Tuesday, June 24, 2008


Ok it's been forever and a day since I last posted, but that's what happens when you're driving a bus 60 hrs a week and live in the middle of nowhere, a place where the internet is hardly available. But here I am, 2 months into, a.k.a. half-way through this hectic summer. And somehow, not quite half way towards my financial goal! But I'm having fun, an adventure to say the least. I want to post some photos of my journeys, but before I do that, allow me to explain where I am and what I'm doing.

I work for Holland America Line, but for their Cruise Tours portion. This means, instead of a 14-day cruise, people opt to explore the interior of Alaska/Yukon via motorcoach for 10 days and then a 3 or 4 day cruise. I drive the route between Skagway, AK and Dawson, YT - about 500 miles. Well, here's a map so you can see- Skagway is down south, I drive to Carcross, pick up passengers, take them to Whitehorse. Then the next day I take them from Whitehorse to Dawson. When I get to Dawson, I usually drive a tour the next day in Tombstone Territorial Park which is on the Dempster Hwy (the road to the Arctic Circle), and pretty much the scariest road I've ever driven on before. Picture an 18-wheeler going  50 mph coming straight at you on a 1.5 lane road. One driver's windshield got hit by a golf ball size rock, and it ended up in his lap, along with a bunch of glass. Come to think of it, I think I almost died today while there. A story for another day.

Ok I'll tell it now. I came around a curb and saw 2 18-wheelers heading my way. The first saw me and clearly tried to slow down, as did I, but it was too close and I just felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck as this truck whizzed past me, shaking my coach. The mirrors were maybe 2 inches apart, and the guide on my bus almost peed her pants. She spent the next 10 minutes praising me for a job well done, but what she really was meant was "thank you god for sparing us". Somehow no one else noticed! Oh well... 

In essence, I am very far north, in the middle of nowhere. The Yukon is the size of California with 1% of Cali's population. It's a weird place and I always trip out when I think about how desolate, yet how interesting this land is. 

Ok, enough yakking, I will try to load photos within the next day. The one above is just a gratuitous shot of Trent being molested by stuffed toys.