The Rest of October

The latter half of October brought the snow that will stick around for the rest of the winter. It was in the newspaper not too long ago that Fairbanks is one of the few places that is always 100% guaranteed to have a white Christmas. Somehow when the snow starts falling and the skies get darker and darker, life becomes more social because everyone isn't running in quite as many directions as we do in the summer.

This winter season brought the first ever Sauerkraut Throwdown!! This is a little friendly competition in which one must have grown their own cabbage and then make their own kraut...not so complicated, right? I was honored to be an official judge for the competition.


It was hard to pick a clear winner as we judged each of the krauts on appearance, aroma, taste, and texture. In the end, I would say that all of the competitors were winners although we did have to pick first, second, and third. Congratulations!!


October also brings the start of the hockey season. What would winter be without going to one of the UAF Nanook hockey games?


Between the second and third periods, there is a competition where people throw these tiny frisbee-like things and try to get them into a bin at center ice.


I can't remember what you win if you get one in, but I assume it's a good prize. Speaking of winning, the Nanooks did manage to win that night, putting everyone in a good mood for the ride home.

The end of October is pretty obvious when you look around and see plenty of people in costumes roaming the streets. This year was no exception. My friend Steve had his annual Halloween party, and yet again the costumes did not disappoint. I went as a Death Panel. Get it? It's a play on words!


Even our snacks were festive! Check out the ham skull.


Not everything was gross or scary, there were bee keepers


Sesame Street characters


Linda Richmond from SNL


Yukon Cornelius


A Banana


Injured Hockey Player with Monty Python knight


Me and Pie


and a Mombie and gypsy made the drive from Delta Junction!


This is always a great time of year filled fun activites and lots of laughter!!

A Visit From Mom : Part 2

After a good night's sleep in Destruction Bay, we continued our journey to Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon Territory. We started out the day driving along Kluane Lake, the largest lake in the Yukon, and soon came upon the aptly named Sheep Mountain. There were sheep all over the mountainside. Too bad we forgot the binoculars!


A few more miles down the road, it started to snow, and it didn't look like it was going to stop. The forecasts on the radio were calling for 2 to 4 centimeters. Centimeters? How much is that? The snow was coming down fast, which made the driving a little more challenging. Luckily I had my winter tires on the car. We almost stopped in Haines Junction rather than continuing on to Whitehorse because of the snow, but we decided to charge on and try our luck. In the end, we were glad we did because we made it to Whitehorse without any trouble.


Our first stop was the visitor's center where we learned that pretty much everything was closed for the season. Apparently you aren't supposed to visit after September. The theme for our trip was quickly and easily defined as "CLOSED". You may recall this word being used in the previous entry as well. The good thing was that the visitor's center did have a list of the things that were actually open in October, although it seemed many things were only open one day a week and during limited hours.

Over the next couple of days, we took in the sites. There were things that you can see no matter what time of year, such as the log skyscrapers


the many murals on building around town, this is a mural, not real storefronts


They may not have let us in the old log church museum because it was closed for the season, but they couldn't stop us from walking by and taking pictures.


One of the few places that actually had an open sign the window was the MacBride Museum of Yukon History. They had exhibits on everything from wildlife to mining, to transportation, to lifestyles, to artifacts...nearly anything you could think of. There was a good explanation on how the permafrost slowed down the miners. The exhibit read: 'Miners hauled firewood to their claims and painstakingly thawed the frozen ground with a series of fires. The average rate of descent was one to two feet per day, and bedrock lay from 5 to 25 feet down.' Here's the display showing how the miners would lower down buckets with small fires to melt the permafrost.


We stopped to pop our faces into a photo opportunity to play Soapy Smith and the Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman who caught him.


After the museum, we headed to the Yukon Brewing Company.


We sampled some of their beers and then got a tour of the behind-the-scenes equipment.


In addition to bottling their beer, they also can it. We got a demo of how they manually can their beverages.


We took in a walk along the Yukon River one afternoon


during which we saw a bald eagle


and ended up at the SS Klondike (yet another attraction with a CLOSED sign in the window).


In adding to our 'World's Largest' list we made sure to go and see the World's Largest Weathervane, a converted Douglas DC-3.


Outside of our hotel was a giant wooden Mountie. World's largest? I don't know, but it certainly seems like it could be.


Soon enough our time in Whitehorse was over, and it was time to head back to Fairbanks. Since it wasn't snowing on the way back, we actually got to see the town of Haines Junction without blinding snow. Low and behold there was another Quonset hut church, Our Lady of the Way Catholic Church.


We also got to see the Village Monument, aka The Muffin. I believe the picture speaks for itself.


The beautiful drive back afforded the same gorgeous views but from a different angle.



Life slowed down a bit once we returned to Fairbanks. We ran a few more errands, had lunch with Dianna, and dabbled in the pumpkin arts.




It was a fabulous visit! I wish they could happen more often.

A Visit From Mom: Part 1

We had our first snowfall on September 22 this year. It was pretty brief and didn't stick around all that long as temperatures quickly moved above freezing.


This was all well and good because my mother was coming for a visit, and I figured snow probably wasn't the first thing she wanted to see as her flight descended into Fairbanks. Instead, after a well-deserved night of sleep, she was greeted by a beautiful sunrise.


Our first day was spent running around town doing errands and such before we left on a little road trip to Whitehorse, Canada, and it ended with a phone call from my friend Dianna to let us know the Northern Lights were out! It was cold outside, but we went out on the porch to watch and heard an owl hooting from a nearby tree.

Day two brought another brilliant sunrise, and we were ready to hit the road.


We weren't sure what our destination was that night, but we were shooting for the Kluane Lake area. We figured we would play it by ear and see whatever there was to see along the way, pulling over to take in the scenery and take pictures of whatever we saw. After cruising through North Pole, Alaska, we were greeted by fighter jets taking off from Eielson Air Force base that attacked our ear drums and nearly blew the car off the road.

We ended up at the Knotty Shop, which was closed, but we still walked around the frozen grass to see the burl logs and animals on the grounds.





We continued to follow the Tanana River down the Alaska Highway during a beautiful sunny day with gorgeous views that were never ending. It seemed every five minutes one of us was saying, "Oh look! Isn't that pretty?"


It didn't take long to get to the USA/Canada border at Beaver Creek, Yukon.


In Beaver Creek we saw our first Quonset hut church of the trip, Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church.


The Milepost says that it was built in 1961 from a salvaged hut that was used during the construction of the Alaska Highway.

A little further down the road, at the base of the St. Elias Mountains we saw a beautiful half-frozen pond inhabited with swans migrating south. It was so gorgeous, and they were honking so loudly, we had to stop and take in the view for a while.


Soon enough the sun was almost down, and it was time to stop for the night in Destruction Bay, but just a few miles before the Talbot Arm Motel, we took in the World's Largest Gold Pan! How many people can say that?

September Field Work

In early September, I was in Barrow and Wainwright, Alaska, for field work. We set up two field sites to monitor the ocean currents in the Chukchi Sea. You may remember from an earlier blog post that Barrow is the northernmost city in the United States. I put together a picture slideshow for our web site at work, so instead of duplicating my efforts, I thought I would just link to it.

Click here to go to the pictures.

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend brought a road trip to Anchorage, which included beautiful fall colors and bright sunny skies. Mette and I hit the open road for a long weekend with plans to relax, shop, and eat turkey legs at the State Fair in Palmer.

First stop...Palmer, Alaska, where we just beat the after work crowds on Friday afternoon. We perused the giant vegetables, which are always a crowd pleaser.

This year's highlights included a 594 pound pumpkin


a giant 82.9 pound rutabaga


and a new world record 125.9 pound cabbage!


However, as I already stated, vegetables were not our goal. We were looking for slow-roasted fall off the bone turkey legs. We had already sampled the if-you-don't-have-anything-nice-to-say-don't-say-anything-at-all turkey legs at the fair in Delta Junction, and the rather average turkey legs at the Tanana Valley State Fair in Fairbanks, but neither hit the spot, so after cruising the vegetables, we headed to 'Gobbler's Grill'.


Yum! Their legs were SO wonderful we figured we could turn around and head back to Fairbanks and call it a successful trip; however we still had three more days ahead of us, so it was on to Anchorage for a weekend of shopping. We did manage to fit in some time for relaxing at the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood. where we had a gorgeous view from our room.


But all good things must come to an end, and the gorgeous drive back to Fairbanks and a return to fall after summer-like conditions in Anchorage was welcome.



Yes, it was a wonderful weekend and a turkey leg that we won't soon forget!

Hiatus Over

The hiatus is over. I put it off as long as I could, but it's the last day in August, and I'm back! It was good while it lasted, but it's time once again to pick up the camera and document life as I know it.

Let's see, what have we missed? Well, I was hardly home this summer, which is why I took a break from the blog in the first place. It was a time full of field work, deadlines, and somewhere in there I managed to pack up all of my belonging and move into a new place. When I did manage to keep my butt in Fairbanks, it was so smoky from nearby forest fires that I wished that I was still out of town. However, the summer wasn't all work and misery…I did become a Godmother to my new nephew Parker Thomas! What a cute little sweetie he is. Not that I'm biased or anything.


Now I fear it is already autumn here in Fairbanks. There are some yellow leaves on the trees and a crisp feeling in the air. It's time to put away the old flip-flops and stuff my toes into socks and shoes. Sigh.

I already have two trips lined up in the next week or two, so stay tuned for new pictures!

In the meantime, here's a short, gappy pictorial view of my summer:

Wainwright, Alaska



Clearwater River Float



Upper Chena River


One last view of Redoubt


New place!


Prince William Sound







Raspberries


Forest Fires


Ash on the Car that was Falling From the Sky...


Parker's Baptism


Girl Cabin Trip


Rhubarb

Hiatus

I'm obviously taking a break from updating the blog. It wasn't planned, but that is how it has happened. Check back again in August when, hopefully, I'll have a chance to make some updates. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Fourth!

Kenai: Take Two

Less than a week later, I was catching a 6:00am flight out of Fairbanks and a gorgeous morning view of Turnagin Arm,


only to return to Kenai to do some troubleshooting with the field equipment and to establish a more robust internet connection with our field sites via satellite.


Even though the trip involved yet another Saturday spent working in the field, I did manage to return to Fairbanks in time for the annual beer scramble on Sunday! Yes, it was time once again for a bunch of crazy adults to enjoy a great brunch and dig through the snow looking for beer.


Some took the digging a little more literally than others...


Never let it be said that life is boring.

Life's Been Busy

As if life hasn't been busy enough, in the month after my last entry, two friends had babies, multiple ski races occurred, the ski season ended, final reports were due at work, a visit from an out-of-town friend was super welcome, and my NCAA basketball bracket took me on an emotional roller coaster, but that was March...

After all of that, I had to leave town rather unexpectedly to monitor ocean surface currents in Cook Inlet. I know that may not seem busy nor exciting, but it is for me. A volcano in Alaska, Mt. Redoubt, has been causing some trouble.


For a while Redoubt was cancelling a lot of flights and showering ash on people in south central Alaska. More recently things have quieted down a bit, but originally there was a chance of oil spilling into Cook Inlet from storage tanks at the base of the volcano, so people like me wanted to make sure we knew where any spill would directed and when, in order to help expedite a cleanup during such a disaster. To accomplish this goal, we set up three different field sites around Cook Inlet, Alaska, one in Kenai, one on an offshore platform named Osprey, and one in Kasilof.

The first setup was on the beach north of Kenai, a town which is known for great fishing.


It was chilly, but the snow was melting, so things were definitely moving in the right direction. I got to enjoy the weather while walking around the beach with a GPS, VHF radio, and an antenna in a backpack. This is the way we calibrate our field instruments.


The beach access was a little sketchy, but luckily I made it both down and up.


The next day we were flown in a helicopter out to an oil platform to set up another field site.


It was my first helicopter ride, and the take off and landing were pretty cool, but other than that, it was (thankfully) uneventful. I think the most strange part for me is that you don't taxi down a runway, but rather just go directly up or down.


At any rate, in about ten or fifteen minutes, the ride was over as we landed on the platform:



Being on an oil platform was another first for me, but once you forgot about where you were, I thought it was just like being on a research ship with lots of stairways and floors and doors to various hallways, so that you had to kind of learn your way around the lay of the land.


After we finished setting putting everything together and setting it up



the tide began to come in, bringing a lot of ice with it which made it feel like we were the ones moving rather than the other way around. (The orange pod is an escape capsule for the platform, although I'm not sure how well it would aid in an escape if it is dropped onto an ice floe rather than the water's surface.)

I didn't take many pictures at the third site we set up other than the one of Mt. Redoubt above. I suppose by that time I was tired of taking pictures, and really just tired in general. Toward the end of any trip, I'm really just ready to sleep in my own bed and return to my regular routine. We returned from this one exhausted and by driving the nine hours back to Fairbanks on Easter Sunday.

How much snow?

A lot of people have been asking me lately how much snow we have on the ground in Fairbanks. Well, here's my answer. About this much,