Thursday, April 21, 2011

Ambivalence

Welcome to 2011. If you read Skagway 2010, you'll remember I can be rather verbose. So there's your warning. Follow it or not, your choice. I'm ambivalent. Hahaha! Seriously, I hope you do read it. Elsewise, this becomes merely self-indulgent. But several people have encouraged me to write about 2011. Yes, really. They have! And you know who you are.

Mike, especially, has been encouraging me to write...starting with training to be a driver/guide. However, my hesitation arises from my own fear. Going to Skagway in 2011 doesn't have that excitement and heightened anticipation of a new love affair that 2010 contained. Last year, it was the newness of our leisurely drive north through the sequoias, the funny little post office with community center attached, the Columbia river gorge, the newness of driving the vast distances in Canada, the magnificence of the Cassiar highway and each approaching mile of new landscape into Alaska and down into the Skagway valley. What would we find? Who will we meet? What will we actually be doing? What will our living space look like? What is it like in a small town? What does it look like when the seasons change? What is the hiking like? How is July 4th celebrated?

No overt newness. What if I get up to Skagway and do NOT find myself saying in wonder "I'm in Alaska!" every 2 days? And so I've been reluctant to even have a blog this summer. I could say I don't want to disappoint my multitude of readers. Ok, the 18 of you. But I don't want to be disappointed. The worst thing to say about anyone or anything is that it is boring. A single comment of "meh" and I could want to crawl into my room cave.

But that's all worry and made-up story and really shouldn't even own a place in my head. So, let's go forward with wonder and awe and an open mind. So we'll bypass the sequoias; they're very big. And our drive looks to be a push instead of an adventure. We'll be skipping that little California town and the Columbia river gorge. Canada will still be VERY big. The Cassiar highway will still be magnificent. And each mile on the South Klondike highway down into Skagway will have a frisson of the excitement of a homecoming.

There will be a few key differences this summer:

1. Mike will be a highway driver this year.
2. I will be a driver/guide this year.
3. Our niece, Taylor, will be a driver/guide with us this year. (Wooohooo!)
4. We will sorely miss many people who aren't returning.
5. We can't wait to see everyone who IS returning...some in new jobs, some in old jobs, some in unexpected jobs.
6. Who are the new people?

1. So what is a highway driver? Last year, Mike was a driver/guide IN Skagway. What that meant was he picked up people on excursions just for that day off the ships in port. They would return to the ship at night and sail away...leaving the town peaceful again. (As peaceful as it can be in the summer when the population nearly triples.) And he would be home every night. That explanation is important before explaining "highway driver" because it is what Taylor and I will be doing.

A highway driver is a driver/guide of Cruisetour passengers. These passengers have booked a multi-day trip beginning or ending in Skagway. His world will consist of other highway drivers, tour directors, hotel personnel in other cities and guests that he gets to know over those few days. He prefers to be always learning and doing new things, so this suits him well for this summer.

2. I've already explained what I'll be doing. It'll be in the details that could become the stories I'll post this summer.

3. Taylor will be with us! How wonderful to have family up in Skagway with us! Last year, we wanted everyone we know to experience what we were experiencing. We especially wanted all of the young people in our lives to have the opportunity to see the world by working seasonally in a beautiful location. Taylor's long-term goal is to be a wedding planner and she's studying for that now. This is a good way to get to deal with a crowd of people who have certain expectations of enjoyment. And she's going to have a blast. This, I know.

4. I'm not going to list all the people we will miss. I'll forget someone and feel badly. You know who you are. You were such a part of my wonderful experience last year and not a day goes by that I'm not telling (or re-telling) another Skagway story in which one or more of you are featured.

5. It'll be old home week! Hugs, smiles, high fives and endless chatter will bubble and sizzle.

6. Can't wait to meet the new people and see how it all comes together this summer!

So you may be asking the question of why is she becoming a driver/guide rather than returning to sales and service? I worked with great people and had a laid-back manager in sales and service. But it was a job with a couple of busy days and a LOT of downtime. A LOT of downtime. A whole slew of downtime. Drivers are out and about, meeting the tourists, having stories, having a camaraderie with each other, and make more money.

Many times last year I said how I was very much looking forward to the guiding part, not so much the driving part. Turns out there was a reason for the dread of the driving. In the last 10 years, one of the "aging" pieces of nonsense that has occurred in my body is a change in depth perception due to astigmatism. I had thought my driving was deteriorating. In fact, my driving was fine, my confidence was waning as it seemed that while driving on highways other vehicles were way too close, encroaching or even appearing to swerve into my lane.

Training to be a driver of a 12 foot high, 8 foot wide, 40 foot motor coach has helped so much in my confidence and I learned to compensate for the change in depth perception. My regular vehicle driving confidence has improved 500%!

So what was training like? There were several day-long classroom experiences that were much like any other classroom experience: some interesting things, a lot of corporate CYA stuff, the same couple of people constantly interrupting the presentation, tests, sore butts, etc. Then there were the training days.

We trained either 2-1/2 hours alone with a trainer or 3-1/2 hours with another student and a trainer. Mike was one of the three trainers. Each trainer, Mike or Bill or Judy, had something to offer in that each one of them focused on specific aspects of being a driver. They all taught their trainees how to drive a coach. Bill focused a lot on proper turning techniques. Judy was all about the pre-trip. Mike's intent was on how driving properly affected your passengers. It was a good mix.

First hurdle was the pre-trip. This was a 300+ item list, 20-75 minute examination of the coach and being able to verbalize what the doohickey, gizmo, whatchamacallit, butterfly nut/wingnut thingie is and what could be wrong with it. What once was Greek to me is now a patter of very studly-man engine talk pouring forth from my throat and leaving traces of oil on my dirty gloves.

Second hurdle is a skills course. I'd have to say that the skills course: slalom around cones, backing up straight or with a wiggle, and parallel parking were a lot harder than driving on the road. We won't discuss a set-up called "offset alley." Forwards I'm fine. Backwards, if you're an orange cone, you're Dead Fred. Driving went from slow turns around a quiet neighborhood (complete with a group drinking out of their brown paper bags who waved to us as we drove by, aka "the party"), to traffic on wide boulevards with people doing screwy things to driving on the freeway. Training started Feb. 1 and for me and Taylor ended April 16 when we passed our road test. Along the way were the milestones in the training, taking our written test at DMV, comparing our progress with other trainees and making new friends.

It's so hard to think that Chippy, Todd, Rhonda and others won't be in Skagway with us. There are others going to Anchorage, Fairbanks, Denali, Ketchikan and Juneau that we will miss. But we got to know the three mentioned a lot better due to commuting together or if they stayed in our home because they lived out of town. Chippy's name isn't really Chippy. It's David. But that's another story.

Happily, it didn't get outrageously hot while we were training. Just in the 90's at most. And during training, Mike was working full-tilt as a trainer and I was still working per diem at hospice. Happily, NOT the hospice I worked at last year, but Hospice Family Care. The nice thing is that they are looking forward to me returning to work for them in the fall. It's good to be appreciated. So different from the other place where I worked for the Queen of Hearts whose management policy was "off with their heads!"

Leaving family and friends is, perhaps, even harder this year than last year. Our youngest daughter is graduating from ASU with her master's degree and we won't be with her to celebrate. That is a BIG sadness. Our older daughter is about to take on a career entry job where she gets her foot in the door for her career, makes more money and works "normal" hours. And our son is interviewing for a job far away that we hope and don't hope he gets. We hope he gets this great job, but don't look forward to him being so far from home.

Our parents are getting older and some of them are not as well as they were last year. We internally battle with the desire to be here to care for them, be there for them and support/be supported by our siblings while we watch our elders age. It is a very real possibility that we will be needed. We think about the joy in our work in Alaska, work that is financially needed and a beautiful place to be. Could we work here in Arizona? Possibly, but not with as much joy as Alaska...and not as steady a job here in Arizona for me as I'd have in Alaska. Mike would have to be out on the road driving again, so he'd be away much of the time if we stayed...though not the 5 months that we'll be gone from Arizona. It is a more difficult choice this year to head north for the season.

But as of today, we are still planning on leaving Wednesday, April 27. This year, instead of our leisurely tour up the coast adding two states for me that I'd never been in before (along with a province and territory in Canada), there is a push. For training purposes, the drivers drove down three coaches. They had arrived by barge from Alaska to Seattle in the winter. Now two have to return to Skagway and one to Juneau. They have to be in Seattle by April 30 to be loaded onto the barge for their shipment north.

Mike will be driving a bus and several trainees will be riding on the bus and then they will fly from Seattle to their Alaskan destinations. I'll be driving in the pickup...overloaded with all the stuff I think I need...including extra groceries to avoid paying the high cost of food up there. My 99 cent box of pasta could easily cost $3.00 up there. Once the bus is dropped off on the 30th, we will hightail it through Canada and up to Skagway. Work starts May 2 and we will probably arrive that afternoon and miss our first day. And unlike last year when we arrived early, we won't have leisurely days to unpack and get acclimated.

So there is a flurry of activity. A few more people need to take and pass their road test. Mike has some more training hours the next couple of days. I work Friday night and Sunday day at the hospice inpatient unit. Packing bustle. Good-byes hustle. And then off to Skagway. 2011.