life is a learning experience

Well, what a summer it has been. suffice to say that i learned more this summer than last summer...and last summer i got a DEGREE in life studies!

i got the dose of alaska this summer i CLEARLY needed to remind me why i live here and why i'm going into the tourism business. YES!
Hike 'N See Alaska - that's us. watch for a link to the website soon.

I took 11 women around the state - a contract that i got from the lodge at the end of the road. i was told they were coming from spain so i starting teaching myself spanish and spent a month studying spain so that i wouldn't sound like a total idiot.

then i was told they weren't from spain at all but from mexico. so i changed from castillian spanish to latin american spanish - yeah they are slightly different.

it wasn't until they got off the plane i found out they were really from Brazil! AND they paid EXTRA for a fluent spanish tour guide...which i am not! they were pissed.

So i came home and spent about 3.5 hours studying the (brasilian) portuguese language and wrote my entire opening monologue for the next day in portuguese and then read it to them the next morning. they were impressed.
luckily two of them spoke a little english, one very well, so we worked it out. they all learned more english and i learned some portuguese.
by the end of the trip, alaska helped me smooth it all out. they flew to the mountain and landed on ruth glacier on a sunny day. then I took them to the park and they saw wolves! and grizzlies, dall sheep, moose and caribou.
then i took them to valdez and they got a boat and saw columbia glacier, humpback, orcas, porpoises, seals, sea lions and puffins. the next day i decided to tour around valdez a bit before we left and a black bear ran across the road right in front of us. As we headed up into thompson pass there was a huge eagle sitting right on a big boulder next to the road.

pretty exciting for them...and me.

but not as exciting as last saturday when i tried kayaking for the first time on resurrection bay. I WAS SO SCARED. we went in a tandem kayak (thankfully) and it was just getting light as we left. a boat went by causing two foot waves right off the bat! but, after that the water was like glass and it was WONDERFUL. I loved it. we will most defintely be adding kayaking trips to our list of tours.

today we are moving to our new house! we actually will be in the motorhome for few days while we finish up a few things...but this is it! steve has worked so hard and still has a lot to do. he's built this entire house by himself. i painted a little and jeff and jake pounded about three boards together, i did the outlet covers, but steve did all the rest. i am so proud of him.
he's tired.

so i'll leave you with this...
there is a grizzly bear skirting the cabin... tracks on the east trail...about 150 feet from the cabin!we think it has gone up to the high country for the winter but we're being wary anyway. this is when we see them...or rather signs of them, spring and fall.
i'll write again if it doesn't come back and eat me. :)
bye for now