Stuck but not Stranded

Well, it wasn't in my plans to be in Alaska for Christmas, but that's how it has turned out. You can't control Mother Nature!

I'm just glad my flight got cancelled before I got out of Alaska because I could have easily gotten stuck in the Seattle airport for the 25th. Yikes!

Chick Here for Fairbanks Daily News Miner Article

Happy holidays to all!!

Tolovana Pilgrimage

Every December, about fifteen friends make the trip from Fairbanks to Tolovana Hot Springs, but this year was different. New babies and people on vacations left us with only four of 'the gang' going this year, plus three other people we know who just happened to be going the same weekend, which was a welcome surprise.

If you do it right, every trip to Tolovana begins with breakfast at the Hilltop Truck Stop where the menu includes such items as the Train Wreck (which Jeremy tackled with some help from Tom), the Breaker Breaker Breakfast, and the Trucker's Special. Ah yes, after breakfast at Hilltop, you won't have to worry about eating lunch, which is nice because it is an eleven mile trail in to the hot springs and can require a bit of effort to get there.


Usually the parking lot at the trailhead is super windy, but we lucked out with just a slight breeze and pretty good temperatures.


Jeremy and Tom mushed in,


Dianna handled the snow machine with giant gear sled in tow, and I trotted around on my own two feet with a sled for the downhills.


These downhills aren't just downhills. They are sometimes STEEP, which just adds to the fun.


The sled on the snow machine had a little bit of trouble with some soft snow on the way in, but other than that, things went pretty well. Tom took my picture upon arrival, and I was surprised to see that I wasn't even all that frosty.


From there on out, we enjoyed four days and three nights of eating, relaxing, exploring a bit, and soaking in the hot tub under mostly clear skies and temperatures that I think remained above zero. What a life! Good food. Good friends. No email. No cell phone. No plumbing. No electricity. It was great!

The cabin...


The view from the cabin...


The 'Upper' Tub...


Checking out the Airstrip...


Visits from Emma, Brian, and Emily helped to break up the day.


Before we knew it, it was time to head back home. The trip out was beautiful with gorgeous views of the White Mountains, Alaska Range, Denali, and the Minto Flats.



Of course, it wouldn't be a complete trip to Tolovana without just a little bit of drama...on the way home, a flat tire on the snowmachine trailer rounded out the trip.

Sea Ice Workshop in Barrow

Mid-November took me to Barrow (place to hunt snowy owls), Alaska, the farthest north town in the United States and one that I had never been to before. I, along with a few other people, gave a tutorial to representatives from various coastal Alaska communities on how to access scientific information about sea ice on the internet. The workshop was a success, and I was happy to have finally visited the town of Barrow because we may set up a field site there next summer.

The workshop was held at the Barrow Global Climate Change Research Facility, whose doors were just opened last year, and it was a great place to host a meeting with plenty of computers and high-speed internet access.


The signs labeling the rooms were given in English, brail, and Inupiaq.



I'm thinking about taking an Inupiaq class in the spring, but I'm not sure how well I would do. We'll see how it goes. The Barrow Arctic Science Consortium provided lodging in a Quonset hut onsite.


After the meeting was over, I got to drive up and down the coastline a little bit. It looked just like you would expect the Arctic Ocean to look this time of year...frozen.


Another treat for me was the opportunity to see the last sunset of the year for Barrow. Goodbye from Barrow until the spring, old friend. Makes me glad I live just below the Arctic Circle.

Halloween

Steve Springer hosted his 10th annual Halloween party on November 1, and as always, the costumes didn't disappoint. In this posting, the pictures pretty much speak for themselves:

The monks...


I went as Joe Six Pack.


Georgina the illegal alien...


Marla the penguin...


Karen the queen and Hank the witch doctor...


Party host Michael Jackson...


And what respectable Alaskan Halloween party would be complete without a Sarah Palin?


Paige the crazy sweater lady and Cody as Ali G...


Cashell the Care Bear and Tim the gnome...


Max, Kieran, and Mette straight out of The Wizard of Oz...


Carrie and Duff as Olive Oil and Popeye...


There was even a band, Steve Brown and the Bailers, and they dressed up too!

Another Work Trip

Another trip to Red Dog Mine to check up on the equipment that we installed presented quite a different season than the one we left it in. It was now winter, and lucky for my sometimes touristy nature, the Western Artic Caribou herd was migrating through Cape Krusenstern National Monument. This wasn't the ideal situation for our driver, who wanted to get to dinner on time rather than wait for caribou to cross the road, and it probably didn't help that I was taking pictures from the back seat,

but fortunately there was a small gap in the action after only a couple of minutes, so none of us went hungry.

Everything at our field site was quiet and calm. All ships have to be south of Bering Strait before November 1st due to sea ice, so this place really slows down in the winter time.

Just a day or two before we got there, a big storm threw chunks of ice up onto the beach, which made for some pretty trecherous beach combing. Glad I missed that one!

Oh yeah, we did some work too, but soon enough it was time to head back home. On the return flight, we were afforded excellent views of Denali and Mt. Foraker from the west-southwest, which was a new angle for me.

Playing With the Queen of Hearts

Sometimes, there's not a whole lot that goes on in an Alaskan town when the temperatures start to drop, the amount of daylight begins to dwindle, and everyone waits for more snow to fall, so you can imagine my excitement when I read in the newspaper on Friday that Juice Newton was going to be giving a concert in Fairbanks on Monday night. Juice Newton! She is one of my all-time favorites, so I knew I had to go.

Juice was only one of the acts that night. Gary Puckett (yes, of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap) was also playing. It was a fund raiser for the Fraternal Order of Alaska State Troopers. Playing in the local hockey arena, the crowd was a little sparse. Poor advertising? I don't know, but the fact that I didn't find out about it until three days before makes me think...yes. At any rate, showing up ten minutes before the show was plenty of time for my friend Ellen (who was lucky enough to be in town from Delta Junction) and me to find seats in the fifth row. We could have even sat in the second row, but that seemed awfully close.

Juice was great! Unfortunately I forgot my camera, but oh well. Playing acoustic with a couple of fellow band members, Juice had a great sense of humor, could still carry a tune, and just generally rocked the house. Highly entertaining! I even got her autograph between bands:


When Gary Puckett took the stage, I realized why Ellen and I were pretty much the youngest people in the crowd. Let's see...how do I put this. I guess I'll just say that I don't think I really appreciate music from the late 60s and felt that I needed to leave a little early. Maybe I would have liked him more if I was in a lounge in Las Vegas, and he was opening for Wayne Newton or something. Who knows?

First Snow

Well, it isn't the greatest picture, but it proves the title of this entry. It's winter.

Back to Red Dog

We returned to Red Dog Mine to set up our field equipment, which will monitor the waves offshore until the ice moves in. Knowing that it was late September, I was a little nervous about how cold it would be, but it was about the same weather as in Fairbanks. Actually the weather at Red Dog was gorgeous, with clear skies and no wind. We couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Here a picture of me (white hard hat, looking like Cousin It) and Oceana running cable down a trench.


Getting there on a Monday and leaving on Wednesday was just the right amount of time to get all of our work done and do a few extra equipment tests to boot. If only every installation would go so smoothly. No wait, then we might be out of a job, but anyway…


It was nice to work in the sunshine and to have a chance at seeing the green flash at sunset over the Chukchi Sea.


We didn’t see the flash, but our surroundings were certainly beautiful enough to give us plenty of other sights to enjoy.


Some caribou ran across the tundra during our drive back to the airstrip. No pictures of those, but the plane coming to pick us up was a great sight as well. It was only three days, but it’s always nice to return home.

It's All Downhill From Here

I went out to my car this morning, same as every morning, and, same as every cold morning lately, the windshield was covered in a heavy dew. One flick of the windshield wipers. Nothing happened. The dew stayed, and all I heard was a dull scraping sound. Another flick of the windshield wipers, and the exact same scene replayed itself. Could it be?...Was my fear becoming reality?...No...Surely not. However, sure enough. The windshield was covered in frost for the first time this season. Luckily I'm lazy enough that my ice scraper was still in the trunk from last spring. I guess it's time to move it to the back seat. It's all downhill from here.

The Last Few Weeks

After returning to Alaska from my southern tour, I wanted nothing more than to stick around Fairbanks for a while and to keep my feet on the ground; however, it was only a few days before I boarded a plane for Colorado. I had a meeting in Keystone and seized the opportunity to visit my cousin Cori in Denver. Unfortunately we were only able to catch up for one evening, and I didn't take any pictures, but it was great to see her again. (Thanks for the great hospitality, Cori!) Soon enough I was in beautiful Keystone, Colorado, where the weather was perfect. I left the window of my hotel room open 24 hours a day and enjoyed the sun and beautiful views during breaks from the meeting.



A few days later, I was back in the Denver airport, yet again returning to Fairbanks. Coincidentally, my friend Carrie's sister Rachel and her daughter Claire were on the same flights as I was. Rachel lives in Colorado and was heading to Alaska to visit Carrie. What are the chances?

Since there were visitors in Fairbanks, a little entertaining was in order. Carrie and Thea, Rachel and Claire, and I headed out to Mt. Prindle to hike up the Quartz Creek Trail and pick some blueberries!


There weren't a whole lot of blueberries to be had, but the view from the trail was gorgeous.



The only wildlife we saw were some grouse hanging out on the hilltop, but it was a sighting none the less.


Since there weren't many blueberries to be had this year, thanks to a few weeks straight of rain, I still had the berry picking bug. It didn't take long when I got a tip that the raspberries at Pearl Creek Farms were great this year (Thanks, Andy!), so I headed on over there and picked a gallon of raspberries in short order. Mette and Kieran joined me for a bit because who can resist raspberries? Yum!


The only other annual tradition that needed to be fulfilled before the snow starts to fly was attending the demolition derby with Carrie. This year Thea was able to enjoy being a 'red-neck-for-a-day' with us, and now you can too thanks to the following video.

Diversified fun is a must!