Disney Appreciation Party 14 August 2011

Here I am with Mickey (see my mouse ears?)

     This is Disney's first season here in Alaska. They come into Ketchikan twice a week - Sundays and Thursdays. I can tell you that they are well organized as far as the tours go. They gather the tour groups in the theater, and some of us tour reps are lucky enough to be able to go on board to manifest passenger names for various flight tours. Manifesting the tourists involves collecting their tickets, writing their names on a form, getting their body weights (for weight and balance for the plane) and then submitting (texting) that information to Taquan Air for the flight part of my crab tour. Then they all come down off the ship and we get them into their assigned busses and off to their tours.

     The whole process is quite involved just to get on board the ship. Your name, D.O.B. and DL number with expiration has to be submitted to their security department via computer. But it is well worth it as it makes my whole process so much easier, especially when it is raining outside. So for about 4 weeks I tried to get on board. Candi assured me that she had set me up via computer, but they never had my name of their "list". However, eventually I did make it on the list.

     I wish that I could have brought my camera with me whenever I went on board. The ship is very pretty and the theater is great. And it made my job so much easier to get on board.

     With the season winding down, Disney threw the tour reps an "Appreciation Party." They invited a lot of us onto the ship for drinks, appetizers and a surprise visit from a few of Disney "characters". Wanda and I got a little tour of the ship from the ship's finance officer, Walter. It was a very nice little party and was nice to know that Disney appreciated all our hard work to keep things running smoothly and help make them look good.

     So, below are just some of the pictures that we took at the party.

left to right: Laura, Joyce, Minnie, Amber, Bianca, Tim

Bianca, Laura, Tim, Amber, Mickey, Joyce

Me and Goofy

Me and Minnie

All the Tour Reps who were invited to the party with Goofy, Mickey, Minnie, and "Beauty"

Sonnike is an Assistant ShoreEx

Walter, the Finance Officer with whom I settle the tickets/payment after the tours are done for the day

Forest Service Cabin - Manzanita Lake

Tuesday August 9th was a light day for me, and Dan's day off. There was only one ship in on Wednesday, so Dan asked off and I asked off as well. And since Dan has been teaching Jarad how to fly floats, Jarad said we could use his PA12 any time we wanted. So we decided that with finally some good weather, we would reserve the Forest Service cabin on Manzanita Lake. After my rounds on the two ships, we loaded up the PA12 with some "camping" gear that we borrowed from Dale and Ailsa and headed out toward the Misty Fjords and the lake. 

But first Dan wanted to show me Patching Lake. I have heard so much about it. That's the lake that Dan and Mike stayed at and fished 4 years ago. It is a pretty lake and the cabin is right at the water's edge, right next to where a stream flows into the lake.


The cabin was very nice and it looked just like the one on Manzanita Lake, with one exception; there was a wood crib. Dan decided to chop a big piece of log and take the wood with us for a camp fire later.

It was time to press on to Manzanita. When we flew over the lake it seemed like the water level was low. There was more of the grassy area showing. We could also see the channels that we wanted to canoe on.

checking the wind direction and preparing for landing

With the water level so low, we couldn't tie up the airplane in the same location that we did the month before when we came here for our picnic.

So Dan taxied over to the grassy area to beach the plane. There was a huge log that we could tie the tail to. We decided to put the canoe to good use and unload our stuff into it, drag it over closer to the path to the cabin.

Once we got the plane unloaded and everything brought up to the cabin we could climb into the canoe and start our Lewis and Clark expedition up the channel. But first, Dan decided to pan for gold in the stream. I think he thought if he found a good sized piece of gold, that would take my mind off the nugget I found in the jewelry store the other day.  ;-)

As you can see, it was a beautiful day with no wind. Should be a great paddle. My imagination started right in. We were native Indians paddling up the little river to the next village. Or, we were pioneers paddling up the little river to escape the native Indians. Or, we exploring the new territory. Or........"Shut up Nance and keep paddling, I want to fish that wide spot around the bend."

I've never seen grasses and flowers growing out of a rock

The only wildlife we saw were these cute little ducks

The stream got so shallow that Dan thought he'd look for that nugget for me again

The day was ending, the sun was getting low behind the mountains and we decided to turn around, go back to the main part of the lake and Dan could do a little bit of fishing before it got too late.

A "little" success!

After dinner we decided to have a warming campfire. The sun was setting and the temperature was cooling.

Soon it was bed time and we wanted to take care of a couple of things before it got dark. If you remember from the previous posting, the "throne" was way up behind the cabin and I was NOT going to go out after dark.

Note the bear protection

The next morning was cool, clear with just a hint of a little breeze stirring up the water surface. It was going to prove to be a warm day and I had to change into a short sleeved shirt a little later in the morning.

Time to load up the plane and head out. We planned on flying into the Misty's for my own personal Misty Fjord's tour. Because we were flying our own plane, we could land in any of the lakes that we'd wanted to. I, of course, wanted to land in Nooya (my favorite lake). Dan was also going to take me to Manzoni Lake. Dale told us that the fishing there was very good.

One last time for Dan to try his hand at panning for gold

Wow, this is a first....Nancy, fishing! But of course I didn't catch anything. It was such a beautiful day to sit out on the floats. There was one other airplane down near the other shoreline of the lake. It was Michelle from Southeast Aviation. She often likes to take her passengers to this lake, stop over at the beach area and let them out to explore a little of the shoreline.

Time for Michelle to take off. We should be heading back as well. We told everyone we would be back about 3pm and we didn't want anyone to worry. Candi told me she would come looking for us if we were much later than that!

Might as well buzz the George Inlet Lodge on our way back to Ketchikan.

"Hi Trish and Carstens!"

Alaska Canopy Adventures and Zip Lines

Dan and I decided to go do a zip line tour on our day off. So we went to Alaska Canopy Adventures. It was a little bit of a rainy day, but that wasn't going to stop us from having fun zipping through the trees, hanging from a cable 150 feet in the air.

We took a vehicle, called a Mog, a little way up the mountain where we were given the gear we would need. We stepped into a harness that reminded me of what a parachute looks like. They also gave us heavy duty gloves and helmets. I didn't start worrying until they gave us waivers to sign releasing them from all responsibility of injury. Injury? Actually, this is one of the safest zip lines in the country. They have two cables and we are hooked onto a safety cable at all times. The guides are very knowledgeable and professional. And they love what they are doing and see to it that we are all having fun as well as being safe.

The road up to the starting off point

Harnessing up and safety brief

Then the first lesson begins. This is Beth, one of our guides. She has us stand on this little platform while she hooks our trolly up to the cables. Then she shows us how to hold on and, most importantly, how to stop when we reach the next platform. She also teaches us the proper form for when we jump off and zip.

And then we're off! The first zip is only about 100 feet long. It really gives you a quick idea of what you got yourself into. The next zips are longer. There is even one that is the longest at 350 feet. You really get zipping along on that one.

This is Dan zipping along on the practice run. Oh, by the way, I had my camera attached to my harness, but Dan had a video camera that he put on his helmet. The only problem was that when he started the camera, it took rapid pictures instead of video. But they turned out cool anyway.

This is Jonathan, our second guide and Beth's husband. He was hilarious!

Here I come.......Look out Jonathan.

This is what we see as we are zipping along, coming to the next platform. Doesn't look very big from here, does it! In fact, it really isn't all that big. They can only fit on nine people in each tour. And let me tell you, it starts to feel very very small when we are all on there and Jonathan tells us to scooch around the tree. Luckily we are all hooked on to the cables for safety.

Here's Dan with his helmet cam.

There are also three suspension bridges as well. Again, we are all hooked up the the overhead cable. But even with that, I wasn't fond of the suspension bridge. I actually preferred zipping. However, it was beautiful up there in the rain forest. I looked down to see if I could find any bears, but they must have been hiding.

We saw a bald eagle in the tree in front of us. Zoom in on this picture. See his white head a little right of and below center? Oh, and that isn't fog, it started to rain that misty rain it does here in the rain forest. That made it really interesting when we were zipping and coming up to the platform. My glasses got all wet and I could hardly see Jonathan giving me the "stop" signal. (Woops)

Here are some pictures that Dan took from his helmet cam.

Beth

The first practice zip. This platform was really big, comparatively

Here's a good picture of the safety cables on the tree

Dan wanted me to check his helmet cam. I had no idea what I was looking for. (nice face, Nancy)

Look at that view!

Look at that form!

When we were finished and back at the main building, we all got medals for surviving the zip line. 

I like their T-shirts too. On the back it says:

       "Eat, Sleep & Zip"

(nuf said)

Jonathan and Beth (right). I told you they were a fun, kooky couple.

We had so much fun, I know that we will go do this again. Maybe on a warmer, sunnier day..............