A really long sunday.

So it is Sunday evening, almost Monday morning. We got back from Wittier, AK about 2 hours ago. This has been an incredibly cool(in multiple senses of the word) day. We hopped on a train in Anchorage and then rode south along the coast, through the longest car/train sharing tunnel in North America, until we arrived at Wittier.
It is a super small town that is big on kayaking, hiking trails, and glacier tours. I think the kayak rental and tour arrangement businesses actually outnumber all other buildings in town. Oh, and almost everyone basically lives in the same apartment building. So really, theses people do know all their neighbors. I also wandered around and found an old military building that is no longer used. All the windows are broken out, and it is covered in graffiti. It looked very lonely and sad. I briefly thought about adventuring inside to see what there was to see, because a door was entirely broken in. Then I saw the clean blanket, and bag of belongings, and tarp about 10 feet away, and all of my adventuring-ness was abandoned. I may like to try new, exciting things, but being stabbed by a desperate Alaskan hobo is not one of them. Finally, as it was raining outside and the temperature had dropped to around 45 degrees, I decided to head back to the train and eat some wheat thins (yum!).
The ride there and back was absolutely incredible! As we left Anchorage the mountains became larger and larger. The words beauty and majesty truly cannot describe the mountains or landscapes we passed. Right now all the snow is melting and running off in small to relatively large streams that fall as mini-waterfalls over the rocks. All the flat, sea level area has melted and with the added runoff has turned into a marsh. Also, a large portion of the mountains are turning a huge variety of green shades, so there is something new, everywhere you look. Basically, Alaska really is as beautiful as they say! I will try to add pictures next time I have time.
Finally, I have to say that the one thing I truly love about Alaska(besides the awesome scenery) is the genuinely nice people that I have met. A bartender that I met at lunch today off (don't worry mom, he didn't hit on me) gave me his number and email and said that he would take my friends and I hiking when we come back from to Anchorage on our weeks off. Our tour guide on the train gave us her number and email and told us she would take us go-carting when we had time off. Finally, our taxi driver (a grizzled looking old man, who worked in Prudhoe Bay in the 1970s and early 80s) dropped us off at a Wendys (which was about 6 blocks from our hotel) so we could get dinner. Then, he realized that we couldn't get in the doors (it was closed) so he came back in the parking lot (even though there were other restaurants around) and told us he would take us through the drive through. He said he was done for the day and was heading off to drink, so not only did he drive us through once, he did it a second time when somebody forgot something. THEN he (while hardcore refusing our offers of payment) drove us the rest of the way back to the hotel. All the while he told us really cool stories about working on the pipeline when it was first being built. I was kind of in shock, to be entirely honest. Everyone I have met here is so incredibly friendly it is unbelievable. Plus, the Kaladi Bros. coffee is really, really good and not very expensive.
So, this is the end of this post. We get to start our training at the Schlumberger offices in Anchorage tomorrow and hopefully we will get to go out to The Slope on Wednesday!!!!!! Thanks for your comments and well wishes, my wonderful relatives (I totally count you as a relative Mary :D). Grandma, I promise I will do my best not to play with any type of bear/moose (even though I saw a HUGE one today). Also, Uncle Charlie, where did Scott get the list of trails from? I know I probably won't be able to do very many of them, but I really really want hike some.
I love and miss you all!