the family visits...

This week I'm lucky to have a week off from work - and lucky because my parents and brother are visiting from 'the outside' (or, the lower 48). We drove to Talkeetna on Sunday and then took the train north to Denali. After staying there for two nights, we made our way back south and are back in Anchorage now. I'm not going to write too much about what we did, but I'll post some pictures here:

Zach and I walk down main street in Talkeetna

after eating breakfast at "The Roadhouse"

Mom and Dad on board the Midnight Sun Express

Passing over Hurricane Gulch - unfortunately you can't

see the 296 ft. drop down to the Chulitna River

Inside Denali National Park on Monday

Celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary by hiking in the park -

we ended up getting rained on a bit, but it was still a lot of fun

Being Caribou for a day

That's where Denali is supposed to be, but it is covered by clouds, a pretty common occurrence

Outside "The Bake" in Denali

Southbound train rolling into Denali Depot

Mom and Dad watch "Animal" the brakeman hop off the train

and manually throw a switch so we can pull onto a siding

The weather cooperated on our way south and the mountain came out from behind the clouds - looks like Zach is getting a pretty good picture

chocolate cake beer and maple bacon ice cream

The past couple of weeks I've continued to work a lot, but I've also been able to enjoy a couple of really fun things off of the train. First... at the beginning of this month, I saw CAKE in concert at the Moose's Tooth Pub & Pizzeria.

John McCrea pumping up the crowd

The Moose's Tooth probably has the best pizza in all of Anchorage, some great local beer, and on the first Thursday of each month they host a concert to celebrate a monthly specialty beer. Fortunately I had wasn't working on the first Thursday of this month and I got to go see CAKE perform (they put on an awesome live show) and try out the Moose's Tooth new 'Chocalte Cake' beer (decent, but not as awesome as the show.)

after the CAKE show with friends

This past Sunday I also had the chance to hang out in Talkeetna for most of the day. Talkeetna is a little mountain town a couple hours north of Anchorage by car. It has a lot of summer activity because it is usually a staging area for people who are attempting to summit Denali. It's also the first stop for our train as we travel north to Fairbanks. So I've been through Talkeetna dozens of times this summer, but unfortunately the only time I'd stepped foot in the town had been back in June or July when I got off the train to unload trash from the train during a stop at the Talkeetna depot. So, when a few coworkers mentioned on Saturday that they would be traveling to Talkeetna on Sunday, I jumped at the chance to check out the town.

Our first stop was The Roadhouse, which is a really cool little hotel and restaurant. It's a quaint, humble little place (Adam Richman of Man vs. Food once came to the Roadhouse, but they only displayed this fact with one little poster towards the back of the restaurant) with really delicious food, including their famous sourdough hotcakes.

I had to try the Roadhouse Standard, which is a basic breakfast of potatoes, scrambled eggs, and bacon, but had a ton of flavor. It was also served with a thick slice of homemade wheat toast, and the apple butter on the red-and-white-checkered-tablecloth-covered table made me feel like I was right back in the Midwest.

We spent the rest of our Afternoon in Talkeetna by walking around town, checking out a little weekend open air art market, and waving at the train was it came through the depot.

Apparently we all don't spend enough time on the train and want to see it even on our day off. One other highlight of town was a little homemade ice cream stand. They had a John Deere engine powered ice cream churner sitting out front (again...I was really starting to think I was back in the Midwest) and had four different flavors of ice cream. When I stepped up to the window I was surprised to see that "Maple Bacon" was one of them, and I had to try it. It was actually a lot better that I expected, kind of a butter pecan sweetness with a finish of chewy, salty bits of bacon rather than pecans.

Unfortunately, we all had to get back to Anchorage that night because three of us were scheduled to go Northbound to Fairbanks on Monday. I got back to Anchorage last night, and now have two days off, so today I'm just relaxing and enjoy some much needed rest. For the next two weeks or so I'll just be in the work routine until my parents and brother visit on Aug. 21st, when I'll get to do some traveling and take a little longer break from the train. Oh, and to end this post, I thought I'd give you another taste of the view from my "office window" - I'll be sure to post more shots from the train in the coming week as fall rolls in and the colors start to change.

only six weeks left!?

Once again it's been far too long since I've posted something from up here in AK...so here's a quick update. Unfortunately, I don't have any new pictures this time, but I do have various pieces of news.

Recently I had a first - celebrating my birthday on a train! I turned 24 on July 26, and I celebrated, not surprisingly, by working. I was headed northbound to Fairbanks on the 26th, and it was great to be around people from work and get lots of well wishes from them.

I was surprised to also get to celebrate my birthday with my family in Kansas. The week before my birthday, I took a little six day break from Alaska to be with family and celebrate the life of my grandpa, Ivan Diller, who passed away on July 18. Fortunately, all of my cousins and aunts and uncles were able to make it to Hesston, KS; so being there was kind of like a mini family reunion. I was also really happy to be back in the midwest for a little bit: I had amazing food (fresh corn, tomatoes, homemade ice cream), saw the beautiful wide-open Kansas skies, and simply had a break from the hectic schedule I live up here. I definitely wasn't used to the hot weather back in the lower 48, however. I've been spoiled this summer, as the highs up here are usually only in the 70s and occasionally in the 80s.

Recently, the schedule of the train has been modified because of a recent aircraft crash near the Alaska Railroad tracks just north of Anchorage. The past weekend Elmendorf Air Force Base hosted an air show, and one week ago, on Wed. the 28th, a C-17 crashed while practicing for the air show. We heard that it had crashed close to the tracks, but weren't sure how it would affect our passenger rail service. Immediately after the crash, trains were not allowed to travel through the area surrounding the crash site, and passengers rode motorcoaches around the area. It wasn't until Monday that our passengers cars were allowed to travel through the area again, and I happened to be working on the first train that passed through the site. The military is still keeping strict security around the area, and our passengers were not allowed on the open-air platforms, or allowed to take pictures while passing by the crash site. When we did pass the wreckage, it was even worse than I imagined - the plane must have crashed right on the tracks, because there was debris and burned out trees on both sides of the track. The Boeing C-17 is also an extremely large aircraft, so there was a lot of wreckage, and it was very chilling to see one of the few recognizable pieces of the aircraft - the tail. Like I said, the military is keeping strict security on the site, so I don't have any pictures, but if you want to see the few pictures that the Air Force has released, you can see them here.

That's a pretty somber note to end this post on, so I'll leave you with this: My job involves lots of repetitive tasks, so there are several small tasks that I've found myself getting really good at. So, here are the top five skills that I've really improved since the beginning of the summer:

5. Laying bacon out on sheet trays - I was already pretty good at this because my experience at the Soda Shop, but our sheet trays on the train are smaller, so sometimes I'll lay out something like 15 sheet trays a day

4. Cutting melons - melon slices are served as a garnish for all of our breakfast plates, so that means lots of cantaloupe and honeydew slices every day

3. Getting cat-naps wherever I can find them - when working 15 hours days, one learns to grab a little sleep whenever there is time, even if it's just 15 minutes between breakfast and lunch

2. Using a knife on a moving train - thanks to a bit of care, I haven't had any serious cuts yet, knock on wood

1. Keeping my balance on a train moving 50+ mph - we always tell our guests to keep three points of contact while moving on the train - two feet on the ground and a hand on something else - however, when you're quickly walking through six cars and carrying a case of bacon (just as an example) it's pretty hard to find that third point of contact. So, I've learned to feel the movement of the train and compensate for the back-and-forth rocking and swaying. That's not to say that the 'train lurch' doesn't get me sometimes, especially in the kitchen - where the edges of the counters in our kitchens are oh-so-conveniently the same height as my hips, so whenever the train lurches as I'm quickly turning or moving in my kitchen, I simply fall into a counter edge...fortunately I'm not one to bruise very easily, otherwise my hips and legs might be all black and blue by the end of the summer.

summer is flying by

My apologies to those of you who have been following this blog - it's been waaay too long since I posted anything. I've simply been busy working, and I usually only have one day of between runs. During my days off I'm usually pretty lazy, so today I'm making myself sit down and post something.

One highlight of this month ended up being the 4th of July. Unfortunately I had to work on the 4th, so I really wasn't expecting to do much to celebrate. I was headed northbound, and I spent the night in Healy, which is just north of the entrance to Denali National Park. Once we got into Healy, two coworkers and I took the shuttle down to Denali Village, and we decided to go on a little hike. Our hike, which didn't start until 7pm or later, turned out not to be so little. We ended up hiking about eight miles or so all together, and made it to Mt. Healy Overlook. This point looks into the park to one direction and back down towards Denali Village and the Nenana River to the opposite direction. As we hiked I had a chance to enjoy the scenery in a way that I haven't been able to do enough during my time here. It also wasn't a traditional 4th of July celebration, but in the moment it was the perfect way to celebrate the beautiful landscapes that our country has to offer.
Just before the 4th I also had a chance to visit the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. This complex, which is just south of Anchorage, gives people a chance to see much of Alaska's wildlife up close. They bring in animals that are injured or which can't survive in someway out in the wild and help rehabilitate them. It was great to see bears, bison, muskoxen, and other animals so close. I've been seen some wildlife from the train, including huge salmon that we can see in the rivers we pass, and I've seen plenty of moose, both from the train and right here in Anchorage.

Finally, one more highlight of the past few weeks was a trip to Homer last week. Homer is on the southwest coast of the Kenai Peninsula, which sticks out into the Cook Inlet south of Anchorage. Homer is a cool little fishing community, but the main attraction is the 'Homer Spit,' which is a skinny piece of land that sticks out into Cook Inlet about a mile or two. All along the spit are campsites, boat launches, and little shops and restaurants.

I went down with two coworkers and another friend and we camped right on the beach. It felt really strange to be camping on the "beach" in Alaska - there was no way anyone was going to go swimming, but it was a great way to get out of Anchorage.

We even got a beautiful sunny day for one of the days we were there - which is uncommon for Homer. A couple of the coolest parts of hanging out in Homer were seeing freshly caught halibut being filleted and hanging out at the Salty Dawg Saloon.

Tomorrow I'm flying back to Kansas for a brief trip to be with family and celebrate the life of my Grandpa Diller, who passed away yesterday. He was an amazing individual who lived a great life - I'll miss him a lot, but have great memories of him forever. It feels odd to be leaving Anchorage and Alaska, where I have slowly begun to feel at home without really noticing. At the same time it will be good to have a little break from my job and hopefully I'll come back refreshed and ready to get back to work in a week.

a day in the life

As most of you probably know, I've been working a lot up here in Alaska. Yesterday I just got back from 2 days, or 30 hours, or work. Some of you might wonder what a typical day on the train is like for me, so I thought I'd break down what a normal day is like going northbound from Anchorage to Fairbanks. I should say, however, that there really isn't a 'normal' day on the train - the number of passengers is always different, the number of passengers who are on the train and come to the dining room to eat is always different, and each day I'm assigned to a different car, possibly with different co-workers in the kitchen or dining room. So I'll try to clarify as best as possible what a 'typical' day might be.

5-5:45 am: Groggily wake up, shower, shave, and maybe grab a quick bite to eat before leaving to work.

5:45-6 am: Bike from my apartment to work - 'work' in the morning is the railyard just below downtown Anchorage in an area called 'Ship Creek.' In the morning our train cars are not attached to the train we will be a part of that day, so I report to the Holland/Princess buildings where our cars are stationed when not in use.

6-7 am: I usually clock in at about 6, though we don't actually have to be there until 6:15. When I clock in there is a list that shows which car I'll be working in for that run, and I head directly there. Most cooks try to get to work early, because the first thing that we are responsible for is taking an inventory of the kitchen that we'll be working in. It's really important for us to have everything we need for our two days on the rail because if we run out of a product, and another kitchen on the consist can't spare any, then there's really nowhere to get more of that product. So, we check everything we have, and if we are short anything we have to request it from the ground before 6:30 and hope that it can be delivered to our car before we leave the depot.

At about 6:30 we start prepping breakfast, which includes cooking off bacon, breakfast potatoes, and biscuits, and slicing fruit and vegetables.

7-8 am: At around 7 or so, we usually get 'bumped,' which simply means that the train that we will be a part of that day connects our cars to the consist (or group of cars). Perhaps it's self-explanatory, but it is called the 'bump' because when the train backs into our cars to attach us, all of our cars lurch a bit, and you can feel that the cars have been bumped, or attached. Once we are attached, the train makes the 'loop,' which simply means that it slowly gets out of the train yard by going through a series of switches until it's made it to the depot where it will pick up passengers.

8 am: At this point we are in the depot and waiting to board passengers. As a cook I'm usually finishing up breakfast prep, or sometimes helping load luggage. Some days take longer than others to get all the passengers embarked, but we usually hope to leave the depot by about 8:15 or so. On Wednesday during these last few minutes before departure, I was frantically texting friends, trying to figure out what was happening during the U.S.A./Algeria World Cup game, which just happened to be dramatically ending as we were getting ready to leave Anchorage.

8:15-9:30 (or later): During the first leg of our trip, from Anchorage to Talkeetna, we cook and serve breakfast. Depending on the number of passengers we have, and the number of people who choose to eat, we could have as many as 150 or so people eat. However, the past couple of runs I've been able to get through breakfast by about 9:30. It's nice to finish this early, because we don't get into Talkeetna until 11:30, so if we finish early it gives us plenty of time to clean up breakfast, relax for a bit, and then prep for lunch. This past Wednesday, my fellow cook and I had a 'dead leg' for lunch, which means we didn't have any passengers in either of the cars we were cooking for, so I got to take about an hour long nap or so after we finished cooking breakfast.

11:30 - 4 pm: This is the second leg, from Talkeetna to Denali. Normally it is when we serve lunch, which includes burgers, chili, cold sandwiches. However, as I just said, on Wednesday I had a dead leg for lunch, so I was able to just relax, read, chat w/ fellow co-workers, etc. My fellow cook and I were responsible for employee lunch, however, so we made lunch for the 60 employees who were on the consist that day. This is also the most impressive leg of our route as far as scenery goes. When I have time I try to look outside as much as I can and just remember where I am. If we are stuck in the kitchen, it can be touch to get views of outside, but some of cars have small windows in the kitchen so I can catch glimpses of the wilderness we're passing through (as can be seen in the photo at the beginning of this post).

At around 3 pm, before we get to Denali, we start prepping dinner. This includes cooking rice, a prime rib, pork ribs, mashed potatoes, and vegetables.

4 pm - 8 pm: During this final leg of our journey, we travel from Denali to Fairbanks and serve dinner. This is the most time consuming meal service, so if we have a lot of people who want to eat, we try to start right away. Our dinner menu includes steaks, crab cakes, reindeer sausage mac 'n cheese, and an Alaskan-style jambalaya. It's pretty fun to cook and serve these dishes, but it can also be very busy and a little crazy.

5:15 pm: On Wednesday at this time, as we had just begun cooking dinner service, the generator in our car went down and we lost power. Obviously, this put a bit of a kink in our service, but fortunately the power wasn't out for too long. To regain power in this situation, we usually have to turn off all the non-essential things in our kitchen - which includes the air conditioning. This equals a very hot kitchen...but isn't that how a kitchen is supposed to be??

8 pm (ish): When we arrive in Fairbanks, we should be long finished with cooking dinner and have our kitchen cleaned up. When the passengers disembark, it doesn't mean we can get off the train, however. All the cars need to be cleaned up and checked out before we can all get off the train, which is usually around 8:45 or 9 pm. After disembarking, the crew boards a motorcoach that heads to Fred Meyer's, the local grocery store. Everyone usually picks up some food and beverages to enjoy after a long day of work. When we get off the bus at the grocery store, we clock out...so that means we're on the clock from 6 am until 9 pm - or a 15 hour day. Some are a lot harder than others, but it's surprising how quickly the day goes by.

9:45 or 10 pm: After Freddy's, we go to the Best Value Inn, or as we affectionately call it, the BVI - were our staff always stays in Fairbanks. When we get there I usually get cleaned up, eat some food, and either hang out w/ fellow employees for a while or watch some TV before going to bed. After such a long day, everyone is ready to climb into bed and get some sleep, because at 6 am the next day, the bus leaves for the train and we get to do it all over again on our way back to Anchorage.

Well, I've quickly written a pretty long entry without thinking about it...in much the same way one can realize on the train that 12 hours have passed, or that after 4 straight days of work you can suddenly realize that you've been on the clock for 60 hours. The days are long, and the work can be hot and sometimes stressful...but for the most part it is fun and there are a lot of interesting people to be working with. Plus, I'm getting paid to do something that I really enjoy - cooking and serving food - and doing it in a beautiful place.

work, work, work...and poutine?

It's been quite a while since I last wrote anything, but not without good reason - I've been working...lots. In fact, over the past six days I worked three runs on the train straight. Though I didn't write down the exact number of hours that I had on the clock, I'd say that I logged at least 80 hours in those six days! I had been working two days on, two days off pretty regularly, but I decided to pick up a two-day shift on Sunday and Monday, so that is why I've been working so much. Fortunately, a few of these days were pretty easy. On Sunday, for example,I was cooking on a car that did not have any passengers riding, so all I had to do was cook employee lunch; and yesterday my car only had passengers for breakfast. These slow days are pretty nice, because you can relax, enjoy the scenery, even take a short nap, and still get paid. It's not every day, though, that you get days like that, so I tried to take advantage of them.

One highlight of days on the train is something called 'the meet'

- this occurs once a day when the northbound and southbound trains meet each other. One of the trains will always pull off onto a siding, and the other will pull up and stop on the neighboring track.This gives our managers a chance to talk to each other about supplies or staff that each train may need and gives the stewards a chance to check out any issues with how the train cars are operating (as can be seen in this photo). The meet is also just really fun - staff will hopefully be done serving lunch so that they can take a moment to run out to a platform and wave at fellow employees as they pass, and it gives staff a chance to send 'meet mail,' or letters/packages to friends working on the opposite train.

Another cool segment of the route between Anchorage and Fairbanks is an area called 'the canyon.'

This is a section of the track that runs through the Nenana River Canyon and offers some great views of the river and the canyon walls. One day we were lucky enough to see a bunch of Dall Sheep on the opposite canyon wall. Occasionally there will also by rafters on the river below as we roll by, which there were yesterday as you can see in the picture.

About a week and a half ago I was lucky enough to finally get to go hiking here in Alaska. I ran in to the pastor of the Mennonite church here in Anchorage and he invited me to go hiking on the Turnagain Arm - which is an area just south of Anchorage. After church on Sunday we drove down to a small trail that was just off the road, but immediately (and steeply) went right into the mountains. The trail, which I unfortunately forget the name of, followed a small stream pretty soon we were high enough to see some great looking peaks in front of us, the water of Turnagain Arm

behind us, and a few Dall Sheep climbing on the rocks high above us. It was great to get out of the city and into the wilderness, even though our hike was fairly short. Hopefully I'll be able to get out and do some more exploring in the near future when I have some time off.

I have enjoyed enjoying the city on my days off as well. Today I walked to downtown and all throughout midtown. The highlight of my day had to have been lunch - a unique and unexpected treat in Anchorage, Alaska - poutine. Downtown Anchorage is well known for its hot dog carts (I saw three on the same side of one block on 4th Street today) which feature reindeer hot dogs, but I was surprised to see Smitty's Poutine stand. For those who don't know, poutine is a Canadian dish that originated in Quebec. It consists of french fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy.

This may sound like an odd mix, or like a heart attack waiting to happen, but I definitely wanted to try it. I probably can't speak to the authenticity of the serving of poutine I ordered, but I can say that it was delicious. It was exactly what I expected - hot, crispy fries that contrasted with the texture of the cheese curds, and a gravy that seemed to permeate the whole dish the deeper into it I got. And by the end of the order, I was not only very satisfied, I also knew that if I ate enough of these delicious, artery-clogging snacks, I would be a heart attack waiting to happen. But you only live once, so splurging on a comfort food, even a foreign comfort food, every now and then can't hurt.

Tomorrow I head back to work for two days, but then I have three days off - which will feel great. I'll hopefully have some time to explore around Anchorage a bit more, and write another blog entry. Until then...

disc golf & whittier

I've rediscovered a hobby that will probably take up a decent amount of my free time this summer - disc golf. Last Friday I ran into a coworker in downtown Anchorage and disc golf was mentioned. He asked if I play - I've played just a few times over the past couple of years - and we then went to play at a course which is practically visible from my apartment. Unfortunately I gave away the discs that I owned in Goshen, but I picked up a couple of new ones on Friday. I also had Saturday off, so I biked down to Kincaid Park here in Anchorage, which in the winter time has miles of nordic skiing trails. They also have a great 18-hole course that covers a lot of ground and a lot of hills. There are some great views of Cook Inlet, as you cansee in the picture to the rights that was taken at the hole 4 teebox. Unfortunately the picture doesn't quite do the view justice; there was a great view of mountains across the water that are kind of hard to see in the picture. On Sunday/Monday I had another run, which was a bit different than normal trips. On Sunday we only went as far as Healy, which is just past Denali village, so our day wasn't as long as normal days. It was nice to be finished early, and also to be up in the mountains, because several coworkers and I spent our evening under a big blue sky and surrounded by mountains tossing a frisbee around.

Monday was also a modified day, what we call a 'ship day,' which means we picked up passengers at Denali Village, and they stayed on the train for about ten hours as we took them straight to Whittier - which is a port where the train dropped them off a couple hundred yards from their cruise ship. A picture of the cruise ship from the train is at left.

The trip to Whittier was great because I got to see a new part of Alaska, an area known as Turnagain Arm, which is between Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula.

This area offered some beautiful views of Cook Inlet as well as the surrounding mountains. We also got to travel through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, a mixed-use train/auto tunnel to Whittier. It is almost 2.5 miles long, and by the time we got to it, I was all finished cleaning up the kitchen, so I was able to go out on one of the open air platforms and experience the tunnel from there.

Tomorrow I head out on a normal run to Fairbanks and then have the weekend off. Until then I'll probably enjoy the beautiful weather today by heading out to the disc golf course.