Work and Play

 Work has officially begun and I am one happy camper.  (Most days, that is, but such is life.)  Seriously, I love my job.  It can be very stressful at times, but it's a good challenge.  Plus, I get to meet people who come from all over the world.  Unlike some of the other jobs I've held, I actually feel fairly competent at this one.  For now . . .

And, as an added bonus, I have some really awesome co-workers.  Many of them are older women and, to be honest, I might have been a bit biased at first.  How was I supposed to connect with these people in a completely different season of life than me?  Well, some of you will probably be happy to know, that many of these women are quickly becoming my friends and heroes.  They've been everywhere and done just about everything.  They're hilarious and wise and basically really awesome.

In the days before we opened we had what was called a "dry run."  We had a mock opening without any guests where we opened up the gift shop and restaurants for all the employees.  It was really fun and a fantastic idea because it gave us a chance to work out a lot of problems before our real opening.  Anyway, on my day off, after eating at one of the restaurants on property, some of my coworkers and I went for a hike.

This is one of my supervisors who started collecting fallen bark on the hike to use in our gift shop displays.  We found this really awesome piece that's basically a log where all of the wood had rotted out.  And now we're using it as an adorable bear den.

Besides work, Megan and I have also managed to find some time to go on little excursions and adventures.  Not far from the lodge is this cute little town, Talkeetna.  Every day we have shuttles that go there for our guests, but employees are allowed to ride on their days off if there's room.  I've been down twice so far.  It's basically a town that consists entirely of gift shops and little food trucks.

Spirit Dancer figurine

When Megan and I went to Talkeetna, we brought our sketchbooks and made it an art day.

Then, just this past week, Megan and I also had the chance to go to Byer's Lake.  It's a lake inside Denali Park, just about 15 minutes from our lodge.  There's several hiking trails and most days you can rent kayaks to go out on the lake.  The day we went was absolutely beautiful, which was nice because it had been cloudy and rainy for the past several days.

 Seriously, we couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.

Also, I've recently become obsessed Alaska's wildflowers.  I can't help but stop and take pictures every time I come across a flower I haven't seen before.  Or take even more pictures of the flowers I see everyday.  I can't tell you how many pictures of Forget-Me-Not's I have.

Well, that's all for now.  I'm having an absolute blast and this is shaping up to be one of the best summers ever!