Erin & Begee's Life on the Road

Bear alarm clock

2009-06-16T11:20:00.002-06:00

Yesterday morning, about 5 minutes after 7:00 am, we heard scratching at our window. Immediately, Erin sat up and thought someone was stealing our bird feeders. Well... someone was trying - or rather, some thing. A black bear! Begee ran to the window and exclaimed, "It's a bear!" We both stood at the window and watched a black bear trying to pull down our bird feeders and satellite dish. Having no luck with the bird feeders, he went around the corner and climbed up on our porch. The bear jumped up on our camp chair and pounded on the window for a minute. We really thought he was going to come inside! After a few minutes, the bear scampered off across the river. We watched him attempt to take someone else's bird feeders down before he disappeared. What a way to start the day!

Updates

2009-06-12T20:34:00.005-06:00

Okay, so we haven't updated in awhile. It's so much easier when you get email reminders from Kathi at Coolworks telling you it's your turn!

Since you heard from us last, we took a road trip that included: Little Bighorn Battlefield, close encounters of the third kind at Devils Tower, Douglas, Wyoming - the home of the jackalope, Dodge City, Kansas, where we walked the streets of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, Offerle, Kansas - home to young and innocent Erin's parents long before Erin was around, saw the boyhood home of Sam Walton (don't faint with excitement!) on our way to Oklahoma City, paid our respects at the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in OKC, Begee attempted to eat a 72 ounce steak in Amarillo, Texas, we saw aliens in Roswell, New Mexico, we visited the home of Smokey Bear (a step up from Sam Walton) in Capitan, New Mexico, spent a night in Albuquerque, where we almost ran out of gas, tried to see Old Town Santa Fe, but got lost instead and ended up at Sonic for some burgers and slushes, and ended up in Colorado Springs, where we went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and met Dinger at a Rockies game.

We are spending the summer working at a famous haunted hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where we hear "Is this where 'The Shining' was filmed?" 82 times a day (at least). Estes Park is quite beautiful, and we have found a home for ourselves on the banks of the Big Thompson River. We are lucky enough to go to sleep and wake up to the sounds of the water rushing down the canyon. We purchased two bird feeders and take great joy in watching the hummingbirds, mountain bluebirds, and various other feathered friends coming by our window for a free meal. Even though we're only here for the summer, this is the first time we've had a place of our own - no roommates, no employee housing, just us, and it is fantastic! Home. It's definitely where our hearts are. At least for the moment.

Since we've been in Estes, we have: gone into Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked around Bear Lake, to a Lake whose name we can't remember and saw a salamander (much cooler than you would think!), hiked around Lily Lake, walked around Lake Estes, been indoor skydiving, been to Dave & Buster's twice, went to the Denver Aquarium, we've seen a baby elk take its first wobbly steps, eaten a Costa Rican buffet, tried some barbecue at Dave's and some pizza at Poppy's, we've seen ducks race in the river, randomly seen Myles Savage of The Platters perform at the employee party (and are still wondering why), gone on a ghost hunt - TAPS style, seen some of the brightest rainbows in our lives, seen the Greatest Show on Earth, complete with dancing elephants, and just enjoyed being together in Colorado.

Estes Park is somewhere we've been told we should work time and again, much like Yosemite or Jackson. It's a great town, and we're happy to be here. On the horizon, however, is Antarctica... Yes, that's right, the South Pole, the end of the world, literally. We have been offered jobs in Antarctica from October to mid-February, and are seriously debating it - nervously and excitedly. While we think about that opportunity, we want to get the most out of this opportunity that we can. We still need to drive all the way across Trail Ridge Road, go up the aerial tram, ride some horses in the Rockies, go whitewater rafting past our house, ride the giant slide in Estes, go to Six Flags Elitch Gardens, go on a tour of the US Mint in Denver (yeah, really...), the State Capital (okay, yes, we are nerds), and the Unsinkable Molly Brown House, and perhaps another Rockies game or two. Oh yeah, and we have tickets for New Kids on the Block July 15th! (Jordan, I'm coming!)

Over the last 6 years, we have been lucky enough to experience a lot of things. We want to experience Estes Park, Colorado in its fullest and enjoy each day, though it's hard not to think about Antarctica. What better way to end our seasonal career than on the continent to the south aka The Ice? From Alaska to Antarctica... It has a nice ring to it. We shall see. Life is full of unexpected twists and turns, and we're just happy to be riding the roller coaster together.

Just can't wait to get on the road again...

2009-04-15T12:45:00.012-06:00

The final guests have checked out, the last skiers have been safely returned to their vehicles, and our end of season paperwork has been filed. We are finally finished with our 16th seasonal job in the last 6 years! Our winter season at Big Sky Resort in Big Sky, Montana is over, and not a moment too soon. That doesn't mean it's stopped snowing, however - we've received almost 2 feet of snow in the last two days! Luckily, we are not driving yet.

We have been staying in our good friends' condo, eating junk food (hello frozen pizza, jalapeno poppers, and enchilada cassarole!), watching junk TV (hello "Rock of Love Bus," "Dancing with the Stars," and "The Biggest Loser!"), and grumbling about the constant snowfall piling up outside the windows. Isn't it supposed to be spring? Maybe we'll jump in the hot tub a little later...

Our last month in Big Sky flew by, and while we didn't get to do everything we had hoped for, we did have some fun. Snowmobiling was not all it was cracked up to be, but an experience all the same. Sitting on a snowmobile, watching four bison walk five feet away from us was probably the most exciting part. Cross-country skiing was a lot of fun, made moreso by our crazy Argentinian (or is he Venezuelan? Just kidding!) friend/tour guide/cross-country ski instructor. Chico Hot Springs was not what we expected, but perhaps because we happened to be there on St. Patrick's Day. Oops! The water was nice and warm, though Erin had some version of the bird flu. Scrabble night was fun, as was bowling and the first three hours of the Pow Wow. Watching the Crazy Austrians became much more interesting once Erin blew into the giant Ricola horn and then Erin, Lesley, and Sarah were all recruited up on stage to sing back up and play the horn, while wearing crazy hats. Seeing our good friend Bill, founder of Coolworks, was really great, and we enjoyed dinner, conversation, and playing with his doggie. We were lucky enough to see him again a week later, along with Patty and her dog, on our way to the Lamar Valley, but we did not see any wolves. We were, instead, captured by a bison herd, who greatly enjoyed holding us hostage time and again. Of course, we spent a lot more time at the shelter with our doggie friends, new and old. We will go there tomorrow one last time for walks and tomorrow night for a Volunteer Party. Begee expects Erin to shed many tears at leaving "her" lovely Sadie, and Erin expects Begee to also be quite sad about leaving his newfound friend, Diesel, the stubborn and funny pit bull mix. Hopefully, there is another shelter volunteer opportunity in our future. We will not turn our backs on the shelter dogs; they've touched us too much to do that.

Overall, Big Sky was full of ups and downs, but we are happy to have experienced it all. We will remember all of the great dogs we met, our Argentinian friend, Javier, who could always make us laugh, our English friends, Lesley and Ian, who were always up for a good time, the never-ending snow, the bighorn sheep who we would often see on the way up to work, the elusive moose that we always tried to find - and eventually saw three at once!, the colors of sunrise on the mountain, the way it felt to ski down it on fresh powder, the joy in finally going down the 90 foot waterslide after eying it for four months, and having one final serving of Country Market chicken wings.

As we look toward the future, we are excited to spend one final night here with our friends, playing Wii, and eating Begee's famous Navajo Tacos. We expect to be at our summer job in Colorado 2 weeks and 2 days from today. On the way, we are hoping to see a famous battlefield, an alien outpost in the middle of Wyoming, one of Wyatt Earp's former stomping grounds, a memorial to a terrible day in America's recent history, a 72 ounce steak that Begee will excitedly consume, even more aliens - this time in New Mexico, and of course, a stopover at one set of our parents' houses for some home-cooking and rest (and hopefully more junk food and bad tv!).

Winter Under the Big Sky

2009-03-08T19:41:00.012-06:00

Greetings from Big Sky, Montana, and welcome to our new blog! We're sad that Coolworks Blogging the Dream is no longer, but we're happy to continue this on our own. We have been here in Big Sky since November 13th, but have yet to write about it. So, we thought we'd catch you up on our winter so far...

We've had many experiences here in Montana - some good, some not so good. Let's just talk good... First, we went on a snow cat dinner up to a yurt. (Both snow cats and yurts were completely unknown to us before this adventure. Check it out: http://www.skimba.com/ It was pretty cool!). Though we were at a ski resort together once before (Alta, Utah in the winter 2003-2004), Erin, much to Begee's dismay, has never learned to ski. So this winter, she signed up for her first lesson. It was scary at first, but now she's a real pro (as long as she doesn't have to gracefully get off the lift!). We also discovered our first snow coach on a trip to Yellowstone. Yellowstone is always beautiful, but in winter, all of the roads into the park are closed - thus, the snow coach. A snow coach is a van that has treads instead of wheels, like a tank! We visited the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center and pretended the pictures we took of both grizzlies and wolves were actually in the wild. We went dog sledding and pretended we were in the Iditarod! We visited our old haunt, Jackson Hole, Wyoming for Begee's birthday and enjoyed a steak dinner, a sleigh ride through the Elk Preserve, and Believe it or Not! went to Ripley's. We visited the Museum of the Rockies and saw Big Mike, a T-Rex who guards their doors, and inside, we saw the world's biggest T-Rex skull (but still haven't figured out what happened to the rest of him!). We went thundering down the mountain in inner tubes (okay, tubing down a 300 yard track). We went hiking down to a waterfall - or actually, we went slipping and sliding down an icy trail to a waterfall. We shared a dinner of shepherd’s pie, Thai fish cakes, and Pillsbury biscuits, as well as a lot of laughs with our new friends. We've seen moose, coyotes, bald eagles, elk, deer, bighorn sheep, ravens, magpies, and the sun casting pink, yellow, and orange rays over Lone Peak.

This winter, we started volunteering at the Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter (http://www.heartofthevalley.com/), and it is the thing we are recently most excited about and proud of. We have met many new friends, and as hard as it has been, watched many of them find their forever families. We are happy to have been a part of their lives, because they have definitely touched ours – from Chester, the shaggy black mixed dog to Gracie, the excitable pit bull; from Aspen, the spectacular black lab who loved to play fetch to the sweetest dog in the world, Lucy the little Staffordshire terrier, from Sadie, sweet Rottweiler/Airedale mix who reportedly caught a mouse on one of her walks to an 8 year-old ball of energy we both fell in love with - black and white, hairy Australian Shepherd mix, Supertwist. We go to the shelter once a week to walk the dogs and make new friends, and it has been the thing we always look forward to! There was a Moonlight Snowshoe Shuffle last week, and we had a great time with our new friends hiking up the mountain at night to raise money for the shelter. At the end of the night, we warmed back up by eating bowls of chili, drinking hot cocoa, and knowing that we were helping a good cause. They raised over $10,000 altogether that night, and we were so proud!

Our winter in Big Sky has not been quite like we imagined, but nothing ever is! We have one month and three days of work left here, and we’ve already begun thinking about the future. Erin has applied to graduate school in San Francisco, and we can hardly wait the 6-8 weeks it will take to hear the response! We have also applied to several summer jobs and are beginning to think about which road to take. We applied to work in Glacier National Park, Montana – a place everyone has always told us to go because of its famed beauty! We applied to a hotel in Custer State Park, South Dakota, which sounded fantastic, but perhaps not for us this summer. We also applied to a ranch in Colorado on a friend’s recommendation, but have yet to hear from them. We applied to The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado – a place we’ve always wanted to go, but sadly, we haven’t heard from them either. We applied to a resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and have had a few interviews with them. We applied to a hotel in Tok, Alaska and smile just imagining that summer. We also applied to a resort in Duck, North Carolina – on the Outer Banks, a place we have always wanted to return after a brief drive through on the way to Maine from Florida and a spectacular barbecue dinner (the bbq alone is reason enough to spend the summer in North Carolina!). We are discussing jobs at a ski resort in the Andes mountains just outside of Santiago, Chile, even though we speak no Spanish! We also applied for The Greatest Job in the World (http://www.islandreefjob.com/), but, sadly, never heard from them. The possibilities are endless, and that’s what makes our lives so exciting and our lifestyle so addictive. Who knows what the future may hold?

In the meantime, we still have a lot left to do in Montana. We are going snowmobiling on Tuesday. We want to try the new Big Sky Zipline. We need to finally play Scrabble with our friends. We want to go to Chico Hot Springs. We are thinking about going to the old Montana State Prison (although we don’t really know why either). We want to do some more snowshoeing, possibly another moonlight snowshoe on Wednesday. We want to try cross-country skiing (actually, Erin wants to try cross-country skiing, and Begee is dreading the moment it becomes reality). We would like to do some sightseeing in Virginia City (even though we hear there is absolutely no reason to!). The list goes on and on, and a month will go by quickly. We must take advantage of it while we can!

Thanks for taking the time to read our new blog! We look forward to sharing our next adventures with you. In the meantime, we wish you happy travels and great adventures!

New Beginnings... (originally posted 11/5/08)

2009-03-06T13:17:00.001-07:00

Hello from our home for the night - a Super 8 Motel in Columbia, Missouri! We are on the road again... cue Willie Nelson.

In the last three and a half weeks, we have taken a boat from Martha's Vineyard to Woods Hole, Mass., driven to Vermont, GOTTEN MARRIED, flown in a hot air balloon, taken a ferry across Lake Champlain, driven to Ohio, flown to Miami, taken a cruise around the Western Caribbean, flown back to Ohio, and driven to our current location of Columbia, Missouri. Whew! We are happy and exhausted, and we won't be writing much tonight because of it! We are, however, experiencing at least three new beginnings that have got us thinking.

1. We GOT MARRIED!!!! It was a beautiful crisp fall day in Vermont, and we couldn't have asked for more. We had our family, we had our friends, we had gorgeous fall color - reds, oranges, and yellows, we had love, and we had each other. After the ceremony we hopped into a hot air balloon and took a flight over it all. It was spectacular. We look forward to the beginning of our new adventures together as husband and wife. We are excited!!!

2. The election. After our honeymoon cruise, we went back to Ohio and volunteered for Obama for a couple of days. We were canvassing - out reminding people to vote. It wasn't much, but if we encouraged one person to vote that may not have, then we feel like our efforts were a success. Obama won Ohio!!!! That alone made us happy, but then, of course, as we all now know, he also won the election. We are so excited! It feels like a new beginning for America, and we are full of hope.

3. New jobs. It's that time again. In a couple of weeks, we will end up at our new jobs for the winter. As always, we are nervous, excited, apprehensive, curious, unsure, and happy. We will soon have new bosses, new friends, new housing, and new experiences. These will be the 16th jobs we have had together in the last five and a half years. These new seasons never get easier, but still, we are excited!!

We will be leaving the hotel in the morning, bright and early, and what lies ahead, we can't know. We hope for clear skies, friendly people, and safe roads. We are excited about our lives, our country, and whatever our future may hold.

Think Red Baron (originally posted 8/27/08)

2009-03-06T13:15:00.001-07:00

July 29th was our fifth anniversary, and we wanted to do something really special to celebrate the day. We’ve done helicopter rides, we’ve summitted Denali in a small bush plane, oxygen masks and all, we’ve been dog sledding on a glacier, we’ve been horseback riding, we often ride rollercoasters, and we’re getting married in a hot air balloon. Erin has even been skydiving. One thing that we’ve often seen advertised, but had yet to do, is take a ride in a biplane. Think Snoopy. Think the Red Baron. Yeah, that seems special, right? What could go wrong?

We showed up for a romantic sunset biplane ride over Martha’s Vineyard and got strapped in. Something feels fundamentally wrong about sitting in front of your pilot. Maybe that should have been Erin’s first clue that this would not be her dream come true anniversary celebration.

We put on our leather caps (yeah, because those will protect our skulls, right?) with the cool goggles connected to them, and they pulled the seatbelt tight. All was secure, and before we knew it, we were off!

Taking off in a flight on a grass runway is interesting. In fact, the Katama Airfield, where we got our biplane flight, is one of the last remaining grass airports in the country. There may be a reason for that.

Begee was instantly in heaven, laughing and smiling in that weird way that he does even on rollercoasters when everyone else is screaming, while Erin was instantly terrified, clinging to Begee for dear life. That was not the reaction she expected.

There’s something fundamentally wrong about feeling the air on your face while in a plane. That’s two strikes.

Our pilot, Mike, flew us over South Beach, out over Katama Bay looking for great white sharks (think “Jaws”) – luckily (or not) we didn’t see any because the water was too choppy. We went up and over Chappaquiddick Island, where we got our first glimpse of the Cape Poge Lighthouse. We zoomed up and down, all around, to meet the other biplane, and Erin’s fingernails dug deeper into Begee’s poor arm. He was still giggling and enjoying every second, not even minding that he couldn’t see the pilot or the fact that there was nothing but a leather cap between his head and the sky. Unfortunately, Begee wasn’t able to take as many pictures as he might have liked, as there was no way Erin was letting go of his arm.

Mike had asked before we got in the plane if we would like to do some fun stunt stuff – rolls and dives and the like – for free. He’d throw it in there for us. This is an experience people usually pay extra for. “We’ll see when we get up there,” Erin said. “Sure, sure,” Mike said. “Most people calm down once they’re airborne. They see how stable biplanes really are.” Erin has never been in the category “most people.”

“You alright there, Erin?” He kept asking over the headset radio. He was sitting behind us, but still could tell how terrified she was. Was it that obvious? Maybe it was the fact that with every right turn, she turned as far left as possible without leaning out of the plane. Maybe it was the fact that her head never left the forward-facing position. Maybe he could just smell the fear.
We flew over David Letterman’s house, Meg Ryan’s house (who we later saw at the grocery store – Meg, if you read this, you’re too skinny for your lips!), the “Jaws” and Ted Kennedy bridges, the beautiful coastline all around the island, and the resort where we’re working this summer. Mike even slowed down and turned back a little so Erin could take a picture of the resort, but that meant she had to move her head from the forward-facing position to one facing directly to the ground below, so no picture was to be taken. Oh well. We’ve seen the resort. We know what it looks like.

We flew low over the ocean. Begee especially enjoyed this feeling. Erin especially did not.

Once we circled in for landing, Begee became the sad one and Erin the happy one. She was never so happy as to see a grass runway! Begee was sad the flight was over so soon and wanted to do more, especially the loop-de-loops. Erin just wanted to kiss the ground.

Once we got out, we couldn’t wipe the smiles from our faces – Begee because of the amazing and exhilarating flight, and Erin because it was over. Mike said, “Look how happy she is to be on the ground again!” and then discussed with us how to conquer such a fear of flying in a biplane. He said Erin was by far his most terrified passenger. Great – what an accomplishment. He offered to take us up again when Erin is ready. “You’ll know when you’re ready,” he said.

As we write this entry almost a month after, she’s still not ready.

Begee, however, is anxiously awaiting his second flight, leather helmet, cool goggles, and all.

Why, yes, we have lived on an island! (originally posted 7/9/08)

2009-03-06T13:13:00.001-07:00

Greetings from Edgartown Pizza in the heart of Edgartown, Massachusetts - on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Once, when we were applying to seasonal jobs in the US Virgin Islands, our potential future employer asked us, very smugly, "Have you ever lived on an island?" Why, yes, we had. At that time, we were, in fact, living on Catalina Island in California. We had also lived on Oahu in Hawaii and Mount Desert Island in Maine. None of those impressed her. We wonder if living on Martha's Vineyard this summer would fit the bill. Somehow, we doubt it...

Alas... Here we are on our 4th island. May this be our luckiest! If you remember from our blog last year, we haven't had terribly good luck on islands - Hawaii, we got our stuff stolen, Mount Desert Island was the only time we quit and left in the middle of the season (and still feel guilty about it! Sorry, Gabrielle!), and Catalina almost burned down four days after we arrived. Yeah, you could say we were apprehensive about coming to another island. But here we are...

Martha's Vineyard has been much different from what we expected. What did we expect, you ask? Well, most places we've spent the summer start their official season around mid- to late-May, being in full swing by Memorial Day weekend. We arrived here June 3rd (the day after Erin's birthday!), thinking we were really late, only to find no one here. The first day we went to the beach and found no one else there to take our picture, so we had to improvise (came out well, don't ya think? Nothing like a self-timer and a stand made of flip flops!). The stores were still not all yet open, and the ones that were closed around 5 o'clock in the afternoon. It was almost as if the sidewalks were rolled up as soon as the sun went down. It wasn't until after the 4th of July that the island really got into the swing of things. The summer season here will probably end by the beginning of September - such a short season! Dorothy, we're not in Alaska anymore!

We also expected to see the rich and famous everywhere we went. Spike Lee has a home here, David Letterman has a home here, Meg Ryan, Richard Dreyfuss - they're all here, but we haven't seen them yet! You hear about Martha's Vineyard and picture celebrities lounging in their luxiourous surroundings and walking down Main Street perusing the stores, throwing down money like it grows on the trees in their fancy yards. It turns out, though, that Martha's Vineyard has three fairly normal towns with fairly normal populations. Majorly disappointing. Bring on the rich celebrities to sponsor our future traveling! We want to see Brad and Angelina!

We also expected perfect weather and to spend every minute at the beach, which we thought would be right outside our front door. Boy, were we wrong! One minute it's so humid here that you're sweating through your uniform, and then the next minute, the fog has rolled in off the water, blanketing everything. The island is also much bigger than we expected, and we have yet to ride our brand new bikes all the way to the beach (but we're trying!) - the beach is about 5 miles from where we live (we know, it's sad, but we're out of shape!). Also, there are all sorts of trees and plants here, some of which we seem to be allergic to (Erin's eyes haven't been the same since we arrived!).

On the other hand, sometimes it's good when things are not what you expect. We didn't expect to meet and work with a crazy Transylvanian who cusses in Italian, but she makes us laugh so much, even in the midst of all her fury. Erin wouldn't know what to do without her! We didn't expect to find the oldest carousel in America here, nor to have so much fun riding it and trying to catch the gold ring for a free ride. We didn't expect to hang out at the arcade, and we definitely didn't expect Begee to win an .mp3 player at one of the games, but we do and he did! We didn't expect to find Gingerbread Houses, which are so colorful and so elaborately decorated, but we have enjoyed walking around and looking at them. We didn't expect to be pinched by a crab while swimming in the ocean, but it's happened to each of us - twice! (Okay, so maybe that one isn't so good, but it's wildlife, right? That's something.) We didn't expect to find the shortest ferry ride in the world - the ride to Chappaquiddick Island costs $2 and takes about 2 minutes, but is worth it for the kayaking on and swimming in Poucha Pond. We expected lighthouses, but not 5 of them, and it's been fun driving to them all and walking around them, especially the Gay Head Light in Aquinnah (the cliffs there remind us of Big Sur, and our hearts go out to everyone there with the fires).

The thing about seasonal work is that you often go to places with preconceived notions of how they are and what they will be. If you are a tourist and only visiting the place for a day or a week, you may leave believing you've done and seen it all and thinking the place is like what you saw on TV or read in a magazine. Working and living somewhere, however, even if only for four months (yes, we have 94 days left - already counting!), really shows you the community of a place, its heart and its characters that make it special. It isn't the Martha's Vineyard shot glass or the t-shirt (though of course, we'll buy those too) that make us happy to be here - it's the guy we see on our way to work every day who rides his bike pulling a trailer with his dog in it, and it's being able to experience the 4th of July parade and fireworks and sample every bowl of clam chowder (Begee) or ice cream cone (Erin) on the island, trying to find the best ones (still looking!).

Being here in Martha's Vineyard hasn't been without its fair share of challenges (anyone want to be a shuttle driver or a front desk clerk? We desperately need staff!), but, as we turn that corner on Beach Road heading into Oak Bluffs and catch our first glimpse of State Beach and our first whiff of the salt water and sea breeze of Nantucket Sound, it makes us feel happy to say, "Why, yes, we have lived on an island!"

That time of the season again... (originally posted 4/24/08)

2009-03-06T13:08:00.001-07:00

Hi all! Sorry if we’re a little late writing our blog this time; we didn’t really think we had that much to talk about. As it turns out, we do have a little something.

It’s that time of the season again where, after 7 months here in Arizona, we find ourselves with 16 days and counting before the ranch closes for the summer. We’ve been filling out applications, sending out resumes, checking out websites, and talking with different companies all in hopes of finding our next temporary home. Normally, with 16 days left in a season, we would have long since figured this all out. After 14 jobs, somehow, looking for our 15th has provided us with more challenges than usual. (Yes, Mom, we have ideas, but no, we don’t quite know where we’re going yet!) Are we worried? Yes. A little. But we feel like we have some good leads, and we know that it always works out in the end. (If you are reading this and need a great Concierge and Shuttle Driver, hit us up!)

In other news, we have been trying to do all the activities in Arizona that we’ve wanted to do before we leave. We went to some hot springs yesterday – even though it was 95 degrees outside – and soaked for an hour and a half. Highly recommended! We’ve been doing a lot of hiking and have seen the desert coming alive again – cactus flowers blooming, rattlesnakes (eek!), lizards, and vultures. (Begee even saw a snake in a tree! *shudder*) Today, we went horseback riding again, and got to lope for the first time. Loping is a step below galloping but a step up from trotting, and it was so much fun! We imagined ourselves chasing after an outlaw with Wyatt and Doc. Then, this afternoon, we went skeet shooting and took out some clay pigeons. Begee hit 20 out of 50, and Erin had 6 out of 50. Guess we won’t be with Wyatt and Doc after all… We went to the zoo last weekend and hung out with the javelinas, orangutans, and lions. A couple weeks ago, we went to Sedona and saw the only McDonald’s in the world with teal arches, instead of the standard golden arches (that one’s for you, Karrie!). We also saw Snoopy Rock and our favorite Channel 3 anchors. We've also been to Jerome and attended a Phoenix Coyotes hockey game, where Begee met Howler while Erin drooled over Wayne Gretzky. We’ve accomplished so much here in Arizona and have really faced some of our fears (hello riding a mule into the Grand Canyon!).

We never expected to find such excitement and beauty in the Arizona desert, and we never expected to like working at a dude ranch so much. Someone we interviewed with today told us that she felt like she already sorta knew us because she had been reading this blog. She even said she was excited when she saw our names come through her applications. That made us feel nice! Wherever we go next, whatever we do, we can only imagine what adventures lie in store for us and hope that you’ll keep reading about them. Happy travels!

Experiencing the West with the One You Love (a Valentine's Blog) (originally posted 2/13/08)

2009-03-06T13:05:00.003-07:00

Hello again from the Old West - also known as Arizona. When we last wrote, we were developing a bad case of the Chrismas spirit. Christmas came and went and was very, very busy! We thought Santa came by way of reindeer, but when you work on a ranch, he comes by stagecoach - complete with horses! Our biggest Christmas miracle and present was our engagement! As of Christmas morning, we are officially engaged to be married, and we couldn't be more thrilled and excited about our future!

In other news, Arizona has been full of adventure and surprises. We have visited the site of the West's most famous gun battle - the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, complete with a daily re-enactment of the gunfight with Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. We even witnessed the famous thump of Morgan Earp dying at the Historama presentation (seriously, Google it if you haven't been there. That alone is worth the trip.). We have seen wild burros climbing in the mountains between the saguaro cacti, javelinas (wild pigs) running around the ranch, a baby calf frolicking among the horses, and we have seen snakes and lizards coming back from hibernation (still no sign of a tarantula, though!). We have visited several ghost towns and old gold mining operations and imagined what life was like back in the good old days. We have gone horseback riding out in the desert with real cowboys, ye haw! We went to the Grand Canyon to visit some friends we worked with in Jackson, Wyoming, and Erin rode a mule down into the depths of the Canyon (and was completely terrified looking over the edge in the ice and snow the entire 7 hours!). We volunteered at the Super Bowl, and met some fun people from Phoenix. We also met Spike, the Super Bowl mascot, Boomer Esiason (Erin's childhood crush!), Jerry Rice (and told him that we cheered for him at a live taping of "Dancing with the Stars" a couple years ago), the "Bus" - Jerome Bettis, and Josh McCown (Go Raiders!). We volunteered with the Salvation Army and had more fun passing out presents to families to give to their children than we had opening our own presents (except Erin's diamond ring - see above!). We went to the zoo to see the baby white tigers and the other zoo to see the Zoo Lights (who knew Phoenix had 2 zoos?!). We rode in the Gold Rush Days parade in a float made to look like a train from the Old West. We even went to see Caroline Kennedy and Barack Obama speak and came away feeling inspired and excited about the future of our country. We also went to see Asleep at the Wheel at Wickenburg's famous Del Webb Center.

Arizona has been so surprising for us in so many ways. We never expected the mountains and the snow here. We never expected to be COLD here - although spring is definitely on it's way; bring on the tank tops and flip flops! We never expected there to be so much here we want to see and do. We can't wait to see the desert wildflowers bloom and all the animals come back. It's nice to hear the birds singing, as they all return from wherever they went this winter! We've never really lived anywhere with actual cowboys, and Erin still gets a kick out of seeing big belt buckles, boots, Stestons and hearing the clank-clank-clank of spurs wherever we go (no, Begee has not yet purchased a big belt buckle of his very own!). Our jobs have been challenging at times, and it's interesting to think that we have less than three months left here (considering most seasons only last 3 months!).

Since Valentine's Day is tomorrow - our 5th one together! - we wish you all love and happiness, the chance to live the life you dream of with the one you've always dreamt of. We're so lucky to live the life we do with each other, and we are so excited about what the future may hold! We wish you all good travels and a Happy Valentine's Day!

We're engaged! (originally posted 12/27/07)

2009-03-06T13:04:00.001-07:00

Okay, so we know it's not our turn, but just a brief announcement: As of Christmas morning, we're officially engaged!!!!!

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams... (originally posted 12/13/07)

2009-03-06T13:02:00.001-07:00

One of the hardest parts of working seasonal jobs is that you can't go home for the holidays. Ski resorts, bed & breakfasts, lodges, hotels, and ranches are busiest during the holiday rush. Your family Christmas is most often sacrificed so that other families may have their own memorable holiday... but that doesn't mean the Grinch has stolen our Christmas spirit. Being able to share Christmas with each other is still warm and wonderful, and we've made some special memories of our own over the years.

In 2003, we were at a ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. It was definitely a white Christmas! That winter, we had over 600 inches of snow, and we learned about "interlodge." Interlodge is what happens when you are literally forbidden by law to step outside, for fear of avalanche. The snowdrifts were over our heads, and Begee was constantly shoveling the car out before we could go anywhere. When we did get shoveled out, we could usually find our way into Salt Lake City, and the night before Christmas, we walked around, looking at the lights in Temple Square. We also made a gingerbread house (though it didn't taste as good as it looked), and when we opened our presents from family and friends, we thought about how loved we are. We also had a company party, where our boss dressed up like Santa, and it was nice to share our first Christmas together with other people also away from home.

In 2004, we worked at a bed & breakfast and canoe & kayak rental company in the Florida Everglades. The staff was much smaller, and because of that, we were much closer with them. It really was like spending the holidays with a seasonal family, and we felt very blessed to know them all. We had a wonderful Christmas party, where our boss cooked ham, and Erin had a great time decorating the lobby of the bed & breakfast. There were alligators in Santa hats all over the Christmas tree, and stockings for each employee! We went to the town Christmas tree lighting with our co-workers, and as we ate cookies and drank punch, we all marveled about Christmas without snow. It didn't feel right to see palm trees with Christmas lights on them and Santa in flip flops, but somehow it worked.

In 2005, we worked at a lodge near Yosemite National Park. By Christmas, we hadn't had any snow, so we put up a big Christmas tree in the middle of the courtyard. Our boss loved pink flamingos, so one of the crafts for guests and employees alike was to decorate them! We all decorated pink flamingos - Erin's was Santa, Begee's was Hawaiian - and put them around the resort, as well as circling the Christmas tree. Later that night, everyone met in the Recreation Room, where we made our own stockings to hang, ate s'mores by the fireplace, and sang Christmas carols before lighting the Christmas tree. At our employee party, everyone fought over the toys, and we had a lot of laughs.

In 2006, we worked at a hotel in Seward, Alaska. It was a cold, cold Christmas! We went to the town Christmas tree lighting and drank a lot of hot chocolate before meeting Santa. We borrowed the hotel van and drove into Anchorage, where it was -20 degrees, to see "The Nutcracker." It was beautiful and magical, and the soundtrack danced in our heads for weeks. We cooked a wonderful dinner, complete with Begee's famous sweet potatoes and marshmallows, and we savored the beauty of the mountains in the winter. It was a quiet Christmas, unlike all the others, and that made it special too (so did the Moostletoe - moose droppings in the shape of mistletoe!). We made a little snowman and enjoyed being so near to the North Pole, even though we still didn't get to see Santa and the reindeer fly by!

This year, we're at a ranch in Arizona. Here we have cactus with Christmas tree lights on them, and while there hasn't been any snow, we have had rain! Last week, we went to Phoenix and had a great time watching the Rockettes put on their Christmas Spectacular. Last night, we drank hot chocolate and walked around at the Phoenix Zoo, looking at all their holiday lights. And we had an early Christmas present: when we got back to the ranch, we saw some javelina (wild desert pigs), which we've been wanting to see ever since we arrived here. Our Christmas this year is getting off to a good start, even though we have 12 days to go. We're looking forward to a lot of kids here for the holidays (as Erin is the Kids' Counselor), and it will be busy busy busy. It should be fun, though, too - complete with a Christmas Eve tree trimming and Santa riding in on a horse-drawn carriage Christmas morning.

So while every year, we hope to be home for the holidays next year, we've been able to experience some magical Christmases together. We miss our families and wish we could see them opening up the presents we send them, but our hearts are always with them in the gifts and cards we send. Whether it's Santa on skis, Santa in flip flops, Santa in snowshoes, Santa on a snowmachine, or Santa in cowboy boots, we've had fun experiencing Christmas traditions around the country and coming together with our fellow seasonal workers.

To everyone who reads this: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We hope that wherever you are and whomever you're with, love finds you home for Christmas...If only in your dreams.

And, now for something completely different... (originally posted 10/10/07)

2009-03-06T12:49:00.001-07:00

Howdy ya'll from the hottest place in the country today, at least according to USA Today - Arizona. Okay, so we knew it was a desert, but it's October, right? Doesn't that count for something? Apparently, not here. Things have started to cool down, though - if you consider 97 degrees cool. But, hey, they say it's a dry heat, for whatever that's worth (and really, what is that worth?).

Here we are at a dude ranch in Arizona, something completely different from all of our previous experiences. This job is our 14th together in our 10th state in 4 1/2 years. There's cowboys, horses, mooing cows and bulls, and more cactus than either of us has ever seen (who knew there were so many different kinds?!). We've been here just over a week and have been going non-stop. In between learning our new jobs, we've seen a thunderstorm, lots of little lizards, a jackrabbit, a huge bullfrog, quails (which, ironically, are often served for our employee dinners), and little birds with yellow bellies. We've met a girl who just came from a summer at one of our previous employers and have spent a lot of time talking about who we know in common (bwahaha!). We've hiked a little on the Vulture Peak Trail, though we haven't yet made it to the top of Vulture Peak (did we mention it's 97 degrees?!). We've seen the old Jail tree, to which they used to chain outlaws (did we mention it's the Old West?!). We made a wish in the Wishing Well, and we checked out a fine collection of western wear (please help me convince Begee not to buy a big belt buckle!).

At the end of September, when we left Catalina Island, we spent some time in LA with Begee's uncle and cousins, including Knott's Berry Farm (we highly recommend the Accelerator and the Perilous Plunge!), the LA County Fair (even thought we missed the deep-fried Coca Cola), and we ate more food at the buffets with them than we ate all summer on the island. We then took the train to New Mexico, and Begee's parents' picked us up there. We then spent some time in Colorado, including going to the top of Pike's Peak and spying a marmot.

When we were in Colorado, Begee's sister said that all of our blogs contain a reference to McDonald's (do they really?), so for her benefit, here it is this time: We are so excited to live in a town with McDonald's, we've already been through the drive through twice. Score for the almighty Big Mac!

On our road trip here, we stayed a night in Albuquerque and reminisced about 2 Octobers ago when we worked at the Balloon Fiesta (my, how time flies!). We also stopped at the Petrified Forest National Park, and Erin remembered her first trip there as a 9 year-old and how fascinated she was by it then.

Everything here at the ranch is still really new, and it's impossible to tell how this winter will play out. First impressions only go so far. As far as they do go, though, there's nothing like the stars in the Arizona sky or the colors the sun produces here when it's setting. Gorgeous! We've been thinking a lot about settling down after our time here and getting out of the seasonal work game (sorry, CoolWorks!), but it's moments like walking through a grove of saguaro cacti hand in hand and chasing a lizard that makes this life we lead feel so special (hooray CoolWorks!).

We just want to take this opportunity (since we now know a little bit more about all our awesome readers) to thank all of our friends and family for supporting us. You've put up with us living in 5 different time zones in a year, stacked our boxes up in the corner of the house, gotten our car ready for yet another road trip, and sent us candy-filled care packages when we needed them most. We really are so very happy and lucky to be living our lives together, and we are so very grateful to those of you out there who have helped us make our dreams come true (even if those dreams include belt buckles, McDonald's, a car with no air conditioning the hottest place in the country!).

Is That a Zebra or Just a Painted Donkey? (originally posted 8/15/07)

2009-03-06T12:47:00.001-07:00

We decided at the last minute to go to Mexico. As always, things never go quite as smoothly for us as they seem to go for the rest of the world. It was Wednesday night, approaching 7 pm and the start of the baseball game that we were running late for (of course). We decided to book the tour to Ensenada, Mexico online at our hotel's computers. Should be simple enough, right? Ha. Booking the tour was no problem, and the website assured us they would email our tickets within 72 hours. Good thing the tour was only 14 hours away. Oops. ]

We finally got to Petco Park in the 4th inning (after taking what were once - in 1913 - the fastest elevators in the world, so said the signs in our hotel. They are no longer the fastest; in fact, they are probably now the slowest. Not quite the same attraction.). The game was a rousing contest - San Diego Padres vs. Arizona Diamondbacks - and we savored our ballpark hot dogs.

Once we returned to the hotel, we took the world's fastest elevators (*cough*) back up the computer area, thinking we would definitely be able to print our tickets now. (After all, it had been 2 hours.) We were wrong. In fact, we woke up at 6 am Thursday morning to find we were still ticket-less. Hm. "No refunds," the website proudly proclaimed in bold black letters. This, we didn't see, until after the purchase had gone through. Crap. Isn't that always the way?

Several phone calls and emails over the next hour led us nowhere - nowhere other than the hotel lobby, where our plan was to sweet talk the driver into letting us go on the tour. As Begee sat and waited in the lobby of the St. James Hotel in the Gaslamp District in San Diego, preparing his sweet talking spiel, Erin ran back up to the computers one more time - at 8:29. She found the tickets had actually been processed! But, surprise, surprise, they said that we needed to call the bus company 24 hours in advance to guarantee our pickup. Hmm... Maybe we weren't supposed to go to Mexico, after all.

Right as we started to lose hope, the bus arrived! Our hotel was a scheduled pickup anyway, so even though the driver knew nothing about us, he said, "Get on the bus!" And get on we did with a huge sigh of relief.

In the end, it was worth it. Mexico was so much fun. We went through Tijuana, saw the huge corrugated metal fence that separates our two countries and pondered what it would be like to live on this side of the fence. We saw a house in the shape of a mermaid and found out the owner lives in her boobs (of course he does). We stopped at Rosarito Beach and wiggled our toes in the sand (imagine, real sand! Not trucked in like on Catalina.), saw the horses for rent, watched a man in a cowboy hat flying a kite with Spiderman attached, and debated going to the Gynecologist/Dentist (we wondered which check up he does first).

We then drove on to Ensenada and felt bad for the silence at our driver's jokes. Erin laughed, but she was alone. Ensenada was much different than we both expected. For one thing, they took us to lunch, where we ate white sea bass. Nothing against white sea bass, but we wanted tacos and tamales!

Lunch was good, though, and then we went off to explore the city. We saw Donkey Shit cigarettes (and are still debating about their appeal), we saw the Black Pearl from "Pirates of the Carribbean," we saw the biggest Mexican flag in all of Mexico, we saw three huge heads of Presidents, Begee tried on a Mexican wrestling mask after much prodding by Erin, and we each tried on a sombrero (and paid $1 for the privilege and the accompanying photos). We learned to convert dollars to pesos, and we giggled about the Spanish on our Coke cans (okay, yes, we're nerds). We also saw all the tequila and Viagra one could ever want, and we suffered through a strong margarita. (We should have ordered Corona!)

We got back on the bus, headed back to Tijuana. Everyone was tired and ready to cross the border, but we had one more bathroom stop to go in Tijuana. As we turned the corner onto Revolution Ave, there was a collective gasp on the bus, as we all saw a zebra with a cart attached, set up for photos. Our co-worker here on the island swears it's just a painted donkey. Not that that's any better.

Our time in Tijuana was short, but the lines at the border, were not. It amazed us how many cars were trying to get into the US versus the five minute line into Mexico. We all had to get off the bus and go through the border ourselves one by one. After some nervousness about being left in Mexico, we all hopped back on the bus, and headed into the San Diego sunset.

In the end, we had a great time in Mexico, and the drama with our tickets only added to the constant adventure in our lives (though sometimes we wish for less excitement). We'll never know if it really is a zebra or a painted donkey, we'll probably never again ride the world's fastest elevators, and we'll never visit the Dentist/Gynecologist, but it's good to know they're there if we want to. We'll just buy our tickets 72 hours sooner.

Twenty-Six Miles Across the Sea... (originally posted 6/20/07)

2009-03-06T12:42:00.002-07:00

Santa Catalina is a-waitin' for me... at least that's how the song goes. It's actually like 21 miles, but whatever, the song is catchy!

We've been here on Catalina Island for nearly 2 months now, and my, what a roller coaster it's been. Less than a week after we got settled in, there was a huge fire that made national news. All told, it burned 4700 acres or so, one house, a couple of warehouses, and came close to town - too close for our comfort. It was scary. There was ash, flames, and smoke in the air, emotions ran high, and we wondered if we would be forming a back-up plan for the summer (well, we have always wanted to work for a rafting company...). Where in the past we had gone to New Orleans to assist the evacuees, here we had become the evacuees ourselves. Luckily, we didn't end up at the Red Cross shelters or having to drink any more FEMA water. We spent 2 nights at a co-worker's house in Long Beach, with her two energetic and friendly Irish Setters, and her three even more energetic teenagers. We returned to the island and our jobs - shaken, but not deterred from having a great summer on the beach (even if the "beach" is a slab of concrete with trucked-in sand and lots of pebbles).

So far this summer, we've visited bison in the interior of the island, said hello to some Catalina Gray Foxes, saw a Catalina eagle and thought of his Alaskan cousins, been in a semi-submersible and seen fish all around us, learned what a Garibaldi is (Google it), sailed with the flying fish (Google them too), seen a Giant Sea Bass, sang pirate songs with an organ-playing buccaneer at the opening of "Pirates of the Caribbean 3" (what better place to watch a pirate movie than an island?), been accosted by sea gulls and pigeons on a daily basis, watched orcas soar in sunny San Diego, met Captain America in Hollywood, got spooked by ghosts on the Queen Mary, camped in Two Harbors - truly an island paradise, eaten more ice cream than we care to admit, did a taste of Avalon and tried swordfish, calamari, and day old spaghetti (much better than it sounds), and dodged golf carts at every turn. We've seen a Bird Park with no birds, a Casino with no gambling, a 3rd Street without a 1st or 2nd, seen fish that fly and birds that swim, and we have experienced May Gray and June Gloom. We've seen Gwyneth Paltrow filming a movie on the streets of Long Beach, had Nicholas Cage blow smoke from his cigar at a co-worker, celebrated a 70th birthday with another co-worker who used to date John Wayne, and, most exciting of all, dined with Shamu. We've met fun and interesting people from around the world, and at the company softball game, Begee earned the nickname "Big Papi" for good reason, as he helped the Sightseeing team defeat the Hotels team!

This summer may not have started out the way we had hoped, but we're starting to settle in nicely now. The fire damage is visible in the interior, but it's interesting to see the bison eat the cactus, now free of their spikes - nature at its best. We're not sure what effect the fire will have on tourists, but we hope they're not scared to come to this romantic and magical place. Catalina is the third island we've lived on, and so far is our favorite. We never get tired of smelling the salt in the air and watching the palm trees dance in the ocean breezes, and there's so many colorful flowers everywhere you look - from bougainvillea to bromeliads, from hibiscus to birds of paradise, from prickly pears to California tree poppies. They're not the lupine and fireweed of Alaska, but they still add color to our lives.

Tomorrow is the summer solstice, and we're still not used to the sun setting at 8:30 on the longest day of the year, but hearing crickets at night somehow make up for that. At least for Erin. Coming to Catalina for the summer, we hoped to not replace our Alaskan adventures, but to experience life on island time once again. We still both miss Alaska and know we'll return again, but every time we wiggle our toes in the sand or jump in the Pacific, we start singing "Twenty-six miles across the sea, Santa Catalina is a-waitin' for me..." Told ya it was catchy!

California Dreamin' (originally posted 5/2/07)

2009-03-06T12:41:00.001-07:00

Writing to you from our comfy hotel room in Pasadena, California...

We finished out our winter in Seward, Alaska, on April 30th. The Mayor's Cup Dog Sled Race went well, and Erin came in 9th out of 21 racers - not bad for her first shot! More importantly, we had a lot of fun, cooked some hot dogs, and bonded with Seward's finest. We also got published again in the local newspaper, The Seward Phoenix Log, several times - including a picture coming out tomorrow of Begee eating a Hungry Bear (that is, a 4-patty 2 1/2 pound bacon cheeseburger with a pound of fries at Terry's Fish 'n Chips, the first person to ever complete the task, thereby winning him a free t-shirt and his picture on the wall.)

After sending out a ton of applications all winter, we decided to go to Southern California for the summer. It should be quite different from our winter in Alaska! When we left Seward, it was 50 degrees, and when we arrived in LA, it was 70. Today, we walked around in flip flops and shorts, and boy, did it feel good!

We have a couple of days to explore before arriving at our jobs, and we are taking full advantage of them. When we got to the hotel last night at about 9 o'clock, we dropped our bags in the room and went running for the pool! Swimming outside under the full moon and watching the palm trees sway in the wind made us giddy. Excitement is definitely coursing through our veins.

Today, we slept in until noonish - and we needed it! We then got some lunch at KFC, where we watched a woman with a diaper on her head come in, steal some soda, and walk out again. LA definitely has some interesting characters... We were here on vacation last year in January, and we had a great time. After being in Alaska for a year, though, we definitely are feeling a little bit of culture shock - traffic, people, and the huge Port of Los Angeles; Toto, we're not in Seward anymore!

This afternoon, we went to Long Beach and toured the Queen Mary, including a really cool and worthwhile ghost tour to add to our list (our recommendation: always do ghost tours whenever available - they're so fun and interesting!). After the Queen Mary, we drove to Redondo Beach (just like in "Little Miss Sunshine!"). We went to the pier, watched the men fishing and children chasing pigeons, and then we walked along the beach, wiggling our toes in the sand. Oh, how different the water is here compared to the beaches in Alaska! Watching the sunset on the beach, with the waves crashing over our feet made us remember why we chose to come here for the summer. We felt such joy and complete happiness in that moment. Life really is good.

Tomorrow, we're planning a trip to Universal Studios, and then on Friday, we're going to try to walk around in Old Pasadena before getting on the ferry to our summer home. We're happy and excited, nervous and a little sad to have said goodbye to Alaska (at least for the time being), but, in the end, as long as we've got each other, we have all we need. Of course, seeing Cal Worthington commercials here in California gives us a chuckle and reminds us Alaska is always in our hearts.

Iditarod 2007 (originall posted 3/14/07)

2009-03-06T12:38:00.001-07:00

According to legend, the word "Iditarod" means "a distant or far off place." Begee first became interested in the Last Great Race, known as the Iditarod, the 1100-mile dogsled race from Anchorage (ceremonial start) to Nome, his first summer in Alaska when he saw a dog team in Denali National Park. He's followed the Iditarod every winter, getting updates online when we were in Utah, reading about it in the newspaper when we were in Florida, and boring Erin to death with the standings when we were in California. She was never so interested. It was a far off place, indeed.

Two of our highlights this past summer in Seward, where the original Iditarod Trail began, included the opportunity to go dogsledding ourselves. First we went at Iditaride, the kennel run by Mitch Seavey, who won the Last Great Race in 2004. It was a trip through the woods on sleds with wheels, but it still sparked our imaginations. Then we went via helicopter to the Godwin Glacier and were pulled by a dog team in the snow, which was slightly more realistic. Erin became more interested in the sport, especially after she got to play with the puppies.

One of the reasons we decided to stay for the winter in Alaska was the opportunity to watch the start of the Iditarod in person. The Iditarod is the most important sporting event in Alaska, and its tradition is based on the spirit of dog teams, which were once the only way to travel throughout the state in the winter. The race brings out all Alaskans, from volunteers in Anchorage at the start, to communities all along the trail, where people come out to meet the mushers and dogs. The Iditarod carries Alaska's heart and soul, combining its past with its future to unite Alaskans young and old.

First, we went to the Millenium Hotel, the official Iditarod Headquarters, for a booksigning. At the booksigning, we met Hobo Jim, Alaska's Balladeer, Gary Paulsen, Iditarod musher and famed writer (Erin read "Hatchet" in 8th grade, and Begee has read his book "Winterdance" and loved it), Lisa Frederic, who wrote a book about running with champions, and Gay Salisbury, who wrote a book Begee has been hunting down since August, "The Cruelest Miles" about the original serum run that became the inspiration for the Iditarod race.

Then, on Saturday morning, March 3rd, at about 9:00 am, we stood in anticipation. It was a balmy 7 degrees with windchills predicted at around -15 degrees. We were prepared. Begee had on 3 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, a big Carhartt coat, a hat, and gloves. Erin had on 2 pairs of socks, 3 pairs of pants (including snow pants on loan from her boss!), 4 shirts, a fleece, a coat, a hat, a scarf, and 2 pairs of gloves. We also had Egg McMuffins - the most important part (not available in Seward)! We stood at 4th and B Streets in downtown Anchorage and watched all the mushers and dogteams prepare to start. Early favorites were Lance Mackey, whose father and brother had both won on their 6th Iditarod try with bib number 13, and it was now his 6th try, and he'd camped out for days to get bib number 13, Dee Dee Jonrowe, local Anchorage favorite, Jeff King, last year's champion, and Mitch Seavey, Seward musher.

The first dog team out of the gates was led by Susan Butcher's family. Susan was a famous Alaskan musher who had recently lost her battle with cancer, and the state had proclaimed March 3rd as Susan Butcher Day. We watched each team come to the start, we counted back from 10, and we cheered them on their way. Each team took our well wishes and our dreams along with them on the journey to Nome.

As we watched Lance Mackey, lucky number 13, start the race, we knew he would win it - a Cinderella story come to life in the Last Frontier. We spent the next nine days watching the updates as much as possible, Erin now just as excited as Begee, and looking online when we could to get the up-to-the-minute reports. We saw Lance Mackey lead his way into Iditarod history by winning the Iditarod after the Yukon Quest (the 1000 mile race from Whitehorse, Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska), a couple weeks before. We cheered as we saw him come into Nome first on live tv. He won - just like his dad and his brother, number 13, on his 6th try - a real dream come true! Watching a jubilant Mackey, we felt happy to be able to share this moment with him and with the state.

After a long, cold winter in Alaska, getting caught up in the excitement of the Iditarod was one way to warm our hearts, if not our bodies (it was -30 with windchill today!). Now that it has ended, spring must be on the way (at least that's what we're telling ourselves - it is still Alaska with its 9 month winters). The sun is coming back (and Daylight Saving Time has actually tricked us into feeling like maybe it's warm outside when we see it), though - small steps.

Next up: Erin will be running the Mayor's Cup Dogsledding Race, which is a fun event in Seward for local businesses. Each business submits a racer with absolutely no experience to run with a team of 3 dogs with the big goal of trying not to embarass him or herself. It will be a good way to come full circle with our own personal call of the wild, and it will be a good way to say goodbye to our Alaskan winter. Erin is most excited to see the puppies!

Walkin' in a winter wonderland... (originally posted 1/17/07)

2009-03-06T12:19:00.001-07:00

Winter in Alaska has not been entirely unlike our last few winters - in 2003-2004, we were at a ski resort in Utah where we got over 600 inches of snow and spent a majority of our time waiting for avalanches, and last winter we were at a lodge outside of Yosemite National Park and got snow, more snow, and even more snow, but at least we learned how to snowshoe (okay, so 2004-2005 doesn't count. We were in Florida. Oh, sunny Florida, with coconuts, sandy beaches, and no fear of snow ever.). We're not unaccustomed to snow - Begee hails from Colorado, where he was practically raised on skis, and Erin is from Ohio, where more than once she woke up excited to watch the TV listings for school closings (oh, glorious snow days!). We know snow. We like snow. But the snow in Alaska is a different kind of snow altogether.

Begee's the unlucky one. He walks to work. In the snow. Every morning and every afternoon. A mile - uphill both ways! (Okay, maybe not, but it is a mile.) And he would be fine with this, except for the snow. See, it doesn't just snow here. It rains. And then it snows some more. And then it rains some more. So what you're left with is one big ice skating rink covering the sidewalks and streets of Seward. It's slippery, and even with our newfound YakTraks (big rubber bands with spikes that go on your shoes to give you some traction), around every corner is a patch of ice waiting to make you fall. It's like an obstacle course!

And speaking of obstacles, let's talk about the windchill. Sometimes the sky is blue and the windchill is -15 degrees, and then we actually wish for snow! Imagine. When it snows, it warms up. This boggles our minds! We go for days and days wishing for no more snow, dreaming of Margaritaville and little umbrella drinks, and then we get our wish (without the umbrellas). It stops snowing. But then it gets cold. So cold your nose turns pink as soon as you step outside, so cold your lips turn blue, and so cold you actually wish for snow. Okay, so maybe we're the lucky ones. North of us they had -50 degree temperatures - temperatures, not including the windchill factor. That's enough to freeze any margarita!

Weather aside, we have had a great winter here. The holidays are always hard away from our families, but at least we got to meet Santa Claus (we aren't that far from his home, ya know). We helped him light the town Christmas tree - right in downtown Seward - and then had hot chocolate and cookies. We cooked up an amazing Christmas dinner of crab legs and halibut - they don't have Christmas like that in the Lower 48! We also went to Anchorage to see the Oregon Ballet Company's production of "The Nutcracker." It was beautiful and wonderful and put us in the holiday spirit. (Too bad there was snow in it, but at least it wasn't real!)

Last week, we got interviewed by a local journalist about all our travels and got an offer to write for the Seward Phoenix Log - very exciting! Winter in Alaska has been a complete change over the summer here. On the summer solstice, we enjoyed nearly 24-hour daylight, but on the winter solstice, we had about 5 and a half hours of it. We're gaining daylight every day, but whatever sun we have, it definitely doesn't make it feel warmer! Seward in the summer is bustling full of people coming off the cruise ships or train or buses, but in the winter, you see the same faces and can actually hear yourself think. It's quiet, but it's beautiful. It sounds strange, but it's nice for us to actually be somewhere long enough to watch the seasons change. The summer is coming quickly - the first cruise ship comes in four months - and sometimes, especially when walking to work in the snow, it seems like it can't come quick enough, but sometimes, like making snow angels in the dark at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, it seems like winter could last forever. And that actually isn't such a bad thought. As long as we have our YakTraks and frozen margaritas!

New Orleans Habitat for Humanity (originally posted 11/9/06)

2009-03-06T12:16:00.001-07:00

We went to New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity the first week of October. We were in Violet, Louisiana, in St. Bernard Parish - or, as they say, Saint Bahnahhhd's. It was an experience unlike any other we've shared over our years of traveling together.

When we left Alaska, it was snowing. When we arrived in Louisiana, it was 95 degrees with 95% humidity. It was a shock to the system.

The first night we stayed at a hotel in the French Quarter. Everything seemed normal - bars open, lots of gift shops and t-shirts, good food on every corner - jambalaya, gumbo, crawfish, the food Louisiana is famous for. We thought maybe they didn't really need our help. Hurricane Katrina had been thirteen months prior, and everything seemed to be getting back to normal. The next day, we had lunch at Margaritaville, shopped in the French Market, and then, feeling like we had a taste of New Orleans, headed to Camp Hope (approximately 15 miles south of the French Quarter in St. Bahnahhd's)(http://www.camphopeonline.com), the volunteer camp we would call home for a week. The drive there really opened our eyes.

Just a few miles outside of the revelry and beads of the French Quarter we found a whole different world. We saw cement slabs with no houses because they just washed away. We saw stairs leading to nothing because the houses are just gone. We saw cars on top of cars on top of someone's roof. We saw a plane that crashed (or washed into) someone's driveway. We saw churches, schools, restaurants just flattened, and movie theaters with signs still announcing the movies from September 2005. We saw stores and restaurants just boarded up and abandoned. Driving through St. Bernard's Parish and the 9th Ward, two of the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina, made us realize how much they really did need our help, but we still had no idea what we would be in for.

The first night we had a brief orientation and were put into teams. Our team, Black 2, was all women and Begee! (We knew who would be lifting the heavy stuff!) On our team, we had a lawyer from Chicago, two hair stylists from California, a bioarcheologist from Arizona, a nurse from Virginia, a real estate agent from Portland, a golf pro from Toronto, and an Americorps member from Minnesota. That first night, we were all so excited and apprehensive, unsure of what the next day and the week ahead would bring.

Waking up the next day at 6 am was hard (this was supposed to be a vacation!) and eating rubbery eggs, overcooked potatoes, and spongy sausage was even harder. (And the lunch, oh the PB&J's and HooAh bars...) Getting outfitted with our PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) was an adventure - safety goggles, hard hats, breathing masks, boots, and gloves, with some donated old shirts on top (who knew you couldn't wear tank tops to gut houses?). We learned we would be gutting houses primarily, even though we weren't sure what that meant. Still, we boarded the bus to our first job site - a house owned by an elderly couple who had lived in it for over fifty years.

Gutting houses means going through houses that haven't been touched since the hurricane - clothes, furniture, food in the fridges, canned goods on the shelves, photo albums, everything the people who lived in the houses owned all strewn about inside. Often the owners were evacuated and still haven't been able to come back. Water got to 12, 16, 20 feet in these places, and now they're covered with mud, muck, mold, sludge, and all sorts of other disgusting things - including cockroaches, mice, rats, spiders, and snakes. To go into these houses, we needed to be physically and emotionally prepared. What we could salvage, we did, but most of these people's lives were no longer salvageable.

Our job was to clear the houses of everything - possessions, as well as dry wall, moldings, doors, floors, appliances, furniture, all of it, so that these people could have a fresh start. It was hot, humid, exhausting, hard, emotional, and claustrophobic work, but we did it for the elderly and disabled who couldn't do it for themselves. At our first house, we got to meet the owners, and they were so thankful. The man had Erin remove a small cross for him above the front door that was placed there when the priest blessed their house 50 years ago, two months before his daughter was born. It was the moments like that that made it all seem okay (even getting up at 6 am!).

In addition to gutting, we also got to work in Musician's Village, which is a neighborhood where Habitat is rebuilding houses primarily for jazz musicians who keep the spirit of New Orleans alive. The houses are pink and purple, blue and yellow, green and orange, every color of the rainbow, and as we heard one person say, "It's like a small spot of hope in the midst of all the destruction." We were painting the inside of a house and worked side by side with a new owner, who as per Habitat policy, must commit 350 hours of work on the houses as his down payment.

Our last day in New Orleans, we took a couple tours and met a 71 year-old jazz musician playing saxophone by the Mississippi River. He told us his story of Hurricane Katrina, evacuating with his friend, a potbelly big, and a fat girl in a two seat pickup truck on the road to Branson. It didn't get better than that.

Going to New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity was a worthwhile experience, worlds better than vacationing at the beach (though we still dreamt of the beach everyday!). It was hard work, but we bonded with such amazing people on our team (Black 2!) and learned a lot about ourselves, each other, and the good that really does exist in people. We hope to go back soon, maybe in February when it's not so hot, to help build more houses. The houses that are not gutted by December 31, 2006, will be involuntarily demolished. When we left, there was still a lot of work to be done. If you are reading this now and have even just one day or one week, please consider helping.

Fall Equinox (originally posted 9/20/06)

2009-03-06T12:14:00.000-07:00

Today is the first official day of fall. Or as our former co-worker reminded us in an email earlier today, for her, in Antarctica, it is the first official day of spring. Spring sounds much more promising.

Winter in Alaska is coming fast. It's getting darker and darker everyday, the fireweed is all gone, the humpbacks are migrating back to Hawaii, the puffins are flying out to sea, and there is snow on the mountaintops - snow, or "termination dust," as Alaskans call it - the scariest sign of all that the summer is over. The cruise ships have left, the train is done, the restaurants are closing, and the gift shops are all having huge end of season sales. Seward is becoming a ghost town.

Normally, as the summer ends, we would be packing up and getting ready to go somewhere new. We are leaving in less than ten days... but for the first time, we are coming back. For the winter. The long, dark, cold winter. Our first in Alaska.

We're heading to New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity - better late than never, even if it is only for a week. We wish we could do more, do something better to change the world, but on two seasonal workers' incomes, this week will be a good start. We'll be painting, building, hammering, sweeping, and all sorts of other exciting vacation-type things (who needs to lay on the beach?). Then we'll be seeing our families in Ohio and Colorado. Not exactly migrating to Hawaii - but we've already tried that route once. It's time to try our first winter in Alaska. You can't call yourself Alaskan (not that we're even sure we would or could call ourselves Alaskan anyway) without spending a winter here. We might as well see what the fuss is all about - hey, it's not Antarctica, right? (Not yet, anyway.)

Tonight we made halibut quesadillas from halibut we caught in Homer earlier in the summer. It was our first time deep sea fishing, and our first time in Homer. We're having lots of fun firsts trying to cook all this fish, and we had lots of fun firsts this summer. These firsts may not be the same as moving to a new job, the thrill of the wanderlust, but they make life exciting, nonetheless, even if in a different way altogether.

We're working at different places from each other now that the summer is over, and we're not sure what to expect. We're not sure what to expect out of our trip to New Orleans or our first winter here either, but we're excited, nervous, and hopeful all the same. Tonight we'll go outside and try to catch the first Northern Lights of the season and remind ourselves what an amazing place this is that we get to experience, and how lucky we are to experience it, even if it is going to get really, really cold really, really fast!

All who wander... (originally posted 8/3/06)

2009-03-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

They say that everyone in Alaska was either born and raised here or running away from something. Who are they, anyway?

Erin: In May 2003, I was a senior in college in Washington, DC. I was majoring in Political Science, living four blocks from the White House, and working for a US Senator. I was looking toward my future, and I was scared. When I searched my heart for what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be, I found myself drawn back to a book I'd read my freshman year of college - Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild. (If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it, and in fact, they're making a movie version of it in Alaska and South Dakota right now.) Chris McCandless went against society's pressures and expectations, and he followed his heart to the wilderness of Alaska. I'd never been in the wilderness, I'd never been to Alaska, and I wasn't sure I'd ever done something so terrifying and exciting. I had to do it. I found some jobs online, applied without much thought, and then one day, I got a phone call from a guy named Fernando in Talkeetna, Alaska. After interviewing with him for a breakfast server position (okay, not entirely in the wild, but an abrupt change from DC nonetheless), he asked me, "So, you want to come up to Alaska for the summer?" My heart was beating out of my chest - no one knew of this dream of mine, and certainly no one expected this out of me - I wondered if I was making a huge mistake - but still I said, "Sure." I remember he laughed at that - "Sure" - and thought I wasn't excited. He had no idea. And so, I ended up getting on a plane in Columbus, Ohio, a week after graduating from college and going to Talkeetna, Alaska. Everyone thought I was crazy, and maybe I was, but it was the best decision I've ever made, even if it seemed like I was running away.

Begee: It was 1996, and I had some friends living in Valdez, Alaska, who I decided to go visit with $200 in my pocket. I didn't get very far. Who knew Alaska was such a long hard drive from Washington? Needless to say, I didn't make it. The next year came and went, and Alaska simmered in the back of my brain. I had just finished a job at a winery in Grand Junction, Colorado - a job that I loved - to look for another winery job in California. The time came to go to California to find another winery job, but oddly enough, watching an episode of The Simpsons brought Alaska back to the forefront. I don't remember much of that episode, but what stuck with me was, if Bart can do it, I can do it. I saw an ad in Outside magazine that said "Come work in Alaska," and I called. Without filling out an application, they offered me a job in Denali National Park. They asked whether I could be there in a week or three weeks. I felt like this was the chance of a lifetime, and I said "I'll be there in a week." My parents thought I was crazy and said I should go for the sure thing in California. After having lunch with my dad at a Chinese restuarant, my fortune cookie said, "It's not too late for a change." My choice had been made. It was the best decision I've ever made, even if it seemed like I was running away.

Erin and Begee: People come to Alaska for all kinds of reasons, and people do seasonal work for all kinds of reasons. We've lived and worked with people from all over the world, people who are young and fresh out of school, people who are retired from their "real lives," people who are truly running from something not so good, and people who have not yet found their direction. We never expected to make this a way of life, but it just kind of happened. Seasonal work, this lifestyle of freedom, just grabs you and won't let go. It gets into your bones and into your heart, much like Alaska. This summer is Erin's third in Alaska and Begee's eighth. When Erin first came here, she certainly only expected and imagined one summer in Alaska before heading back down the political career path. When Begee first came here, he expected only one season in Alaska and then he too would head back to his career path in the wineries of California. Obviously, it didn't quite happen like that. When we met, we never expected to be anything more than friends for the summer, bar buddies, and email pals, but our relationship, much like seasonal work and Alaska, was stronger than what we expected. We fell in love with each other and this lifestyle and especially the 49th state, the land of the midnight sun.

In early spring, as we worked in snowy Yosemite, debating our summer job opportunities, we both really wanted to go back to Alaska to finish up some of our Alaska goals. We have been lucky in accomplishing so much (and it helps to get comps!). We have seen a humpback whale breaching, we got pulled around a snowy glacier on a dogsled, we climbed a mountain, we've seen bears and moose and sea otters, we've kayaked in the ocean, we've camped out on the beach, we've ridden horses around the bay, we treated ourselves to a meal of fresh Alaskan King Crab, and we've done so much more. We came back here this year, hoping to get Alaska out of our systems, to finish off some goals, and then maybe try a "normal life" for a change. We thought we would save some money (which we actually have!) and leave here satisfied and content. It hasn't really worked like that. Being in Alaska, waking up in the morning and smelling the salty ocean right outside our windows, has only made us want more, and now we're considering staying here for the winter.

Did we run away to Alaska originally? Does everyone? Does it matter? When we look around at the people we've met here, the people we work with, live with, and play with, people who are also away from home and family, people who come together to form our own unique family - even having a baby shower for our friend and co-worker, we don't see people who ran away from something. We see people who ran to something. We, ourselves, also ran to something in coming to Alaska - each other.

July 4, 2006 (originally posted 7/5/06)

2009-03-06T12:09:00.001-07:00

Our first two Independence Days together were in Alaska - in 2003, we were in Talkeetna at the Fairview, the local bar where everyone knew our names, and in 2004, we were in Juneau watching the fireworks over the harbor, eating chocolate-covered ice cream on a stick (an American delicacy!). Last year, we missed out. We were in Bar Harbor, Maine, watching fireworks over the Atlantic Ocean - wonderful, but something was missing. Maybe it was the sunlight.

Today was great. In Seward, they have what's called the Mount Marathon Race. The mountain a little taller than 3000 feet that looms over our small town here is called Mount Marathon, and every 4th of July there are races to run up it. We have dreams of hiking up it, but running up it? The record is about 50 minutes to run all the way to the top and back, and we were very excited to enjoy the races - and of course all the food - barbeque pork, hot dogs, bratwurst, reindeer sausage, strawberry rhubarb pie (Erin's favorite!), and even an old standard from our lives in Hawaii, shaved ice.

And of course, as always with us, the random little experiences... like a drunk guy at 9:35 in the morning pulling us aside (out of the 20,000 people in town, why did he pick us?) to take our picture. He saw us in our work uniforms and thought Begee's nametag said "Bruce." (For some reason, this really made us laugh.) He pulled out his disposable camera, we posed and smiled, and he clicked the button 5 or 6 times. Nothing happened. Finally Erin said, "Um, I think you have to advance it." "Ooohhh... of course!" SNAP! "I promise I'll find you and give you this picture. I'm going to go develop it now," he said (at least, we think that's what he said - he was slurring a bit) and stumbled back into the crowd. Umm... okay. (And he never did give us our picture!) As always with seasonal jobs, we were working on the holiday, but we made the best of it - taking short breaks to run across the street and watch the race and parade. It helped that we offered to buy hot dogs for our co-workers! We cheered as the first woman crossed he finish line - a Seward girl who won last year too! - and the second, an Olympic athlete. We clapped as a little boy who had entered the junior race and gotten injured crossed the finish line still holding his ice pack. We cheered as the first man came down the mountain. We clapped for the sherpa from Nepal and the oldest man in the race at 77 years old. We went crazy for the Elvis impersonator as he ran by (Elvis has officially left the building!... It had to be said.). We even got to watch the parade, and Begee took lots of pictures of the big orca (killer whale) balloon in the sky.

We were impressed by the determination, the perseverance, and the dedication the runners had... and we wondered if they minded us all shoving our faces with hot dogs as they passed by. It all seems so appropriate, so American, so Alaskan, and so... right. We couldn't have asked for more out of our fourth 4th of July together... Maybe some cotton candy, but there was just the right amount of sunlight.