Leaving

After nearly five months of living, playing, laughing and crying together in Denali, its time to leave the place that we have called home. It’s strange all summer long you look at the calendar all season long and realize that you still have months left till you can go home all the while watching people come and go and at times wishing that you were able to join them, But when you are thinking that way, you keep finding reasons to stay and realize that as crazy as it is. You’re glad to still be up there. For when they are back in school and back in the hometowns looking around at all the people they are around. They keep thinking back to the amazing cast of characters that populate a national park for the summer. From the ones that last a few memorable days to the ones from around the world. And the ones that will become life long friends that years after a summer in the midnight sun you’ll still be talking to and remembering the crazy times you had that summer in the land of the midnight sun. Meanwhile you’re still up there.
Before you know it’s your turn to leave and go home, you shut down the building for one last time, deep clean it and pack away all the equipment for the winter to be pulled out once again in the spring. Then you gather your stuff and try to cram all the camping gear that your picked up over the summer into two suitcases and then board a bus or one of the last trains and head down to Anchorage for your flight home and back to the outside to see what’s going on with all the people that left behind that can never understand what’s it’s like to live in national park unless they have done it themselves. And why there’s nothing like it.

Where to next?

Before I will know it I will be hoping on a bus and heading south to Anchorage. Only In Alaska does you south to get to Anchorage. Before I head home there will be stops to see family and friends and then home where I have some much needed downtime before I head off to my next job which right now is scheduled to be back at Mammoth Mtn. for another winter. Which will be way cool being able to spend another winter in Mammoth and hang out with the all cool people at the Lighthouse once again. In last five years or so I lived in and worked in more places and states then most people will get too in a decade or more. Yellowstone (MT) Okay so it’s located in Wyoming big deal. Its MT folks, North Dakota, Virginia, Alaska, California are most of the places I worked and lived in. Each one is different and unique from the small town of Minot, ND to the big city of the DC suburbs to the wild and crazy wildlife of both and Yellowstone and Denali national parks. Where sometimes the employees are wilder than any wildlife, and the ski resort in California at Mammoth Mountain. Which the only difference between employees that work in ski resort and national parks are that at national parks they spend their time drinking and hiking and at ski resorts they spend their time drinking and skiing. It’s the same type of employee’s just different locations. With that being said, where to next? And I don’t mean what seasonal job; I’m talking about a long-term answer to the career question. You mean settle down in one place and stay for a while? Nah that’s not me. Okay I’m not going to be answering the question for a long time I feel, And that’s okay because life’s a journey and a open road and there’s so many places that I haven’t checked out yet. Overseas is one area I haven’t hit yet. So well see where I end up next. All I know is that end up where exactly where I am supposed to be when I am supposed to be. The only question is where will it be next? Just waiting to find out.

The righthand turn.

The Right hand turn.

For most of the summer I have been making the left hand turn at the entrance of the park and heading up to Healy and back several times a day. But in a couple of weeks I will be able to make the right hand turn and head down to Anchorage and be able to catch a flight home through stops in Ketichcan and Seattle before seeing what’s changed in my home town of Minot, ND. Which knowing that town, it’s not much. But it will still be good to be home for a while, take care of many things, see people and all in all be quiet for a while before heading out west to my next job in Mammoth Lakes. I'll get a picture up of the sign out of the park soon.