Pilot truck

The past few days I drove the pilot truck for the taylor highway section of the drive to Eagle. It was real fun for me to have a change of pace. Robin, the normal pilot truck driver has been working 13 hour days for the last 3.5 weeks and the company required him to take some time off. We had a training day- we talked about the church almost the whole time and he showed me the ropes of leading 2 motor coaches with 44 people each safely to Eagle.
I had a couple of interesting experiences along the way. The first day we came around a blind corner and there was an RV stopped in the road completely blocking the road. He was perpendicular to the road all the way across and he wasnt moving any time soon. There was a DOT gravel pit that he had tried to turn around in, and had drug his tail end raising his drive wheels off the ground. This was a sunday, but luckily for us a guy drove up in his beat up old ford pickup (blue and white) and happened to have a key to the loader that was there in the pit. He jumped up there, scooped up some gravel and made an alternate route for us to get around the RV. When we came back by that afternoon, it was gone so we think the loader pulled him loose.
Brad was driving a motorcoach that just up and died on him at mile post 15 on the taylor hwy. He reset the batery and tried to start it up again, and it went. We called Terry our supervisor, and he said to keep on keeping on while we could. So we limped it on in to Eagle. On the way back out it died 5 times up to American Summit and 4 times up to Polly's Summit. We then made it all the way to Chicken and headed out of there with high hopes. About 10 miles out of chicken it breathed its last breath. Brad was able to drop it in neutral and back down the hill into a pull out. It ended up taking a couple of hours of phone tag and coach hopping and bag throwing, but we got our people in to tok. This ended up being a 16.5 hour day for me... talk about overtime!
My last day I over slept. I am supposed to be to Chicken by 7:30 or 8 so i can lead the coaches from there to eagle. I didnt wake up till 7:30. I had to book it down the road and got there about 8:45, which is good for the distance and road conditions. I was driving the new Tundra. I pushed it hard, but only in the places where it was safe to. My hair was all messed up and I didnt smell as nice as I would have liked, but I was there and we had a successful run and had them to Eagle on time.
One of my room mates, Karlyn, has the NLV virus- fondly called Nor Walk or just "the walk" by us drivers. This is desctibed medically as "vomiting and explosive diareah". Real pretty, I know. As you might imagine this can become pretty bad in the confined area of the cruise ships. Any how if someone gets it they get quarantined so others dont get sick. So i got back today and found out I cant go back to my apartment. So i'm staying at Phil's apartment tonight with matt, one of my other roommates.
Long story short, I have 87.5 hours in 8 days, i'm homeless, and having fun! Life is good.

update

Alright- quick update...
On my last tour I had a fellow on my coach that is a medical physicist. He gave me his email address and encouraged me to keep in contact with him. He owns his own company and makes more than 200k and said I would start about 160k if I went to work for him after getting a masters in medical physics. It would be an excellent supplement to a teacher's salary.
I hiked eagle bluff again on my last run. We took a couple of the girls there in town up- they'd been begging us to take them. They were scared of heights, but made it up... and back down... Its fun.
I am not doing a highway run again for a while. I am going to replace Robin as pilot truck driver for a few days. It will be fun, but no chance for tips. I will have lots of overtime. I also am getting some cool charters too. Tomorrow I am running down to Denali to pick up a group and drive them up to Fairbanks. I think its because Phil was my trainer and I have made him proud with my driving and people's comments about me. I'm not complaining.
Life is good. I'm trying to get some thoughts organized, this pilot truck time will be good for me for that. I am feeling focused and able, excited for what the future has in store.

adventure

So this last trip up to Eagle I had a day off up there. I tried to get up to Dawson City, but there wasnt a room avaliable. So i had to find something to do so I wouldnt feel like a bum. I talked with some of the local kids- James and Clint, about climbing Eagle Bluff. There is a bluff 1, 2, and 3. We decided to go up to the first on that day off. So we left about 3 after Clint got off work and waded across mission creek and started scrambling up the side of the bluff. There was alot of loose rock so there are 2 rules: 1- if you dislodge a rock, call it, and 2- if someone calls "rock" get the heck out of the way. So we got up about 1/4 of the way and there was a rope to help us up the steepest part of it. It was steep and you had to move fast to keep from sliding back down. Feel the burn! James is 14 and was the first one up. I think it was good for him and his self-esteem. Nice kid. We got to the top and it started raining- weather tends to change rapidly up here. I did get some good pics that i will upload soon.
On the way down, kevin- one of the other drivers, decided to take off and just ran down. Which we did too, but by separating himself he put himself at risk. He ended up catching a rock in the back of his leg. It cut him up pretty good. We ended up going for a swim in an eddy in the Yukon River. Kevin chalenged us to see who could stay in the longest- whomever got out first is not important... Anyhow, kevin decided to swim to Moon island (it realy does look like a moon from above), putting himself at risk yet again. Before we could say anything the was already 10 or 15 yards down river and the distance was growing. We hollered at him and he decided to head back. by the time he got back to the shore he was about 10 feet upriver from a sheer cliff. If he had got down to that point we would have had to go up to the boat dock and grab a boat to get him. That would have been about 30 min. Who knows what would have happened then. But i'm glad to report that he's alive and well. Still kind of crazy, so i guess mostly well...
My groups were real impressed with my driving skills. One fellow was a Locamotive Engineer and pulled me aside and said, " son, you're good. You can tell you know what you're doing and that you were trained well." I had several others say similar things as they tiped me. All in all it was a good run.

life on the road

Well yesterday I got back from my second highway run leading my own tour. It is a pretty fun time. The youngest person I've had on one of my tours was 34. My last group was soooo... funny. One fellow from Penn. kept heckeling me from the back. Before this job that would have been tough for me to deal with, but it really helps make people laugh when you're able to go back and forth. Just before we said "bye" he told me that he used to have red hair like mine- whats left of the hair on his head is gray. It was fun.
Had a funny experience that will give some insight into the kind of group I had. They were sarcastically talking about how intimidating I was. So I jumped in and started agreeing with them- how big and bad I am- and then was trying to take off my jacket. The zipper got stuck and I pointed that out to them as one more reason I was so manly. I said "see I cant even get my zipper undone." A lady half way back in the bus offered to help with a "I'll give you a hand." With that the coach erupted with laughter and me and the nice lady turned a matching shade of red. It was great.
A little about the Taylor highway run- We leave fairbanks after doing a tour of Gold Dredge No. 8 about 1 pm. We drive past North Pole, AK. Stop at Rika's Roadhouse for a coffee break- I get some strawberry rhubarb pie. We drive past Delta- entering the end of the Alaska Hwy heading south. We stop for the night in Tok, AK a small town of 1500 people in the summer. We leave there in the morning at 6am and drive into Chicken AK at 7:30 for coffee- i get blueberry muffins and cocoa. Chicken has a population of 10. Pavement ends 3 miles before chicken. We leave there and head for polly's summit where we stop in case nature is calling and hand out lunch. Then we head down 40 mile canyon and arrive in Eagle, Ak about noon. Eagle has a healthy 150 people in the summer. Quaint little town on the banks of the Yukon river. It is very peaceful there. The tourists get on a boat and head up river to Dawson as we wave goodbye.

taylor hwy

Tomorrow I start my first highway run. I will be out of town for 3 days- day one to the gold dredge then to tok, day two to eagle, day 3 back to fairbanks with no passengers. I am the pioneer of the "mo mo's". The first of the five to go on the highway. I think the fellows in the office like me or something and want to see what I'm made of. I'm kind of nervous and wanted to be more prepared, but all I've got is tonight then i'm on the road. I hope my group is a good one... it makes all the difference in the world. I am real excited though. The highway is kind of tough to drive, but that will be an adventure for me.

flying solo

Yesterday I did my first city tour of Fairbanks. It was horrible. I took several wrong turns, gave some mis-information, stuttered, said "um" alot, and was late to our first activity. I had a good group though and they sure were good natured about it. They had a good time even though I screwed up alot. I ended up getting a real good tip at the end of the day too.
When I introduced myself I said, "hi i'm adam and i'll be your driver today. I'm up earning money for college. I'm 22 years old and single. And open to blind dates..." They loved it! It was a fun group and I'm glad I had them for my first time. They all knew my name and would use it when asking me questions and stuff like that. It was all I could do to keep a positive attitude despite my mistakes, but I did and it paid.

First 3 weeks

Well, a lot has happened in the last 3 weeks. Drove from Provo to seattle, flew from seattle to fairbanks, got a rundown place at the Anderson's, saw a fight, had a native offer me a drink, toured the interior of alaska for a week, saw black bear, moose, bald eagles, wolves, reindeer, tundra wookies, and hours of beautiful scenery, started training for the st george marathon, left a guy at the canadian border, learned all you could ever want to know about fairbanks, got my first tips, got assigned to the taylor highway to Eagle, got locked out of my apartment (my key I got made didnt fit), made tons of new friends, laughed, yawned, ate out alot, and slept a little. Its been a riot! I will try and keep this updated more often than every 3 weeks...