Just a few more pretty coach bits

A view I don't often get! A fellow driver taking me past a southbound Highway 2 coach at the border so that our pilot truck driver Robin can meet us and whisk me away to the other border crossing at Poker Creek on the Top of the World Highway, from there MJ our safety man drove me in the jeep to Dawson City (lit by moonlight!) so that all this craziness could be logged as travel time. Next morning... epic drive from Dawson City to Fairbanks with the most fabulously patient guests ever! Over 10 hours driving with them... Insane and amazing.

Faceoff between Princess and Holland coaches in the hub of an Explorer :-)

To the left of my dash... Showing the incorrect outside temp of 102 degrees (but it was -hot- that day!) Favorite parts of this shot: (Upper right and then clockwise) "45' coach"... like I'd forget? Hehe; Upside down shot of engine break controls on steering wheel; Barely showing steering wheel adjustment knob thing... Thank you whoever designed the telescoping feature!; Parking break... Yay for breaks...; Fast idle, I promise to usually remember to turn you off myself...; Big, fabulous, best Holland coach key of all time... You never fail me; Mud/snow button, for that epic drive past Chicken, AK and the muddy hill found there; Interior AC controls that work!; And of course, defrost/driver AC controls... So thankful I can have a temp lower than 72 for myself!

Yay! Pamphlets, books, and resources in bottom corner, candy bowl (yep), Aveeno lotion (unscented for the men, happiness for my hands), two bottles of Purell (from that year we had enough bottles for that habit...), coach steps that aren't too tall, and step stool for the extra inch the coach doesn't get with kneeling!

A rare sight indeed, sunrise! This is in Beaver Creek at 4:35am, late May 2011.

Coaches reflected in coach window. Tinted so the pax won't get as tan as me :-)

Enough said. Enough said.

Not a Bus. Motor Coach!

Gah! Another month already?? Well, in this month I have done and seen much more, including adventures on the Taylor and Top of the World, then more Beaver Creek runs. Loving it :-) More recently, I had Canada Day off to celebrate in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, followed by driving in the 4th of July parade in Tok! I even threw candy to the local kids! So great.

Well, I thought I'd put up some more photos. (Finally). These are all photos of the luxury Explorer motor coaches I drive on Holland America highway trips, with a few bus photos thrown in from various deadheads and transferring pre-season :-)

A fabulous paper model of a whale Explorer coach. The moose is orange, and the bear is green... They're awesome. Really. This summer I'm pretty sure I've had a whale coach 90% of the time :p

That's right. It's me. This is just outside Fairbanks, headed for North Pole, Alaska.

Transporting a bus (yep) to Skagway in spring 2010. From Skagway this and several others are ferried to Juneau for the summer. This photo is at the Trans Alaska Pipeline suspension bridge outside of Delta Junction, two hours south of Fairbanks. Without radio reception, tape player, or ipod, this trip I was lucky to have other drivers to banter with on the two way radios... Hangman anybody?

Keepin' warm at Division Day (big training day for Fairbanks employees). Don't worry, the engine and switches were off!

Classy Explorer hubcap. At the US/Canada Border at Alcan, AK in mid June.

Whale coach crossing the Robertson River, early June when I took a car roadtrip to get the breaking river ice. This coach is deadheading to Tok to pick up guests in Dawson City headed north.

Second transfer of 2010! Nicest coaches (aside from Explorers) down to Anchorage via the Parks Highway... And then darts (sort of the exact opposite) back up to go to Dawson City. Thank goodness for books on tape! Photo taken in Cantwell.

Training in the yard, knock on wood I haven't needed these skills on the road! Aside from a chosen few "stopped on side of road" good times, all issues have been solved with a little duct tape :-)

Coaches, coaches, coaches everywhere!

Well, well, well. It's been almost a month, hasn't it? Oops! I'm figuring out some photos to post, but first... The Update:

I am finishing up a day off in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory (Canada) on my fifth highway run of the summer. So far, I've been driving the Alaska Highway route via Beaver Creek. It's been amazing! This time of year we watch the ice melt further with each run, the snow disappear up the mountains, the leaves pop out throughout the routes we travel, and the wildflowers (at last!) start bringing color to the roadbeds.

On top of that, I've lost count of the moose this season, spotted a few bears, both black and grizzly/brown, seen the Dall Sheep head up the mountainsides, with babies! Plus a red fox yesterday, several porcupines (one of which wandered back and forth across the road before deciding to cross all the way... adorable), the swans are returning to their summer nesting ponds, the bald eagles have returned to both their nesting areas near the road, and the ravens are going above and beyond to entertain at our least interesting bathroom stop. It's been great so far :-)

And in between highway trips I've managed to walk and explore all over Whitehorse, enjoyed some very centering moments in the quonset hut church in Beaver Creek, taken a roadtrip to stop a wildfire and walk a partially frozen river, and discovered some amazing new friends among coworkers and guests. Miss all you DC are buddies, and I promise some more photos soon!

Till then, your crazy Alaskan Driver Guide friend,

Bonnie

The Simple Things

Home! Looking through the photos I've taken, I'm finding things I missed without knowing I missed them, along with the things I knew I wanted to see again. Here's a few of them!

Bare birch trees waiting for spring.

Spruce trees that hide neighbors :-)

Dirt roads!! This is the road I live on (or rather, the one you turn off of to get to my road).

Perfectly good thermometers that show a very optimistic temperature in the sun... It's only about 20 degrees too warm!

Mount Hayes, Hess, and Deborah in the Alaska Range, about 100 miles away. (Not all visible in this shot).

Chickadees in willow trees outside the living room window. My parents got a baby monitor this winter to listen to all the birds at the bird feeder this winter, how awesome is that?? Also very useful to know that a baby monitor can survive winter temps... I guess...

Ice Fishing

I went ice fishing when I got back to Alaska on May 1st with friends and coworkers, which is quickly becoming a HAP tradition (I hope!) This was only my second time going ice fishing, the fishing I grew up with was mainly catch and release fishing on the Chena and the results of my dad dipnetting at Chitna (Yum!) Ice fishing has been a blast though. We went out at Birch Lake, just over an hour outside of Fairbanks.

The group out on the lake, we even had some sun this year!

Well, I guess it doesn't look very frozen... But here's the lake! Hehe, the fishing holes where we were still had almost three feet of ice to get through, so a bit safer once beyond the edge!

This is where we crossed to get on the ice, a bit of a leap, but easy enough for all.

One of the first fish to be caught, this one wasn't quite big enough, so back in it went!

Time to enjoy! We had a fire out on the ice, and a fabulous meal of potatoes and fish on the fire, plus macaroni salad, chips, and cake. Yummy.

The spread... A few fish ready to cook up, the remains of an old fire melting into the ice, and our fire in the upper right corner, on a metal sheet.

It's Breakup Time!

Howdy folks!

It's currently 40 degrees here in Fairbanks, and an absolutely gorgeous day! The temps here have been staying a bit low (40-60's) but the sun has been staying out quite a bit. Remember, 40 degrees here still makes for a comfortable walk or bike ride, even if we'd rather be doing it it 65 or 70!

I thought I'd post a few photos about our breakup season. When discussing seasons with a local Alaskan, you should realize we have five: Winter, Breakup, June, July, and August. This year we're even getting a bit of May in Fairbanks, post breakup! Breakup is how we talk about spring, to us spring doesn't begin with flowers and green leaves... It begins with mud and melting ice. Signs of spring include baby reindeer at the university, and the willow trees start showing pussy willows. Those have almost gone to seed now, and still no leaves showing up.

Spring here isn't our most beautiful, but we're gaining seven minutes of daylight a day, making today 18 hours and 12 minutes long! The sun will set just before 11pm, leaving it light out a bit longer. It won't get truly dark again until September, the only time of the year we see pitch black. Once the snow falls, any light is reflected back throughout the winter. Here are a few photos of what I love about breakup season!

You may have grown up with mud boots, or puddle boots... Here they are Breakup Boots, or ExtraTuffs. I didn't know the other names until I was 17 working with tourists for the first time. These are a must have for springtime, whether you want to walk on the trails...

...Or on the roads. This is a road I live on, and a common sight in late April. Snow, ice, mud, and yes... puddles! All of our dirt roads have culverts for this short season, so the water can flow underneath instead of over. Unfortunately, most of those are still frozen, or have been crushed by water trucks. So my dad is always ready with hoses and tools to create siphons to get the water over and off our road. It's quite a sight :p

The more dramatic side of breakup of course, is the river system. This is the Chena River, which flows through Fairbanks and is the reason we're accidentally here (maybe that'll be another blog...) Almost all of the ice was gone, but I found some of it here between two bridges in a shady curve of river where it got trapped. This ice started out several feet thick, thick enough we have an ice bridge people drive over all winter long!

About an hour outside of Fairbanks, this is a section of the Tanana River several days after that photo of the Chena. These sections of ice are still around because they're sitting on the sandbars that the Tanana weaves around all summer. The ice is still almost five feet thick in places, and farther up, you can see a section breaking off into the water. This and August are the two times of year we're concerned about flooding, but so far not much in the Fairbanks area. So Note all that flowing water... This is the same day we went ice fishing!