Mt. Margaret

I awoke last Friday at noonish and immediately started making plans for my day off. It was to be a laborious day spent reading at the lake and laying around on the couch. I began prepping myself for the mentally and physically taxing day ahead of me when I got a text from my friend Emily. Apparently she had the day off too and was looking for a hiking buddy. I suggested "Triple Lake" near the park, a simple, mostly flat, stroll through the forest that leads past 3 lakes and a few beaver homes. Emily had bigger plans. Steeper plans. More difficult plans. She suggested Mt. Margaret, a 4,900+ foot mountain at the 15-mile/Savage River turn out in the park.

I agreed to go mostly because by the looks of the sky outside it would be raining on us before we could even start hiking. So I packed my bags (without snacks dammit) and walked the mile to the highway and caught the bus that Travis was driving with the customers returning from the morning Stampede. He dropped me off in the canyon and I met up with Emily across the highway at the office and we took off for the park in her wheels for the summer 'Chez.'

A few minutes into our drive into the park the clouds started to spit. Just a few drops here and there dotting the windshield, nothing serious. I was feeling pretty confident that neither of us would be doing any hiking that day. But as we neared the Savage it began to clear up a bit. We were surrounded by clouds and we could clearly see rain over the mountains opposite of Margaret, but a ray of sunshine cut through the clouds directly over Margaret. I still held out hope for a long hike cut short by the rain, but when we reached the ranger station at the head of the trail they told us the storm had basically stalled across the valley and we should be able to enjoy our hike.


The reality that there was a journey ahead of me sank in. I was excited, but my lethargic start to the day left me feeling a bit unprepared. None the less we began our ascent around 2:15.


Emily lead the way for the first half-hour or so before we switched and I took up the front.

photo by Emily Sullivan

I was inching up the hill with my head down when behind me Emily jumped and shouted "WOAH!" We'd been talking to the bears on our way up to keep them away, so of course I thought she'd seen one and momentarily freaked out. When I looked up however, I spotted the reason for her surprise. A young dall sheep was glaring down at us from a rocky point above us. Dude was creepin.

photo by Emily Sullivan

We passed without any problems snapping a few pictures along the way and continued our way up the mountain.

photo by Emily Sullivan

We reached the peak in only two hours. The top of Margaret is interesting because there are several peaks surrounding a big flat bowl the size of a few football fields. Its a strange sight to see such a big field on top of a mountain.

photo by Emily Sullivan

We snapped a few pictures before we looked around and spotted a few hundred feet away a peak that was obviously a few feet higher than the one we were standing on.

photo by Emily Sullivan

Since we'd come so far we figured we had to get to the REAL top and took the 15 or so minutes to walk to the other peak.

photos by Emily Sullivan

We started our descent down the way we came and watched as the weather that had been threatening our hike all day remained unmoved above the mountains across the valley from us. We also could clearly make out four dall sheep grazing directly on the trail about halfway down below us. We made quick work of the hike down stopping to take pictures of the sheep and work our way around them.

photos by Emily Sullivan

I forgot to mention that about halfway up the mountain Emily realized she'd left 'Chez's' lights on. Or at least she thought she had. We figured that if she had indeed done that,the battery would already be dead, so turning around would just be a waste since the car would be just as dead a few hours later anyway. But now on our way down it began to become more of a concern. We were both pretty hungry and just wanted to get down and go eat. When we got to the car our suspicions were confirmed. 'Chez' was dead. Poor 'Chez.' Luckily for us an elderly couple from upstate New York (who apparently drove to AK in 7 days. What the hell?!) were hanging out by the river and had jumper cables on them. We were saved! After a few minutes of awkward conversation with the couple - they both had strange speech impediments and seemed a bit spacey from the drive - we were on our way to pizza and beer at Prospectors. At the end of the day I'd say it was accidentally a very beautiful/productive day off.

Cracks In the Ice

The winter in Healy was apparently a cold, lingering one. When I arrived on May 16th there was still snow on the ground and the surrounding mountains and Otto Lake was still mostly covered with a generous coat of ice.


Last year when I arrived, aside from the snow on the tops of the mountains, everything had long since melted away. A week before I arrived this year our little city was hit by what has been described by most of the guides who were here as the "Great Healy Blizzard." It wasn't so much a blizzard as it was a day or two of substantial snow fall, but any snow falling in early May deserves such a grandiose title.

Consequently, Travis' little boat was full of snow and ice in its winter resting place on the shore of the lake below our house. It took a week or two of some decent sunlight and temps in the high 50s to mid 60s to melt it away, leaving in its place a puddle of water that required four guys to turn the boat on its side and empty it.

Travis and I had been working on building the deck on our now finished employee housing. You may remember last year that we spent the majority of our time between tours building a thirteen bedroom structure to house the employees beginning this season. After putting in 5 or 6 hours constructing our new deck on this day, Travis and I thought it'd be nice to get away and check in on the progress of the thawing out of our noble vessel. When we got down there to find the puddle of water where the ice and snow had once accumulated, plans for the first lake adventure of the 2011 season started coming together quickly. Those plans were quickly dashed when we realized that we couldn't upturn the boat to empty the water. But no sooner had we started to realize our maiden voyage would have to be postponed, Tim and Brian came walking down to see what we were up to. The four of us together were able to get the boat up on her side and empty her belly of all that water.


The electric motor that we used last year wasn't charged and ready to go out. Though I think all the ice in our little cove wouldn't have allowed us to use it anyway. The four of us decided that we wanted to see if we could make our way through the ice field into the open water using the two orrs we'd left in the boat from last year. I stood at the back while Travis stood at the front and we shoved off from the icy bank with me using the orr to push the boat along from the lakes bottom and Travis rowing up front to steer us into the thinner sections of the ice. We didn't get far before we ran into our first thick section and became stuck. Travis and I started stabbing at the ice around and in front of us to free our boat and try and keep moving on to thinner sections and hopefully out to open water. We freed ourselves and repeated the process 3 or 4 times before we finally became STUCK. At this point it was either turn around and head back or get out and start really chopping some ice. I had my big boots on and work jeans and figured we were probably only still in knee high water since the lake is only 8 feet deep at its deepest point and we were still in our cove only a hundred yards or so from the shore. So I volunteered to jump out and start hacking. The ice held me fine. I could hear it whispering quiet warnings to me as it cracked in the thinner areas and used this to navigate my way to more stable patches of ice.


I kept stabbing and eventually found myself floating on an island of ice no bigger than 4 feet by 4 feet. At this point we were all laughing and the boat was beginning to drift back to shore away from me. I thought they were messing with me and were going to leave me stranded but I guess keeping control of the boat with only one orr was pretty much impossible. So with my work mostly done and the boat freed I started making my way back to the boat jumping to a larger piece of ice and trying to inch my way to where they were floating. As I got within two bounds of the boat I heard a loud pop and felt my left foot start to sink so I lunged forward to try and regain my footing but my right foot just plunged through the ice and into the water below.


The water came up to about two inches over my knees before I got a grasp on the boat and pulled myself in. We rolled around in the boat laughing as I lay their soaked. We all knew I'd go in eventually but the way it happened made for a really good laugh. We pulled it together though and started on our way through the last couple yards of ice.

We eventually made it through to open water, but our excitement didn't last long. It turned out the ice that we'd been working so hard to get past had been protecting us from the waves being made by the blowing wind. With just two orrs we were making little to no progress on making our way out into the open water and already drifting back into the ice in our cove. So we agreed our victory against the ice was enough for the day and decided to head back. Unfortunately the path we'd created with our boat through the ice had already closed up and we would have to repeat the entire process all over again.

We worked faster now like seasoned deckhands (I am an avid Deadliest Catch fan after all) and made our way into the thick of the ice quickly. But as we got closer to the shore we found ourselves in the same situation; stuck with no where to go but backwards unless someone got out and chopped a path. I jumped out and started making quick work of the thick ice but noticed the cracking was more consistent and louder where I was now standing. The ice was definitely thinner. We were almost out so I started to make my way back to the ice when suddenly there was a loud crack and I looked down and realized I was standing with both feet in water up to the top of my thighs. I quickly pulled myself into the boat, but the damage was done. Water had soaked my jeans and, worse yet, made its way through my water proof boots. Major bummer. My efforts weren't in vein though. We made it through the ice, pulled ourselves ashore and I waddled back home to change with my first lake adventure of the season under my belt.

Downpours and Lake Adventures

About a week ago I was on my bed, laying on my back, having just completed my morning shift of tours when I was shaken by what sounded like a gunshot in my backyard. I jumped from my bed and pulled the shade back to find my backyard as I'd left it, but shrouded with dark, ominous clouds. A storm was coming in. I'd never heard thunder like that. In California thunder and lightening are two very different weather occurrences. Most of the time you don't see the lightening that caused the thunder to boom, and the noise comes rolling in, growing in decibels as it travels across the valley. The thunder that had disturbed me from my rest was completely different. You could HEAR the crack of the lightening. It didn't shake the windows or the structure of the house, it cracked and moved across the surrounding valley and reverberated off the surrounding mountains, probably rolling on through the canyons and on up the highway for miles and miles. I was beside myself with excitement for the storm that had descended upon us. I ran downstairs and outside to where our tours are launched to find Travis, having just launched one of our evening tours, grinning from ear to ear and this beautiful rainbow


I told Travis I was going down to the Lake where it appeared the rainbow met the ground for a good picture and a better view of the lightening storm. By the time I made it to the lake, about a 200 yard walk from my front yard, the rainbow had gone, and had been replaced by sparse light that was burning its way through the still very active clouds, draping the hillsides with gold and green like something out of a picture book. I snapped this picture, not knowing that seconds later I'd find myself in the thick of the storm.

No more than 5 seconds after taking this photo I heard a loud noise on the water to the left of me. I snapped my head around expecting to see a moose in the water, or some folks motoring about in a boat, but was faced with a wall of water swiftly moving across the lake. The storm was coming on top of me and I knew I had less then a minute to find some shelter before I was drenched. At this point I had wandered down the bank of the lake some ways and knew there was no way I could make it back to the house in time. I took off at a full sprint hearing the splash of the rain on the lake growing louder and louder as it came bounding on top of me. I made it to where the trail begins that leads back to our house and dove beneath a black spruce just as the downpour began to pound everything around me. The small spruce surprisingly provided good shelter and provided me with 5 blissful, dry minutes to finish my smoke and enjoy the show mother nature was providing. This is single handedly my favorite memory so far in Alaska and no words or pictures will EVER do it or the feelings I felt at that moment justice.

I figured I'd wait a few minutes for the hard rain to pass and make a run for the house when it calmed down. That moment never came, and the spruce that was my shelter from the storm became saturated and was no longer keeping me dry, so I made a run for it through one of the biggest downpours I've ever experienced. I made it home out of breathe and with no words to describe the what I'd experienced to my friends sitting with their face to the windows watching the storm I'd just come sprinting out of, only my picture of the calm before the storm, my drenched clothes, and the biggest smile I've ever had.

Later that week, after the storm had passed and after another morning shift, Travis pulled into our driveway and pulled from his car a big battery. Last year Travis found a boat on the banks of Otto Lake and bought a small electric trolling motor from our only local guide, Sterling. The battery was the last necessary item to put the boat in working order. He said, "We're going out on the lake, lets go," and Chris, He, and I set off for the lake. We dragged the boat down to the bank and assembled the modest engine set up and Chris shoved us out into the water.

After figuring out that we had the charges backwards which was making the motor operate in reverse and quickly righting that we were off (albeit at a slow speed) on our first boat adventure of the year. I named Travis my first mate, and Chris the wench, and of course myself the Captain.


We trolled on down to the South side of the lake where we encountered a beaver flapping through the water using his tail as his propeller. Or at least I think it was a beaver, Chris swears it was too small and thinks it was a muskrat. For the sake of a good story we'll maintain that it was a beaver. We took to chasing him around the lake and he proved to be a formidable chase, disappearing under water and emerging back on the surface on the other side of the boat. At one point he even returned to the surface and came swimming full speed ahead right at our boat in a game of chicken, ducking below the surface only 10 feet before we overtook him. After about 10 minutes of this cat and mouse game he finally had enough and took to the reeds that make up the southern bank of the lake and disappeared from sight.

Travis steered the boat to a break in the reeds, no wider than 15 feet and into a channel no deeper than a foot and a half as the mountains beyond the water were drenched in the alpenglow from the midnight sunset. I used the ore to check our depth every 15 feet or so and we slowly entered a cove I'd never noticed from our side of the lake, or even from the overlooks on our tours.


As we rounded the corner and entered the cove we came upon a small house and a moose standing on the bank munching on the tall grass. As we got closer to the moose we realized it was a bull moose, with a modest rack, being that its still early in the season. This was my first bull moose. Travis named him Roosevelt.


We circled around that cove a half dozen times, Roosevelt never taking his eyes off us and chewing on his dinner all the while. We came within 30 yards of him several times and he never moved an inch. The sunset grew more and more incredible with every passing moment until the entire sky was burning with vibrant shades of pink and red and blues. It was the greatest sunset I've seen this year and probably will be unmatched the rest of this season.

It was getting to be late, about 1:00 a.m., and a bit cold on the water so we decided to make our way slowly back home. We said our good byes to Roosevelt and he kept chewing on the grass, as unmoved by our departure as he was by our arrival. As we exited the cove and rounded the corner to the final stretch home the sunset continued to burn.

Hiking (Hitch or Otherwise) the Road to Enlightenment

"...Because the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing...but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night."
-Jack Kerouac

I boarded my flight to Alaska with two books in my bag, Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild," lent to me by my good friend and astute businessman as of late, Roy Shanklin, and the Original Scroll Edition of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," so graciously lent to me by my brother Ryan. Being that I recently read "On the Road" and that "Into the Wild" was required reading for my job, I began my summer of reading by diving into Krakauer's account of McCandless' travels. It made for a good, quick read and brought me to peace with the anxiety that was getting at me having just begun my own adventure. I was on a reading high and was excited to read "On the Road" as Kerouac originally wrote it. The Original Scroll has no paragraph or chapter breaks. It is one long unending paragraph and most interestingly includes the real names of the characters, rather than the Editor's required fictional names (for example, Dean Moriarty was the fictional name of Neal Cassady). I'm currently still reading it, although these days I hardly have any time to commit to reading with all the construction going on (we've been building the 12 room employee housing this week). I'm finding that the Original Scroll is difficult to read, being that there's no breaks. You don't know where to stop as the whole thing is one continuous stream of thought. there's no telling where Kerouac himself took a break in writing.

The result of the style used by Kerouac to create "On the Road" in its original state is one of immediacy and importance. Kerouac wanted to get it all down while every detail was still burned into his memory, a memory that was all too often scattered by drunkenness and sleep depravity. His lifestyle was not conducive to remembering, nor is mine, and I think the fact that I can relate to his immediacy is what is causing me to become more involved in the story this time around.

Before coming to Alaska I made plans to bring my recording equipment up here because I was hoping to create some music during my stay, as I was sure I'd be inspired unlike I ever have before, being in what I was told is one of the most inspiring places in the world. But its funny, although I have been inspired, I've never felt so uninspired to write music. With this sudden sense of clarity, being here and having my purpose (at least for the summer) so plainly laid out in front of me, I've been inspired, but in no way to write music.

I'm inspired to explore, and I'm inspired by all the people I meet who seem to appreciate the art of exploration as I've learned to. I've only had a few chances to get away and do some exploring on my own, but even on the tours I'm overcome with peace as I experience the changing landscape, the wildlife, my friends, the customers and all that Alaska has to offer even when I'm at work.

As I've mentioned in my previous blogs, Travis and I attempted to climb Sugar Loaf Mountain on one of my first days off. Also as I mentioned, we never quite made it to our destination, admittedly probably because of me, as I'm sure Travis would have never quit had we not separated, but none the less we were both completely satisfied with our attempt and felt no disappointment coming off that mountain. After all we had reached the peak of the range and walked the ridge, allowing us to see the the endless expanse of mountains beyond mountains, beyond mountains beyond mountains, and so on, probably all the way east to Canada. I commented to Travis that it was extremely humbling to gaze upon the nameless and perhaps mostly unexplored, but none the less immense and spectacular mountains. Could we find a peak that was reachable and previously untouched? Was there a mountain out there waiting for us to come and be its first chance at being conquered? I don't know but it sure looked like it when we stopped for those brief moments to catch our breathes (mainly mine) and took a moment to try and fathom the immensity of it all.


It should come as no surprise that reading "Into the Wild" and "On the Road" inspired me on an afternoon after a couple of tours to get out on the highway and do some hitchhiking. I've always wanted to give it a go and I had been told that Alaska was one of the easiest places to start. So after my morning shift was over on a beautiful afternoon I walked the mile down Otto Lake Road to the highway and put my thumb out and waited for my ride. My first ride was a pretty pathetic one to say the least. I sat there waiting for 15 minutes while my friends/fellow tour guides who live in the rail car near the highway watched on laughing at my feeble attempts to get a ride. What made my first ride so pathetic was that it was from the Salmon Bake's shuttle (the FREE shuttle for a popular bar & restaurant) which drops me right where I was heading. Even worse was that I had to tip my driver. I think paying for your first hitched ride kind of stifles the excitement. Luckily though my ride back was legitimate. I was picked up by a gentleman who worked in the Park as a helicopter pilot and was headed home for lunch in Healy. In 12 miles he told me all about his time spent in Alaska and his home in Florida where he came from and all the beautiful girls on the beach in their bathing suits, and how even though he misses THEM he has no regrets. I thanked him for the ride and the pleasant conversation and walked on down Otto Lake Rd. home, content with my first hitchhiking experience, despite the illegitimacy of my first ride.

walking down Otto Lake to the highway. You can see Sugar Loaf peaking over the closer mountains on the left.

Brian and Tim heckling me for "looking so gay" and my failure to get anyone to even look at me, much less slow down

Brian's Facebook caption says it best: "Some drivers looked like they might stop, but then they realized it was Joey and kept driving."

Last week I had my day off with my friends Chris and Ryan. I slept in and spent half the day sitting around on my computer and feeling pretty disappointed in myself for not waking up early and doing more with my one and only day off. Then Chris came in the house at about 2:00 and told me to put on my shoes and go for a ride with him somewhere to do something. With no real plans, going "somewhere to do something" sounded great because somewhere would have to be better then sitting here. So we picked up Ryan at the rail car and started South down the highway and ended up stopping near the entrance to the park where a bridge expanded across the Nenana River and a small sign read "Triple Lake Trail." Chris said he'd never done it but heard it was pretty cool and not overly challenging, which is always nice. The hike takes you up a pretty good climb for the first half hour or so where it flattens out and winds back into the valley along a beautiful tree covered mountainside. It extends deep into the valley, passing three quaint lakes. We took our time as we were in no hurry, and sunlight is in no short supply here, eventually returning to our car and stopping for a few beers on the way home. After the beers we started our way back home but didn't get far when Chris pulled to the side of the road and said we were gonna walk down to see some waterfalls. It's apparently called Dragon Fly Creek, and being just a little buzzed I stumbled my way down, laughing all the way and grabbing at the branches of the trees to catch me from falling on my face. It was a great time and the falls were a wonderful end to my day off.





It might be a shame that I don't get to go out and explore all too often with my work schedule being so hectic, but even so I get my daily dose of peace and reflection at the lake in my backyard every day and that can sustain me until my next adventure (perhaps hiking Mt. Healy? or if I can find a way to get out there, visit McCandless' bus? we'll see) and for that I am completely and utterly grateful.

Otto Lake, just steps from my driveway. You can actually see the ridge Travis and I ascended in the middle of the screen. we reached that first peak and followed that ridge left pretty much just to where it disappears behind that closer mountain.

Mt. Healy from my bedroom window

Denali Ridge Adventure

I awoke Monday morning, May 31st, tired as any college student is waking up at 8:15 a.m. on a summer morning, but excited for the new tour that lied ahead in my work schedule. The Denali Ridge Adventure was my final tour to be trained on and I was told by many of my co-workers that it was our most fun, challenging, and beautiful tour we offered. Not to mention the Wilderness Adventure (our most basic tour) gets to be monotonous when you do it for a few weeks, a couple of times a day. This tour was to take us down Dry Creek, a small segment of which is featured in our Wilderness Adventure, far, far back to where orange stakes mark the border of Denali National Park.

Being that this is our most challenging adventure in terms of riding conditions, customers must have extensive experience with the machines making for a fun, light-hearted tour. I had to remind myself several times that these people were paying customers and not my buddies out enjoying a day offroading in Alaska with me. We led the tour but there were several times that our own Rhino became stuck in the deep, dank mud in spots where tires were swallowed and spun uselessly with no traction. We'd free ourselves and search for a way around and the customers would weigh in with ideas of their own on how to get past it. I almost feel bad that I'm paid to have as much fun as these customers who paid good money to get out here, but someone's gotta do it!

We met our customers in front of the house where they're dropped off by the owner of Denali ATV and our Driver, Mike. They were two young couples from Los Angeles, the first fellow Los Agelines I've come across in my (nearly) three weeks here. They were eager to get on their machines and get into it and took to driving really easy. We kept a good pace, stopping at the "Sand Castles" pictured in my first entry, which is our third stop on our Wilderness Adventure, and continued on further down Dry Creek where we encountered the deep mud for the first time. After a few tries and failed attempts to go around we pushed through and carried on with our tour. We encountered a Jeep roughly 10 to 12 miles out, it was stuck in about two feet of mud and was seemingly abandoned. Etched into the thick layer of mud coating the back windshield read a note "1 adult 2 children, walking down stream out," with footprints that matched those of an adult and some kids walking in the direction we'd just came. We hadn't seen any people on our ride so we assumed they'd made it out fine. What a trek that must been with two kids in tow!

We reached the end of our tour at which we turn around and stopped to enjoy the surrounding valleys and mountains that formed a giant amphitheater around us. I did my best to capture how incredibly beautiful it was with this video, but the tranquility and the vivid colors are nearly impossible to translate in a video. There's no substitute for standing where I stood and the extreme calmness that came over me when I stopped and did my best to soak in every last detail.




We enjoyed some sodas and a few snacks with the customers, exchanging hiking stories, discussing our disappointment in how similar Disneyland and Disneyworld are (one of the other guides was from Florida and none of us realized they practically have the same rides!), our mutual hatred for driving in snow, and at one point just stood quietly enjoying the beautiful world around us. We were IN IT.

We headed back, keeping a faster pace then we had on our way out. As a result we had some extra time so we took them up to another ridge, and at one point down into an impassible stream due to the ice that has yet to completely melt away.


We had led them down into this stream, down a muddy bank and had left just enough room to turn us all around and drive the machines up and out with a little help from me and travis pushing from the sidelines.


It was another one of those moments where I felt like we were out messing around with some good friends, rather than at work.

Even with our few minor detours we arrived back at the "Sand Castles" with 45 minutes to kill. So Chris, our leader and the guide I was riding with up front, decided to take the customers to a three story, half-built, abandoned cabin that I'd noticed from one of our overlooks from our Wilderness Adventure.


We drove up Dry Creek a ways and arrived at the cabin. Two old trucks still sit parked in front of the dilapidated cabin to rust and rot in the unforgiving Alaskan weather. Chris said he'd seen a porcupine inside the cabin the last time he'd visited it and that we might get a chance at seeing it again. Chris led the way, with me, Travis, and the customers close behind. Chris began making his way through the house and to the second story and had gotten a bit ahead of the group when we heard him scream (like a little girl I might add). I ran to see what it was, figuring a porcupine had snuck up on him or something, but found Chris staring at this little guy clapping his beak and puffing his wings at him 5 feet away.


Chris laughed and said he hadn't seen him and nearly walked right into him. He snapped a picture with his camera and then took one for me and we stood there watching the baby Great Horned Owl for a while. One of the couples decided to go outside, afraid the baby's mother would be returning soon upon hearing the ruckus of the baby. I recorded this video before we heard them yell from outside "MOM'S BACK!!!" If you listen carefully you can hear them right before I turn around and run and stop the video.



I never saw the mother, but apparently she had a 4 - 5 foot wingspan and was much larger than the baby. I'm glad we didn't stick around to see her in retrospect.

After our run in with nature we started the 15 minute ride back, taking one more detour to the first overlook of our Wilderness Adventure. Its great to be able to do all the extras when we have experienced riders on the tours. There's no doubt about it, this is my favorite tour and I'll be thrilled at every opportunity I get to lead it. Unfortunately it appears that its our least frequented trail.

Hope everyone reading this is well. I've been missing a lot of you a lot lately. I should have some great pics for you soon, as I'm planning on hiking Mt. Healy in the next couple of weeks. Come to think I haven't posted the pics from my first hike to Sugar Loaf yet...I'll get on that soon.

Love you everyone!