a joke about the animal's promiscuious mating habits. Fun with homonyms. Anyway, Jake, your prize will be a piece of the king salmon I plan to catch next week.

Eros...

Yes, today we got to take a float trip down the chena river through the beautiful town of fairbanks. I went with my clan and my co-RM was supposed to go but this morning she mysteriously decided not to. Since I am always thinking of Amy even though she doesn't return the favor :-) immediately told the teacher that I'm sure Amy would do it if he wants another adult...bingo Amy is on board. We had a nice float and got to see some VERY nice houses on the river. The excitement on the trip was with the canoe that the instructor was in. He had a non-swimmer in his canoe, one that weight about 225-250. They were racing with the other canoes and as they were turning around the flipped. I, in my paparazzi fashion (see post about the midnight sun baseball game) starting to take a picture when the teacher yelled at me to get over there to help. I forgot that our big friend couldn't swim. So I feel like a big dumb ass. But in the end, he was ok and in good spirits.

Enjoy the pictures.

Amy and Chirpy. He just ate like 10 grasshoppers so we're starting to give him a little exercise outside so he doesn't get fat and can actually fly someday.