a sealy day

10-24 Had my first independent shuttle runs today for the Ice Runway. I liked this job b/c I did it for 3 hours in the early morning (starting at 5:30am) and could just crank up and sing to music as I didn't have many passengers this early in the season yet. Did some more training and then worked with Ginny (the one from EP) on taking passengers out to the C-17. Ginny used to work for Cheley camp when she was in estes and was quite the athlete. She telemarked lots of the big peaks in rocky, and she actually got invited to do a cross country ski expedition from mcmurdo to the the south pole. Even though she's probably about 60, she's still an avid skier. She invited me to go out with her this sunday, so if I can get far enough along with my essays for grad school, I will go with her. She also worked for the forest service while in EP and now she works for the national park service in australia, but still owns her house in EP (next to the Reichardts, mom).

We had another new guy, Mike, come in on the flight today. He worked for Colorado Mountain Express and lived in Avon. So that now brings the total of ex avon residents to 3 on the shuttle crew (Dave drove the town busses for Vail and Avon).

Had some drama at work today. One of the dorm buildings caught on fire, so of course that was a big to do. And we had to evacuate a scientist woman to the C-17 flight b/c she broke her leg when a seal rolled over onto her while doing her research.

After work, I took a quick hike out to a point overlooking the frozen sea to check out a group of 11 seals. They were pretty close and I could hear them snoring as they basked in the -7F (-35F windchill) sun. You could see the little hole in the ice they had kept open so they could access the water for fish hunting. After the hike I grabbed some quick mango glazed mahi mahi from the caf and found a quiet office to work on grad school essays.