The Eagle has landed (literally)

After 12 hours of travelling and 4 different plane rides, I've arrived at El Capitan! I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it is here. It reminds me a lot of the Swiss Alps, but with more forests. Each plane ride that I took, we got more and more into the mountains. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting to be in the middle of a mountain range/temperate rainforest.

Yesterday was an extremely long day. My 4.5 hour flight from Chicago was pretty horrible. I tried to talk to the guy next to me but I think he was shy and didn't really have much to say. Other than that I just sat there. I couldn't sleep because I was jammed awkwardly into my seat. What did make up for the atrotiously boring flight was flying around Mt. Rannear (spelling?). We were flying over all of these beautiful mountains, and then all of a sudden, this HUGE peak jets up and puts all of the other little mountains to shame. We flew right by it, and went on a curve so we got to see almost all of its sides. Then came the 2 hour flight to Alaska. This was much more entertaining. I sat amongst 8 guys from Wyoming who were heading to Prince of Whales to hunt bear. They had just found out that the lodge they were staying at doubled booked their reservation, so they had no where to stay. I mean, they got on the plane to AK, and before turning of his phone, the guy checked his email and thats when they found out. Now, normally anywhere else in the world you would probably be okay, but here, you really have to know where you're going because there's really not much up here. I told them I hoped they'd been studying Man vs. Wild and the Alaska Experiment. I ended up taking my first sea plane ride with them from Ketchikan to Craig. It was a pretty good sized sea plane. There were 10 of us all together plus a TON of luggage because the guys had all their guns with them.

My next sea plane was from Craig to the lodge. This was a little bit more...interesting. I was picked up from the dock in Craig by my boss, his dad, and another older gentleman. It was a four seater and it was definately crowded (and a little awkward). The crowdedness was over-written by how absolutely beautiful the flight was. We flew right along the top ridge of the mountains and over the water. I tried to find whales but no such luck.

The lodge is really nice. We had a staff meeting almost as soon as I got here. But before the meeting, one of the old employees gave me a little tour. She is also the head chef so she handed me dinner as soon as I got off the plane. She took me down to my boss' house to meet them and their families and I ate dinner with Nani and Scott's daughters. Its really nice, the girls are 3 and 8, so its fun to have kids around. Big plans...they invited me to come to their tea party today So as I'm eating my dinner, an eagle swooped down right in front of the window! Me being the silly Michigander that I am, thought this was incredible and amazing, but apparently its a normal occurance, and no one else thought it was a big deal.

So we had our meeting and I learned all the ropes. Everyone here seems pretty cool so far. I'm working with people from all over the place...Haiwii, Russia, Canada, Grand Rapids!, Arizona... My room is pretty nice. I need to get more carpet (which apparently they have on hand) but besides that its nice. I'll have to try and get pictures on here some how.

I have to run because I'm taking up the employee computer. I'll give you more details later!