Earthquakes, Pocahontas, and Million Mile Coaches

My weekend was pretty good. Sunday we had the Veendam in Seward. I made a run down there with a group of people who were getting on the Kenai Fjords tour before boarding the ship. Then, after a little break, I went out on the dock to pick people up from the ship. They were some of the later disembarking people. I met their tour director first, and actually I knew her, but she did not know me. A couple of weeks ago, when I ate dinner on the Ryndam, the three of us who drove back to Anchorage were supposed to also be driving a tour director back when we got done with dinner. Well, we forgot, and left her in Seward. That girl was the tour director on this trip. Luckily she did not remember me! I was not the one who promised her a ride though. I drove her, and her group of passengers, to the Alyseka Resort, in Girdwood. I also had a few other tour directors who rode in back because they needed to go to Anchorage. One of them was Lauren, who I also knew. She was a tour director twice for me in the past. They moved up front when we left Alyeska, and we had a fun trip from there to Anchorage. I was going to drop them all off at the Egan Center, downtown, because I figured that would be a good central location in town. Lauren ended up talking me into driving them all to their individual apartments, which was interesting! At places where there was no space to turn into their apartment complex, I just dropped them off on a nearby street corner. It was funny, because they would ruch off the bus, open a baggage bay, grab a suitecase or two, and close the bay, all in a huge awkward rush, to try to beat the traffic light, so I could move as soon as it turned green!

On Monday, we had the Coral Princess in Whittier, although I wouldn't have known if it was not listed on the dispatch. Monday was actually a bit frustrating. I wanted to go to Whittier in the morning, and pick people up at the terminal. I was instead assigned to do morning rail. Than involves picking people up at their hotel and driving them to the train station. That is where I met Pocahontas. She was actually the tour director for the group I took to the train station. She had worked for Disney before working here, and that is who she played in the parade that they apparently have at one of the Disney parks.

After morning rail I was assigned to do a Portage Glacier Cruise Tour, which I normally like a lot, but I really did not want to do for some reason on Monday. Well, only two people were booked on the Portage trip, so it was cancelled. We need four to run it. Dispatch said they would probably have me do a shuttle from the hotels to the airport and then send me to Whittier with people getting on the ship. Well, I did the next three airport shuttles, and then I was assigned to do a shuttle from the Egan Center to the airport. On one of the hotel to airport shuttles, we had an earthquake. I was actually stopped at the airport, waiting for some cabs to move so I could get to the curb, and the whole coach was rocking. It was not violent, but very easy to feel it. It is notmal for the bridge at the airport to shake a little if another coach drives by, but I was the only one there, and I noticed all the other cars up there were also rocking a bit. I learned later that it was a 5.41 magnitude earthquake, and it was actually only one of three that Alaska had that day. There were two other unrelated earthquakes felt in the Aleutian Islands, which were about the same size. A half hour later, we had an aftershock which was about a 4.0, which is just a small vibration. You would hardly notice that.

After the shuttles, and the earthquake, I waited at the airport to do the Egan to airport shuttle. They used me a couple times to bring people downtown from the airport. Then I went over to the Egan Center, only to learn that dispatch had told them I was a back up shuttle, and I was not actually needed over there. I went back to railroad hill while dispatch sorted out my next assignment. I learned over there, while talking to one of the supervisors, that the earthquake had completely shut down the Alaska Railroad. There would not be any trains running to the ship, and ten additional coaches would be needed to go to Whittier. To the north, the train to Denali was terminated in Talkeetna and all the passengers were transferred to motor coaches, and the train to Anchorage, from Fairbanks, continues, but at a restricted speed, simply because here was no place for them to transfer to coaches. All trains to Whittier and Seward were cancelled. Bridges needed to be inspected before trains could be running again. I figured that I would definately be going to Whittier when I heard that news. Finally, dispatch got back to me about the assignment. They told me to return to the yard and call it a day. I was a little disappointed, because I felt like I had done nothing, and it had been a really frustrating day. When I got back to the office, they did give me a "Star of the Moment" sticked and thanked me for my flexibility.

Yesterday, I was assigned to do a couple of early morning hotel to airport shuttles, and then morning rail again. My first shuttle, at 5:00am, was inadvertantly given to the only other coach out at that hour, so I had an hour to kill until my next one. At 6:00am, I left the Westmark with the most people I have ever had on an airport shuttle. I had over 50 people on there, which would be a lot in the middle of the day, with stops at all three hotels! They had more baggage than most people see in a year! I had to load the baggage from both sides, and nearly every cubic inch was taken when I was done, but it all did fit! I took them to the airport, and it took a few minutes to get all that luggage off the coach, but they were patient. I actually did pretty well in tips from that run, probably just because of the amount of luggage. I got more from that one airport shuttle than I normally get from a whole day of airport shuttles! After that, I headed over to the Captain Cook Hotel for a morning rail shuttle. I had a full load on that trip, but that is less common. Once mornng rail was done, I had no more assignments, but I checked in with dispatch. They told me to head back to the yard, but to see them in the office before shutting everything down. I headed towards the office, and part of the way there, they called me back into town via radio. They said they would be needing me for the morning Portage Glacier Cruise Tour. I am not sure what happened, but I think they gave it to me because it had been cancelled on me the day before. That is one of my favorites, and I think they felt bad that I had been expecting to do that and then got stuck with shuttles on Monday. Whatever the reason was, I was excited for that assignment. I headed back into town and went to the Hilton.

At the Hilton, I had a bit of time to kill, so I ran across the street for some breakfast, which had accidentally been forgotten over the previous six hours. I was supposed to be picking up two people at the Hilton, but I had a little time before I was scheduled to leave. As the departure time neared, they did not show up. We checked the hotel lobby for them a few times and tried calling their room, but we could not get in contact with them at all. They never showed up, even after I waited a few additional minuted for them, so I went over to the Westmark, where I was supposed to be picking up two other people. They were there. Normally, we would cancel the trip for fewer than four people, but in this case, there were four booked. We will not cancel the trip at the last minute on people, so I went, with a 55 seat coach, and only two passengers! They thought it was rather amusing that I had such a large vehicle for such a small group. I did too.

The Portage Glacier Cruise Tour went great. These two passengers were excited to go, and wanted to know everything! We went straight to Portage Lake, because we wanted to make the 10:30 sailing, and we had left a little late because we waited a few minutes for the no-shows. We made the boat, and the cruise was great. First of all, it had been pouring the whole way to Portage. As the boat backed out of the slip, the rain stopped. At the end of the trip, wehn the boat docked again, the rain started, but it did not rain while we were on the Ptarmigan. We got out to the glacier, and got to see some great calving. This was like what you see in movies about Alaska. Several large pieces of ice broke off the glacier and fell in the lake, hard enough to make the boat rock half amile away. That was great. The whole tour actually was great.

When we got off the boat, we went over to the Begich, Boggs Visitors' Center. My guests offered to pay my pay into the visitors' center, but drivers get to go in for free. As it turned out, they had a membership with something that also allowed them to get in for free. That worked out well! When we had all had enough time at the visitors' center, we went to the Day Lodge, for lunch. My guests offered to buy my lunch there, but whenever I bring people there, they give me lunch for free. We had lunch together, and then I ran into the people I had driven to Alyeska on Sunday. They recognized me, and I had all there people that I did not know seeing me and saying things like, "Oh hey James, how are you?" And I would tell them I was great, while thinking, "I have no idea who you are!" I could not figure out how any of them new me, because most of them were not close enough to see the name tag! Then I ran into their tour director, and I recognized her. Then everything made sense!

We left the Day Lodge, and headed up to Alyeska. I dropped them off at the tram, and parked the coach. As they stepped off the coach, they offered to buy my ticket for the tram, but I explained that I get to ride as a chaperone if I bring people, so my ticket is complimentary. I parked the coach, and then met them up at the top of the mountain. We spent a little while up there, on the mountain, and in the round house, and then we headed back down. They walked to the coach, rather than wait for me to pull it around, and we headed back to Anchorage. We took our time getting back to Anchorage, because the Bore Tide was schedule to come in, and yesterday was the biggest it was supposed to be all year. Sure enough, as we got to Beluga Point, we could see it headed our way. They looked at it with their binoculars, and guessed that it was probably about five to six feet high. That was my first time seeing that. I told them that most people who come here do not get to see that. They were excited. On the way back to the hotel, we went around Lake Hood, at the airport, so they could see the float planes. I figured we could do that, even though it was not part of the tour, since they were flying out later and would not have time for the tour that goes there. They really had an awesome tour, and got to see several things that most people do not, including the Bore Tide and a massive calving of the glacier. They loved the trip, and they were glad they had gone on the trip. It was a lot of fun for me, and I had a great day! When I got back to the yard at the end, the odometer on the coach said 059988. It is old enough that there ought to be a one out there, so it had 1,059,988 miles on it!