Flag Football & Spanish Moose

I went to one of Tess's flag football games this evening. I like these games. They last an hour, there's no drama or fuss. They show up, play their game, and head home.

The girls played a good game. I think Tess and her friend Melissa acted as captains at today's game. They played Dimond High but used the field at South High. Both of those schools are in Anchorage.
Chugiak won 18-6. So far, they're undefeated! :o)

In other news, Stephen has started back with college classes again. Right now he's just taking one night class at a time from UAA to work towards his degree in Natural Science. This semester he's in Spanish 101.

He's going to go moose hunting with a fellow from the Alaska Defense Force in a couple weeks. They'll be camping out for up to 5 days (unless they get a moose first).

Ride the Pink Elephant

It was a Pink Elephant day. The sort we'd been hoping for all week long. The skies were blue with a few white puffy clouds. The sun was warm. The elephant was pink. What more could you want?

In case you haven't guessed, it's Alaska State Fair time again!

We had a full, fun day yesterday. Not only did we go to the Fair in the afternoon and evening, but we climbed a mountain, picked a BUNCH of blueberries and hit a few yard sales in the morning.

Getting back to the Fair... We picked up one of Tess's friends in Eagle River and headed north to the State Fairgrounds in Palmer. What would normally be a 20 minute drive at most ended up taking us about 1.5 hours due to fair traffic.

Alaska is notorious for having only one way in or out of places... including popular places like: the state fair, the city of Anchorage, etc. Why pave more roads? There's one there. So what if one jack-knifed tractor trailer means you either sit in traffic for 8 hours or (if you're lucky enough to not have left the house yet), you can opt for the "alternative route" which involves either an 8-hour drive past Mt. McKinley or hiking the 23-mile Crow Pass Trail through the Chugach Mountains.

But I digress.

So we arrived at the Fair just after 3pm. The fellas had tickets to see the Charlie Daniels Band at 7:30pm. So they had a few hours to see (and eat) what the Fair had to offer.

First things first... find a sausage dog. This turned out to be harder than it sounds. But we were finally able to accomplish this task. All our normal fair food favorites seemed to be in less plentiful supply this year. We may have to change our "favorites" to be Salmon on a Stick or Halibut Ice Cream... Hmmm.

We checked out the giant veggies, petted the piggies, and most important of all.... we rode the Pink Elephant! (twice!)

School Daze

The kids went back to school today. Oh Happy Day.

Tess, age 14, sophomore.


Donald, age 16, junior

Do you think they're growing weary of my scrapbook hobby?

From the sports desk: Tess's flag football season is off to a running start. She plays running back on the Junior Varsity team. They've had a jamboree and one official game at which they whooped the other team 24-0.

Farewell Lake -- Part II (Read Part I first...)

I'm not sure which pass we entered to cross through the mountains. When I asked the pilot just how far we were going, his response was a vague, "Oh, we're going a long way...". Hmmm. I took another Dramamine just before we lifted off.

As we entered the mountains, we had to increase our altitude to about 5300'. And once in the mountains, we encountered a few pockets of turbulence (which in a single engine plane can make you feel like you're holding the tail of a kite). The combination of turbulence and higher altitude started playing a number on my motion sickness tendencies.

After being in the air for almost 2 hours, we arrived over the Remote Recreation Cabin Staking area we were supposed to be observing.

The headset I was wearing was not wired for sound. So I could not communicate with the pilot or my colleague. But they could communicate between themselves.

We circled the staking area several times. I could tell the pilot was sizing up the larger of the lakes nearby to determine landing feasibility. The lake is named Stony Lake... and you could see why from 2000' up in the air. It also appeared pretty shallow. I was not surprised when the pilot pulled away and started heading further north. My colleague had snapped some photos and we were apparently just going to head back to Anchorage. Back through those lovely, turbulent mountains.

Panic.

I tapped them on the shoulder and, using sign language, asked if we intended to land. No. Not possible on that lake.

I indicated that I was feeling only so-so as opposed to my repeated thumbs-up earlier in the flight. We flew on. We apparently weren't going to return via the route we had come. But we'd still need to follow some pass through the mountains. There was no way around that short of flying up past McKinley and around to Fairbanks. Sorry... not nearly enough gas for that!

After about another 15 minutes we started into a pass through the mountains. More panic. I again tapped them on the shoulder. I motioned a strong need to land... right now.

We circled back out of the pass, looking at the map to locate a suitable lake. There are surprisingly few lakes of suitable size in that area on which to land a floatplane. You'd think in a state with 3 million lakes, you could certainly find one where you needed one to be!

Enter into view -- Farewell Lake.

By the time we landed, my arms, hands, and fingers were in a state of complete dead-weight. Like they were asleep and starting to contort (hands & fingers) into strange positions. My torso around my rib-cage also had this sensation of constricted numbness. I've never experienced anything like it.

We dropped down onto Farewell Lake and made our way to one end where the map indicated a lodge existed. We found a girl named Julie from Wisconsin who was the lodge caretaker. She was the only human around, probably for miles... No roads lead there, only floatplanes, except in the winter when the Iditarod passes within a mile of the lodge.

The second the plane touched down, I had my colleague open the side door and was relieved to feel the rush of fresh, ground-level air flow past me.

We rested with Julie for an hour. And we discussed our options for getting back over the mountains. Thankfully, we decided on a quicker route through what would hopefully be a less turbulent pass.

I reboarded the plane and we bid adieu to Farewell Lake at about 4pm. The return flight was indeed shorter and somewhat smoother. But my body was already primed to be ill. So I went through the whole body numbing queasiness again on the way back through the mountains.

The pilot had instructed me to find a place on the horizon and focus on it. I picked a distant mountain peak and glued my eyes on it until it moved from view. Then I picked another one and kept up with the process until my eyes burned with exhaustion.

We ended up touching down on Willow Lake briefly so the pilot could gas up before shuttling us to Lake Hood in Anchorage.

The last leg of the flight was not bad at all as it was very flat, low altitude, and a pretty short hop. Nonetheless, I was never so happy to get off a plane. (Well, except that one TWA flight back in 1992, but that's a whole other story...)

If you're in the area, pop in to the Farewell Lake Lodge and give my regards to Julie. Her hospitality was much appreciated -- but I'm not sure I could stomach a return visit to her pretty lake.

Farewell Lake - Part I

Yesterday was supposed to be my “short day” Friday where I got off work at 2:30pm. Instead, by 2:30pm I was preparing to make an emergency landing on Farewell Lake in a Cessna 185.

It was Opening Day for land stakers in our Remote Recreation Cabin Staking program. There was a need for a last minute volunteer to accompany someone in the Remote Rec unit to the Big River South staking area. Guess who volunteered.

Luckily, I happened to have worn my hiking shoes and a fleece jacket to work yesterday. And my backpack, stocked with Dramamine was in the van. So I drugged up and headed for Lake Hood to meet our floatplane and head west over the Alaska Range to Big River South.

Next time you gaze at a mountain range, try seeing it as more than just one neat line of mountains. This is what I see when I look at the Alaska Range. In actuality, it is a large, seemingly endless expanse of spiky peaks and sharp, ravine-like valleys. Our pretty mountain ranges happen to also be full of flowing and retreating glaciers.

We lifted off from Lake Hood at 12:15 and headed across the Cook Inlet towards the Alaska Range. Mount McKinley stood tall to the north, all white against a blue sky. My Dramamine had kicked in and I was feeling fine, enjoying the adventure and awed by the view. We had a long way to go.

To be continued…

New Team, School, & Smile

Well, I was supposed to take my first floatplane flight today. But the weather was not very conducive, so we've postponed the flight till Sept. 7th. More on that later...

In other news, Tess is on the JV Flag Football team at the high school. They got their uniforms today and she's happy to be #8 as that's her favorite number. Their first game is Saturday morning as part of a Jamboree at Bartlett High School. I'm not sure who they're playing.

School doesn't actually start for another week on Aug 22nd.

Alicia May will be starting a new daycare tomorrow. We're hoping all goes well. We've had child care issues this summer.

Tess gets her bottom braces in the morning and a jaw widening appliance on the top. In 20 months, she should have straight choppers.... and I should be flat broke. $7000 for braces!

Staying Currant

On the last day of our cousins' visit, we took a hike around the Eagle River Nature Center. We were hoping to locate a geocache that is hidden in there about a mile in. However, we decided it must be down the trail which was blocked by a sign saying "No Public Use: Bears in Area". Pesky bears.

So we contented ourselves to just enjoy the woods and gather some currants along the way. I hadn't brought a bucket, so we gathered them in the pocket of my sweater.

We hiked to the log cabin which you can rent. A family was staying there but were welcoming and we chatted with them for a little while. They had a 4-year old boy named Alex with whom Alicia May became fast friends. We turned around and they had both scaled the ladder to the top bunk and were having a grand old time.

Yesterday, when I got home from work, I decided to take a closer look at our yard. Lo and behold... tons of ripe juicy currants! Not only that, but high-bush cranberries and loads of watermelon berries... Here I'd been struggling to gather little pockets of berries all over the state and my backyard is full of them! (No blueberries, but lots of others...)

I have a recipe for a red currant pie which I intend to make once I acquire a lemon from which to scrape the zest...

Talkeetna Rendezvous

We met our cousins in Talkeetna yesterday at 1pm. They had gone to Denali National Park to take the bus tour. During their Denali tour they saw some bears and lots of caribou.

The weather was beautiful yesterday. It's gotten better and better as the week has progressed. So, Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) was in clear view for much of yesterday.

We had lunch at the Wildflower Cafe in downtown Talkeetna and then split into two groups. The fellas and Aunt Dorothy headed for a fishing creek. We girls shopped around Talkeetna for a little while and then headed over Hatcher Pass to take in the views.

The fishing folks ended up staying pretty close to Talkeetna on Montana Creek. Aunt Dorothy didn't fish... she mainly read her book and napped.

We took the Hatcher Pass Road from Willow across... up and over... We stopped along the way to take some photos and search for berries (to no avail, we picked about a handful!). When we got to the Pass, there were a couple of paragliders leaping off the peaks and drifting on the air currents overhead. Tess really wants to do this. We'll see. They apparently offer rides (tandem).

I owe, I owe... so off to work I go!

I registered the kids for high school yesterday. Tess is a sophomore and Donald is a junior. They are both taking a few of the same classes: Algebra II, choir... But I don't think they have anything at the same time, so that's a good thing!

They take school photos on registration day here. So I paid for those, for next year's yearbooks ($65 each!), activity passes for their ID's, and Chugiak sweatshirts. That combined with the flag football activity fee puts my expenditures in the past 2 days up over $500 just to enroll kids in public school. Ouch.

Today the payouts continue. Tess has an orthodontist appointment followed directly by a dentist appointment and then off to football practice. She'll be getting braces next week, so the financial misery is just getting started!

Kenai Splendor

We spent a couple of days down on the Kenai Peninsula doing a little fishing and gazing at the most beautiful scenery on the planet.

The weather was very overcast on the first day. And I think that's a good thing. Otherwise the grandeur of the mountains, rivers, and lakes is just too overwhelming. Best to get just a taste of the Kenai's beauty to expand your appreciation like a sponge. Then you can absorb more and more as the weather clears, the sky displays its amazing blue backdrop to towering mountains untouched by man.

We saw the salmon spawning grounds of Quartz Creek. We fished in the Kenai River and Quartz Creek for trout, dolly varden, and grayling. Stephen and Al (aka Freddie) used fly poles. The rest of us just used the traditional cast.

Tess, Alicia, and I had to leave early Monday morning to get back in town in time for Tess to start Flag Football practice. She's opted to do that instead of cheerleading this year. I think she misses the cheering a little, but is excited about trying this new sport.

Visitors

I made some delicious blueberry muffins with the blueberries we picked last week for our out of town guests. Scrumptious!

And yes, I know the rose is dead, but I still like it, so I'm keeping it!

The birch wood bowl was my anniversary gift this year from Stephen. It was our wood/iron/candy anniversary. He bought this bowl at the Saturday market in Anchorage. We like collecting Alaskan items like this.

Friday evening we went to dinner at the Arctic Roadrunner which has great burgers. We sat outside where Campbell Creek babbles past. As we munched our burgers, we watched a few unexpected dinner guests swimming past, upstream... Pretty cool!

Once again, we drove up to the Long Rifle Lodge with our guests. This eating establishment/gas station/motel overlooks the lovely Matanuska Glacier. We've been here so often, I think this bear has more pictures in our family scrapbook than some of our actual family members.

The day was pretty drizzly and overcast. But as time is limited to show them around, we aren't letting a little weather stand in the way of our Alaskan adventure. After our meal, some of them explored the glacier on foot and had a great time.

It's rainy again today, but we're headed down to the Kenai Peninsula for some fishing and maybe gold panning...

Around the Valley, Up & Over the Pass

Yesterday was a lovely day for a field review. It was a bit overcast most of the day. But it warmed up quite a bit, into the 70's.

Due to mosquitoes (which in all honesty, weren't that bad), we were all dressed in long sleeves and pants, etc.

We looked at several parcels in the Kashwitna area. At a couple of them, I was able to gather a decent amount of blueberries in the coffee can I'd brought along just in case. I'm hoping to use them to bake some delicious blueberry muffins this weekend to share with our guests.

We stopped for lunch at our colleague's lakeside cabin near Talkeetna. As we ate, we listened to a couple of loons calling out on the lake and watched them dive for fish.

Once again, we returned home via Hatcher's Pass. The weather was a little better this week and we did a little further exploration of the area. Very beautiful. This is a historic (and still active) gold-mining area.

Berries on the Fly

It's not been all drudgery and normalcy at our place...

Last weekend Stephen had a muzzle loader hunter safety course on Saturday. The rest of us could have gone to the Governor's Picnic that afternoon for some free grub and a chance to chill with Gov. Sarah Palin. But Tess was between sleepovers with the Saturday night one being a birthday party as well. So we opted to hit the mall and get a gift card from Abercrombie and Fitch instead.

On Sunday, after church, Stephen, Alicia, and I headed up to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley to hunt for berries. I'd seen lots during my field work the prior week. We did find several good spots, but the blueberries and cranberries weren't quite ready in abundance. We harvested some blueberries, crowberries, and cloudberries, but not enough to do much with. I'm planning to investigate the uses for crowberries. They're less sweet than blueberries, but look similar (as you can see in Alicia's basket) and there are a bajillion of them in the Alaska wilderness.

While moving from one berry picking area to another, we stopped under a bridge on the Little Susitna River so Stephen could do a little fly-fishing. Alicia May and I entertained ourselves by building sand/dirt castles in the shade under the bridge or throwing river rocks into the water. So many rocks, so little time...