It’s been a long time since I’ve driven, and during my last contract I didn’t drive at all for the entire 8 months. Well I just had the opportunity to drive what is called an Adventure Cart! It’s like a dune buggy, and it’s extremely fun. Apparently they are modeled after an Israeli attack vehicle that can go up to 100 mph and has a machine gun on the back. Well mine only went about 20 or 25 mph and didn’t have a machine gun. Oh well, it was still fun.

Also, besides getting to drive something, I had some AMAZING food last week. We had a team meal at this Italian Mexican restaurant. Being in Alaska however, they had some really great crab. So I ordered King Crab. One pound. That’s a lot of food. I also ate clam chowder, some spaghetti, garlic bread, meatballs, and some kind of desert. I don’t know how to spell it, but it was something like baclava. It’s a Greek desert and it tastes great. So that was lunch around 2. Then a couple hours later at 5:30 I went to the Pinnacle Grill on the ship for dinner with Niamh. If you’ve ever eaten at the Pinnacle you know that it’s extremely good food, and they also give you large proportions. I ordered some kind of beef. It turns out it was on a kabob, and the way they prepared it was really interesting. They held it up on a plate and then literally poured fire over it. I don’t know what it was doused in, but the fire just kind of fell onto the kabob and the whole thing went on fire and then went out. It was super tender and very tasty. I almost finished it even after that whole pound of crab meat just a few hours earlier.

Anyways the Alaska season is still going great. Time is going pretty quickly though. The season is already half over and it seems like we just started. We’re making lots of money, significantly better than last season. When we leave and go to Australia it will be much less, but I’m really looking forward to going to that part of the world.

It’s kinda like saying “The road is smooth except for where it’s bumpy.” Well that’s what my life is like right now. I’m going to all the same places in Alaska as last year, and I even have the same boss. There are several other people on this ship that are the same from the Ryndam. But boy is life different. It’s so strange to think that I’m sitting on a park bench next to the Skagway library, doing exactly the same thing as a year ago. It feels so normal to be doing this and yet I would never in a million years have thought that this is something that I would have been doing. Last year at least it felt weird to be doing this. hahaha.

I don’t plan to go on so many excursions this year – last year I went on like half of them. There’s just a few that I wanna go on now that I wasn’t able to hit last year. So dad I’m sorry but there prolly won’t be all that many photos from Alaska this year. I do expect some though of course. Next week I wanna go on the Bering Sea Crab Fishing tour. Apparently there are hundreds of eagles that come around trying to catch the crabs that get thrown back into the water. Tino went on it last year and got some awesome photos. I want that.

Here’s a photo of some downright beautiful people. From left to right it’s Dorrance, Beth, Hana, Amber and Zach. Unfortunately Beth, Hana and Zach have all finished their contracts and are now either on vacation or on another ship. Dorrance and Beth were both with me on the Ryndam. It’s likely that as long as you’re working on ships you’re gonna meet someone you know on your next ship. And the longer you stay on ships the more people you start to know.