Hi all,
I threatened to finish writing about the trip to Anchorage and now I intend
to make good on that threat. I shall try to get though it before going off on
tangents though. (I do intend to go off on tangents after the Anchorage
descriptions so don't get your hopes
up.)
Trip to
Anchorage.....Trip to Anchorage.....Getting older means having less brain
capacity to remember things. It's called CRS syndrome.........Cant Remember Sh....
I
know, he's off on another tangent even though he promised not to.
Christy worked the weekends while we were down there so the first Sunday Patty, Mike, and I took a ride about 80 miles north to a town called Willow. They were having their winter festival that included a craft fair, a cross-country ski race, and a dog sled race. It was a nice ride and the fair was small but enjoyable. As I have stated I like the small town thing. Everyone knows everyone else who belongs there so imports like us are a glaringly abnormality. Ok, more of an abnormality than usual--there, you happy? In Alaska however it has been my experience that folks usually treat you like a guest, not an intruder. After all, most of the residents of this state were born somewhere else.
We shopped the craft fair purchasing a hand made wooden bowl for the dining room table at the house and a blanket for our sofa here in Kotz. The races were held on a frozen lake and all the vehicles involved with the dog sled races were parked on the center of the lake. We watched a bit of the activities before heading home to get ready for the drive to Homer the next day. I have already described the trip to Homer in the last email so I won't touch on that now.
We returned to Anchorage Tuesday night from that trip and spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, doing the usual shopping and working on a few odd jobs around the house. One thing of note about the house is that when ascending the stairs, the middle landing actually juts out into the yard a bit with windows facing the front and back yards. Patty told me that when she goes up and down the stairs and for that matter, anytime she's outside the house, she's on the lookout for moose. We have not seen one in the yard but last year there were moose droppings in the backyard on both sides of the house. Moose can be comical animals and appear real tame, but when they put their ears back, get the hell out of Dodge. Any animal that weighs over a thousand pounds and is pissed off is not something you want to mess with. Patty is sensible about simple issues like that. Me? I just go out with what little brain I have in neutral, oblivious to the world.
It was cold for Anchorage the week we were there with the weather clear and the temps just at zero or below in the mornings and warming up into the single digits during the day. A couple of days it was cold enough that there was ice in the air while the skies were clear blue. It was right at the point where the cold was freezing the moisture out of the air. It was like a light snow drifting down coating all surfaces. I'm a simple person so humor me when I again mention my fascination with the fact that the crystals were perfectly formed into little geometric shapes. I even tried unsuccessfully to take a picture of what seemed to me to be a perfect snowflake sitting on the window of the truck. This morning the seat of my 4 wheeler was dusted with those perfect little stars, each shape so enhanced by the black seat cover that I was tempted to go back inside to get the camera.
While in Anchorage Patty and I actually went to one of them fancy pitcher shows, you know, them's ones with the big ole screens and everything. We don't got non a those in Kotzebue ya know. We even et at that Australian steak house after. They call it Outback or somethin like that. Whooee, they dint serve none o that Chinese food we are so used to neither.
We also went to a boat
show that was being held inside and outside of a shopping mall in the weather I
described above. It was a definite contrast to the New Orleans boat show that is
held indoors at the Super Dome. Part of this show was out in the ice and snow.
It's hard to think about riding in a boat when the temp is zero and every body
of water around is frozen to a depth of at least 2 feet.
The last Saturday we were in town we rode down to the Alyeska Ski Resort
which is about 40 miles from the house. They were having their winter carnival
that weekend. There were plenty of snow bunnies at the resort all dressed in
their Columbia Warrior outfits. Surprisingly we saw only one other person there
wearing fur. This is quite unusual in Alaska especially since the Alaska Fur
Rendezvous was scheduled to begin the next week. Of course I have to remember
this is a Ski Resort that attracts all sorts of real sophisticated folks from
more civilized states, all with pinkies trained to stand at attention when
sipping their double skinny cappuccino latte mocha espresso Supremes. I have to
say judging from the dress I witnessed, I don't know how in the world the nylon
and polyester suppliers can keep up with that kind of demand. I know, maybe we
should form PEUNP, (pronounced pew nip) People for the Ethical Use of Nylon and
Polyester! After all, that much demand has to create the risk of causing a
shortage right? Then we have to think about ramifications concerning the
environment! I mean, two months from now when the fashion industry comes out
with the latest style update, instantly all that polyester and nylon will be
banished. Of course it will eventually end up in the trash and then back into
the environment! Curse those civilized, stylized, fashionable people! (Some of
those women did look good though!)
We did the traditional thing and walked through the hotel before riding the cable car to the top of the ski area where a world famous restaurant is perched. (It's so famous I don't remember the name.) We were too late to make reservations and too early to eat there anyway (whew, boy did that save us some cash). We watched the skiers and boarders until we felt we had fulfilled enough of our obligation so we could check that off the to do list before descending back into the world of the off duty skiers, all of whom although being off the slopes still maintained, "The Look". (Yea, I'm being a bit hard on them. But it's so much funnnnn!)
In addition to the aforementioned avant-garde folks skiing and snowboarding there was figure skating, and finally the "Polar Bear Plunge". This last is where seemingly normal folks voluntarily strip down to bathing suits in close to zero weather, then jump into water that up until that morning had two feet of ice above it and should not have been disturbed until sometime in May. These folks also get to pay for the privilege by "donating" ten dollars each. We walked out to the place where this was to take place and the blocks of ice cut from the pond were stacked around the hole. Some were stacked where they were later used as the platform for taking the plunge. As we stood there the poor soul who had cut the original hole broke the crusting of ice that had formed in the near zero weather and then proceeded to skim it out of the hole. As the festivities like all things it seems in Alaska were running behind schedule, the ice reformed and had to be reskimmed within the half hour it took to get the activity underway. There were over thirty of these "volunteers" including one man in his sixties and a number of nurses from Providence Hospitals Cardiac Clinic. Yep, they stripped down to bathing suits, stepped up onto the blocks of ice, had a belt with rope attached placed about their waist (in case of instant cardiac arrest or slipping under the ice I suppose, the hole was no wider than about 6 feet) and smiling, jumped feet first into the "water". No one stayed in long believe me and as we watched all came out safely to be rewarded with a towel bearing the Pepsi logo-the Columbia Warriors version of a medal for bravery. (There's a fine line between genius and insanity right? I think the same line exists between stupidity and bravery in some cases. Which is which depends on the individual trying to figure it out.) Just a note to satisfy the legal requirement: There was a rescue swimmer dressed in a dry suit and medical personnel (not in bathing suits) standing by.
Driving home we passed a
man walking his toy poodle that had little booties on its feet to keep out the
cold. Everybody say awww..... Now, let me enlighten you about a story that is
supposedly true in Alaska but has taken on the aura of being a legend. I have
heard versions stating it was a motor home occupant and others stating it was a
cruise ship passenger. The gist of it is allegedly a woman tourist let her toy
poodle off the leash and as the pooch was enjoying its brief period of freedom,
a hungry eagle swooped down and snatched it, carrying it away right in front of
the horrified woman's eyes. The story goes on, at least in the case of the motor
home, that the woman was devastated but the husband as he walked around the
motor home smiled at the gas attendant and stated, "I have been listening to
that
*&#@%$ dog yap for over a thousand miles". He then put on the appropriate
sorrowful demeanor and went to comfort his distraught bride. Even the local
newspaper funnies allude to this every now and then. Now back to the man walking
his toy poodle. After seeing the booties I turned to Patty and stated, "I sure
hope those booties are environmentally friendly". Patty obligingly asked, "Why"?
"Because we want to be sure they don't contain any toxic substances that could
harm the eagles!"
As Larry the Cable Guy says, "I don't care who you er, that's funny rat
there"!
I mentioned the blowing snow in my last letter that had occurred the
weekend after we returned and of course, that weekend we did inevitably end up
with a SAR. One man went out in all that blowing snow and his snowmachine broke
down and fortunately he was found safe. The funny part is they actually rescued
three people that weekend. Two of them SAR did not even know were lost. I should
not use the term funny however as I will never understand the mental processes
of the folks that inevitably venture out in bad weather to begin with, and most
of them for whatever reason venture out alone. I don't need to state that a
simple mistake with the extreme conditions present here, can be fatal. Yet every
time there is a bad storm some still go out. I keep wondering if maybe this is
proof of Darwin's Law of Natural Selection.
Kind of along the same lines but on the lighter side, I have mentioned the light here at times and the difficulty of seeing definition when walking or riding. Last week a consultant MD we have that comes up once a month told me the light here is "just strange". He stated he was walking and walked right into a three-foot snow bank. Yea, this sounds hard to believe but you just have to experience it to believe it!
We have settled back into the routine and things are as back to normal as they get here. Last week the ambulance was making a run to the airport and it had to chase a bearded seal off the runway. These creatures can run in the hundreds of pounds and with everything frozen solid out there, I have no clue where it came from or where it was going to. Carl, who was driving the ambulance, told me it just sat there at first barking while looking up at him as if to say, "get out of my way". It then wormed its way off the runway heading for Swan Lake.
This weekend was a three-day one for us so first we hauled my 4 wheeler to the hall to thaw out. Finally, after bypassing the safety feature of the machine that only allows it to start in neutral, we got it running. Saturday we replaced it with our snowmachines to allow them to shed the snow packed under the hoods deposited there by the blowing snow the week before. Sunday we changed the plugs and drive belts on the snowmachines, hitched up our sled, loaded spare fuel, fishing equipment, our new ice auger, and survival gear, and headed out onto the sound to try some fishing. It's still early in the season but since the temps were in the teens with a light wind and we had heard that folks were catching some fish by Lockhart Point about five miles out on the sound, we decided to go for it. It was overcast but not overly cold and after punching a couple of holes with our gas auger (the ice was over four feet thick with about two foot of snow on top) we fished for a while. While sitting there a musher passed us being pulled by sixteen dogs eagerly running their hearts out. What a feeling it was sitting there fishing through the ice on the middle of the frozen sound watching as a dog sled team went by. The backdrop to this being the snow covered foothills of the Brooks Range lit up by the only sunlight around and Arctic wilderness as far as the eye could see. We are fortunate people and we are well aware of that fact and are truly grateful.
We fished a while then decided to head back. Both of us did not want to head home just yet so we rode the five miles back to town then took a trail that goes out the back of town. We traveled about 8 miles before the light went flat and that coupled with hunger made us turn around and head for home. As we were turning around a man pulling a sled loaded down with a beautiful caribou that still had its antlers passed us. I bet he ate well that night. Speaking of antlers we came across a fresh caribou skull complete with antlers. The bones of the skull were well chewed but the antlers were intact. Both caribou male and females have antlers. Caribou are the only species in the deer family where this is the case. Judging by the antlers this one must have been a female. We grabbed it and took it home, as my plans are to make the antlers into "hooks", an Eskimo version of ice-fishing poles. When ice fishing here folks use a curved piece of wood like a willow branch, or a curved piece of bone or antler about 18-24 inches in length. The line is wrapped around it and you let out only enough line so the lure dangles just below the bottom of the ice. The hook is then used to jig the lure up and down. The old Eskimo way to pull in a fish was to use another piece of wood or bone and use it and the hook alternately to pull up the line. These days most folks just drop the hook and pull the fish in by grabbing the line and pulling it in hand over hand. Everyone has gloves on so pulling it in by hand does not injure the hands. Anyway, Sunday night I took out the Dremel tool Christy had given me as a Christmas present Christmas before last, and started making myself a true Eskimo fishing pole. Cathy and Gary were at the apartment that night and I have to mention that I have ribbed Cathy in the past about her not landing a "real" Eskimo. He doesn't carve, he doesn't own a boat, he doesn't hunt seal, etc. I took out the Dremel and started working on the antlers and Gary was right there giving me suggestions. I yelled to Cathy that here I am trying my hand at carving and "now he wants to be a real Eskimo"! It was all in good fun.
Well, I would say that's
enough but I would be lying. That's way to darned much. Anyway, until next time
I bid you adieu.
Carlo
PS The website is updated through the trip to Anchorage and even the ice
fishing this past weekend. If you haven't been there lately check it out:
www.samsicles.net And one more thing. Since Cathy is no longer computer
literate can anyone out there tell me how to get the Guest Book back on the
website? Also I want to put an active weather icon on the site. They are
available from the weather channel and the weather underground sites. I just
cannot figure out how to do it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
For problems or questions regarding this web contact
carlo@samsicles.net
Last updated:
08/29/05