April Amusements

Tess and I are both training to become motorcoach drivers for the major cruise lines serving Alaska.  This is taking up A LOT of our time.  Especially considering we will only be driving part-time and seasonally. 

But it is a lot of fun.  A new adventure!  Tourism is big business in Alaska.  And "the season" is solidly linked to the cruise industry.  Basically, the state of Alaska rolls out the welcome mat in mid-May and rolls it back up in mid-September.  During that window of time, thousands of people will visit Alaska.  And, for many it is their "trip of a lifetime".  We're looking forward to sharing Alaska with these people.  It should be a fun summer!

In other news, we are having hardwood floors installed.  It's taking quite a while.  But, once their done, they should look great!  We had originally planned to have new carpet installed when we were thinking of selling the house and moving out of Alaska.  But, once we decided to stay put, we figured we'd rather have hardwood instead...  Since we changed plans midstream, we've been living on bare subfloors for nearly 2 months while we waited for the wood to be shipped from the Lower 48. 

April is typically a pretty ugly month in Alaska.  The snow is still melting and the whole place starts to smell like last year's dog poop.  It's amusing that there is a Febreze scent called "Alaska Spring".  Clearly the folks who named that have never been to Alaska in the spring. 

In general, we've had a very mild winter (unlike most of the rest of the country).  So, our snow cover is relatively light this year.  But, it's still there, still brown, and still blooming piles of poop everywhere you turn.  The good news is, in about 3 weeks, we should be done with snow and moving forward to lovely summertime!  The days are already pretty long.  So, the promise of summer is very close by.