Recent Adventures

Once again we have been remiss in posting on the blog. So, here is a link to pictures we have taken on our recent adventures, including a trip to Juneau at the beginning of the month.

We'll be in Iowa in about a month and hopefully we'll be able to see folks while we are there.

Break-up begins

While spring officially started a couple of weeks ago, here spring has just started with what is called break-up. Unlike spring in most other areas with early blooming crocuses and the greening of grass, spring here begins the big melt. With a good 6-8 feet of snow piled up it take time and makes things soggy and muddy. However, as depressing as that may sound, we know that spring is here as the days continue to get longer - 14 hours from sun up to down and growing and warmer - its supposed to be a balmy 50 degrees today, but I doubt we get there.

Recently, Zach and I got away for about a week. We drove from Portland to San Diego, mainly on the Pacific Coast Highway. During our trip we were able to experience spring and the start of summer - it was 85 the day we left San Diego. Pictures to come...

In the news...

Check out this link to a story by the Anchorage Daily News last week about a case I am currently handling at work:

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/8599675p-8492514c.html

A real update

Since it has been since August since we last posted anything substantive, here's what has been happening in a nutshell:

1. October, the arrival of Darby, our third dog, see the post below. Really, three dogs rounds out the pack.

2. Camping at the Matanuska Glacier. The picture at the top of the page was taken by Zach during that trip. It was beautiful, but extremely cold, probably -20 degrees or colder while we were out taking pictures.

3. Travels back to Iowa for the holidays which were hectic, but it was very nice to see everyone.

My nephew, Jaden, enjoying his Christmas presents.

4. SNOW!! After returning home from Iowa, we found several feet of snow had fallen and it continues to fall a couple of times a week. It makes for lots of fun skiing and snowshoeing. Also, it's very pretty.

Just off the trail at Russian Jack park here in town.

Other than those highlights, Zach continues to be busy with finishing his masters degree as this is his last semester. I am as busy as ever with work, often traveling a couple of times a month. We have plans in March for a bit of a vacation - driving from Portland, Oregon to San Diego, California and seeing what we see along the way, while camping, sightseeing and visiting friends out that way.

New Look

Zach and I have taken the time to finally spend some time on the blog. As you can see we have given the blog a makeover adding some pictures and updating our links. On the right you can find a link to Zach's photo page on flickr as well as the new blog we started for our Anchorage gourmet night gathering that happens once a month. Hopefully, we'll be more diligent in keeping this thing up to date, hence the picture of the week. However, since the pictures are usually taken by Zach, I'll leave it up to him to update the picture, so you know where to direct your complaints if the picture doesn't change.

Also, below, you can find a picture of our newest addition, Darby. She joined us in early October. Yes, yes we are quite behind with updating the blog.

Summer Vacation - North to the Future

Zach and I recently planned and started a vacation of biking from Anchorage to Denali National Park and back. We biked over the course of 3 days, 168 miles, to the Denali North View Campground, about 70 miles from the national park. Unfortunately, rain forced us to head back to Anchorage. Once back in Anchorage, we took a day to dry out and then headed back out for our vacation, this time with the car since the rain didn't stop.

We camped one night in Denali National Park at Wonder Lake Campground, which is 85 miles inside of the park, reachable by a 5 hour bus ride. The rain let up the following day, though the cloud ceiling stayed low. Rather than spend another soggy night at the campground for the slight chance of seeing Denali, we decided to hop the bus back out. Our bus driver must be a distant cousin of Bob Ross. The ride out was fairly devoid of wildlife - a single wolf in the distance, a few caribou and a bunch of dall sheep high up on the mountain sides.

Rather than return south, we decided to head north along the Parks Highway to Fairbanks. After finding dinner at Gambardella's Pasta Bella, longing for a dry bed we stayed the night at Ah, Rose Marie Bed and Breakfast.

Early monday morning, we explored Fairbanks and took a tour through the University of Alaska Museum. Highly worth a visit if you're ever in the area.

We next drove south along the Richardson Highway. Our first stop was just a short drive away, at North Pole, Alaska. There was everything you might want, even candycane painted lamp posts.

Further south along the highway, we passed through broad expanses of empty, mountainous terrain. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline runs alongside the Richardson, both above and below ground.

We saw the Black Rapids Glacier, which
apparently tried to eat the highway in the 30's when it advanced some three miles over the span of one winter.

After passing through Delta Junction and Glenallen, we pushed further south, headed toward Valdez. Our first stop was the former mining boom-town of Copper Center. We camped at a campground a short ways out of town, though returned the following morning for a warm breakfast at the Copper Center Roadhouse, which was a stop on the trail north for the goldminers in the late 1890s.

Back on the highway south, we passed through Thompson Pass, the scenic final high point before the long downhill into Valdez. A quick stop and hike revealed some beautiful alpine tundra and snow (in August) looming not far away.

Valdez was rained in when we arrived. Without much to see, we found some lunch to kill time and see if the clouds would lift. We drove around the town for a short while, saw Valdez Glacier, thousands of salmon spawning and a few sea otters out for a swim, before returning north along the highway.

We drove to a small campground named Liberty Falls just inside Wrangel-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. A beautiful, most likely glacier fed waterfall and creek flowed past our tent flap.

On the final day of our trip, we drove further along the road into Wrangel-St. Elias. We stopped in another former mining boom town, Chitina, for coffee and breakfast. While eating, we noted a turkey apparently making its nest across the street among some rusted out trucks from the 1930s. The town was quite large in its day, where the some of the workers at the Kennicott Copper Mine lived, until it closed in 1938. Today, the town is quite small, often a starting point for salmon fishing trips on the Copper River. The highway ends and turned into a gravel road for the final 60 miles into the town of McCarthy and the park. We only traveled a few miles down the road, crossing the Copper River in a beautiful valley. There were a few interesting salmon catching contraptions on the riverbank.

Back on the highway heading north, we passed through Glenallen again and headed west and south along the Glenn Highway toward Anchorage. We stopped for lunch at the Sheep Mountain Lodge, where there were a bunch of cute dog-sled puppies. After lunch, we stopped at Volvo-valhalla behind the lodge before heading back to Anchorage. We picked some blueberries and grabbed some wheel rims for snow tires. Maggie, the dog at the yard, growled until you rubbed her tummy.

Substitutions

A few substitutions of late in the apartment standings.

Remaining steady - Honey & Frodo - (upload soon)

Leaving the apartment - Otto -

New arrival - Caffey -

New arrival - Hutch -

(two additional arrivals to be photographed soon...)

Biking to Girdwood

To recover from a quiet spell for a while - a few photomontages and notes from the land of North to the Future™. We took a saturday a couple of weeks ago to bike from Anchorage to Girdwood, which is about a 40 mile trip, one way. Well, 40 miles from some arbitrary point where they start measuring such things (my guess - the start of the Seward Highway). The point being, when we started at about 7:30am, it wasn't until 9am-ish that we actually got out of town. Ahh, sprawl (and a brief, unsheduled trip to Fred Meyer to pick up some zip ties to do a quick, sidewalk repair).

So after we got out of town, we set off, on the side of the highway. Generous shoulders on the side left plenty of room to bike. One of the first scenic points that we stopped at, after maybe 20 miles, to take a break and a few pictures -
Yes, I need a haircut. I know. I'll be shorn one of these days soon enough.

A few miles later, once the shoulder of the highway turned into an actual bikepath at the small (small!) town of Indian, we started to work our way up, much higher than the ~sea level highway. Needless to say, two some miles into a seemingly endless uphill climb, we paused for a brief break where Meg asked,

"They call these things Altoids?"
Yes, along with zipties, we bought a package of the new (to us) Altoids gum. Minty and chewy.

A short few miles later and we were nearly in Girdwood. Pictured just outside of town -


A short uphill mile into town (ha), we enjoyed some much deserved lunch and a drink. A little lounging and rock skipping followed on the stream that runs from Alyeska glacier to the Turnagain Arm south of town, out to Cook Inlet and ultimately the Pacific.

The wind-gods were not as friendly on the trip back. A constant headwind of 10+mph made for slow going. In fact, we eventually admitted defeat, some 5 miles outside of the southernmost edge of the Anchor-sprawl when a good friend Kelly (and Jackson) came to rescue us. It was one of those 'a car never felt so good' moments as we drove back, even if I was crammed into a very small space with a couple of bikes. A good warmup ride for our trek to Seward and Kodiak later this summer.

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...