Jupiter & Venus

On our second night of Aurora hunting (with no such luck), we did get a pretty awesome view of Jupiter and Venus!

Not a very exciting photo, but it always amazes me that you can actually SEE other planets - Living in Alaska may force me to purchase a telescope and investigate astronomy as a new hobby...

Aurora Borealis

I finally saw the Northern Lights last night, and they were even more amazing that I had imagined!

They were so strong we first saw them from our backyard when we were letting Willow outside before bed.

Karl was nice enough to hop in the car with me and head outside of Anchorage where it was a bit darker.

To finish out the evening, a mama moose and her baby walked within feet of our car before we headed back home!

An Alaskan Sunset

Sun setting over Cook Inlet, across the hay flats.

Sun on the Mountains

This view just never gets old...

As seen from the Glenn Highway, at the amazing hour of 5:30pm - finally!

Big Dipper

Can you see it?!?

I wish it wasn't such a blurry photo, but when you're trying to take pictures of stars (with your shutter open for 25 seconds) and you've left your tripod at home, you have make do.  In my case, this was wedging the camera between the dashboard and windshield of my car.  Ideal? No.  Sufficient? Yes.

Still Kicking...

No worries,  Karl and I haven't died - just continuing to hibernate.  It is COLD!  I'm not sure we've made it above zero in the last week.  The furnace is definitely planning to die, but hasn't quite kicked the bucket enough for the landlord to give a hoot.  With my luck it will stop working altogether on a Friday night, and we'll turn in to human (and puppy) popsicles overnight!

You know it's cold when there ice build up on the INSIDE of your house:

You know it's cold when your dog tries to keep one (or two) feet in the air while going to the bathroom outside:

You know it's cold when said dog ends up here immediately after coming back inside:

In any case, we haven't been doing much of anything lately.  My car has been at the dealer for a multitude of problems - fried battery, non-working airbags, a dislocated axel, and no brakes.  Oh, and it's in need of an oil change, too.  What a crybaby, that car...  Perhaps it's experiencing some delayed anger at having been driven so far this summer.  I've been working pretty late every day while I wait for Karl to get off of work to come get me.  I finally get to pick it up tomorrow - just in time to take it back in next week for my remote start to be installed.  Fun times here in Alaskaland!

At least we're not in Valdez - 27 feet of snow!  Check out adn.com for some pretty spectacular photos.  Hey, they're paying $20 an hour to help dig the town out, if you're interested!

We don't have quite that much snow here, although we've already surpassed the average for an ENTIRE winter.  It stands to reason that my first AK winter would be excessively cold and snowy!  Our street is slowly becoming one lane from all of the snow piled up, and I see people cross country skiing down the sidewalks.  Only in Alaska people, only in Alaska!

Might this be our Neighborly Moose?

Apologies for the awful photos - Unfortunately, you can't expect much more from Karl (especially not when he's using his iPhone).

Mama moose across the street... Baby moose was two houses down munching on his breakfast.

Nibble, nibble, nibble...

Look both ways before crossing the street...

Nibble, nibble, nibble again...

Tiny Plane, Away!

Yesterday was my first opportunity to ride in a plane smaller than your typical three-seats-on-each side, 40+ row kinda plane.  I was only headed down to Kenai (around a 4 hour drive), but chose not to brave the mountain pass in the throes of winter.  My fear of sliding off the side of the road, landing in a ditch, and slowly freezing to death while out of cell phone range was enough to have me booking a flight in a nice, safe airplane.

The views from the plane were somewhat obstructed as it was a pretty overcast day here in Anchorage, but an aerial view of the sea ice coming into the inlet made up for the lack of visibility otherwise.  After we crossed the inlet, I got my first glimpse of the sun bursting through the clouds.  The sun can be deceiving, however, as it was just three degrees when I got off the plane!  Despite the cold, Kenai is a beautiful place to spend an afternoon (although the majority of it was spent working).

Too cold to do much of anything...

I admit it, I've been feeling like quite the slacker for the last week.  I blame the weather - it has been cold! Last week started with 30 mile an hour winds (which are rough when it's only 10 degrees out), and progressed to sub zero temperatures.  These were my morning conversations with my dad:

Thursday 

Me: "Hey, guess what the temperature is this morning?

Dad: "8 degrees."

Me: "Nope, five below!  But hey, my car still started!"

Friday

Me: "Hey, guess what the temperature is this morning?

Dad: "5 degrees."

Me: "Nope, ten below!  But hey, my car still started!"

Saturday

Me: "Hey, guess what the temperature is this morning?

Dad: "8 degrees."

Me: "Nope, fifteen below!  But hey, my car still started!  It sounded like a dying animal, though."

Noticing a pattern going on here?  

What do you do when it's that cold?  Why hang Christmas lights outside, of course!  I had to come inside to warm up several times because I was pretty sure I was experiencing the early stages of frostbite.  Probably not my greatest idea, but the house looks so pretty.  Maybe I'll some get pictures of it for Wednesday - I am NOT going out there to get any tonight!

I also noticed that the guest bedroom window has a nice sheet of ice on the glass.  On the inside.  Probably not a good thing.  It's not even that cold in there - that's the really scary part.

Moonrise, Sunset

This was just one of those times when you happen to look out the window at just the right moment...

Oh Christmas Lights, how I adore you...

Say what you will about BP, but they rock my favorite holiday lights so far.  I love moose and I love Christmas lights, so what could possibly be better than combining the two?

I've been wanting to head over and get some photographic evidence, and we finally made it out a few days ago.  Only one security guard came over and wanted to know why I was standing there, on a cold, dark night, taking pictures of the BP building.

Just makes me happy every time I drive past!

A Day in the Snow

Karl's dad invited us out snow machining this past Saturday, and we jumped at the opportunity to spend some time having fun in the snow.  I apologize for the crappy photos - I took my old digital camera, but the memory card decided it didn't work.  These are courtesy of my cell phone...

First it was off to the gas station to fill them up for a day of playing.  I figure Alaska is one of the only places in the country where you can ride your snow machine down the road and right up to the pump.  

Only five minutes after we left the gas station, we ran into some friends also out enjoying the day.

We kept going and ended up getting on the Iditarod trail.  It was absolutely beautiful, and we wound our way through narrow trails through the woods.

Scarily enough, I was apparently responsible for riding my own snow machine the whole day - Karl told me I wasn't allowed to come if I was going to ride with him!  I guess I needed to learn sometime, and I only managed to get myself moderately stuck twice.  It's tough getting used to hanging your entire body off of the side to make sure you turn when you want to!

One of our many breaks - Karl's uncle met up with us and was having some considerable problems with his snow machine.  Gave me a chance to rest my hands (they kept cramping up from holding the gas on), but it gets a lot colder when you're sitting around doing nothing!

An easy way to tell we were on the Iditarod; three dog teams passed us at various points throughout the day!  It's amazing how well behaved those dogs are, but I don't think they've ever been give a bath.  They left quite the smelly dog aroma in their wake.

We finished off the night by stopping at the inlet to look across at Anchorage (the bright spot in the picture).  Again, sorry for the awful photo - using a camera phone after the sun has set does not make for a quality image.

All in all, it was a beautiful day for a snow machine ride.  It snowed lightly, and stayed right around 25 degrees.  I'm looking forward to our next trip out, despite the fact that I am so sore I feel as though I was run over by several trains!

Snowy Sunday, take 2

Looks like Sunday mornings seem to be the day to look out the window and be surprised at the amount of snow that accumulated overnight.  This is what I woke up to yesterday morning:

All told, it was probably another 6-7 inches on top of the 2-3 inches that was already there.  This is already more than accumulates all winter in Pittsburgh!

Luckily I went and got my snow tires this week.  Cost me an exorbitant amount of money, but have already made it a hundred times easier to get around.  It doesn't appear that the roads are cleared very often (ever), as our road still hasn't been plowed.   Honestly, I'm not sure where all the snow would go even if they did plow.  It already seems like the piles from the driveway and the sidewalk are piling up, and it's only November!

No worries about Willow getting used the snow.  There are two things she loves: running through tall grass, and running through snow.  Yesterday was no exception, as she went tearing through the snow, grunting and snorting the whole time.

As I write this, big fluffy chunks of snow are falling again.  Hey, who needs a gym membership if you can shovel snow every day?

It's a winter wonderland!

After hearing the news that Pittsburgh awoke to snowfall on Saturday morning, I was pretty disappointed.  Afterall, I'm in Alaska - shouldn't I get to see the snow first?!?

Well, apparently Mother Nature was listening, and all I saw was white on Sunday morning!

We only got about an inch of snow, but it stuck everywhere (including the road) since we've been hovering around freezing for about a month now.

I guess an inch of snow isn't much for Alaska, because none of the roads were treated.  A bit unnerving for me, because I'm used to seeing snow plows and salt trucks every time it snows.  We had planned a trip to Thunderbird Falls, but decided to stay at home instead.  Neither one of us were particularly interested in hopping on a snowy highway.  Watching football and scary movies is an alright way to spend a Sunday in my book!

Happy snowy Halloween, everyone!

Harvesting my craft supplies

I apologize for the sporadic nature of my posts...  I think I am going to go for a Monday-Wednesday-Friday kind of deal, because frankly, I don't have enough going on for five posts a week!

Last weekend, the Eagle River Nature Center was hosting a workshop on making your own baskets from birch bark.  I found out about the event a bit late, so it was already full when I called to get a slot.  In my somewhat snarky nature, I immediately find myself thinking "well fine you stupid nature center, I'll figure out how to do it myself."

So off I went to do some internet research and figure out how to go about doing such a thing.

Obviously, the first step was to find myself some birch bark.  Now, as Karl and I are both stewards of the forest (and not about to break the law either), we had to find some already dead birch trees.  Cutting the bark off of a live tree will lead to it's premature death, as well as making it an eyesore for other travelers through the woods.  We headed over the park at the end of our street, and set off on the trails looking for some fallen down birch trees.  It would appear that birch is a rather hardy tree, because almost every dead tree was something other than birch.  We found a few small ones, but the narrow trunk made for very thin bark that was nearly impossible to peel off.  Eventually, we found two pretty large trees and I was able to peel bark until my little heart was content.  Once I got started, it actually wasn't too difficult - all I used was a utility knife to score the bark, and a putty knife to loosen any stubborn areas.

Here's a sampling of what I brought home.  The pieces ended up in varying sizes, because it seemed that the bark would split where it decided, regardless of where you had planned.  Check back on Wednesday to see my creations!

A panoramic view

This photo (or group of photos) was taken over the summer and was my first attempt at using Photoshop to merge a bunch of photos together to create a panoramic view.  I think it was about nine or ten individual images, and I was pretty happy with how it turned out. 

A view of Anchorage from across the inlet

I'm anxious to try this in winter.  I think the mountains are much easier to photograph with the snow and ice, and without the near constant haze of summer.  The only problem then is getting the opportunity to take photos when there's enough sunlight!

The Man in the Moon

The past few days have been wonderfully clear - hardly a cloud in the sky.  The moon will be full later today, but I had to take a quick photo of it illuminating the night sky last night.

Even though we live in a relatively crowded neighborhood, it's still very dark at night as there's no streetlights.  Make the moon and stars really stand out!


The big dipper was so much clearer than this picture would lead you to believe.  I think I might need a better tripod (my camera usually makes mine tip over)...

I have the rest of the photos taken of our house, so I'm hoping to get them into a post in the next day or two.  Check back!

A Visit to the Anchorage Museum

I must say, I had put off visiting the museum here in Anchorage... Honestly, museums sometimes bore me to tears and it seems quite often that if you've seen one, you've seen them all.  I initially decided to plan a visit after I realized that I was desperately under-educated in the culture of Alaska Natives.  When you're a social worker in Alaska, you can't get away with that for too long.  I decided the Anchorage Museum was my best place to turn for information (after realizing that the Alaska Native Heritage Center Museum was closed for the season).

I was pleasantly surprised when I checked out the museum's website, and realized that the entire museum is actually the history of Alaska - even the artwork is either of Alaska or from Alaskan artists.

We first checked out the art and there were a couple paintings I fell in love with - my gauge for great artwork is usually anything that makes me think "oh man, I wish I could paint!" when I look at it.

After checking out the art side, we headed into the history area.  Unfortunately we went through it backwards, although I don't think I missed out on too much.  Anyone else feel like museums should have arrows on the floor like IKEA?  Anyway, there was obviously lots of history about the discovery of oil and the subsequent building of the pipeline.  Here's a model of how massive the pipeline really is:

Alaska was a territory of the US for almost 47 years before it became a state.  The museum also displayed the front page of the Anchorage Daily News announcing Alaska's statehood:

This half cracked me up and half made a bit misty eyed - the battle to be included in this country seems a lot more real when it happened just over 50 years ago, compared to growing up in one of the 13 original colonies.

Finally, we made it to the history and culture of the Alaska Natives (remember how I said we went backwards?).  The museum had some beautifully done dioramas to illustrate typical Native life in a few of the cultures.

Eskimo:

Contrary to popular belief, not every Alaska Native is an Eskimo.  Eskimos primarily live in the western half of Alaska, with the Inuit dominating the northern half and the Yup'ik residing in the southern half.  This diorama depicted an Eskimo whaling community.

Aleut:

The Aleut (not surprisingly) inhabit the Aleutian Islands.  Self named 'Unangan,' Russian explorers gave these natives the name 'Aleut.'  While the Aleutian Islands themselves didn't offer as much in the way of resources, the ocean offered everything necessary to sustain life.  Nikolsi, an island in the mid-Aleutians, is actually one of the longest continuously inhabited places on earth, at 4000 years.

Athabascan:

Athabascans cover one of the largest land areas in the state, and have villages throughout all of interior Alaska.  The culture of this community focused much more on hunting and gathering, and tribes were somewhat nomadic.

Tlingit & Haida:

The Tlingit and Haida (as well as the Tsimshian) people inhabit Southeast Alaska.  They had a hunter & gatherer culture, but also utilized the resources that the nearby sea had to offer.

As if the museum itself didn't give you enough of Alaska, all you had to do was check out the view from the fourth floor.  Can you see the snow capping the nearby mountains?  Winter's coming!

One thing I really liked about this museum was that it's not overwhelmingly large.  I don't have the longest attention span for museums, and we were easily able to see everything within a couple hours.  I also picked up a great map in the gift shop outlining Native cultures and villages, and I plan to tack it up over my desk tomorrow!  I also found an awesome children's book, but the gift shop was out... It's not available on Amazon so I may have to check back because I have a certain little cousin in mind... or two little cousins!