Home Away from Home

Prince William Sound Glacier Tour

2010-09-12T09:39:00.001-07:00

We took the 26 Glacier Cruise out of Whittier the day before Ames and Justin left Alaska to head back home. Prince William Sound was like glass- smooth sea conditions, just rainy and a little overcast.

These are the brave in-laws that spent a week vacation with the Moshier crew! :)

We got to see ice calving off the glacier:

My awesome nieces and nephew!

Otter family huddled on an ice berg

Sea lions:

Driving back to ANC from Denali

2010-09-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

For the first time ever, we actually saw Denali from the highway on our drive back to Anchorage. Usually the clouds are too low to get a decent view, but we totally lucked out. Texans always bring good luck on the weather!

Day 1 in Denali

2010-08-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

The family split up in Denali so some could ride into the park and others could go rafting/4-wheeling. Fortunately the weather held up for us. Our bus driver said Denali is only visible 25% of the time, so we were lucky to get good pictures.

We saw about 8 or 9 grizzlies during the bus ride into the park- most were visible with binoculars, but easy to spot b/c of the golden color of their fur. This was the best my camera could do considering my weak zoom!

Got to see a herd of sheep on the mountain ridge too...

Here we are at the ultimate destination- Eilson visitor center inside the park. Unfortunately, clouds had moved in and totally obscured our view of Denali!!

More grizzlies...

Can you spot the grizzly in the pic below?

A lonely sheep...

Caribou napping in the mid afternoon sun

Ptarmigan.. our state bird

Denali from the highway on our ride home...

My nieces and nephew doing some climbing inside the park:

This was the adventurous crew after their morning white water raft

Family Trip to Denali

2010-08-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

After the 4th of July, we packed up the car and headed north to Denali National Park. We left the rain in Anchorage only to find beautiful sunny weather at the park, much to my relief! After 4 hrs in the car, we found our cabins and headed out to the Nenana River to stretch our legs. It was just a short walk from our cabins to the river's edge with great mountain views- really fun area just to walk around and take in the scenary.

Alaska Family Vacation

2010-07-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

Ran and I just spent 7 days enjoying Alaska with my entire family! My parents just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, so my siblings' families and my parents flew to Alaska for our first ever family vacation since we've all been married. It was great hosting everyone here! We spent the first day recouping from the long flights. Weather on Day 1 was typical Alaska- overcast and chilly, but we still got outside to see Flattop Mountain and have a nice anniversary dinner at our fav restaurant. More photos to come!
Freezing on top of Flattop (what good sports!):

Enjoying our first dinner out in Alaska:

Eklutna Lake

2010-06-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

We finally went to Eklutna Lake!! I've been wanting to check it out ever since we moved here. Eklutna is glacial fed and only about 1 hr north from Anchorage. We biked 24.5 miles roundtrip yesterday, even though the weather was rainy/overcast. It's been bad weather for several days, so as they say- you can wait all summer in Alaska for good weather and it'd be winter!

It's hard to see, but there was a huge bald eagle sitting on the ground in the picture below (look far left for the white head).

Moose Dinner

2010-05-31T10:54:00.000-07:00

We were shutting our windows, getting ready for bed a few nights ago when I noticed this moose in our backyard. Shot this video at 11:10pm-- only 3 weeks until the longest day of the year!

Little O'Malley (2nd Hike of 2010)

2010-05-29T08:30:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday Ran and I tried a new hike from Flattop trailhead called Little O'Malley. It climbs 2100 feet in elevation to a ridge that actually has several other trailheads teeing in, but we stopped to get pics of downtown Anchorage. Took us about 3 hrs roundtrip to go a little over 4 miles. Weather here has almost broke record highs this week- almost 80 degrees on Thursday and above 60 for 7 straight days in a row! Hope it lasts for summer!

First Hike of 2010

2010-05-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was beautiful weather- 3 days in a row of 60 degrees. After debating whether enough snow had melted to hike, we went for it, hiking the back side of Flattop in Anchorage. Turned out to be snow free and really fun. I figured we wouldn't be able to walk the next day, but we did pretty good. Looking forward to trying some new mountains this year-- first up though will be kayaking Elkulutna Lake. I wanna do a test run before my family comes in July (so excited to see them!!!!)

You can't really see the buildings, but that's downtown Anchorage behind Randall and I. We live against the water on the far left side of this picture.

This is the view of south Anchorage (mountain side) from the summit of Flattop. If I were to hike it again this weekend, you'd hardly see any snow- just trees blooming. It's incredible that we got leaves budding in a matter of 2 days. Forecast says steady rain today, but as we speak it's crystal clear sky and sunny, so maybe I can get some good pics!

Slush Cup

2010-04-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

What an awesome day for spring skiing- 50 degrees, nice snow, and the annual "Slush Cup". The Slush Cup is a big festival celebrating the end of winter- skiers compete (in costume of course) to see who can ski over a ramp and make it across a pool of melted snow. Our friend entered the competition as Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights- he didn't make it across the pool, but it was hilarious to watch people face plant in a pool of water on skis and dressed in costumes.

Here's the pool of water that the skiers have to jump over. Only about 4 people actually made it across- as you can see, this is a well attended event (who isn't happy to see winter in AK end?)

Good girlfriends, good skiing...

AK Spring?

2010-04-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Just when we thought Spring was here, it snowed on Wed. Good news: it was 45 degrees the next day and melted everything. Bad news: it's supposed to snow again today! That's the way it goes in Spring. Our daylight hours are very long now, which is nice except that we're staying up way too late. Sun is up when we leave for work (7 am) and we could still see the mountains on the horizon at 10:30pm last Thursday night! It won't be long before we hardly see night at all. Ah, summer...

This was a beautiful sunset over the Alaska Range and Cook Inlet last weekend.

and a random pic of us at a going away party for our friend Troy last weekend. I was a secret weapon in pool :)

Curl... Hard!!

2010-04-05T20:22:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, I actually got the chance to do something I will never likely do again-- curl! I've been participating in a work 'olympics' - meant to keep employees active during the AK winter and meet new people. One of our events was curling- which of course, I have ZERO experience in. My team (Australia) played 3 games, with everyone getting a turn at throwing the stones and sweeping. Watch expert technique in action:

You wear a bootie on the left foot that makes the ice really slippery, while balancing with the stone and broom. You never actually pick the stone up since it's 40 lbs, but you have to kick off this block to get enough momentum to fling the stone all the way down the rink. Needless to say, 3 games gave me a gi-normous bruise on my knee cap, but I'm happy to say we won!

Our instructor would yell "Sweep! HARDDDDD!" which is our que to sweep a lot and make the stone go farther on the ice. Object of the game: whoever is closest to the center bullseye wins- doesn't matter how many other stones get in the circles. Closest wins. I don't really see this as a true olympic sport- seems like your average boob-tube joe could win a gold, but then again, my aim was horrible so what do I know?!

Me and part of team Australia (the only ones that actually got up at 7:30am on our day off to play!)

Signs of Spring

2010-03-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was unbelievable here- 50 degrees, sunny and a totally blue sky. We can see the black top of our driveway now finally! We still have a few feet of snow in our yard, but it's quickly melting down. We're hoping the weather is a sign of what's to come this summer. The sidewalks and streets are finally clear of ice to resume walking in the neighborhood again, so we went down to the mud flats yesterday after lunch to play on the frozen Cook Inlet. The big gray chunks are frozen glacier silt, not really icebergs.

Ice Skating is Fun

2010-03-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

Ran and I had so much fun yesterday- we finally saw 3D Avatar, ice skated on Westchester Lagoon, and had dinner at Glacier Brewhouse (which has started having fresh halibut from Prince William Sound on the menu for the summer-- YUMMY!) Still in the teens to mid 20s, but at least we have lots of sunshine! Sun's up until almost 9pm with the time change now

Iditarod 2010

2010-03-07T21:53:00.000-08:00

We were invited to one of my co-worker's cabins in Willow to watch the start of the Iditarod race today. It was a chilly 17 degrees, but the sun was out and we got front row seats- literally!- to the mushers.

These dogs were my favorite!

In case you haven't figured it out yet, wearing a gi-normous fur hat and gloves is totally acceptable here...

There were about 70 mushers total, including past winners Lance Mackey and Jeff King. At one point, it just struck me really funny thinking about standing on a frozen lake, on a Sunday afternoon, in the cold, eating hot dogs and cheering while a bunch of sled dog teams race by. Where else but Alaska would people call that Spring Break?!

This is actually a frozen lake above that we were all standing on to watch the racers go by. As I make my way out to a good viewing spot, I see this fire pit burning... on the ice. I'm like, umm does anyone else see something wrong with burning fire wood on top of a frozen lake? I promptly got the reply: "The ice is 12 inches thick"... like that was supposed to ease my mind.

The mushers' names and race numbers were printed in the local paper, so we'd yell out their names and try to score high fives as they raced by. After all, these are our local celebrities in Alaska!!

I'm guessing these booties are meant to protect the dogs feet from the cold. One of the few female mushers in the race had her dogs all decked out in pink

This video is of Lance Mackey, the Iditarod winner in 2008 and 2009-

I wonder what Lance was drinking in that coffee mug??? I like the next video- you can hear how hard the dogs are working (again, I haven't figure out this sideways video thing yet)

Valentine's Day in Girdwood

2010-02-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

Alyeska Ski Resort was blanketed with fresh powder after last week's snow storm. They got a bunch of snow Friday too, so we hit the slopes yesterday with some friends. There were some really low clouds covering the bottom of the mountain, so visibility wasn't great but the summit was clear, fresh snow and amazing skiing. We tried to go out for dinner afterwards, but everything was booked for Valentines, so we picked up pizza on the way home and checked out the Olympics. We'll be lucky if we can walk today after the leg workout!!

Blizzard Conditions

2010-02-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

We're getting a ton of snow this weekend!! 6 inches already with 6 more in the forecast, on top of what we already had in our yard (which was about 5 inches). Think we're gonna be forced to shovel the driveway! Sorry this video is sideways- I can't figure out how to rotate it.

Alaska Black and Whites

2010-01-30T09:22:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my favorite pictures we've taken in Alaska-

Eagle River Nature Center

Denali National Park

Spencer Glacier

Katmai National Park

Valley of 10,000 Smokes

Hatcher's Pass

I think my sister gets credit for this shot below- Kennicott Mine

Bull moose in my office parking lot:

January Skiing

2010-01-24T14:29:00.000-08:00

Ran and I just got back from a day of skiing in Girdwood. Our good friend is about to move so we had a small going-away party for her last night- skied all day, had dinner, and rented a nice condo to avoid driving the snowy roads back to Anchorage at night. It was a beautiful day- 20s, blue sky, and an amazing sunset at 5:00pm!

Happy New Year

2010-01-15T10:25:00.000-08:00

Randall and I spent about 2 1/2 weeks away from AK over the holidays visiting our families in Texas and Louisianna. Fortunately when we got back, the temperatures stayed above zero. It's been a mild January so far- about 20 degrees most of the month. Sunrise is 9:50am and sunset is about 4:30pm, but at least daylight is on its way back! We got 4 inches of snow yesterday. Since it's been cold the whole month, we have about a foot or so of snow in our yard. We're true Alaskans this year- we haven't shoveled our driveway once! We just blast through all the snow with our cars. Come April, it's gonna be a solid sheet of ice, but oh well.

Here's some pics since mid December-- trying to catch up on my blog in the new year now! This was at dinner before our work Christmas Party:

Here we are in Texas visiting my family:

These were some pictures of Mt. Rainier I got from the airplane:

Amazing Sky

2009-12-09T20:18:00.000-08:00

We've had strange weather this week. It's about 14 to 19 degrees and it hasn't snowed since Thanksgiving, but a heavy ice fog has settled over town. We're about 2 weeks away from the shortest day of the year, so daylight is pretty minimal now. I took this picture of the sunrise over the ice fog on Sunday morning at 10:30.

This picture below is the view from our family room- it was the sunset on Sunday, about 4pm.

It was one of the most unusual skies we've ever seen- this picture is from the bluff near our house, overlooking a frozen Cook Inlet. Time was about 4:20pm on Sunday.

The mountain that looks very small on the horizon in the below picture is the volcano that erupted earlier this year- Mt. Redoubt. It's about 100 miles from where we live, but visible when skies are clear.

Again, this was about 4:45pm on Sunday- sky was almost totally black. I think this picture is so creepy- the sky looked like lava! By this time our hands were freezing from taking pics- windchill was probably around zero.

Thanksgiving in Oahu

2009-12-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

Sun isn't something Alaskans have a lot of these days, so we spontaneously decided to take advantage of some good airline deals and fly to Oahu over Thanksgiving. Of course, there was about 6 inches of snow in Anchorage while we were gone!

Shark's Cove (good snorkel spot on the North Shore):

Sunset over Turtle Bay:

Kailua Bay beach:

Sunset from our condo:

Randall took his first surfing lesson ever on the North Shore! He was a total natural- got up on almost every try. I was too chicken of the big waves and my poor swimming skills to try it!

Nice overlook near Waikiki:

We toured the USS Bowfin at Pearl Harbor on the last day:

The USS Arizona Memorial was closed until January 2010, but if we ever go back, we definitely want to check it out:

Visitor at the Office

2009-11-21T09:44:00.001-08:00

Here's a funny thing about living in Alaska- when moose wander into the parking lot at my office, security guards put up these "Caution: Moose in Area" signs to warn people. Moose aren't like bears in that you better have pepper spray in your purse, but they like space, especially a cow and her twins. Since it's usually dark when we arrive/leave work, the signs are a good reminder to keep alert. Sure enough, 2 weeks ago, this bull moose hung out at my office all day!

It caused a lot of office excitement since 1) bull moose are sorta rare and 2) they don't hang in one spot all day.The really funny thing about it was that the bull parked himself right in front of a fairly populated area of parking. None of the people driving these cars could get past it to leave work!

I think this picture is hilarious-- the office security van is in the background. It had to setup shop by the moose to shoo away all the employees coming down to photograph the moose. I have to admit, I didn't take these pics, but I wasn't going to refuse a copy from my friend! This is one of the larger racks I have ever seen on a bull moose in Alaska. He'll actually lose this rack this winter too-- it regrows every year!

Mt. Redoubt

2009-11-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

This was the first October since we moved here that it didn't snow. It got down to about 12 degrees earlier in the week, but it's warmed up to 38 now. We've had snow flurries twice, but no accumulation yet. Of course, the daylight continues to fade away- the sun is rising at 9am and setting around 4:45pm. Last Sunday, I took these pictures around 5pm from a bluff near our house. Mt. Redoubt was visible smoking across the Cook Inlet:

Weekend Trip to Seattle

2009-10-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

We went to Seattle last month to watch the LSU vs Washington game and check out Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge. It was a great trip, except it rained on and off the entire weekend. I thought I read this sign at the Gorge saying no cameras, so I told Ran to leave ours in the car. Come to find out, everyone had cameras in the concert!! I was so bummed because it was gorgeous and all we got were pics on Ran's cell phone. The gorge is a huge rock cliff that sits above the Columbia River. It was a beautiful place for a concert. We took pics on Ran's phone, so my mission is to figure out how to transfer them to the computer, but this is all we have of the drive to the Gorge for now:

Ran's dad got us tickets to go to the top of the Space Needle. It was super chilly up there with all the wind but I had to get panaromics (of course!)

This is on the University of Washington campus-- Geaux Tigers!!

We kept trying to see Mt. Rainier the whole time we were in Seattle, but the weather just didn't cooperate. The Monday after Labor Day, I flew into Calgary on business and low and behold, when I flew back to Seattle 3 days later, I got these awesome pictures of Mt. Rainier:

Camping on the Kenai River

2009-10-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

I'm about a month late posting these pictures! In Sept, we went to the Russian River on a camping trip with Randall's work group. It was the last weekend to really tent camp in Alaska since the weather was getting cold at night and the salmon were about spawned out. To our surprise, the Russian was totally full of spawned silver salmon. They're no good to eat, but it was really fun to catch and release. I even caught 2!

It was a gorgeous day too- mid 70s and sunny. It really was just an awesome Alaskan experience to be standing in ankle deep water amid hundreds of these salmon, all swimming upstream!

This is part of Kenai Lake on the drive back to Anchorage. The water is a gorgeous blue, almost Caribbean like.

This is a glacier near Portage Valley (where we snowmobiled in Feb-- see previous blog) visible from the Seward Hwy on the drive back to Anchorage from Kenai.

We stopped at the Turnagain Arm because the belugas were migrating to Hawaii here the week of Labor Day. We actually saw a pod of whales the day before on the drive down to Kenai and again on the way back, but by the time we parked the car to take a picture, they were already gone.

More glaciers near Girdwood from the highway:

This is Placer River-- it's a glacier fed river, hence the grey color. I've always admired how pretty it is, especially with this little bridge going across it, so I finally got a decent picture of it.

Fall Colors

2009-09-26T08:26:00.001-07:00

Two weekends ago, I went hiking with my girlfriends Stacey and Alyssa to get some pictures of the fall colors at Hatcher's Pass. Winter is fast approaching here. About 12 hrs of daylight now (8-8pm), highs in the 40s, lows in the 30s, and the first snow has hit the mountains.

Animals of Denali

2009-09-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

I decided to post all the Denali mountain pictures in one blog, and save all the animal pictures for another blog. Because we stayed over night at the very end of the Park road, we had to ride a really early van out of the park. It ended up being worth the little sleep because most of the animals we saw were within the first few hours of the ride (5 am to 9 am). This momma grizzly and her 2 cubs were so adorable. Looks like she's hit the jackpot on food!

They came down this field right up to our bus. One of the cubs even stood up and put its paws on the tire of the bus!

We also saw a few eagles:

This is the only picture of an arctic fox I've ever been able to get in the wild. We saw about 3 or 4 on the trip, but they're so fast and small it's hard to get a good picture. These little guys turn white in winter.

This sad little bear wandered right up to our bus as well. It didn't look like it had figured out where the good food was yet.

So, we hadn't seen any animals in a while and I was scanning the fields with binnoculars. Suddenly, I see movement. I nudge Ran and tell him I think I see some kind of animal out in the field but I don't want to over-excite the other bus passengers without knowing for sure. Then, the animals start to run and I realize we're looking at a group of caribou!! I have never seen caribou in the wild in Alaska before-- it was totally amazing.

This marked the end of a good day back at the Talkeetna lodge. Total animal count:

9 grizzlies

2 eagles

4 arctic fox

7 caribou

1 coyote

4 ptarmigans

1 moose

Denali National Park

2009-09-12T09:08:00.001-07:00

We finally made it to Denali National Park!

A lot of excited tourists are let-down by visiting Denali-- it's so tall that it creates its own weather pattern, so you travel 4 hours from Anchorage only to arrive and say "Where's the mountain??" because it's covered in fog. Given that it was raining almost the whole drive up to Denali, I was a little concerned!

In July, we flew with Ran's Dad and his wife into the park on this little plane above. We didn't want to drive 12 hours into the park only to turn around and drive 12 hours back, so the only other option is to get on one of these small private planes.

This was the first view of the Talkeetna Mountains from the air

This is Muldrove Glacier leading up to the base of Denali. It was pretty cloudy on this particular day, so I didn't get good pictures of the mountain until we were literally right at about 9000 feet alongside it (below).

This is a picture of the cabins we stayed in inside the park at Kantishna. We bunked here for the night and got on the 5 am bus out of the park.

This is Reflection Pond, one of the primary tourist points on the bus drive through the park. As I was saying, not much of a view of the mountain yet, but it was early in the morning so we held out hope!

By the time we made it to the next tourist spot, Wonder Lake, we could see that the clouds were moving up a little to expose more of Denali.

This picture was taken at the Eilson Visitor Center and ta-da! You can tell by the smiles that we have Denali views at last!!

Finally Denali was out in full glory! The picture below shows the road the buses travel on through the park. They're just little gravel roads, but it wasn't nearly as bumpy or scary of a ride as we'd heard. It's definitely worth the trip!

Valley of 10,000 Smokes

2009-09-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

We hiked the Valley of 10,000 Smokes when we were visiting Katmai in July. Mt. Katmai was one of the worst volcanic eruptions Alaska has ever seen- it erupted about 100 years ago and destroyed all the surrounding vegetation to the point where even today, the valley appearance changes dramatically from lush green to desert.
Above is what it looked like just 20 minutes from the hike, but below is what it looked like at the base of Mt. Katmai:

The hike was only about 1.5 miles one way and followed alongside a glacier stream that has cut deep canyons into the ash over the last 100 years. Hard to believe, but still to this day there's about 700 feet of ash piled on top of the land here.

Below is an example of the huge ash canyons carved by glacier run-off. I'm actually standing in this picture, just to the left. Gives a good idea of the scale of these canyons!

This is Ran's dad and his wife on our hike. They were troopers!

Katmai National Park

2009-09-02T21:09:00.001-07:00

We've finally seen grizzlies in Alaska!!

Ever since we moved to Alaska, I've been wanting to fly to Katmai to see the Katmai brown bears. Katmai is sort of an island in southwestern Alaska and it has a huge grizzly population relative to the rest of Alaska. Getting there is an adventure- it's a 1 hour flight from Anchorage to King Salmon, which is a tiny fishing town that literally has like 1 bank, 1 restaurant connected to a sketchy fisherman bar, and an airport. Katmai is a only a 20 minute flight from King Salmon-- but via float plane only! Here's Ran and I squeezing in to our first float plane flight ever:

We actually flew right by Mt. Redoubt on our way to King Salmon- pretty cool (albeit a little nerve racking!) to see it smoking:

This is the view on approach to Naknek Lake, where you land to get to Katmai:

Hopefully you get the idea of how remote this place is and why it's only accessible via float planes. Immediately upon arrival, we spotted a huge grizzly just walking down the beach towards our plane. It came right up to our wing, poked in the sand, and kept right on walking! Needless to say, that got the blood pumping for our safety video at the visitor center. Once we were briefed, we walked about 1.5 miles to the viewing platform at the Brooks Falls, probably the most photographed brown bear spot in the world. The reds were running, which brought a ton of grizzlies out to fish. This sow had 3 cubs that she was teaching to catch salmon jumping up the waterfall:

This picture is darker because we went back to bear watch after dinner, but I wanted to include it because it's the only picture we got of the salmon actually jumping up the waterfall. My shutter button just wasn't fast enough to catch it most of the time!

The most grizzlies we saw at one time were 21 around 9pm the first night. Supposedly it's really unusual to see that many in one spot because they're super territorial, but I guess the plentiful food source keeps them somewhat tame. Of course, there were a lot of fights too-- hence the picture at the start of the blog. Walking to the viewing platform was pretty awesome because you could hear the bears grunting and growling through the woods long before we ever actually saw them.

The cubs were inseparable-- this was too cute!

ATV Rides and King Salmon Surprise

2009-08-29T08:52:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd ever ride ATV's through backcountry Alaska, but that's exactly what we did on the last day of Amye and Justin's visit! I think we were all a little on edge about bears, but sitting on a 4 wheeler that can probably reach 30 mph made us feel a little better. Plus, our female tour guide was packing a loaded rifle on her shoulder!

The rides trailed alongside this glacier stream with nice views of the Chugach Mountains for bear and eagle sightings.

Ran showing off Lousianna-style!

After a short hike through the woods, we came upon this gorgeous glacier-melt waterwall.

We didn't see any bears, but we did get to see something else that I've never seen before in Alaska-- King salmon spawning!! There were probably 50-100 kings in this stream, all at their final destination to spawn. Kings are the biggest salmon and can easily weigh 40-50 lbs.

We took some pictures through our polarized sunglasses to try to photograph the kings better.

To top off the day, this bull moose booked it across the highway in front of us on the way home!

Fishin' for Reds on the Kenai

2009-08-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

Since the weather was so nice and we didn't have much luck fishing last year when Ames and Justin were here, we headed down to the confluence where the Russian and Kenai Rivers cross to try to fish for reds. I think Ran likes busting out his camo waders just as much as fishing!

The red salmon run was really big this year. We hit the tail end of it on this trip though, so we got skunked for the second year in a row. It's an adventure to get to your fishing spot here though-- you jump a ferry across the Russian River with a gazillion other fisherman. There are frequent black and brown bear sightings here, so we were really hoping to get Ames and Justin a glimpse from the ferry. In their words "we want to see a bear, just not too close!"

Unfortunately, despite the good odds, no bear sightings!

This is what 'combat fishing' is all about-- elbow to elbow anglers, all competing to catch the red salmon as they make their way upstream. This is not for beginners!! You have to watch out for flying hooks, getting your line tangled with someone else, 'foul' hooking a fish (you can only keep the salmon if they're hooked in the mouth)... so many rules! I just like to sit in the sun and scan the mountains with binoculars and let Ran do the work- and check him out in his camo waders of course :)

We did wander away from the crowds, hoping to find some secret salmon fishing hole, but it just wasn't happening. Hard to complain too much though with this scenary and 70 degree sun.

It may seem like we have great weather like this all the time during the summer, but we don't! Last summer we had maybe 3 days that hit 70 degrees. I was thinking, 'why did we move here?' This summer has totally made up for it though. We've had 70 degree weather frequently since April and it just keeps on going. Sun makes everything better in AK! It's no fun fishing on a cold glacier river when it's cloudy.

I had to post this picture because of the sign, although I know my Dad isn't going to like it (Sorry Dad! Everything turned out fine- no bears!)

Root Glacier Hike

2009-07-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

In Kennicott, we did a half day 6 mile hike with the St. Elias Guides to the Root Glacier. The weather was awesome (upper 60s to lower 70s) and sun the whole way. The hike starts with a flat 2 mile trail alongside the glacier tails and really began at the base of the glacier, where we got suited up with 'crampons'-- basically cleats on the bottom of our boots for traction on ice.

Walking on the actual glacier was easier than we expected. Our group was pretty small (only 2 others) so we spent most of the day exploring rivers and ice holes on the Root Glacier.

The crazy thing about this glacier was all the natural streams coursing over it! This is so far out from any animal habitats that we were actually able to fill our water bottles and drink glacier water directly from this stream!

We used twizzlers as makeshift straws :)

This is the Root Glacier Ice Falls behind Randall below- I think our guide said it's one of the largest accessible ice falls in the United States. Hiking to it would have been another 7 miles, so we didn't go right up to it but there were good views anyway with the clear weather.

After lunch, we had fun with some optical illusions on this ice hole. The water was obviously really shallow and all the tours were getting a kick out of taking pictures while 'walking on water'

This is a deeper portion of the shallow ice hole- our guide said people actually jump into this to cap off their hike, but none of us were crazy enough to volunteer!

Kennicott Mines

2009-07-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

When we finally arrived in Kennicott, we were exhausted to say the least! The lodge is nestled at the base of two converging glaciers, with beautiful views of the Chugach Mountains from the front deck. We ate a dinner of local sockeye salmon, checked in, and headed out into the historic town to look around. Back in the 1910s and 20s, Kennicott was a fairly classy mining town of about 600 people. There weren't a lot of women and children, but the town did have schools, churches, dorms, stores, etc. All the buildings were painted red and white, except the hospital and the mill supervisor's house- which were white to designate importance! Here we are with a view of the copper mill behind us:

The mountain below is called Mt. Blackburn. All the gray pebble looking stuff at the base is actually ice from the Root Glacier. The building is the dining hall where we had dinner.

This is the power plant below:

I can't remember what this little building was below, but this was us goofing off after dinner and stretching our legs after the long car ride.

We stayed on the second floor, lefthand side of the lodge below:

We actually got to tour inside the copper mill, which was built in about 1910- it was a treat for us engineering nerds. The building has survived many earthquakes (including the huge 1964 earthquake on Good Friday), along with massive flooding from snow melt in the springtime. If you could just see how remote this town is, you would have an even bigger appreciation of how this town was built- just getting the materials out to this place would have been a challenge!

This is a nice view of Mt. Blackburn from the top of the copper mill:

This is a gully that gets filled with snowmelt in the spring. The melt became such a huge rushing gorge a few years ago, that it actually destroyed some of the remanants of the town.

This picture shows how many stories the copper mill is made of- I can't remember the exact number but I think it's around 25.

Drive to McCarthy

2009-07-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

Ever since we moved here, we've been wanting to drive to Kennicott/McCarthy. These are old mining towns built up in the early 1900s in the middle of the Wrangell St. Elias National Park. It takes 8 hrs to drive to McCarthy from Anchorage, so we finally made the trip while Ames and Justin were here. The drive north to GlenAllen is really nice with lots of good photo ops over the Kings River, Matsu River, and Matsu Glacier. Ran and I have only driven it once before, during fall 2007 when we went to Valdez. It was good to drive it again during the height of summer since the landscape changes so much here with seasons.

Below is the Matsu Glacier, visible from the highway about 2 hrs drive north of Anchorage:

We finally arrived in Chitna, the gateway to the infamous McCarthy road. Ran and I had heard a lot of rumors about this 62 mile stretch of road leading to the mining towns of McCarthy/ Kennicott. Firstly, it's not paved. Secondly, it's built over the old railroad so there are rail ties that occasionally get exposed under the gravel that can cause flat tires. Although we were prepared with a spare, I kept my fingers crossed the whole time that we wouldn't need to deal with the hassle of a flat! Others we passed weren't so lucky! Overall, it took us about 2.5 hrs to drive to McCarthy.

This is the McCarthy road above-- looks innocent enough but it was a bumpy slow ride!

This was an amazing 100 year old bridge built across the Copper River on McCarthy Road. A little nerve racking to drive over it!

These are fishermen dipnetting for sockeye salmon in the Copper River. We heard there are about 120 residents in Chitna (town just before entering the McCarthy road) and that the majority of them make a living by fishing for salmon.

These are native salmon fishing wheels lined up along the banks of the Copper River. We didn't see any salmon actually being caught though-- not sure how these things really work, but apparently they do because there were a bunch!

Right away we saw this huge bald eagle waiting for an easy salmon meal.

We also saw two huge snow owls! That's something Ran and I have never seen in the wild here. I didn't even really know they were native to this area. The picture isn't that good because we had to maximize the zoom from the car.

Alyeska Tram to Seven Glaciers

2009-07-05T10:05:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we took Ames and Justin up the Alyeska tram to the Seven Glaciers restaurant, which sits on top of a mountain at the Alyeska Ski Resort in Girdwood. We use the tram a lot in the winter to ski the mountain, but the scenary in the summer looked so different! Everything was so green and there were lots of rocks and lakes we've never seen because of all the snow.

This is Ames and Justin just before the ride up

This is the view from the bottom of the tram, just before we took off on the 5 minute ride to the restaraunt.

This is a view of the tram station and the Alyeska resort as we took off to the top:

The restaurant was pretty fancy on the inside and one of the only restaurants we've been to in Alaska with a dress code.

Our table had an awesome view of the valley below to the resort. Ames said she saw a show on tv about the world's most extreme dining experiences, and that this restaurant made the cut! We would totally recommend it to anyone- the food was excellent! I had fresh salmon, Ames and Ran had beef filet, and Justin had elk chop!

After dinner, we walked around the deck house for some 360 panoramics of the mountains:

View of Turnagain Arm from the top of the mountain:

It was about 45 degrees on the top of the mountain. This was the coldest temperature of Amye and Justin's visit in Alaska- fortunately we had awesome weather the whole week (60-70s and sun).

View of the valley on the way back down the tram:

Alaska Summer Markets

2009-07-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

My sister and her hubby visited us this past week from Texas. We started off the week pretty low key by visiting the summer markets in downtown Anchorage. Every Saturday and Sunday during the summer (May- Sept), a portion of downtown turns into a quasi- flea market where the tour buses drop visitors off to load up on things like fudge, t-shirts, jewelry, etc. Justin and I found these awesome hats-- would have bought one until we looked at the price tag! $250- yikes!

The Big 30

2009-06-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

Well, the big day finally arrived.. my last day in the 20s!! My 30th birthday was only the second time I have ever missed celebrating a birthday with my twin sis. I hated to miss a big milestone birthday with her, but she's coming to visit in 2 weeks (yeah!) so I have a little late bday celebration planned with her. We are super lucky to have such awesome friends here though, and they made it a special birthday for me. My good girlfriends Cheri and Alyssa threw a great party and invited about 20 of our close friends over for dinner/ritas. I love this pic of Ran and I!

These are two of my good girlfriends- Cheri and Paulina. We're defeating the odds by having tans in Alaska! The weather has been so great this summer-- it actually rained a little on my birthday (go figure), but it didn't get me down. Actually, I am totally happy to be 30-- many people I talk to say that their 30s were better than their 20s, so bring it on!

Here's another great girlfriend of mine- Alyssa. She's my Houston gal-pal and next in line to join me on the '3rd floor' :)

I realized that I don't actually have a lot of pics posted of my friends on this blog. Seeing as how they literally become your family (because most of us are far from our own families), I thought I'd post some pics of them to introduce everyone! :) This is my other good girlfriend Susana -- she's also a transfer from Houston. She has an awesome house complete with a music room for her guitars and piano- my dream! That's Paulina's hubby Enrique too..

Here's all my girlfriends and our intern, Clay, who appears to be in sheer heaven! :) He's a huge guy-probably 6'3", and one of those all-american, nice guys. Susana is his mentor, but we've all adopted Clay like a little brother. From left to right are my girlfriends: Korah, Sherri, (me), Paulina, Alyssa, Susana, Cheri, and Brandi. We've earned a nickname at work called the "pack" because we literally do everything together at work! This isn't the whole group either- we're missing about 3 other girlfriends who were out of town.

Here's another of our Houston friends that now lives in Anchorage- Troy. He works with Randall and is a super nice guy. Troy is our adventure buddy and already earned some airtime in our previous blogs on hiking/fishing! Up until recently, Troy was about the only honory male member of the 'pack' :)

And finally the "newbies"-- Adam and Eric, both local Alaskans. Eric started working with us last year and has recently added to the increasing number of guys joining the 'pack'. Adam is his best friend since grade school. Having the guys around has certainly diversified the 'pack' but we've had to scale back our lunch conversations about Sephora and shopping :)

First Hike of the Season

2009-05-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we hiked the back side of Flattop, a favorite hike of ours in Anchorage. It was our first hike of the season and it was pretty tough. I only thought I was in good shape! The elevation always surprises me- this type of exercise works muscles you don't know you have until the next day when you can barely walk!

It turned out to be a beatiful evening. We started hiking around 5:15pm and finished around 7:15pm. The weather was really pleasant- probably mid 60s. We crossed over 2 small patches of snow on the way up, but it was mostly clear since we've had a whole month of long sunny days.

The pictures above and below were taken from the summit.

Sunrise is about 4 am and the sun is really barely setting at this point. We were out until 1am Friday night doing the Anchorage Relay for Life (American Cancer Society fundraiser) and you could still see light in the sky!

Nancy Lake

2009-05-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

It has been way too long since my last post, but we've been out enjoying the awesome May weather and so I've spent little time inside lately uploading pics! Yesterday we drove north to Nancy Lake (past the home of Gov. Palin!) to try some early fishing with 2 of our friends. We didn't even get a bite, but we were able to cruise around the lake in our drift boat and enjoy the beautiful scenary.

May has been stellar so far- almost 4 straight weeks of 60-70 degree weather and sunshine. I actually have a tan according to Alaska standards :) Of course, the daylight is LONG now too. Sun is up by 5 am and setting around 11:30 pm. I took the next few pictures on our drive home to Anchorage from Wasilla last night. Time.... 10:30pm!

I took this picture of the Cook Inlet at about 10:45pm last night, driving south on the Glenn Highway about 20 minutes north of Anchorage.

Snowmachine Trip to Spencer Glacier

2009-04-10T11:16:00.001-07:00

This was by far one of the coolest things we've ever done in AK! A friend of mine recommended this guided snowmachine trip out of Portage, AK to Spencer Glacier. It's one of the only glaciers accessible from a highway right through backcountry Alaska!

It was a beautiful ride out along the Placer River valley- wide open, right at the base of the mountains, gorgeous day. At first, I was a total spaz driver. It's harder to turn than I expected b/c you have to throw your body weight into steering. Right off the bat we were manuevering around some little shrubs and I totally took one out with my machine. Fortunately, it didn't take long to get the hang of it and wow-- what views!

We'd stop along the way to walk around and take pictures. The snow was so deep! At one point, I stepped off my machine and my left leg sunk down to my hip in snow!

One of our guides rode his machine right to the top of this iceberg. It was really flat from the other side, so we booked it up to the top and took turns sliding through the chute!

This is the actual glacier below. We couldn't ride right up to it because the ice break line is somewhat unstable once the weather starts to warm up during Spring.

Randall by an iceberg in the middle of the frozen lake in front of Spencer Glacier:

The best part of the trip was getting to go inside the ice caves behind the glacier. We were totally blown away by how beautiful the ice was-- the pictures barely do the colors justice! I couldn't believe how bright blue the ice was- I think it is from the sunlight getting trapped inside.

This is me at the entrance to the ice caves-- this was the point where we couldn't stop taking pictures!! It's hard to imagine something so amazing existing in nature- this is just one of those memorable moments in life that we won't ever forget (ok- I'm getting dramatic, but can you blame me after looking at these pics?!!)

There were just endless layers of different colors of ice. The caves went on and on, but we eventually had to call it a day to make it back. Actually, the volcano ended up erupting that day and sending ash towards us (see the gray clouds in the background below?!) What a day!

Mt. Redoubt Ash

2009-04-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

This is too funny not to post-- my friend took this picture last weekend after the eruption. Not something you see every day.....

Ashfall in Anchorage

2009-03-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

We finally got hit with volcanic ash in Anchorage yesterday. Ran and I were out on a guided snowmobiling tour with some friends in Placer Valley near Spencer Glacier for most of yesterday afternoon. (By the way, that was one of the top 5 things we've done in Alaska- best pictures I've ever taken and I can't wait to post them- it will be a LONG blog!!) We noticed this cloud coming up over the mountains at about 5ish and thought, hmm-- is that a snow cloud or ash cloud?

We decided to head back to our cars, just in case it was ash (although our guides were prepared with masks just in case).

Turns out, Redoubt was naughty again and had a big eruption at 3:30pm local time. Winds were towards the NE, so this was the eruption that sent ash to us for the first time in 20 years.

These pictures below are courtesy of local media sources.

This picture below is of the eruption we had at 1:20am- apparently there is a lot of lightning generated by eruptions. It looks like lava flow, but if you blow the picture up bigger you'll see it's just light reflecting from the lightning.

Below is the ash cloud coming towards Anchorage yesterday evening.

We had another eruption at 7:20pm last night that continued to dump ash on Anchorage. Ran and I had carpooled to Girdwood for snowmobiling, and we actually pulled over to put our masks on while driving back to town. By the time we got back, this is what it looked like in our neighborhood and in front of our house (it looks like dirty snow, but it's fresh powder covered in volcanic ash). Looks like we'll be staying indoors today!

I took this picture from our car as we were driving back from Girdwood- the ash haze was so eerie!

I took this picture to show how even the mountain tops were getting enough ash to turn a dirty brown color.

Lastly, this is our driveway (pic taken last night from our living room window at about 7:30pm)

Redoubt Eruptions

2009-03-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody- thanks for all the emails and phone calls this week with the start of the Redoubt eruptions. I've pulled some pictures from our local media sources to share with you below.

This has been a very exciting week for us. Sunday night, Ran and I were checking the volcano monitoring website since we had heard Redoubt activity was picking up. That was about 10pm. We noticed the seismic recorders really starting to pick up intensity, and discrete earthquakes were being reported in the range of 50-60 an hour. We went to bed thinking that things looked to be moving towards an eruption in the near future. Low and behold, Redoubt erupted just 30 minutes later, sending ash about 50,000 feet above sea level, but we didn't even know until we woke up for work Monday morning around 5:30am. Of course it was dark, so no one really got to see the original eruption. Winds were blowing north/northwest, so schools and work were not cancelled Monday morning in Anchorage. We were definitely a little nervous given this was our first experience living in a town near multiple volcanos.

Then we had a series of further eruptions, with a large one occuring yesterday (see above picture). Ash was sent 65,000 feet above sea level. This caused numerous ash warnings and flash flood warnings in the Homer/Drift River areas of the Cook Inlet (still south of Anchorage). Below is a picture of the ash deposited near the volcano base.

This picture shows the ash cloud being picked up on satellite cameras:

Yesterday's eruption around 9:30 AM sent a bunch of ash to Homer and the Kenai peninsula, about 3 hrs drive south of Anchorage. This was an amazing picture taken from Homer below of the approaching ash cloud. If you keep up with our blog, Homer is the town we kayaked in over Labor Day weekend last year.

We had another eruption last night around midnight that is predicted to bring a trace amount of ash to Anchorage today, although right now it's lightly snowing. The winds have been on our side all week and carried ash away from town, so in actuality, we would never really have known this was all occuring just 100 miles across the inlet. We've heard eruptions can last as long as 5 months, so I suppose it's always possible we will get to see the ash firsthand at home. My nieces and nephews would love some for show and tell in Texas!

We'll keep everyone posted as time goes on!!

Second Season Skier

2009-03-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

The first time I ever thought about cross country skiing, all I could think was "Ugh, I'll try it, but I hate doing that on downhill skis." In actuality, the skis are super skinny and much lighter than downhill skis. I can carry both skis, my boots, and poles all in one hand! Classic skis are made to glide inside manmade groomed 'tracks' (see below). March has been an awesome month to try out cross country for Season 2 in Alaska- last weeked we had 2 great sunny days in a row. Temps are consistently reaching 30 degs in the day. We rented some cross-country skiis from REI and attempted 2 days of skiing at Kincaid Park and Powerline trail.

Here's a good view of Denali and Mt. Foraker visible behind Randall. We gain so much daylight this time of year- we're already over 12 hrs (8:30-8:30pm).

These are some seriously good cross-country skiers below. No, seriously..... especially the guy with the huge red gloves.

Thigh High Powder

2009-03-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

The Saturday before Randall came home, we got 8 inches of snow in one afternoon. Needless to say, I just couldn't resist a half day of skiing after that!

March Skiing

2009-03-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

This March has been nicer weather-wise than last year. We've had more clear days and more fresh snow. In fact, we got 8 inches last Saturday and another 4 inches on Thursday. The iditarod sled dog race began yesterday. There's a festival in Anchorage called Fur Rondy to celebrate the start of the race. There's fun local stuff to get into like Ice Bowling and Snowshoe Softball, but we've been party poopers and not participated in much this year. It's been too tempting to either bundle up and stay inside or go skiing! This is my g/f Alyssa- she kept me company this week while Ran was on a business trip:

Here's the snow bunnies, hittin' the slopes in Girdwood:

End of February

2009-02-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

February is a really nice month in Alaska. We're finally done with the 20 below temperatures and we're gaining about 40 minutes of daylight a week! The skies are really blue too, which has created some awesome sunsets. I was checking out the volcano website this a.m. and they posted this picture of Redoubt, taken from south Anchorage on Randall's bday this week:

Wish I could claim I took this picture, but I can at least vouch for how beautiful the sky was that day. My friend Alyssa and I went to Arctic Valley last Sunday to check out the other local ski resort. Suprisingly, we never ski there- we only go to Girdwood. I think we need to check it out this weekend though. It looks very small (not a lot of runs), but the views are really great from up there:

Skiing and Waiting for Eruptions...

2009-02-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

We're still waiting for Mt. Redoubt to erupt. It's getting a little more exciting over the past 2 days, with continuous volcanic tremors picking up. However, rather than wait it out at home, we went skiing! Of course, the dust masks came with us-- just in case. Turns out, it was a good choice. No eruption.... yet!

We're getting about 10 hrs of daylight now much to our relief! This was the sun coming up on our drive to Girdwood yesterday about 9:30AM.

It's wild how thick the ice gets in the Cook Inlet. I took this pic from the car window, but its cool to see how big the ice chunks are and they're all frozen up with grey glacier silt.

More scenary on the drive from Anchorage to Girdwood.

The views still don't get old, even after 1.5 years living here. We don't have the conveniences we're used to (shopping, restaurants, music scene), but there's no doubt it's a beautiful state. Dealing with the weather does get very frustrating, for both us and visitors I'm sure, but days like yesterday really help to re-energize you.

Waiting on Mt. Redoubt

2009-02-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

It has been an interesting week for us. In case you haven't heard, there's a volcano- Mt. Redoubt- on the verge of erupting at any time. It's about 100 miles from Anchorage, but wind patterns can bring the ash here over the city. The last eruption was in 1989 which put about 2 inches of ash over Anchorage. We really had no idea how to prepare for this kind of event. Hurricanes, yes... volcanos, no. There's been really good coverage on the local news here about how to prepare though, so we're ready now. The biggest issue is wearing respirators and googles. I took these pictures off the AVO website yesterday:

The picture below is from a camera located on one of Randall's offshore platforms:

Another issue with the ash is that it can get in your house and ruin your electronics. Ran constructed this big vent cover thing for a vent in our garage. We got plastic tarps to put over our cars too. Apparently, you shouldn't drive in ash b/c it gets sucked up the exhaust and can ruin the engine. We're also prepared to be without power for 4 days. Bought a kerosene heater, fuel, and CO monitors at Lowe's Friday. The ash can shut down power plants for brief periods of time.

We had 4-5 inches of fresh powder this week, but we're a little nervous to go too far from town with the pending eruption. It seems funny to say "Hmm, what should we do while we wait for the eruption?" What else?? Hockey!!

For someone 6 feet tall, Ran is suprisingly agile on skates! He's really good at skating backwards and making quick turns. I'm another story- I pretty much operate going forward only.

This is our friend Troy- we're all bundled up. Even though it looks beautiful outside, it was barely above zero! This is me and a good girlfriend, Alyssa, below.

January Sunset

2009-01-25T18:23:00.000-08:00

Ran and I walked out to our usual bluff overlooking the Cook Inlet this afternoon. It has remained in the high teens, low 20s all week. We had some bursts of snow flurries yesterday, but not much accumulation which saved our backs from shoveling the driveway. Yesterday we went ice skating with some friends, who ended up challenging us to some ice hockey. Neither of us have ever played hockey before, but it was really fun and I'm happy to report no broken teeth or black eyes.

These are the mud flats where we took my sister and her hubby last July. Ran mastered walking across the solid sheet of ice!

The cold has lifted!!

2009-01-22T23:53:00.001-08:00

Wow- we had 12 straight days of below zero temperatures. Our highs ranged from -21 to a 'sweltering' -7 ! It was so cold that your breath would freeze on the INSIDE of the car windows. A crazy thing about AK weather is that it's so extreme- exactly one week after it was -21, we had these huge 122 mph winds from the Pacific that melted all the snow (3-4 feet overnight) and warmed the temps up to 40 degrees! Now we're back down to 20. Randall and I finally got to venture outside with the warmer weather to take some pictures. It's very obvious that daylight is coming back quickly now. Sunrise is 9:30 am and sunset is 4:45pm.

I thought this was so cool- Ran and I were going to breakfast a few Saturdays ago and the moon was HUGE. I'm learning to keep my camera in my purse at all times b/c you never know what you're going to see here. (Case in point- we were driving on the highway the other day and saw all this traffic piled up. Turns out, a car had hit a big bull moose. It was really sad, but would have been an interesting photo-- the moose looked like it was just taking a nap on the highway! FYI- there's a call list here for moose kills on the freeway. Sorta like a first come first serve thing. Moose is a common food in AK households, but it just seems so wrong to eat roadkill!)

Frosty Trees

2009-01-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

January 2009 has been cold! Temperatures have been -15 to -18 below zero for several days. Our highs have only reached about 0 degrees. Lots of weird things happen with temps that cold: 1) your nose hairs freeze, 2) the trees and street signs get frosted over, 3) your body doesn't feel much different between -10 and -20 degrees. We mainly stay inside and bundle up when we have to go outside. At least the daylight is coming back now! Enjoy some pics of the "frosty trees" below:

This is the frozen Cook Inlet:

Cross Country Skiing

2008-12-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

We had almost 2 feet of snow over the Thanksgiving weekend! Ran and I went with a group of friends to Kincaid Park to cross country ski. There's 2 types of cross country skiing: classic (legs shuffle front to back) and skate (legs are in a "V" shape and shuffle diagonally out to the side). Classic is easier to learn and less aerobic. It snowed the whole time we were skiing. We wore ourselves out and came back to our house for a re-run on Thanksgiving leftovers!

This was the first time cross-country skiing for one of my girlfriends. Proves that Texas girls can do winter sports!!

Byers Lake

2008-12-06T10:21:00.000-08:00

Back in September, Randall and I stayed in a cabin an hour south of Denali National Park with a group of friends. Two of the couples we camped with had twins! One has a set of identical twin boys, the other has a twin boy and girl. The kids are all about 2 years old- it reminded me of my own twin sister! The cabins have to be rented a year in advance because of the awesome views of Denali, but the weather was foggy so we didn't get to see it. That's how it goes in Alaska- can't depend on the weather! The trees were changing colors though, and the hiking was beautiful.

Standing on a beaver dam!

Frozen Cook Inlet

2008-11-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

Ran and I walked out onto this bluff near our house last Sunday at 4:20pm to catch the sun setting over a now frozen Cook Inlet. We've had a lot of snow since last weekend- maybe 6-8 inches? We've shoveled our driveway twice! We went cross-country skiing this week, and we're going downhill skiing for the first time this season on Saturday. The summit of Alyeska ski resort has 80 inches of fresh powder now. Today we're having friends over for Thanksgiving dinner at our house. I made some of my mom's recipes to remind me of Texas!!

It probably looks like Ran is walking on snowy ground, but there's a 15 foot drop off just in front of where he's standing. The ground drops down to the shores of the Cook Inlet- all the chunky snow in the distance is actually the ocean filled with icebergs! Below is a close up- in the summer, this is just ocean as far as you can see.

Sunrise at 9:30 AM

2008-11-23T10:40:00.000-08:00

We're not doing much on the weekends right now. We're waiting for enough snow to ski before we get out in the cold. It's single digits to mid 20s almost consistently now. There's about 6 1/2 hrs of daylight- we've got another month to go before the shortest day of the year. Good thing about short days is that we always have a great view of the sunrise on weekends- from our living room last Saturday morning at 9:30am:

Anchorage in September

2008-11-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

We went mountain biking on September 27 at Flattop Mountatin, on a day that happened to be one of the clearest blue sky days we've had all summer. Below is a picture of the city of Anchorage which shows the Alaska Mountain Range that surrounds the city to the west- these mountains are actually rarely visible.

Randall and I live right about left of center in this picture below, near the water:

The snow was just about getting down the trails, making this our last biking trip of the summer:

This is Green Lake, 4 miles into the mountain biking trail. People cross-country ski this same trail in the winter.

The ground leaves were well into their fall colors by late September:

Labor Day in Homer

2008-10-19T08:56:00.001-07:00

Ran and I spent Labor Day weekend in Homer, Alaska with a group of our friends. We rented 2 cabins on a bluff overlooking Kachemak Bay. The weather could not have been better, which was so awesome since our summer has been really rainy and cloudy. There were blue skies and 70 degree temps during the day, low 60s at night, and clear for miles. This sunset picture was taken on Friday night from the front portch of our cabin- that's a volcano in the background, Mt. Illiamna.

This is another picture of a volcano visible from Homer (small one in the center) called Readout.

This was the view from our cabin.

On Saturday morning, the 10 of us took a kayak tour with True North Kayak (they were awesome!!) We took a 20 minute water taxi out of the Homer Spit area to a little island stocked with kayaks in Kachemak Bay.

Had to get a picture of the girls styling in our wader boots.

After a safety briefing, we all got geared up to get in our tandum kayaks. I had never been before, but Ran and I did great- I took this picture from our kayak! We launched first without a hitch!

The amazing thing about kayaking for the first time was (1) Homer is a beautiful city (2) Kachemak Bay is very calm water and (3) there is tons of wildlife!

This is called Elephant Rock. Our trip was about a half day long kayak around Yukon Island.

We got super close to this little otter, just resting on some seaweed and taking a bath.

We stopped at Seal Island for lunch- Mt. Illiamna is visible over our left shoulders. By this time in our trip, a seal had started following us and our guides in our kayaks!

It really was a nice suprise to have such great weather- we could see the volcanos from almost every point in our trip.

Ran and I were on cloud nine after an awesome day!

By the time we were on the water taxi back into Homer, everyone had their sailboats out to enjoy the beautiful holiday weekend.

We rounded out the weekend around the campfire with smores.

Mt. McKinley

2008-10-04T15:42:00.000-07:00

The weather was so beautiful and clear last weekend that we hiked to the top of Arctic Valley to get pictures of Mt. McKinley and Mt. Forraker. It is VERY unusual to see the mountains so clearly from Anchorage- it's 237 miles from here.

Mt. McKinley is North America's tallest mountain at 20, 320 feet (it's on the right and Forraker is on the left).

There are beautiful mountain views the whole way up Arctic Valley- this is facing northeast towards Eagle River.

This is another famous mountain in the Anchorage area, visible from most everywhere in town on clear days- Sleeping Lady. She usually doesn't have snow on the top, so it's a sure sign winter is on the way soon!!

Soaking in the late September sun:

Fall Has Arrived

2008-09-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

Since the week after Labor Day, the summer has definitely begun to fade away. It's in the 30s at night, 50s during the day, the trees are changing colors, the mountains have snow on the top again, moose sightings have gone up because of the rut season, and the daylight is sadly going away. The sun is rising around 7:30am and setting around 7:45-8:00pm. It is one of the prettiest times of year here because it's still nice enough to bike or go hiking, and the weather tends to be very clear- high sun and blue skies (unlike the majority of our summer- which was rainy and cloudy).

This little lady was having dinner in front of our house:

Drift River Flight Tour

2008-09-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

Randall got to fly to Drift River with his company to do some fishing a few Saturdays ago. This was the area he fished (at the base of the waterfalls- lucky guy!)

They also did a helicopter flight tour over the area, which had many glaciers and waterfalls:

Aerial of Drift River:

One of Randall's offshore platforms:

These are the little planes Randall flies in when he goes across the Cook Inlet:

Harding Ice Field

2008-09-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

Randall went on a 2 day team building trip with his company in early September. They spent the day in Seward hiking the Harding Ice Field. I think it was about 6 miles roundtrip.

Here's the group as they made it to the top of the icefield:

Must not have been too cold off that ice:

We can see sunsets again!

2008-09-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

Now that winter is approaching, we have started seeing sunsets again! The sun is down by 10pm now, meaning it is very dark when we go to bed. Seems like the sun is rising around 7am too, although most of the past 2 months we've had a lot of rainy/cloudy days. This morning it is 46 degrees outside, and the first snow has topped the mountains although it will likely be another month before it snows in town. The leaves are changing right now too- we'll be posting pics of fall colors soon, but here are some nice sunset pictures we took from our house recently:

Black Bears at Skilak Lake

2008-09-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

We got invited to fish for red salmon on Skilak Lake with some friends of ours, Justin and Aoife, a few weeks ago. To our amazement, there were literally hundreds of red salmon spawning in the lake! The water is very shallow- shallow enough to stand in and everywhere we looked there were hundreds of bright red salmon spawning. It was one of the most amazing things we've ever seen. We didn't even row our boat because the oars would hit the salmon. Of course, being near that many salmon meant our second bear encounter in Alaska.

Randall caught this red salmon below, but we let it go:

This was the first black bear we saw- it is actually a pretty good size as far as black bears go.

This is a picture we took from inside the car window- this bear came up fairly unexpectedly out of the woods when we were loading the car. There was a lady visiting from Missouri who happened to be walking by at the time the bear appeared, so she was sitting in the front seat of our car when I took this picture from the backseat!

Here we are enjoying the views! You can't see the salmon in any of my pictures- only visible with a better camera than what we have!

Here's my shot at rowing:

Another black bear- yes, they actually swim, but not too far! They get tired easily and end up going back to shore.

Raven Glacier

2008-09-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

This is Raven Glacier, located 4 miles inland from the Crow Pass Hike in Girdwood, Alaska. It's amazing to walk right up to a big glacier. The wind coming off of it is very chilly, even though the temperature outside was probably about 60 degrees. Below are our friends Troy and Thaimar (gives a good sense of the scale of things in Alaska):

The hike is over 3000 feet in elevation:

We were facing Raven Glacier when this picture was taken:

Crow Pass Hike

2008-09-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

Crow Pass Hike is 26 miles one way from Girdwood to Eagle River. We hiked 4 miles in to a glacier called Raven Glacier before turning around. There were a lot of waterfalls from snow melt, as well as old mining equipment. The weather was cloudy and a bit drizzly, but the climb made us sweat so the cool air was actually nice. People usually see bears on the hillsides, but we didn't see any wildlife other than eagles on the hike.

Mountain Biking Powerline Trail

2008-09-01T10:28:00.001-07:00

On the last day of Amye and Justin's visit, we decided to mountain bike the Powerline Trail, which starts from the Flattop Hike parking lot and continues 4.5 miles one-way to Green Lake. The climb to the lake was tough because most of it is slightly uphill. However, once we made it to the lake, we got to eat a picnic lunch and explore around the mountains. The ride back was great, all downhill and several moose sightings. No bear sightings on this trip!

Bird Ridge Hike

2008-08-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

Bird Ridge is one of the hardest hikes we've done in Alaska. It climbs over 3000 feet in elevation over a few miles. The views are really nice of the Chugach Mountain range and the Turnagain Arm. These pics were taken in July- still some snow on the mountains, although that is somewhat unusual. We've had a much cooler summer than normal.

A River Runs Through It

2008-08-24T01:11:00.001-07:00

On the last day of Amye and Justin's trip to Alaska, we took a fly fishing trip down the Kenai River. It was in-between salmon runs, so we were fishing for rainbow trout, although evidence of the salmon were all around us. The Kenai River is a glacier fed river, which is why it has such a clear blue color. It's one of the most famous rivers in the world for salmon fishing.

Justin picked up on the technique right away:

as did Ames:

Amye's first Alaskan catch- a rainbow trout:

Carey trying to get the 'drift' right:

Carey's first Alaskan rainbow trout:

Ames and Justin look like pros. This was one of the only days we didn't have sun during their visit, so it was chilly. They still have smiles after a full day of fishing!

This was one of many eagles we saw, waiting in the tops of trees to swoop down and get salmon carcasses:

Kenai Princess Lodge

2008-08-24T01:02:00.000-07:00

That evening, we explored the trails around the Kenai Princess Lodge. You have to take caution in this area because of the high bear population. Anywhere there's salmon running, there's definitely bears. Fortunately (or unfortunately for Ames and Justin!) we didn't see any bears on this trip. We did see lots of local flowers and evidence of bears though.

Ames and Justin soaking in the Alaskan sun, overlooking the Kenai River:

This is Justin getting attacked by a big metallic eagle! Eagles actually attack people's pets, mistaking little dogs for rabbits. They can't release their prey until their claws hit the ground (pressure), so big king salmon have actually been known to drown eagles.

Another view from the trails below our cabin:

Ran and I love playing tour guides!

Drive to Kenai Princess Lodge

2008-08-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

On one of their last days here, we took Ames and Justin to Kenai so we could fly fish for Rainbow Trout. We stayed at the awesome Kenai Princess Lodge, set high above the Kenai River. The short 2 hour drive from Anchorage is beautiful, winding along canyons, gaining elevation in the Chugach mountains, with glacier fed rivers running alongside the highway:

This was the view from our cabins in Kenai:

Another of Amye's awesome local fauna and flora pictures- this is Fireweed.

Ames and Justin enjoying a beautiful July afternoon from their cabin.

We were trying to spot bears on the mountains from our porch, but all we could see with our binnoculars were sheep.

Denali from our Neighborhood

2008-08-09T09:39:00.000-07:00

We got the chance to show Ames and Justin Mt. McKinley right from our neighborhood. This pic was taken around midnight in July. Mt. McKinley, also called Denali, is a 6 hour drive from Anchorage- it's amazing it's viewable from that far away! Denali is the mountain on the right, just visible above the horizon. It's over 20,000 feet high and one of the largest mountains in North America, if not the biggest.

Gold Panning at Crow Creek Mine

2008-08-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

Ames and Justin had seen a tv show where people could pan for gold in Alaska, so we decided to try to strike it big in Girdwood at the Crow Creek Mine. It's an interesting, torutous gravel road to get to the mine. Once we pulled up, although you could hear the water, you couldn't see anything. First thing we see is this sign and a hippie chick with a hullahoop, who promptly drops the hoop to give us a very simple and enticing demo of how to pan for gold.

Let me draw your attention to rule #2: It is only after gold panning that we understand what this means. The "off limits" portion of the trail is where we suspect all the gold actually is, because it certainly wasn't where we were panning! Rule #6- this mine is in the heart of Chugach National Forest aka Bear Country.

To get to the river, you have to tromp around through a jungle with high brush all around you. I won't even lie- we were freaked. We kept banging on our panning bowls with the shovels to make noise and keep the bears away. Hippie girl had just told us how she had seen a black bear that day by her greenhouse:

Finally made it to the river to pan!

We kept hoping Justin could find a gold nugget big enough for us to retire on, but to no avail..

Portage and Whittier

2008-08-07T21:25:00.000-07:00

After we visited the Nature Center, we found a spot to eat lunch before heading down to see Portage and Byron Glaciers.

Zoom of Byron Glacier

Picnic spot in Portage, Alaska

The town of Whittier is only accessible via a long tunnel that operates one way traffic every 30 minutes. It costs $12 roundtrip for a car to go to Whittier- Ran and I had never been there before, so we decided to check it out with Ames and Justin. Whittier is a weird town- everyone that lives there lives in one building (see back left of pic below).

We've heard they have their own hosiptal and school inside. There are underground tunnels that connect people from their "home" to the town. The only reason to really go there is to either take a glacier cruise or kayak. Since the town is surrounded by mountains, the Prince William Sound is very calm and good for people just learning. Overall, it's a creepy place, so we stayed long enough to get some ice cream cones before jumping in line to catch the outgoing traffic!

Whittier and Prince William Sound

Wildlife Nature Conservation Center

2008-07-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

On the third day of Ames and Justin's visit, we drove to Portage to tour the Wildlife Nature Conservation Center. It's similar to a very big zoo, only the animals aren't caged. Instead, they get to pretty much live as though they are in the wild, with large plots of land for grazing and open sky.

This is at a pull-off along the Seward Highway on our way to the center. When it's not cloudy here, the weather is awesome in the summer. It was over 70 degrees and very bright. The sun is actually so bright reflecting off the ocean, it's hard to get good pictures because everything has this whitish sheen to it in the photo.

Another of Amye's cool pictures of local flowers- these wildflowers are blooming all over this time of year. Remind me of Texas bluebonnets.

It was very cool to get to see the brown bears. Because the bears have such a huge grassy area to live in, it's not a guarantee to see them when you visit the center. This guy was right out by the fence the second we walked up!

Bull moose, chilling out in the grass.

Behind Ames and Justin, you can see how the center is setup with the large acreage for the animals to live. It was such a nice day!!!

I think the story with this eagle is that it was shot by a hunter and can no longer fly, but they rescued it. These are all over Alaska- can hardly get out in the car without seeing one.

This is one of two black bears that were napping way up high in some tree branches. Now we know to check up instead of just around when we're out fishing!

This caribou stole the show as far as we're concerned. It was so friendly, eating grass right out of our hands. We eventually got in trouble for feeding it grass, but not before we got to steal a pat on its antlers!

Mud Flats

2008-07-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

This bluff is within walking distance from our house and a cool place to hang out to watch the drastic tide changes. When the tide is out, the landscape looks totally different as the mud flats are exposed. It almost looks like a desert.

The picture below was taken at midnight the week Ames and Justin were visiting.

This reminds me of that song "I wear my sunglasses at night..."

I think Ames and Justin were both surprised at how bright it can be at midnight on a clear day here!

Hiking Flattop Peak Trail

2008-07-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

Ames and Justin amazed me with how awesome they did on the Flattop Peak trail! This hike is pretty tough at times, mostly uphill, and cold towards the summit. The weather was cloudy the day we hiked, but they were troopers, continuing beyond the second saddle towards the summit! The hike starts at 1,300 foot elevation, so coming from Houston, these two were amazing!

At the start of the trail

Great view of Anchorage behind Ames and Justin

Funny little animal stuffing itself on a hiker's apple

Ames took these cool pictures of local flora and fauna.

View of Powerline hike from the second saddle of Flattop Hike- near the summit!

These are cool and narly little trees at the beginning of our hike.

Some kind of prairie dog munching on grass.

Kenai Fjords National Park

2008-07-05T13:22:00.000-07:00

Here we are boarding the Kenai Fjords boat in Seward, Alaska. The weather was really chilly relative to Anchorage, but we were prepared with warm clothes! The cruise to Kenai Fjords National Park leaves out of Resurrection Bay into the Gulf of Alaska, so if the weather isn't perfect, lots of cruise passengers can get seasick. We came loaded with Dramamine, just in case the waves were choppy, but luckily, the weather cooperated and this was one of the calmest days the captain had ever seen! We were able to spend time in areas of the park that the tour normally can't go because of the waves, so we were very lucky.

Here is Ames and Justin, boarding our boat in the Seward harbor.

Right off the bat, we spotted a humpback whale in Resurrection Bay.

Here we are in front of Holgate Glacier, located inside the park. It's only visible by plane or boat.

View of Surprise Glacier, located next to Holgate Glacier.

By now, the weather had begun to clear, which gave us a great opportunity to ride into the Chiswell Islands, an area that normally can't be viewed for long because of the size of waves. However, since the weather was beautiful, we got to spend quite a bit of time looking for wildlife here!

View of Chiswell Islands

One of the coolest parts of our trip was seeing these sea lions lounging on the rocks of the Chiswell Islands.

We also got to see several humpback whales on the return trip to Seward- here was a momma and baby humpback traveling alongside our boat.

View of Bear Glacier on the return trip to Seward harbor.

Alaska Railroad to Seward

2008-07-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

Carey's sister, Amye, and her husband, Justin, just spent a week visiting us from Texas. We had a great time with them, especially since the weather was fantastic! They are super easy house guests and were up for every adventure we suggested! It was so much fun having them here! We spent the first day riding the Alaska Railroad from Anchorage to Seward, where we took a 6 hour cruise to Kenai Fjords National Park. The train ride is 4 hours with great opportunities for good photos.

Anchorage Depot, at 7 am

View of Turnagain Arm, traveling south along the Seward Highway from Anchorage

Meadow along Seward Highway near Girdwood, Alaska.

Snow melt creates beautiful waterfalls along the train ride.

Ames and Justin, enjoying the views from the Observation Deck of the train.

Near Upper Trail Glacier

Close up of Upper Trail Glacier

Glacier melt creates these light grey to blue rivers.

View of Spencer Glacier from the train.

Trees destroyed by saltwater from the 1964 earthquake. We'll be posting more photos from their visit over the next few days, so check back often!

More Russian River Adventures

2008-07-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are more pictures from our fishing adventure on the Russian River last weekend. Looking closely in this picture, you can see our visitor already showing its head through the grass across the bank.

Excitement of my first Alaskan salmon catch...

Red Salmon Fishing- Russian River

2008-06-21T10:37:00.001-07:00

Salmon fishing is one of the primary reasons most people come to Alaska, but figuring out how to salmon fish is actually more complicated than you would think. The first run of salmon start in May and are King salmons, which are the biggest (over 40 lbs). The season peaks in June and there are strict Fish and Game regulations about how many kings can be caught each year. Right now, the limit is 5 per season and only one per day over 20 inches long. It's important to pay attention to the regulations here b/c if you don't, you could face a HUGE fine. The the red salmon start to run in mid-June, which are a little smaller and a different color. The reds are about 15-20 lbs. Finally, the silver salmon start to run in August. The key to landing a fish is a. knowing what line setup to use and b. knowing where to go. Serious anglers have made this into an art in Alaska.

This weekend we went red salmon fishing on the Russian River, which is a gorgeous clear river near Kenai, Alaska. We decided to try it because the fishing report said that you could 'sight' fish, meaning you could see the salmon by your feet and cast your line into the schools. Here's the typical setup for fishing: waders, hat, polarized glasses, and rod. Randall has a king fishing lure below- this was on the Little Susitna River last weekend. (LOVE his camo waders!)

At times, there are so many people fishing that locals call it "combat fishing" because you literally stand elbow to elbow with 100 other anglers. The sunglasses are more for eye protection from hooks than to see the fish!! So yesterday we drove 2 hours to the Russian River, waited in an 1 hr long line to get into the camping area before we could fish. I should have suspected it would be an interesting day- this was the garbage bin next to the parking lot:

The fishing report was true- the water was so clear, we could see big schools of red salmon swimming right in front of us! It's amazing how shallow the water is that they swim in, and of course, they swim upstream. Finally after several hours, I landed my first red salmon! I'm walking it in towards shore and another angler got a net to scoop up my fish - this is required as part of the regulations on the Russian River. Once you land the fish, you have to hit it in the head with a billy club to kill it! It sounds terrible, but these fish don't die simply from reeling one in. I was getting ready to do the honors when my girlfriend yells "BEAR! BEAR! BEAR!" We, along with about 20 other anglers, turn to see a black bear walking along the bank on the other side of the river, about 50 yards away. An experienced angler took the club from me, beat my fish, bled the gills, and says "We had to get the fish to stop moving so it won't attract her." The bear just kept on walking until she was gone, but we ended up seeing her one more time before the day was over. It was exhilirating, but a little scary! However, all the fisherman carry guns on chest holsters so one would think that someone out of all those people could land a shot if necessary.

Here she is- she was never threatening, just hungry. She didn't want to get into the cold water, but salmon carcasses were EVERYWHERE, so she couldn't resist scooping them up with her paws.

So this is the red salmon I landed- about 24 inches long. My girlfriend has all the action photos of the bear coming to shore behind us as I landed this, so once she sends me the pictures (and her video!) I'll upload it. This is just a few teaser photos! This was a female- when we filleted her, there were salmon eggs inside her. Lots of people use salmon eggs to fish. It's called "roe". You might think "That's not red" and you'd be right- since it's the start of the red season, their skin hasn't turned bright red just yet, but it will the farther they get upstream.

King Salmon Fishing

2008-06-08T18:16:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we took our first stab at fishing for king salmon in Kenai, Alaska at Crooked Creek. Kenai is a beautiful 3 hour drive from Anchorage and known for it's salmon fishing. Although we gave it many hours, we came up empty. Two other lucky anglers caught kings, so there was a least proof we were in the right spot.

This was one of the kings caught while we were fishing- it was 28" long (not sure of the weight).

Here's a picture of the guys after a hard fought battle with the king salmon. This pic was taken at 11:30pm near the Seward Highway turnoff to Homer, Alaska.

At midnight, it is still fairly light outside. No headlights needed at 10pm. The weather has been unusually chilly- 40s at night still and only mid 50s during the day.

End of May

2008-06-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

These are some random pictures we took at 8:45pm one night, towards the end of May, during an evening walk in our neighborhood.

Round 1: Eagle versus Seagull

2008-05-23T09:56:00.001-07:00

We took a walk on the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail last Sunday, which runs 11 miles one way along the Cook Inlet. The beluga whales are migrating back to Alaska right now and we've heard they're visible from the trail. We didn't see any whales, but we did see this big guy up in a tree. There was a pesky seagull annoying the eagle, circling it's head and swooping down at it. Seagulls are apparently pretty dumb birds- the eagle could have easily had a seagull lunch. In fact, people can't leave their little dogs in the yard for long because the eagles mistake them for rabbits, and well, you know how that story ends!

Eagle River Nature Center

2008-05-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, we walked 4 miles at the Eagle River Nature Center. The weather was beautiful- 63 degrees and sunny. Since the bears are out of hibernation now, we went with a large group of friends and several cans of bear spray! We didn't see any wildlife- not even a moose. The salmon aren't quite running this far north yet, so low potential for bear sightings. It's amazing how fast the trees are leafing out with the warm weather and long daylight hours now. Today it was almost 70 degrees when we left work and it seemed like the trees had grown leaves over the course of a few hours. We're slowly adjusting to the daylight, but we have noticed it's harder to 'wind down' at night. Sunset is at 11:30 pm.

Sunbathing in Alaska

Beaver huts, ducks-- no bears...

Rock skip'n champion

Mechanic in Training with Broke Back Supervisor

2008-05-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

Randall is recouperating from a slight disc herniation in his back right now. Unfortunately for Carey, that means Randall has his feet up while she does all the heavy lifting. Studded tires must be off your car by May 15 or else you can be fined (they tear up the roads). So this was how we spent last Saturday:

Step 1: Chock the tires

Step 2: Break the lug nuts (cheater bar may be required for leverage!)

Step 3: Position jack and raise car

Step 4: Finishing removing lug nuts and remove tire

Step 5: Place new tire on car and install lug nuts (hand tighten)

Step 6: Lower jack and finish tighting lug nuts in a diagonal cross pattern

Step 7: Adjust air pressure

Repeat 3 times while most importantly-- looking fabulous! (Didn't even break a nail!)

Welcome Home Randall!

2008-05-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

Welcome back from Houston Randall! Hope you didn't get acclimated to the warm Texas sunshine over the last two weeks. Just in case, I warmed the snow shovel up for you...

New April Record

2008-04-25T23:27:00.000-07:00

Today we set a new record for the most snow accumulation ever on April 25th in Anchorage. The last record was set in 1956 (3/4 inch). I took these pictures at 10:20 pm tonight just before shoveling the driveway. Stay tuned- we could have as much as 24 inches by tomorrow night!!

Alaska in April

2008-04-17T22:08:00.001-07:00

The two big changes in April: melting snow and increasing daylight. Locals call it "The Breakup". However, it has snowed twice in April so far- 3 inches April 5th and 1 inch April 15th. We still have snow on the ground, but the weather guy says we're in for 5 days of sun at mid 40s to 50s. Maybe a sign that spring is finally here?? We have about 15 hours of daylight right now and it's ever increasing. I took this picture tonight from my patio at 9:15pm, right after I successfully avoided a momma moose and her calf on my jog down the neighborhood sidewalk.

Smartest Moose in Alaska

2008-04-05T10:15:00.000-07:00

We haven't seen moose for quite some time. During the summer, it isn't uncommon to see them in our yard a few times per week. Last week, Ran and I were sitting in our living room, watching tv with the blinds open on the window. Our window overlooks the front yard and down into the street in front of our house. All of a sudden, Randall sits up straight, spoting something outside. Low and behold- two big moose in our driveway. They managed to find their way to our neighbor's yard looking for dinner. There's a lot of fencing here to keep moose from eating up people's landscaping. This moose, however, has obviously outsmarted the system:

I love this picture-- what's bigger? The Ford in the background, or the moose?

Snowboarder Chick

2008-03-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

I decided to try snowboard lessons the week Randall's mom was here. Randall snowboards all the time, so I figured, "Hey- I'm a skier! This will be a cinch." Wrong, wrong, wrong! I have a new found respect for snowboarding. Too bad they don't make pants with extra padding on the rear. I decided that I perfected falling like a fly swat- either flat on my back or flat on my face! I gave it a few more chances, but my tailbone and I made a pact to stick to skiing from now on!

Our First Alaskan Visitor

2008-03-23T23:51:00.000-07:00

Randall's mom was our first visitor, flying all the way from Texas to come see us in Anchorage! It was fun to play tour guide, especially since the weather half-way cooperated. March is a tricky month to visit- I think it's usually snow covered and sunny, but all of our snow had already started melted, so it was mostly brown slop! We took Mom Donna to one of our fav restaurants, Glacier Brewhouse, downtown:

We braved the wind to come see a nice sunset over the Cook Inlet- what a trooper Mom Donna was, because it was COLD!

Another famous landmark here- Sleeping Lady is the name of the mountain behind Randall and Donna. It's supposed to resemble a woman sleeping on her back-- we don't quite get it...

Mom Donna tried skiing for the very first time!! We rode the tram up to the top of the mountain to a daylodge with a great deck for taking panaromic pictures. It's great because you don't have to ski down. We rode the tram back down to get ready for our lessons. Mom Donna's ski instructor, Angel, thought she was the star of her class!

Smiles before ski lessons and.....

... smiles after ski lessons! (That's the daylodge we took pictures from WAY up top!)

Westchester Lagoon

2008-03-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

For $10, you can rent a pair of ice skates and skate on the Westchester Lagoon near downtown Anchorage. We do not have extensive ice skating experience, let alone on frozen ponds, but we managed to get through a few hours without any bruised knee caps. Here's a recap of our Saturday:

1) Watched the start of the Iditarod race
2) Ate at a local pizza joint called Moose' Tooth
3) Ice skated on a frozen pond
4) Saw Jim Brickman in concert at the Performing Arts Center
5) Moose sightings - 4

Iditarod 2008

2008-03-03T23:37:00.001-08:00

We saw the start of the Iditarod race from downtown Anchorage a few weeks ago. The Iditarod race is a 1100 mile race on dog sleds from Anchorage to Nome and takes the competitors over a week to finish. It can be dangerous at times, going across frozen lakes, through rural mountains and blizzards. This trail was used by mush teams in the early 1900s during the gold rush.

Northern Lights

2008-03-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

We all probably think of one thing when we think of Alaska... ok, besides bears and darkness and that bad movie Insomnia with Robin Williams. Northern Lights! Well, I got the goods people. That's right- our first scouting trip for the Aurora was a success and I can confirm that it was a) super cool and b) really eerie. I also want to add that we were extremely lucky- it's not like you can just grab a starbucks frappacino, pull off to the side of the road, and demand to see the Aurora. Who knew? It's about timing your viewing during 'high activity' days and catching a crystal clear night (which if you've been following my blog, you'll see that Alaska has more than a few overcast days!) Not to mention you gotta make an effort to get away from the city lights. This is what it looks like when all the stars align. Ahhh.. now I can check that off my list.

Running with the Reindeer

2008-02-29T18:49:00.001-08:00

This was the first annual Running with the Reindeer in Anchorage. Hundreds of Alaskans gathered downtown to run with the reindeer in celebration of the Fur Rendevous- the carnival and party leading to the Iditarod race next weekend. It's supposed to mimic the Running with the Bulls in Spain, but the reindeer aren't quite as intimidating (maybe b/c they're a common food source here!) We'll be at the Iditarod Saturday to catch all the action as the mushers and dog sleds take off on the long journey to Nome.

Randall's Birthday

2008-02-24T14:13:00.001-08:00

For Randall's birthday, I set up a skiing trip in Girdwood with some of our friends and rented a condo for a surprise birthday party afterwards. All week long I was concerned about how I would come up with an excuse to get Randall to Girdwood, because the weather warmed up above freezing and all the snow melted. I was thinking the skiing would be terrible, but the snow report in Girdwood said they got 70 inches of fresh snow in 3 days. So banking that the weather reports were right, we headed down to Girdwood Saturday. Low and behold, it turned into a beautiful day- 30 degrees, no wind, sunny, and the most powder we've seen all year.

With over 9 hours of daylight now, it was the perfect day to be outside and to spend Randall's birthday with friends. The only thing that would have made it perfect was if our families could have been there too!

What's considered "a lot" of snow?

2008-02-18T19:46:00.000-08:00

This is what we've been doing a lot of lately-- shoveling snow. Only now we're starting to get to a point where we can't lift the shovel high enough to throw the snow from our driveway into the yard. That's a 3 foot long yardstick in Randall's hand and yet the snowpile is higher than his waist. Funny enough, it has since warmed up to 40 degrees and it's raining, so now our 4 foot snowpile has morphed into a 2 foot pile of slop!