Three Days Away

I am back in Anchorage today, for the first time since Saturday. On Saturday, I got on a coach that was headed to Whittier with a full load of passengers, but I was not the driver. I was a rider. I got to ride in the jump seat in front, and I added things to the tour. It was great. I had a lot of fun, and it was nice to do that run, without having to pay attention to the road. We went to Whittier, were we dropped off the guests at their ship, the Sapphire Princess. Upon leaving Whittier, we did not return to Anchorage, but rather we went to Seward. We got to Seward, ate dinner at the lodge, and basically went to bed.

Yesterday there was a ship in Seward. The Veendam was in town, and I was running the Seward Shuttle, which is a free service provided to the passengers. It shuttles passengers from the pier to a few different locations around town. It is a two mile loop, and I put 83 miles on the coach yesterday! I drove a few groups to the Kenai Fjords Tour in the morning, and then jumped on the shuttle route. While I was waiting on the dock for one group of Kenai Fjords passengers, I almost had the opportunity to board the Veendam. Someone in uniform got off the ship and approached me. He asked if I worked for Gray Line, which is a franchise that Holland America owns. I told him that I did, and he instructed me to follow him, adding that we were going to the pursers office, on the ship, because the purser had a few questions. He began walking back towards the gangway. I was tempted to follow him. I really would have liked to board the ship and take a look around. But I doubt I would have been anle to answer any of the questions the purser had. I stopped him, and pointed to my dispatcher, and suggested he talk to him. I explained that chances are he knew better what was going on, and was probably in a better position to answer any questions. Shortly after that people started disembarking the ship and boarding my coach. I guess it was a good thing I did not go with him.

For the rest of the day, with the exception of one half hour break, I drove in circles in Seward. They were two mile circles, over and over again. After a while, you begin to forget that it is a new time around. I am pretty sure I could drive that route with my eyes closed now, and even narrate it! I got asked the same questions over and over, every time I had new passengers get on. The shuttles stopped running at about 5:00pm, which was a welcome hour! I went back to the Kenai Fjords place to pick up a group. It turned out to be one of the same groups as I had brought over there in the morning. I drove them to the Windsong Lodge, just a few miles away, and then returned to town. From there I put the coach to bed, and called it a day. Later that evening, I helped one of the other drivers, Nate, wash his coach, and then several of us went out to dinner, including Lauren, the tour director for the group that I brought both to and from Kenai Fjords. It was a fun little dinner. Nate and Blake went over to the lodge, and visited the bar, while Rachel, Lauren, and I stayed in downtown Seward. We went to the waterfront park in Seward and watched the ship ease away from the pier, turn around in the middle of the bay, and then sail south, towards the Pacific Ocean. Then, we decided to go exploring. We had a company van, so we took it down a dirt road on the west side of the Ressurection Bay. It was an interesting trip. It goes a couple miles south of Seward, and it is very quiet over there. We saw a bit of wildlife on that trip, including a lot of sea otters, just bobbing up and down in the gentle swell. It was a fun little drive.

Today, I got up and drove a coach to Whittier. There I met people coming off the Coral Princess who needed to get to Anchorage. On the way to Anchorage, we stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and the Alaska Native Heritage Center. I had an awesome group for that trip, and we all had a great time. It was such a fun day. They were really engaged and excited and I could not tell them enough about Alaska. They had a lot of questions and just loved the trip. I had so much fun on that tour today.