Volcano!

This has been an interesting week! As I mentioned in my last post, we had an earthquake to start the week off. That was one of three statewide. Well, the next few days were pretty quiet. I mostly did airport shuttles, and stayed in town. I did make it down to Portage once.

On Thursday, I was assigned to shuttles until late at night. At 10:00pm, I was supposed to be picking people up from all the hotels and making a run out to the airport. Well, that turned into an adventure. There was no one at the Hilton who needed to go to the airport. From there, I went on to the Westmark, where I had two people who were supposed to be riding with me out to the airport. When I got there, they were nowhere to be found. I waited for about fifteen minutes, since I was ahead of schedule anyway, but they never turned up. A group of four other people did show up though, and they asked me how to get to Wal-Mart. I explained to them that it was not within walking distance. My next hotel pickup was at 11:30pm, and I had absolutely nothing to do until then, so I offered them a ride to Wal-Mart, if the Captain Cook Hotel had no one for me right then. They sat down on a bench while I radioed to the Cook to see if they needed me. They had no one waiting for that shuttle, so I told the four on the bench to board, and I would run them over to Wal-Mart. They wanted to buy some snacks for their ride to the ship the next day, and this little illegal run seemed more exciting than sitting somewhere for over an hour. They were happy because they did not need to pay a cab, and they thought it was a fun little adventure to take a 55-seat motor coach to Wal-Mart. I figured I would not get caught, because we normally do not drive past there, and there was only one other coach out at the time. Well, I dropped these four off at the front door, and told them I'd wait there for them, since it was only going to be a few minutes. As I was waiting there, with the door open, someone came running on with no warning whatsoever. It was Rob, my roommate. As it turned out, all my roommates had decided to eat at Pizza Hut, which is right next to Wal-Mart. Naturally, seeing one of our motor coaches pull up, they wanted to see who was the driver. I think they were a little surprised to see me, but it was funny. Once the four guests came back, we headed back to the Westmark. When they got off, they gave me a bigger tip than their taxi there would have cost. They were happy, and had a fun adventure too!

Last night, I was doing airport shuttles again. Both Thursday and Friday were late nights, getting me done after midnight both nights. Yesterday's shift ended just a half hour before people started arriving this morning for transfers from the ship. I got done at 1:30am today. Before my last shuttle from the airport to the hotel, I learned that Mt. Redoubt, which is located about 100 miles to the southwest, actually began to erupt again. Now, this is not a Mt. St. Helens style eruption, but there is a bit of lava and smoke and ash flowing out of that mountain pretty steadily now. We may get some ash today or tomorrow, but the wind is not blowing it directly towards us. That should be interesting. I hear it looks a lot like snow falling, except it is still hot when it lands. If it hits here, I'll let you know what it is like!

Today, I went in to work at 10:00am, and I was assigned to make a run to Whittier, where the Diamond Princess is tied up, and then return to Anchorage to drop people off at the Cruise Train, and then pick people up off the train from Denali tonight. When I went in, I did not have enough hours to do the McKinley Explorer pick up this evening, but I was going to do everything except that pick up. I got to the hotel, to pick up passengers going to the ship, and they did not need me. The needed a coach with a lift. I called dispatch to see what to do, and they decided to have me come back to the office to check in with them. They decided after a little discussion that it would probably be best to just send me home and find someone else to cover my assignments. I guess they need me more tomorrow than today. So all I did was drive to the hotel and back, empty in both directions. It was fun! This evening I am going over to a friend's house to hang out and eat. Her name is Merry. She usually works on the dock in Whittier, in the mornings, and she invited me over this evening. That will be fun, and it is a free dinner, and a much better dinner than I would probably eat if left to my own creativity!