Nome & Savoonga, Alaska

Hello all,
Writing from the airport in Nome, Alaska, hoping to eventually get out to St. Lawrence Island and to Savoonga in the Bering Sea. Lucky for me there is wireless at the airport, where I have been stuck for about 3 hours. I did take a walking tour of Nome and I will post pictures of Nome and Savoonga when I return to Anchorage.

copyright paratours.net

Until then... now posted!

Scenic, downtown Nome -


Bering Sea, as seen from the Nome coast -


Our sentiments -


The remanants of a whale carcass in Savoonga. There was still eight feet of snow when the picture was taken...



Savoonga -


The hull of a traditional whaling boat in Savoonga. Is seaworthy when covered with walrus hides -

A boat with the walrus hides attached is on the left in the photo -

Homer, Alaska

This weekend Zach and I with the dogs in tow traveled 4 hours southwest on the Kenai pennisula to Homer. The weekend was filled with trials, tribulations and fun. We stayed at my co-worker's cabin, which was quite cozy. After fumbling in the dark through snow up to our knees to the cabin Friday night, I managed to promply lock us out of the cabin within 5 minutes of arriving. We hunted for a "hidden" key for about an hour and a half and concocted many ways to break in before I realized I had the coworker's phone number in my pocket and my phone was in the car, which was thankfully unlocked. With the key found we settled in.

The next morning we had a wonderful breakfast of bacon and coffee while drying our socks from the night before on the camp stove. We then headed out to explore Homer. Unfortunately, we didn't get far before the car got stuck in the snow. Four hours later (tow trucks are slow and useless when they are not 4-wheel drive) after digging ourselves a path the neighbor managed to pull us out and up the hill to the road.

We explored Homer by first getting some well deserved lunch. Then after a quick driving tour of town we headed to the Spit. The Spit is a 4 mile long jut of land that goes out into Kachemack Bay. There are several businesses offering fishing charters, fish and chip and Salty Dawgs. We opted for the Salty Dawg since it was a bit chilly for fishing and we had just finished lunch. The Salty Dawg is a fisher man's bar covered in $1 bills, life preservers and a thick layer of dirt. Lots of fisher men were at the bar drinking what appeared to be the house drink - Irish coffee. After sharing some locally brewed China Poot Porter from the Homer Brewing Company, we headed out for a closer look at the bald eagles that populate the Spit during the winter.

Tired from our adventures we grabbed some fixings to make dinner and headed back to the cabin, this time parking at the top of the hill and hiking down, a lesson hard learned.

Sunday, we packed up the dogs and went along the shoreline and watched the tide come in. Honey was curious at the froth the crashing waves produced, but was ultimately scared of the water. Frodo wisely kept his distance and resisted Zach's offers to go swimming.
We then proceeded back to the Spit, but left the dogs in the car so that Frodo didn't accidently become lunch for the eagles.

Having conquered Homer we headed back to Anchorage. We stopped in Soldotna to have some lunch. Frodo decided he would be most comfortable to ride between the bikes stacked in the back of the car. He managed to get into the gears and get grease all over his face, Rambo comes to mind.

Today, Seward's Day, a state holiday and no work for me, is a beautiful day. We have walked the dogs and enjoyed the sunshine. Break-up is on its way, if not underway.

Iditarod

Zach and I had the weird pleasure of attending the restart of the 2006 Iditarod in Williow, AK, which is about 2 hours north of Anchorage. A truly Alaskan experience. The restart is held the day after the ceremonial start which was in Anchorage to Eagle River. In Willow the restart took place on a frozen lake. We arrived a couple of hours before the start time and viewed the teams and walked around the lake. There was a good crowd, thousands of dogs and some interesting characters. Jeff King won the race getting into Nome 9 days 11 hours and change after the start.

A few photos

Surviving, if not thriving up north. Once again camera equipped - here are a few random, recent pictures.

The Saddest Puppy

A morning walk

Up and down

Fur Rondy ice carving

Yes, we are still alive and well

Due to the recent lack of posting on the blog, I have received some emails as to whether Zach and I are still alive. The answer is yes, but we are very busy. Here's a quick run down on what is going on with us.

Zach is busy at school going to class. Finals are coming soon so he's studying for those as well. He is also working hard in the lab doing something with water. For more details he would have to explain.

I have been busy getting admitted to the Alaska Bar and the federal bar. Not much changed after getting admitted except I am much busier at work. I was surprised by my mother and grandmother who snuck into town for 3 days to attend the swearing in ceremony. They were able to see Anchorage and a bit of Alaska. We did get out to Girdwood, about 30 miles south of Anchorage, and Hope which is also south on the Kenai Peninsula. They saw several moose, a glacier and snow, so not a bad trip.

Other than work and school, Zach and I had a wonderful thanksgiving with our neighbors and one of our neighbor's family. After a wonderful dinner we attended The Alaska Shoot Out and watched UAA play South Carolina. Unfortunately, UAA lost, but that game was fun. Word has it we were even seen on ESPN 2 during the game.

On Friday, I was able to try out snowshoeing. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to doing it again. On Saturday, Zach and I finally got out and tried cross country skiing. Zach was a pro. I, on the other hand, spend more time on the ground than upright. However, there is hope in sight as I hear the learning curve is good and after a few times people improve quickly.

Well, that's the latest run down. Hopefully we will get the rest of the trip pictures up and the pictures from our recent visitors and our trip to Seward in September. For now we will continue to brave the snow, cold and darkness. Actually, it is very beautiful with the snow on the ground and the frost on the trees. All of the snow keeps things rather light. Here are a couple of grainy pictures taken with my phone since I dropped the other camera in the lake (a story for another time), but they do convey what it look like here now.

Until next time...

Days 3-5

Heading north from the town of Culbertson, Montana, we traveled into Sasketchawan.
The car was hesitant to cross the border - but the canadian customs inspector was accommodating for the 45 minutes we were stalled there. Once rolling again, we drove north to the Trans-Canada highway (it all looked like Nebraska). We lunched in Moose Jaw (tasty gyros) and stopped for a snack afterwards:

Westward to Medicine Hat for the night. Nothing remarkable. The next morning, further west into Calgary. A very tasty lunch at an Indian restaurant recommended to Meg by one of her coworkers - a recent transplant from Calgary to Anchorage. As we got back on the highway, we could finally see the Rockies:


And soon after, into Banff National Park:


Then, the batteries died, so no more pictures for a while. We drove north along the the Icefields Highway in Banff. Truly beautiful scenery - you should make the trip if you have the opportunity (though fill up with gas BEFORE going into the park). We camped at the Pocohontas campgrounds in Jasper National Park, just north of Banff.

The next morning, we left the national parks and drove into Hinton for breakfast. Later that morning, we stopped for some gas and fresh cherries in Grand Cache, Alberta.

North up to Grand Prairie, which we got out of as quickly as we could.

(There were buildings, but we didn't bother to capture them)

A few more miled up the road found us in Dawson Creek, mile zero, the start of the Alaska Highway. We'll pick up here in our next post. Till then...

Some of those picture things - Days 1 & 2

After much delay, some of those photos thingys that have been bandied about -

Here, Honey girds herself for the trip

Of course, fuel is necessary to travel

Sadly, using the wrong fuel can result in unusual consequences

One of the few interesting things to see throughout most of North Dakota

However, fierce determination helped us see our way through all the Dakotan flatness

Though thankfully Montana, and with it the end of the day, does eventually arrive

(day 3 preview) Sadly, though we decide to head north to Canada early and leave Montana for Saskatchewan. Good god, why did we leave Montana?

Yes Joe, you're right: Posting is hard.

With the recent flurry of posts, surely you're thinking to yourself, "But how do they find the time to post so much?". Wait, right, you're not thinking that.

The brief version of the story is that we were computerless for a while, and then burecratic inertia took hold and has been hard to shake. My ibook crapped out on us midway through the drive up (thank you apple), and meg's vaio didn't fare much better once we'd arrived in Anchorage. All was not lost, however, in that Apple did me right and replaced my old ibook with a brank-spanking-new ibook (thank you apple!). Meg's computer has a prognosis for full recovery from Best Buy here any day now. With the new machine set up, we're ready to start sifting through the 200+ photos to separate the good from the bad (who wants to see blurry mooses?).

Meg, the dogs and I are doing well. We're settled in and quite comfy. Meg's job is keeping her quite busy, especially now that the school-year has started up. The prospect of a strike by the teachers in Anchorage might offer her a little bit of short term relief. I began my classes last week - and I have to laugh at myself when I realize how much I've managed to forget in the four short years since I finished undergrad. The classes are interesting, and I'm looking forward to starting some research in the next week or two. Honey and Frodo are doing well - adjusting well to their new environment. They have a number of new friends in the building - seven dogs total living in the four units. And yet, you can still sleep at night!

Here's a snap of the northwest side of the Chugach range as you head toward Anchorage -

On the road

Just a quick update for all two people tracking this page - we are on the road, getting ready to start our second day. After a slow start due to a fish-tailing trailer, a brief repacking session at the Plymouth Lutheran Church somewhere north of Polk City, we were back on the road, safe and sound at 65 mph, headed north on I-35.

Many hours later (thank you, MSP traffic), we arrived at my Aunt & Uncle's lovely home, somewhere deep in the woods south of Bemidji, Minnesota. We're getting ready to set off for our second day - with the goal of landing somewhere to the west of the MT/ND border.

Until then.

Atop Flattop Mountain

Portage glacier

nice view

railroad bridge

nice view of glacier

more ice chunks from glacier

sign to go ice worm hunting

woods along the trail