Wow, what a week. It’s amazing how much can change in a person’s life in a matter of days. Well, remember what I said about that running water, well, that froze up on Thursday early afternoon. So when I thought we had at least a toilet to use, WRONG, now we are off to the port-a-potty when we need to go. Trying to stay on a positive note though, the port-a-potty is heated. (As of 4-8-09, the water is still not on, we have been able to carry buckets of water to the bathroom and use the actual toilets and flush them by pouring the buckets of water down them. If the water is not on by tonight it should be early tomorrow.)
We started Thursday by going over to the Murie Science and Learning Center (winter visitor center for the park) at Denali National Park for our new employee orientation. We had lots of paper work to fill out and all that new employee “stuff”. Then it was back to the resort for lunch and work. Kevin and the other maintenance guys got to work right away, however I was not allowed to start working yet. Since my official job doesn’t start until May 7 they are going to allow me work on the “Clean Team” prior to that. I was allowed to start that today. I got to work for one hour cleaning the bath house. Because the water is not back on and working yet there was not much we could do so that is why we only worked for one hour. It looks as though I will be working 2-3 days a week for the first couple of weeks, but at least it is better than nothing. Most likely starting mid April I will be working every day. (as of 4-8-09 I have not been able to work yet b/c the water is not on yet, we can't clean much without it.)
I know many of you must be thinking “What on earth have the Bowers’ done by quitting their jobs and moving so far away to work in an environment such as that?” Well to that here is my answer. . . . .
We started Thursday by going over to the Murie Science and Learning Center (winter visitor center for the park) at Denali National Park for our new employee orientation. We had lots of paper work to fill out and all that new employee “stuff”. Then it was back to the resort for lunch and work. Kevin and the other maintenance guys got to work right away, however I was not allowed to start working yet. Since my official job doesn’t start until May 7 they are going to allow me work on the “Clean Team” prior to that. I was allowed to start that today. I got to work for one hour cleaning the bath house. Because the water is not back on and working yet there was not much we could do so that is why we only worked for one hour. It looks as though I will be working 2-3 days a week for the first couple of weeks, but at least it is better than nothing. Most likely starting mid April I will be working every day. (as of 4-8-09 I have not been able to work yet b/c the water is not on yet, we can't clean much without it.)
I know many of you must be thinking “What on earth have the Bowers’ done by quitting their jobs and moving so far away to work in an environment such as that?” Well to that here is my answer. . . . .
This is the view from our room. Plus, have you seen any of the other pictures I have posted. Although, I guess the mountains are not for everybody.Not to mention things will only be getting better as we accomplish more tasks of de-winterizing this place. Also, here is just a few of the benefits we get just for being employees: FREE river rafting trips (dry suits are provided); FREE bus rides into the park (normally costs over $50 per person); FREE flight seeing plane rides; FREE rides on a real dog musher sled pulled by a team of dogs that raced in the Iditarod; and FREE visits to the Cabin Nite show (a two hour dinner and show activity).
Still, I am sure some of you think we are nuts, and we have wondered that ourselves, however this is an adventure of a life time for us. It excites us just to know that 10 or 20 or 30 years from now we will be able to look back at our lives and not have say: “What if?” We truly hope that each of you will be able to live out your dreams some day as we are doing. Just remember, it’s not about everyone else when it comes to living your own life, you can’t live your own life if you let everyone else tell you how you should live it.
May God bless each of you!
Teresa - As I look at all these pictures, I can't help thinking how great they would look in a digital scrapbook. Creative Memories has a GREAT digital scrapbooking program. I know it sounds like I'm just trying to sell you something, but I absolutely LOVE the software. It is so fun and you could do so many cool things with it and these pictures. You can see some pages that I made with it on my Facebook profile. You just need to make sure you get them in some sort of nice book to show them off because they are great pictures. Just a thought :).
ReplyDelete