Black Diamond Jeep Tour

Haha, I called shotgun!

We jumpped onto a back country jeep tour this day and had a BLAST!

it wasn't as wild as we thought it was going to be, but we did have a very drunk very crazy redneck family driving about 3 of the jeeps in our caravan that made the day MORE then interesting!!! The actual guide didn't much car for them, because they were running the jeeps hard (gunning it at potholes, waterholes, all rough areas) and he was getting quite annoyed....we thought they were a hoot and knew they would be from the start when one of the crazy groups gave their jeep the name of "Nickoli likes Vodka" we all had to give our jeeps a name to keep in contact over the radio and know who was talking to whom. So that was our first indication they were going to be a wild bunch... :) After about an hour we get to our final destination and have a bite of dinner (most of the tours end in food, we like that!)

Tour logo
Sweet sweet port-a-john @ dinner site

Once we are all done and fed, we load everyone back up into their designated jeeps and get ready to take off.

The tour guide went back and asked the crazy group to ease up on the jeeps or else something would most likely bust on it. Thinking all was well he got into our jeep and off we went.....

wasn't more then 20 minutes back on the trail the the nutters start going ape on the road again, after multiple attempts to make them stop over the radio, he finally gave up and said he was going to black list them for the tour if they ever tried to take it again (i'm sure this was a one time trip to alaska for them and they wouldn't be too broken up about that...but i decided not to test our drivers patience just then...) anywho not another 10 minutes after his warning but we get a radio call saying we lost one of our numbers behind several miles (we were the lead jeep and needed the back jeeps to let us know if someone went missing)

So after a very tricky turn around on a very precarious patch of trail we make it back to our fallen comrade and lo n behold, the idiot BROKE the jeep!!! in a HUGE waterhole no less!!!
So we had to ghetto latch it onto our jeep and TOW it back to base, on a normal road that isn't much of a problemo, but this was very rough VERY harsh Alaskan terrain and the going was slow and tedious.

our poor tour guide (orange jacket) hooking up the jeep to tow.

If you notice on this last picture how our once in TACT tow cable is now snapped and then TIED back together....that happened along the way and turns out that was the only cable any of the jeeps had, it was surprisingly the rednecks idea to tie it...and go figure, it held!!!

All in all it was a very hilarious end to a very fun day, even if our tour guide wanted to make redneck stew with the various body parts he hacked from the dorks that broke the jeep after multiple warnings, i thought it just gave us all a very good story to tell at the end of our tour!

plus I think they finally learned their lesson to obey the guide after about 3 hours of jeering and ridicule from everyone of us in the other jeeps. hahaha

Fluffy Fluffy Animals I saw in Alaska!

Wagon Ride

About 9 of us signed up at the last minute to go on a "Rustic Wagon Ride & Dinner"
It was really the dinner part that sold us, because it would mean we didn't have to eat at the employee dinning hall that night!!! Woohoo! :)
It was really quite fun, the driver and footman were young and joked around with our group and told us what it was like growing up in a town of about 500 (they were both natives to AK and grew up in the little town of Healy <- about 20 minutes outside Denali)
He was telling us about his high school graduating class of 8 students! hahaha
Right after high school he decided to go to college in Los Angeles!!!!!
He said he made it about 2 months before totally freaking out and moving back to Alaska. :)
It was really interesting learning about such a unique childhood and life.



Tasha, Maryrose, Matt & Myself on the wagon heading to FOOD!






One of our horses (Bill)




Our Driver Jack and the road ahead

Wagon Pulling up to take us home from dinner

Matt & Tasha on the bus ride home to Denali

Me & Maryrose (bit of Titus' head in the back ) on ride home

Matt fell asleep on the wagon ride back to the buses....

Quick shot with the ponies before we left

7 hour nature Bus tour with Stephanie!

Me and steph got bored on one of our days off and decided to take the Toklat Bus tour into the Denali National Park, it was 7 hours long and heck, we had the time to kill :)


2 Owl Chicks and their mom in a nest!





Me and Stephanie being Stupid on the bus




Me at the edge of a low level Glacier

Carribou!!!! (aka Carribooty)

The notorious Bathroom Squirrel

More Carribou


Stephanie at the edge of the same Glacier

Us Posing at one of the Restroom stops

Steph the Retarded Moose!

Me the mentally challenged Carribou!

That was our day in a nutshell, afterwards we rewarded our adventurous spirits with large cheeseburgers and soda....mmmm cheeeeseburgersss....*drools*

A bunch of Random Pictures...

Because I don't feel like going into each l'il story right at this moment.

Here are some pretty pictures. haha :)

The Bake

Ok, so in this tiny lil town of Denali Alaska there isn't much of a night life...or life in general.
All you really have to keep you sane is a couple gift shops, a subway, the crows nest and the Salmon Bake (otherwise just known as the Bake)
Many good times and many alcoholics have been birthed here, when evey day after work the same conversation goes down with friends and coworkers....
Q:what do you want to do tonight?
A: Lets just see whats up at the bake.
True they did have lots of fun things going on there sense it really is the only social hub of the town. They would have many of the following activities every week
Guitar hero night
Live bands
Live DJ's
Dominican Night
Bulgarian Night
and many many other things!




The ecclectic atmosphere is only paled by the ecclectic group of patrons that would gather here every night to share stories and failures over a cold one...or two...or three...
Luckily for 3/4 of the town, AA meetings are located only about a mile down the road.
Many good times at this place, it shall always be remembered :)

Husky Homestead

So myself and maryrose work for the large corporation ARAMARK, because of that we get lots of perks like doing all the tourist excursions for FREE!!!
This day we decided to do one called "Husky Homestead"
its owned and operated by Jeff King 4 time Iditarod champion and is recognized as one of the "Winningest mushers in the world".
The tour included: Meeting champion sled dogs, Cuddling husky puppies and a 1 1/2 hour kennel tour and sled demonstration.






Its was actually a really great learning experience, not only about the dogs themselves, but about the actual Iditarod race which is more then 1,150 miles across harsh Alaskan sled dog trails in the dead of winter.
the race goes from Anchorage in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast and usually last between 10-17 days.

More power to them, I'd rather stay nice and warm....
But it was still great to learn about. :)