Four-letter words: Rain, cold

Copyright 2006 Lydia Hinshaw

SKAGWAY, AK -- On Friday, we found the sound of rain on the roof soothing. Saturday, we found it pleasant. Sunday we found it slightly boring.
Now it's Tuesday and this rain-on-the-roof racket is just plain annoying. Prince Charming, a weather buff, checks the Internet forecast almost hourly. The long-range predictions go just 10 days into the future, and it appears we will be hearing a lot more rain on the roof.
Did I mention the cold? Every morning we wake up to temperatures in the 30s. During the day it may make it to 40 before dropping back into the 30s again. Most of the time, it is just warm enough to keep the rain from turning to something more solid.
This afternoon our crew of tour-guides went on a bus ride over White Pass, which was named for a Canadian minister of the interior back in the 1880s. The name is more than appropriate. White snow, white sky. A white icy mix freezing on the windshield.
Our tour guide instructor, a veteran who was driving the pass for the first time this season, was amazed at the amount of snow still lying and flying this late in the spring. The Prince and I weren't so surprised. We drove the road on a clear day Friday and wound up with sore facial muscles from squinting, despite our sunglasses.
Down here at the bottom of the 14-mile, 3,000-foot hill, it's all we can do to stay warm indoors in a cabin that was built, our employers tell us, to keep its occupants cool in the summer.
We're among the lucky ones. There's quite a housing shortage for seasonal workers here. A couple of our co-workers are roomies in a pop-up camping trailer.