thirteen.

Greetings friends from Juneau, Alaska. I am just hours away from getting on a plane back home to Kansas City, so this will be my final blog post. I can't even believe it. Six months goes by incredibly fast. The closer I get to leaving, the more I don't want to go. Back in April when I was getting ready for my big adventure, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The idea of a 19-year-old kansas girl moving up to Alaska to work at a zipline seemed ridiculous, but turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made. I got to experience an awesome season up in beautiful Alaska, working a fun job, and surrounded by amazing people. I can't express in words how much I admire every person I've come to know this summer in so many different ways. It was so amazing to see people from all different walks of life come together to learn, play, and grow. Anytime I find myself missing alaska, I will put on "wagon wheel" and think of you all and all the memorable times here. The people are what made this summer what it was. You all mean the world to me and I look forward to seeing where you all will go next. Peace and love. <3 Al Pal

twelve

Fall has arrived in Juneau! The leaves are changing, temperature highs in the 50's, and it's becoming noticeably darker by the day. I noticed the start of the new season just this week on my morning walk to work. It will be exciting to get 2 falls this year considering by the time I get home the leaves will be falling. The last few weeks the rain has been dumping on us. I would come home after work drenched from head to toe, even with rain gear on. We saw the sun for the first time this week in forever which was so exciting. I was getting sick of the rain. However, it left behind a cold bitter wind. It was insane up on the course today. The wind was blowing you from side to side on the ziplines and the platforms were swaying like crazy.

We have half the staff now. It's been quite depressing saying goodbye to so many faces. It's just not the same anymore without everyone. It's hard to believe I'm only here for about 3 more weeks. Work is not nearly as busy. On average I'm taking about 2 tours a day instead of the usual 3 or 4. Though I'm not complaining. Ziplining in the cold, windy, rain is not as fun as you might think. The few of us that are still here plan on watching a lot of movies the next few weeks. Ha.

Last week a group of us hiked to the John Muir cabin for the night. It was a pretty intense 3 mile hike consisting of mostly steps. It took us a couple hours to get up, and we were all drenched in sweat by the time we reached the cabin. Not to mention it was pitch black by then. However, there was an sweet fog that made the hike really awesome. The cabin itself was such a cool place to stay at. It had bunk bed and a loft to sleep in. One thing that was really cool was that it had several notebooks full of entries made by all the guests that have come to stay in it. We woke up early in the morning to heavy winds and pouring rain. We waited a few hours for it to calm down before we hiked back down. The hike down took half the time it took to get up.

Last night we celebrated a pseudo-thanksgiving dinner with the whole company. Erica's parents hosted it at their home. Dinner was delicious and it's always fun getting everyone together for fun events like that. Even though the season is coming to a close, I still have quite a bit to look forward to over the next few weeks. One of the things I'm most excited about is our day trip to Icy Strait in Hoona. There are no cruise ships in that day, so most of us are taking a ferry over there to go on their zipline that's over a mile long.

I'll leave you all with some pictures I've taken out at the site the past few days.





Check out those sweet clouds.















All geared up. Ready for my tour.















Douglas Harbor. This is where I'll take the boat over to work on occasion.













Dani, Brad, and Joe excited for yet another tour.















A zipper going down our last zipline on the course.
















Enjoying the awesome day. Don't let the sun fool you though....it was still quite chilly.











Erik and I training up on the course. We are hanging about 180 ft in the air right there.













Learning to ascend. We won't talk about how long it took me to climb up 42 ft of rope.
















The gang at the John Muir cabin the morning before we left.













Happy Thanksgiving! Look at them boys in their cute plaid shirts.









Adios for now my friends. <3

eleven

Hi! I realize it had been a month since my last update. I apologize. I have nothing but my laziness to blame. July wrapped up really well. I turned twenty, Laura came to visit, ran a half-marathon, and the sun has managed to still stick around for the most part. My birthday was good. We had a sort of birthday party a couple nights before at Lynn's house and they attempted to baked me a cake. I worked during the day on my actual birthday and afterward we all went to go see Harry Potter because none of us had seen it yet. The tickets were still selling out, even here in Juneau, for weeks. I got back from the movie and walked into my room to find everyone inside jumping out yelling "happy birthday!" We ate cake and hung out. It was fun. I think almost out entire staff has summer birthday's, so it has been really awesome having an excuse to get everyone together all the time.

Laura visited me the last week of July. I took her on some of the historic trails around here on the island, downtown, up the tram on Mt. Roberts, whale watching, and out to Mendenhall glacier. It was really awesome on going out to the glacier because we got to see bears, and that was actually my first time to see any this whole time living in Alaska. I had been to the glacier multiple times, but never out to the visitor center. We saw a mama bear and two cubs climbing up tree just yards away from us.

The morning after Laura left was the Juneau marathon/ half-marathon. I decided to run it at the last minute not being fully trained for it. I wanted to keel over around mile 10, but managed to finish. I'm really glad I did it. Nick, Chris, and Jackson ran it too. After the race, I passed out for the rest of the day. I was sore for days, but so worth it.

It's half way through August. Therefore, we are losing a lot of our staff soon because of the ones having to go back to school. It sucks. I really don't want anyone to leave. Kim and Keith are getting married next week, and as much as I don't want them to leave, I'm so excited for them. I feel so incredibly blessed to have been surrounded by such incredible people this summer. The relationships I've built here I will carry with me even after I leave Alaska.






Just a sweet picture with Daniel's sweet camera. This is sort of the guide hang out while we are waiting for our next tour to show up.











This was from my birthday party at Lynn's house and the cake they attempted to make for me. The "icing" was all over the place.

















Laura and I out at Mendenhall glacier.















Mama bear climbing the tree.

















Just mama bear roaming around.











Shamu!











Haha. Okay. This is just a random funny picture. Background: It was the last tour of the day and everyone is ready to go home. We have our last tour group that we still need to send back on the boat and the boat gets stuck. We had to get our unimog to pull the boat off the rocks.









This was at Kim and Keith's wedding reception. Miss those two.







Sorry again for the delayed update. I'll update again when I have something exciting or interesting to share. Hope all is well, friends. <3

ten

'Ello friends! So this week has probably been the most eventful/most fun week since I have been here. Erin Hurd came to visit me and she could not have come at a better time. For over a week now it has been sunny and warm. Erin got here last Friday and after I picked her up from the airport I surprised her with a helicopter/dogsled tour. It was roughly 80 degrees that day, so it felt really nice on top of the glacier. We had an awesome guide on the dogsled and had so much fun playing with all the puppies.






Erin and I really liked talking with these.














We looooved holding the puppies.
















Erin was really good at driving this.















Absolutely incredible view from the helicopter.
















Erin loves single shots.















Look at those dogs run.















The next day was pretty crazy being the 3rd of July. Everyone here in Juneau celebrates the 4th on the 3rd. I had worked that morning and then went back to the site later that afternoon to take Erin and some friends from Campus Crusade up on the ziplines. Afterwards we went downtown and began the celebration with everyone at the house before the fireworks at the dock that night. I had never seen so many people downtown before. It was chaos, but so much fun.





The group ready to zipline!














Erin and I stocked up on star stickers from Heritage cafe.













Erin and I at the Gastineau house.
















Watchin the firework show down at the docks.













The next day was pretty low key because I had to work, so Erin spent most of her day at the beach, and afterwards we went to the rock gym. The next day was way fun because we hiked Mendenhall glacier. I had hiked it before, but we took a different route this time, and I actually hiked into the caves this time, which was pretty much the coolest thing I've ever seen. It was amazingly blue. It was really hot outside too, so it felt nice and cool inside the glacier.







Look how blue it is!












Daniel standing on the glacier.













We didn't always pick the best routes.













The glacier water actually felt pretty nice, it was so hot outside.













Check out that sweet ice cave.











Erin and I spent the next day downtown. We ate at the Twisted Fish and wondered some stores. I took her to my favorite bead store and we both made some pretty sweet bracelets. We took the tram up to Mount Roberts, and from the top of the tram we hiked another half mile to this cross. You feel so small when you are standing at the top surrounded by all these other mountains and looking at the cross.










Galations 2:20












That night was Jake's birthday. We hung out at his house out in the valley and had a bbq. Afterwards Erin and I decided to pull an all nighter since she had to be at the airport at 5am, so we went back to the guys house downtown and hung out there until we had to leave.







Half of the gang.













Favorite picture of the night.

















Cousin sandwitch!












At the BreezeIn. We really liked this 8 flavor ice cream machine...of course we had to sample them all.








Sadly Erin had to leave that morning and had missed Nathan's birthday celebration the next night. The next day a few of us went out to fish on Erica's boat for his birthday. It was so nice to be out on the water.









Birthday boy gone fishin'.

















Again.

















Hello there!

















I still can't believe how nice it was outside.

















Joe caught the only fish of the whole trip.




















This is what Kim and I did most of the time.










The next afternoon Joe, Erica, Jackie, and myself got to go on the Coral Princess for lunch. I got shrimp as an appetizer, Salmon and veggies for my main meal, and had some sort of cake for dessert. It was delecioius. After we ate we got a tour of the cruise ship. It resembled the Diamond Princess a lot.






Joe and I left the tour group for a bit to lounge on the chairs near the pool. If we could have only been able to stay awhile.

















The girls at lunch.









It was a busy, busy week, but oh so much fun. I had lost a lot of sleep, so spent most of yesterday while I wasn't working catching up on sleep. I'm hoping the sunshine sticks around. Have a good week everybody! Peace and love.

-Al Pal <3

nine

Hey, friends! Sorry I have sucked at updating this recently. To be honest not a whole lot exciting has gone on outside of work. Last week we had the summer solstice. We went out to the end of Douglas Island to celebrate. A bunch of people showed up, and it was a good time.







We had about a mile hike out once we got there.

















This was around 11pm. Still light outside.












Jake, Krista, and myself on solstice night.









Last night was the Only Fools Run at Midnight race. Lynn, Erik, Monica, and I dressed up as cowboys and ran/walked the mile. It was hilarious. Hundreds of locals came out at midnight to run the race all dressed in crazy costumes. It was awesome.






We ran into Abraham Lincoln!












Bahahaha. Erik and Lynn. Being classy.














We ran into Jackie along the way. She works for our company as a dock rep.














As you can see we weren't too concerned about our time because we took time to pose at the bus stop for a photo.














Everyone after the race.












I'm really excited because Erin Hurd is coming to visit me this week. Hopefully I'll have more to post next week. I did, however, take some footage the past few days at work and such and put together a short video, so you guys can get a better feel of what I experience every day here. Enjoy!