The kindness of Strangers

We walked to the post office this morning to mail a few last minute things, and pick up some Christmas presents.  We had no idea that this is what we would be getting.

So the lady brings these out and says "hope you guys drove a big truck." 

We laughed and said, "nope, we walked."

Suddenly, people we had never seen or talked to before started offering to drive us home.  One man offered to take my snowboard home for me.  I declined. 

We had no option, so a lady drove me and all these packages home, while Dylan and Ruckus hiked back.  

The kindness of people here never ceases to amaze me.  At home the likeliness of someone offering a ride home would have been less.  Everyone here is so friendly and willing to help a stranger out in a time of need.  :)

Merry Christmas to everyone.  

I miss you all very much.

FINALLY

Last night Dyl let Ruckus outside for a few minutes and immediately we heard him down the road a bit barking like crazy.  Since it was kinda late, Dylan went outside to get him to stop barking.  A few seconds later he came running inside and asked if I wanted to see a moose!

So I ran outside (without a coat in -10F) and there were two moose standing in the road up a bit.  They were HUGE.  It was dark so I couldn't see them very well, but it was still very cool. 

Baby it's cold outside

Life is good.

I am loving my job and living in Alaska.  The people are so welcoming and supportive it's like everyone here is family.

Work has been going very well.  My day looks something like this: get the lift set up and running for the day, hang out for awhile, go snowboard, bump chairs for guests, go snowboard, make friends with ski school, snowboard, watch people fall down, stay warm in the shack, take down the maze and close up the lift for the night.  Pretty great job!  Yesterday it was a whopping 5F at the base of the mountain, so I volunteered to sit at the top shack for a couple hours.  It can be boring up there because there isn't tons to do, but I was inside where it was warm so there was nothing to complain about.  Until I had to go to the bathroom.

Usually the weather here is about the same as in Illinois, at least the temp, but it has been oddly cold the past few days.  Yesterday I think we hit 7F and a for the past few days it hasn't gotten over 15F.  I've been wearing lots of layers and staying in the lift shacks as much as possible while at work.  During the day it doesn't seem so bad, but as soon as the sun goes down it is COLD.

Speaking of the sun, I haven't seen it in . . . . well, I'm not sure how long.  It does come up however, just not high enough to get over the mountains.  So our sunlight is like a continual dawn/dusk (which makes the mountains look awesome).  It does get light enough to seem like day however.  The sun comes up around 9:30 and it is dark by 4:30.  It's really not as bad as I was expecting.  Also, it's almost winter solstice, so once December 21st arrives our days will start getting longer and longer.

Christmas is soon, and it's going to be weird to not be at home with family for it.  Dylan and I have the day off of work, so I'm hoping we sit around and watch a Christmas Story over and over.  We are talking about having friends over for a Christmas dinner so we will see what comes of that.  

I hope everyone at home is doing well, I love to hear from you!

Avalanche Bombs

I have been hearing (and seeing on Facebook) that IL got some snow yesterday.  So did we!  We got 6 inches at the bottom and 2 feet at the top of the mountain.  Went out yesterday and got some powder but it was so windy it wasn't very enjoyable.  They had closed chair 6 and the tram due to high winds and it sounded like chair 4 should have been closed too.  I was going to make a chair 4 run since it wasn't crowded but I didn't want to sit on the chair for 15 minutes in the high winds.
Anyway, because we had gotten all this new snow, this morning they had to shoot avalanche bombs to trigger any avalanches before guests arrive.  We learned this morning that Ruckus does not like these bombs.  They started around 8 this morning and Ruckus was soon laying on my face.  Seconds after the next one, he had found his way under the covers between Dylan and I.  It was pretty funny.  Reminded me of a kid during a thunderstorm.
In other news, things have been going well.  Ruckus ran away the other day and ended up being out in the cold (the high of 15F) for about 5 hours.  We decided to go snowboarding rather than wait for him so he got stuck out for longer than expected.
Today is our last day off before 4 days of work.  Dylan is out getting some powder, I was going to head out in a little bit but then he told me all the lower trails are pure ice, so I think I'll take the day off!  My toe edge is coming much better and yesterday I was rocking it in the powder but the ice makes me nervous.

Not sure what else to write, so here's the board I am hoping to get for Christmas:

K2 Turbo Dream 157cm Wide