All roads lead to Rome. No roads lead to Juneau.

I'm sitting here now in the lobby of the Frontier Suites Airport Hotel, about 15 miles outside of downtown Juneau, on their agonizingly slow wireless connection with the first pictures of Mission: Alaska '08. First, let me just say that my trip here yesterday was both delightful and painful. I guess you could say it was delightfully painful. The flight from Birmingham to Houston went smoothly and there were actually a few people on the plane who were on their way to summer jobs in Anchorage and Denali.

Upon arriving in Houston, I spent forty minutes trying to get from one end of the airport to the other just to get to my connecting flight. Turns out the flight was full and I almost got bumped. Fortunately, I was one of the last two or three to get on at the very last second. That delayed that flight from getting to Seattle on time and the rough weather in southeast Alaska delayed that flight for two hours. When I finally got on it, we sat on the runway for fifty minutes before getting clearance to leave and didn't get into Juneau until 11 P.M. It was 12:30 when I got to the hotel (3:30 for you Alabamians).

Today I spent three or four hours wandering around downtown Juneau and I had forgotten the power this place has. It's still the off-season, so there were no cruise ships and the streets were dead. The scenery was awesome, but to just be able to breathe the fresh air and feel the rain was almost like a spiritual experience. I honestly don't know how else to describe this place. Tomorrow morning I'm on the ferry at 6:30 and it will arrive in Skagway at 1:30. That trip is when I'll be getting a look at some MAJOR scenery. There's more I want to say but I've got a few other things to take care of online, so I'm not gonna waste time. Here are some pictures. The first is from the plane flying over the Rocky Mountains.



Next a shot of the mountains across the bay from Juneau. I got GREAT video of these.



A HUGE mountain on the outskirts of Juneau. The pictures of this mountain SUCK, because this thing was GIGANTIC. You could easily the crags, waterfalls, and treelines down the side of the mountain and this picture is like a bastardization of the real thing, but here it is nonetheless.



And here's a look at downtown Juneau.



There's more but that's all I have time for at the moment, so I'll leave that as a little taste. The only problem in providing photographs of a place like this is that it's a place that cannot be photographed. The frustrating part is being unable to provide solid proof of that.

The Time Is Nigh

The hour is almost at hand and I was met with a very pleasant surprise earlier this afternoon: my passport arrived! I only applied a week ago and was told that it would take at least four weeks minimum and here it is! That is fantastic timing and I'm going to go ahead and plan to ride the White Pass railway as early as next week. I also made a drastic change today and cut off all my long, mountain-man hair. I didn't want to deal with it all summer, so I got rid of it. Kinda sucks, but it'll be easier to manage this way.

In the meantime, the painful process of packing has begun, the one thing that makes you sit back and wonder if any trip you could ever take is actually worth it. The fact that I'm going to be gone for at least five months just makes it that much more difficult to do, because one must be super picky to not go overboard but extra careful to not leave anything critical. In other words, it blows! My experience with it this trip has not even gotten fully off the ground yet, so I still have much joy to look forward to this evening.

So here's the rundown of my itinerary for the weekend: I leave for the airport around 9:00 or 9:30 in the morning and should get there between 10:30 and 11:00. The flight leaves at 12:10 and lands in Houston at 2:00. I'll be there an hour, then change planes and fly on to Seattle, arriving at 5:31 P.M. That airport is a pain, so the less time spent there, the better. Unfortunately I'll be there a full hour and a half, then I'll change planes again and take off for Juneau. The plane will make a stop in either Ketchikan or Sitka and then will move on, landing in Juneau at 9:46 P.M. Alaska time, which will be about 12:46 A.M. Alabama time. I'll then grab my luggage and head on to the hotel. I didn't get to see much of Juneau when I went up on that cruise last year, so I'm going to stay there all day Sunday and will report to the ferry dock at about 5:00 Monday morning (8 A.M. here). The ferry ride is about seven hours long and will follow the same path I took on the cruise, arriving in Skagway at 1:30 P.M. (4:30 here -- your day will just be wrapping up!) I'll post whatever updates, photos, and videos I can get along the way to both this page and myspace.

All right, back to work! See you in Juneau!

Wilderness Survival Guide

One must be careful not to let the serenity and epic natural beauty of the Alaskan wilderness lull one into a false sense of security, for the potential of certain death lies around every corner and behind every tree. That's right, I'm talking about one of the most feared weapons in Nature's gruesome arsenal: the bear attack! One should not venture into the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness without knowing the wily and treacherous ways of the bear and the tactics needed to deal with such a beast. With our trip to this foreboding place only days away, it's time we stepped back and took a closer look at this subject.

In the Skagway area where we will be spending the summer, we will mostly be dealing with average-sized black bears and brown bears (which are basically grizzlies, they just don't tell you that), so we'll focus this discussion on those particular animals. Supposedly there are no bears of the Kodiak size and variety around Skagway (not like anybody who ever saw one would live to tell anyone else about it), so we won't worry about those at this time. The black bears should not be of much concern to us because - while it's true that they can hurt you - they're actually very shy and timid animals who are living in a major tourist area, so they don't have the typical wild animal desire to rip your arm off just to see what you are. This means that they avoid people and can be easily frightened away; eight-year-old girls have fought off black bears in that part of the world, just go for the eyes and nose and that bitch is out of there!

That brings us to the mighty grizzly, the pissed-off old man of the wild. If my info is correct, the brown bears around Skagway are not much larger than the black bears, just with more attitude. I'm not sure how true that is, but it's always possible that something much bigger could come passing through at any time. With this in mind, let's review what to do should this situation arise....

First, make a lot of noise when you go into the woods. Let whatever's out there know you're coming. I'm not just talking about rattling bells and empty tin cans, I'm talking about vocalizing and singing. Let them hear a human voice and this will prevent most problems. Bear attacks typically occur when people stay quiet and surprise the bear. A possibility that must be taken into consideration is that a behemoth from the nether-regions that has never encountered a human will come wandering through, hear you, get pissed off, and decide to track the source of that noise and silence it forever. Should this happen, stay calm and don't run. If you run, you're food. Bear mace supposedly works well, but if you really make him mad with it, he'll just follow your scent back to your house and lie in wait for you in your garage.

The survival guides that I've seen say that if a bear rears up on his hind legs, he's just trying to get a better look at you. Your response should be to talk loudly and make yourself look big. By doing this, however, you run the risk of making disparaging comments about the bear's mother and challenging the beast to a duel in bear talk. If it's a grizzly, it WILL accept the challenge and charge you. My guide says that a charge is not necessarily threatening and that you should stand your ground. If the bear keeps charging or makes threatening gestures such as swiping the ground with his paw, roaring at you, foaming at the mouth, or trying to claw your intestines out, you should drop to the ground and play dead. Now I would think this would only make the bear angrier, as if you're insulting his intelligence. Are we really supposed to believe that a bear - the King of the Jungle himself - is stupid enough to believe that you just suddenly keeled over at such an opportune time? I don't think so. With all likelihood, the bear will think "Hey, now I don't have to fight him, so I'll just eat him right now." Just hope and pray that the bear will see you as the stupid one and will let you live out of pity.



A great resource for wilderness survival is a DVD called "The Edge". Filmed in a documentary-style, survivalists Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin take you into the heart of the Alaskan wilderness and show you what to do if a bear should try to pick a fight. Every possible eventuality is covered: from your moronic companion throwing bloody clothes in a tree instead of burying them to your "token black guy" hiking guide getting ripped to pieces right in front of you. Alec Baldwin will perfectly capture the helpless rage and pain you will feel while Anthony Hopkins will fascinate you with a demontration on how to mold glacier ice into a lens, which you can then use to catch sunlight and melt the bear's face off. Unfortunately, southeastern Alaska does not get much sunlight, so Hopkins and Baldwin will walk you step-by-step through your last available option: hand-to-hand combat. The DVD can be found anywhere and is highly recommended!

To summarize: What do you do if you should encounter a bear? I have no clue.

The Countdown Begins

Last June, I went on a cruise to Alaska and I had heard a lot about the White Pass Railway in Skagway, an old train car that takes visitors through the mountains and out through the Yukon before circling back into Skagway. I looked it up online and some of the photos of the landscape along the train's route were absolutely breathtaking! I was geared up to ride it, only to discover that a passport is required to do so. Needless to say I was pissed and I vowed to one day return and wreak my horrible vengeance. Instead of doing that, I decided to just go ahead and get a passport.

Knowing that the time is fast approaching when you won't even be able to walk down the street without a passport, I figured it would be best to beat the rush and get one now. So I found the application online, printed it out, and took it to the post office this morning. I had two photos made and frankly if I had those photos I would scan them and post them here for your amusement, because they made me look like a drug addict who just fell out of bed. Yeah, that's a great thing to put on the one document that's going to convince other countries that it's safe to let me in. Thanks a lot, pricks!

Anyhoo, that disturbing business out of the way, I handed the lady all my documents and info, paid a hefty fee, and was on my way with the assurance that the passport would be in my hands in four weeks. Yeah. Four months, maybe. When it comes in, my folks will send it to me and I'll be riding that train like a fool. Yeuh!!

Now with Friday coming to a close, I realize that I only have one week to go and a plethora of emotions wafts over me....mostly dread at having to deal with the airports, airport security, all my luggage, and changing planes every few seconds. If only I could just click my heels together three times and be there. Sigh.

Let the countdown begin....

Why Alaska?

Lately, some part of me has been wondering if I've lost my mind to be doing what I'm going to be doing this summer. I honestly don't know why I feel that way, because there's really not much that could go wrong with it. I guess the anxiety stems from the fact that it's a pretty drastic change for me and that I don't really know anybody up there aside from one girl who goes there in the summers to work....but she very likely won't be able to go this year. Fortunately as the departure date gets closer (only two weeks left!), the nerves start to fade away and the excitement starts to kick in. At this point, I'm just glad to be leaving Alabama because I cannot stand it here. There's nothing to do here, there are no decent jobs to be found, there's just nothing here and more than one person has told me that the smart thing to do would be to find some way to stay up there year-round and never set foot in this state again. That would be okay with me, but I'm leaving that door open for right now.

Last night I was listening to some old Jimmy Buffett records of mine and I came across a song called "Stories We Could Tell". In it, Jimmy says that we do the crazy, spontaneous things that we do for the stories we can tell afterward. If you can live through it, then you've come away with some great stories and that song has kind of become my anthem for this trip. Can you imagine the stories I'll have to tell in just a few months? I really can't wait!

Won't you join me this summer?

On April 26th, I'll be moving away to Skagway, AK to work for the summer (or hopefully longer) and started this new blog (I have another on myspace) in which to document my adventures. To start things off, some info for the uninformed: Skagway is an old gold-mining town established during the Klondike Gold Rush and hasn't changed much since then. It's still a small, quiet, rugged town in which the economy survives almost solely on tourism. If the cruise ships were to stop coming in, the town would disappear forever. It is located at the northernmost point of the southeastern sliver of Alaska (see photo below), not far from the Canadian border, and about ninety miles or so north of Juneau.

Here's a larger view:

Now here are a few photos of the town itself just to give you an idea of what the place looks like and what I'm going to be surrounded by this summer:

That's it for now and posts may be a bit sparse here until the date of my departure gets closer, but bookmark this page and check back regularly for all the latest adventures!