Season halfway point and Tim's visit to Skagway

Greetings readers and a belated Happy 4th of July!

As I post this it's almost mid-July which means we're halfway through the Alaska tourist season. Wahoo!

And the arrival of July also means the long awaited time for Tim's visit to Alaska has finally arrived. Between my work schedule in May getting acclimated to my two new jobs in Alaska, and Tim's crazy travel schedule in June (he was on the road 4 out of 4 weeks) -- we had to wait until July before our nutty schedules cooperated.

He arrived in Skagway on July 1 for a 2-week visit, so this blog has a few photos from that trip, with more to come in future postings.

I am still finding it difficult to obtain Internet access often enough to keep my postings current, and that may be the case until I leave if my current housing situation remains the same (we don't have Internet access in housing). And lately Skagway's service provider has some sort of equipment problem with the relay from Haines which apparently takes all of Skagway Internet down sometimes (only in Skagway) -- so that's made it even more of a challenge. As I understand it the needed part is on order, so hopefully access will improve when that arrives on the barge and can be installed. Life in Alaska is never boring.

I'll keep trying to post when I can, but until then I've posted a series of Alaska photo albums in the photo blog at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/ctssyount/2/tpod.html

I hope you enjoy the photos in the photo blog noted above. And please note that there are 5 different photo albums representing different places/topics, so when you finish one album look for the "Next Album" or "Previous Album" links to view the others. Enjoy!

As I write this entry I've taken a few days off from work and Tim and I have taken the ferry south to Juneau, and then a small single-prop plane "hopper" flight to Glacier Bay. We just completed a spectacular day-trip on the water to the glaciers where we also saw bears, sea otters and whales. It was great. I'll be posting those photos and others from my time in Alaska here and on the photo blog later, so if you're interested please check back frequently to both this blog and the photo blog for future entries.

In addition to the two jobs at Alaska Travel Adventures (dock repping for the jeep tours/salmon bakes and working in costume at the gift shop in the goldrush camp), I have also started working 2 days/week for Holland America Tours. I work on Tuesdays and Saturdays at the Sales and Service desk in Skagway. At the service desk we handle passenger transfers -- passengers who are disembarking from the cruise ships to go on land-based tours, exchanged with passengers who have just completed the land-based tours and are embarking on the ships in those vacated cabins.

Those two "transfer" days are very busy days at the desk, and as it turns out, in my dockrepping job I settle with various cruise ships in the hotel where that desk is located and had gotten to know some of the staff. So when I heard about the opening I applied since it sounded like an interesting job. The company I work for is actually called Discover Alaska Tours, which was created when Princess, Grayline, and Holland America merged last year -- so I see lots of potential there for different kinds of jobs in different places.

At the service desk, in addition to getting cruise ship guests to and from their land-based tours and ship cabins, we also sell them excursions in Skagway and Haines. Because of that the company encourages us to take the tours so we can better inform guests of what the trip is like. I took the Skagway Historic Street Car tour when Tim was here so he got to go along on that one, and I hope to make more excursions during the rest of the summer. Stay tuned for photos and updates on those if you're interested.

Having 3 jobs may sound like a lot, but actually it's not unusual to have multiple jobs during the season in Alaska, and I took on this one because I'd like to maintain a working relationship with HAL (Holland American Lines) since they appear to be a good company, and employees get great discounts on cruises and other tours after a certain amount of time worked. This would also be a great future employer if Tim and I return to Alaska in future summers.

The 3rd job does make things a bit crazy sometimes, and on Tuesdays and Saturdays it's not uncommon for me to work all three jobs in one day -- I start around 6:30am to work the morning jeep tours for the 7:30 pickup, then go to the HAL service desk from 8:30-2:30, then go to the gift shop in Liarsville from 3-closing at 7:30 or 8pm. It keeps me hopping!

This schedule is also part of the reason my postings have not been as regular as I'd like, so I'll keep trying and post when I can. In the meantime, check out our website (http://home.maine.rr.com/ctssyount/Index.html) and the photo-blog noted above, along with checking back here for photos and text updates.

All the best, Carla (Tim says Hi too!)