More than Meets the Eye

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OK, back to normal blogging.

My first work week is finished.  Man it went fast.  This is the first time that I’ve been an hourly employee and time really flies.  What have I learned?

Kansas is 3 hours ahead of me.  Good thing that I’m an early riser so I can answer Martha’s call in the morning.  It’s like having my father-in-law around all over again, answering the phone at 5am just to say hello. (He would have loved this adventure.)  And it didn’t take Martha long to find a substitute.  Meet Pico, our new addition to the family, thanks to Annie.  😃 

Is that a happy mom!

Back to Alaska!  

Here’s the Blue house.  This is the Admin building for McCarthy Lodge (aka my office).  I’m still learning the operations, but I did my first task correctly.  I got payroll out on time.  Hooray, everyone likes me!  Still more to learn.

So, if I work in the Blue house, where do I live?  Why, of course, the Pink house.

Wait, it looks white.  Yea, yea.  It used to be pink, but the neighbors complained.  So, they painted it white, and left the door pink.  The colors may change but the name stays the same.  I live upstairs, on the left.  That’s my window!  

The season opened on Thursday night.  It was a gray drizzly evening, but we still had 40-50 people (employees, locals, and guests) happy to saddle up to the bar for warm food and drinks.  Sorry, no pics of opening night.  I was too busy eating one of the largest chicken sandwiches and drinking a cold Kodiak brown ale.  Everyone was happy.

Today, Saturday, is my day off (and tomorrow).  I hiked around to see what else was around McCarthy and found that there are many more camp grounds, communities and homes here off McCarthy Road.  These pics are all from around a mile West of the McCarthy walking bridge.

No Smokey the Bear, but we have the Spruce Moose.

I don’t think that I’ll fly in this plane (check the name just below the door).

There are some larger homes and communities, but I have to hike more to get to them.  I’ve made friends with many people, including a couple from St. Louis who have been coming up here for several decades.  They built a house down the road and drive up here each year, from St. Louis, for the summer.  I don’t blame them!    But here is the new style home going up around here.  

This is Charlotte’s yurt.  She’s a retired librarian from Montana, working up here for over a decade, and living in her yurt since 2020.  It is very roomy inside and very well built.  I meet Brady, as I walk the road to Kennecott in the mornings, who is helping build the yurts around here.  They have a wood burning stove in the middle of the yurt to keep warm, and have nice platform decks around it.  They build them 10 feet off the ground in defense of the bears, not the snow.  

There is so much more to see and do as Waldo keeps moving around.  Don’t forget to click on the Follow button so you get a notification when I post a new blog.  (That is if I did the link correctly). I hope you have a great weekend.  More to come from Alaska.  Stay tuned!