Adventures and Updates

The last few days have been a bit crazy, but way fun. I think Chantel, Krystal, Tim, and I are probably the only people who understand each other's craziness. We do crazy things together like lay on our backs in the living room and laugh. Yeah, all four of us lay there like a bunch of, well...crazies, laughing to kill ourselves! Haha, that was fun. A couple days ago we rented the movie, "I Love You Beth Cooper." That was a really stupid movie. Don't watch it. It kills brain cells, fast. So after that stupid movie, we decided to watch "Get Smart." I suppose that was ironic. It was a much better movie. We also got Krispy Kreme and went to a dance party that night. It was fun. For some reason at the end of that night, we decided that we needed to go to Ikea the next day, which was yesterday.

We did not end up going to Ikea yesterday. I don't remember the details now, something about Krystal needing a new phone, but I forget how it all tied together. We went to the University Mall instead. We walked around there for a while. Chantel and Krystal played Barbie with Tim, well, only with sunglasses. I think he may have tried on over a hundred pairs of sunglasses yesterday! After spending some time there, we went back to their apartment because Chantel had homework. We decided that raiding the mall was not enough, so we planned on going to Salt Lake after her homework. Krystal had to go home, so she drove me to a train show in Lehi. That was interesting. It was hosted by a model train club right here in Orem. Tim and Chantel picked me up on their way to Salt Lake, and we all went up there. We parked at the Amtrak station, because it is free for as long as you want to stay. Krystal came down to Salt Lake on the FrontRunner train, and then we all went to the Gateway Mall for dinner. As it turned out, all we did was raid that mall too! We went to a few different stores. Things started to get interesting when we found an everlasting gobstopper on the ground.

We put the the test the everlasting quality of that gobstopper, and discovered that they are pretty durable, but not invincible! It got kicked all over the mall. It went down the up escalator, and then down the smooth part next to the escalator. Then we decided to take it to the TRAX station with us. It got kicked out of the mall, among crowds, and along 400 W. We got it across the street and the tracks, and decided to test the everlasting quality. By now it already was looking a little banged up. It was not so round anymore and chunks were missing. We left it on the railhead for the train to hit. I think everyone was expecting some sort of noise when it got hit. It was virtually silent. It was there one second, and just gone the next, reduced to everlasting gobstopper powder. We took the train back over to Central Station so Krystal could get her train back home. We all waited on the train with her, because it was warm.

Just before her train left, we got the idea of leaving coins on the tracks in front of it, so they would get run over. We could pick them up as soon as it passed. We placed the coins on the railhead, and stood back to wait for the train to leave. Well, some UTA employee saw us. We never actually talked to them, but I got the impression that they did not like us being in the track area in front of the train. We waved to Krystal as the train left, but the coast was never clear for us to retrieve the pennies. There is about four cents in the tracks at Central Station. We decided we'll just go to the Provo station and let Amtrak squish some coins there. No one cares there if you step in the track area, just be out by the time the train leaves! After that adventure, we left Salt Lake, and came back to Provo. We were all pretty worn out, and I think most of us went to bed fairly shortly after getting home. It was a fun day. I think we are all crazy, and a bunch of "spaztards." But we had fun!

On a different note, I mentioned on here a while ago that I had a little website fr my model trains. It is sort of my little world I guess. I have updated it, if anyone is interested. If you go look at it, I have expanded the information under "Passenger Services," and I have added a lot of historical information to the "Empire Builder" section. I added a few other things, but if you go over to there, you will see a description of the changes on the main page. Again, the link, for anyone interested, is http://sites.google.com/site/ogdensub/.

Winter Olympics

I have been in the United States a whole ten days now, and it seems that I am leaving again. By the time I get to Alaska for work, I will have spent more time out of the USA than in the USA this year.

Next week I am heading to British Columbia, Canada. I am going there for the Winter Olympics. I will be working for Lewis Stages up there, as a bus driver. The Olympics are based in Vancouver, BC, but I know we will be going to other places too, like Whistler and Squamish. I will be living in Canada for two months, which should be interesting. I have never spent more than ten days out of the USA, and I only did that last week! Maybe I'll come back saying, "eh"...eh? I have always wanted to go to the Olympics, and I found this job opportunity online, and could not pass it up. We get paid $18.11 per hour, and we have free room and board, free food, and unlimited access to the events. The only drawback is that I will be taxed in both the USA and Canada. Yes, the United States taxes its citizens on all income worldwide (provided that the IRS knows about it.), which I do not like, but I have to live with. Even with that, I will not have any living expenses up there, so it should be alright, and there is a way to get all my Canadian tax money returned since I am not Canadian.

I just learned about this a couple days ago when the Canadian government emailed me my visa. Yes, you need a visa to work in Canada. I have been surprised by how many people have told me I do not need one. I wonder how many of them have worked in Canada! My visa is good until 21 April 2010, but I will probably leave by 31 March at the latest. I think that is when everything is finished up there. I am not allowed to travel outside of British Columbia, because I am being allowed into Canada to work, not for tourism and travel. I can leave Canada and then return an hour later and travel wherever I would like to. As long as the visa is valid however, I can enter and leave Canada for work, so I guess if I feel like visiting Washington, I can do that.

I am excited to go. I leave Utah on 28 January. I will be there for six to eight weeks, and then return to Utah for a couple weeks before heading off to Alaska. I will try to keep the blog up to date while I am there. I am not exactly sure how busy I will be though.

I have my first scheduled meeting in Anchorage on 30 April for the new season, but I have been advised to arrive sooner than that if at all possible, because I need to be trained on the VanHool motor coaches. I am planning on arriving there by about the 15th of April. As I mentioned, I will not be spending much time in Utah after I return from Canada. I would like to spend some time on the East Coast too before I go to Alaska. We will see what the schedule looks like as we get closer to April.

While I am in Canada, I can receive text messages, but I cannot receive phone calls from the United States. I will look into getting a prepaid phone or phone card while I am there to call the USA, but it depends on the price. I may just have to use an internet connection or something.

East Coast

Well, I made it home, as I mentioned. On Christmas day, we all piled into the cars and drove to New York. It was a nice easy drive, early on Christmas morning. Once in Garden City, we did our normal Christmas festivities.

On Sunday evening, Steven and I went over to the airport in Newark, NJ, to pick up Sarah. That was a long, though uneventful trip across Manhattan and back. Sarah was pretty worn out that evening, having been on the go for quite some time. We just hurried across town and back to Garden City.

On Monday, everyone headed back to New Hampshire, except for Sarah and I. We stayed in Garden City for a few days. That afternoon, we decided to take the train to Oyster Bay. It was cold, and windy by the bay, but it was nice. We walked around town for a while, and took the train back to Mineola a few hours later. It was nice.

On Tuesday, we went into New York, and we covered a lot of ground. We started by going to Times Square. I had never been to street level there, and it had been a while since Sarah had, so we decided to see that. It was pretty well lit, even during the day. From there, we went a few blocks away to Rockefeller Center. We saw the Christmas tree there, and then looked into going to the Top of the Rock. That was expensive though, so we stayed at street level. Ice skating was also expensive, and cold, so we didn't do that. Also, neither one of is a good enough skater to justify spending a bunch of money to do it just for a few minutes. When we left Rockefeller Center, we headed over to Brooklyn, and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was cold and windy, but there was still a big crowd there. I was surprised. It was nice, but we didn't make it a slow trip! From there, we got back on the subway and went over to Bowling Green. From there we walked a couple blocks to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. We sailed across the harbor aboard the Spirit of America, which is the newest ship in the fleet. It was nice. We went just to see the sights in the harbor, like Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We got to Staten Island, and got back on the ship and sailed back to Lower Manhattan.

Once back in Manhattan, we took the train back to Penn Station and got a late lunch nearby. We also went into several stores in the area, because Sarah needed to get a swimsuit and some flip flops, which she had forgotten in Alaska. At one point during this trip, we found ourselves in the Manhattan Mall. Someone in there got my attention and stopped us for a minute. They asked if I was a driver. I was completely confused, and they went on to ask if I had been a driver in Alaska, and if I had driven to a place called Whittier. I told them that I was, and they explained that I had been their driver, and they had recognized me. What are the odds of that?! There are millions of people in that city, and even more there for the holidays, and I managed to run into someone that knows me. I did not recognize them, having driven over 7,300 passengers during the summer. I am not sure I would recognize any of my passengers at this point! I must have made an impression if they were able to pick me out of a crowd in the largest and busiest city in the US!

Wednesday we went to Target and finally found Sarah her swimsuit. Other than that, it was a pretty quiet day. We really did not do anything else. John took all of us out to eat dinner at Leo's, in Garden City. That was nice. I do like that place.

On Thursday, Sarah and I went back into New York to get on a train to Florida. It was snowing as we left New York. It was cold, and all around miserable. The train was held up about two hours in the Sunnyside Yard for some reason. We were told there was some equipment problems, and that was the cause of the delay. We got underway, and they headed south. It was not a whole lot warmer in Washington. We got out for a few minutes to watch them change the locomotives. As soon as they were done coupling the diesels onto the head end of the train, we got underway again. Once underway, the power in the train kept going out periodically. We arrived in Richmond while we were at dinner, and power went out again. They traced that to a problem with one of the locomotives, so they removed that locomotive from the train, and we kept going. After locomotive #66 was removed, we had no more problems with the power going out.

I woke up briefly this morning in Columbia, South Carolina. I woke up for the day in Folkston, Georgia, and shortly after that, we stopped in Jacksonville Florida. This is the 40th state I have visited. We traveled all day, still heading south, and this evening, about an hour behind schedule, we arrived at the Ft. Lauderdale station. We had a cab take us downtown to the hotel. We got quite lucky on the hotel. I paid about $100 for the room. Turns out, it is a deluxe room. The normal price is $899 per night. It is very nice, as you can imagine for that price! Fortunately, we are not paying that! We also get all the additional amenities for free with the room. It is nice and warm here too. It is partly cloudy, and 75 degrees. There are palm trees everywhere, and it is great. We were walking around earlier this evening, and it was balmy and wonderful!

This evening, we checked in for our cruise. We are in stateroom #6004 aboard the m/s Zuiderdam. Tomorrow we sail for our ten day trip to the Bahamas, Aruba, Netherland Antilles, Panama, and Costa Rica. I am really excited. We got a Verandah room on the ship, which was normally selling for nearly $4,000. We got that at a huge discount too! We managed to get a handicapped room, which is about 50% larger than a standard room, and it has a nice balcony. Tomorrow we will get to go aboard the ship, and it will be great! I am really looking forward to that. I have never spent a night on a ship. Actually, I have never been on a ship for more than 15 hours. I think it will be nice, and I am really looking forward to it. I will not have phone service, so I will update this periodically during the cruise to keep everyone informed on where I am and what I am up to. I will take lots of pictures too, and post some of them as I can.