My Fall of 2008

After 3 months of hanging in Anchorage and bumming around I came back to the midwest and spent time with my friends in Minnesota before heading home for Christmas. It was nice to see everyone again! I'm making this really short because I didn't want to start blogging about my next adventure without a transition blog. I'm heading down to South America! Starting out in Costa Rica and coming back from Peru. Next blog will be from down there.

I just bought me a pair of Palin specs

Since I've returned to Anchorage I had some time to sit down and write about the events of the summer. I realized after my writings got too long that, though the experiences are amazing to me, they may not be for you to read. So, I wrote about just a few of them.

Summer is officially over, and so is fall, in Alaska. I have already moved back to Anchorage and figuring out the next step. The leaves are already falling covering up roads and biking trails and I wake up to frost every morning which lasts till noon or later.

The whole month of July was rainy and therefore I didn’t do much of anything and our company didn’t do much flying. I attempted a few bike rides on good days between the rains and found myself sinking like Artax in mud and having to haul my bike across small streams that washed out roads on the paths I would take. Lost the bike to a creek

I did do some hiking to pass time even though not every day was a nice one, I saw awesome stuff like Dall Sheep and got more intimate with the wonders in the park and outside the park



On top of Mt. Margaret where I saw all those Dall Sheep

On top of Sugarloaf mountain

Doing hiking around Polychrome in the park.

Then something happened. Fall. Summer is short here, fall comes early and ends fast. Suddenly the rains became less frequent and the sun showed itself a little more near the end of the summer. Colors were changing and I found myself wanting to go camping. So like awaking to spring, I awoke to fall and had a second wind of frolicking in nature. I recruited some people to come with me to the Denali Highway, a 135 mile potholed, gravel road starting (or ending) in Cantwell which is about 30 miles south of the Denali National Park Entrance. It was used once upon a time before the George Parks Hwy existed for motorists to get to Denali National Park. Denali Hwy ceased to be a main access road when George Parks Hwy was constructed in the 70s, which is now the main road that connects Anchorage to Fairbanks. Now, the Denali Hwy is used for people going out for some huntin’ and us tourist/nature lovin’ folks to camp along. It is literally a road of Alaska wilderness for 135 miles. We drove 80 miles down the Hwy and back in two days. I am very happy to have bought my car because it really got me around and gave me the opportunity to see some of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in my life. I cannot begin to describe the awe I felt while looking out into the distance at the mountains and the turning colors of the tundra that lay out in all directions. They were mostly a deep red, but of course greens, yellows, and oranges blazed on the hillsides as well. Imagine that up against the grey and white mountains and blue sky.

Red landscape of the Denali Hwy

Both nights we were blessed with clear skies and no light pollution to take away from our star gazing. We built fires each night, and JJ and Molly entertained us all night long with a guitar and songs. The blueberries were so plentiful out here that on our little hike we gathered two baggies full which we ate all night and mixed with our oatmeal in the morning. Had we driven 20 more miles down we would have met up with the Alaskan pipeline. This particular trip was sort of a key moment of my summer here in Alaska where I started realizing that I may to return to this place. I had good company, I was learning a lot, and the eye and ear candy was amazing. It’s been a long time since I have been around people who were happy to be outdoors and identify plants and animals. One of the nights we had a bird continually swoop in front of my car, probably confused by the headlights, and I heard everyone trying to identify it. We were trying to find a specific spot to camp and found ourselves a little later being lead down the dark dirt road by an owl (possibly a hawk owl) who kept landing in front of my car until I got close enough to make him fly a little further down where he would again, land in the road causing me to have to stop for him. We decided that owl would lead us to our camping site.

One happy group of people

A few days later a filming crew was at work making videos for a promotional company called Channel 2 Alaska (which was the first interview I had here, the reason I came here, and the job I turned down to work for this flight seeing company in Healy). We had no summit flights booked at 3pm to make a video so we called around and filled a plane full of employees, or comps as we call them, from around the area. I got to go on this flight and our job was to be very happy and giddy while the camera man in back filmed us. Another plane went up with another camera to film the plane we were in. This was my second summit flight of the season, my first I didn’t see too much and McKinley’s summits were clouded over. This particular day was clear as Time Square the day after New Years. I hadn’t expected to be on a flight this day but I had my camera, which of course I never leave behind anywhere. We flew over the park and my jaw dropped in amazement at the reds that powdered the tundra. Not being one who goes in the park all the time I hadn’t known how drastically the colors had changed in the park. Given the Denali Hwy was changed. The two areas are not the same in climate, they are on different sides of the Alaskan range, they are at different elevations, and receive different precipitation because of the mountains. Everywhere you go in Alaska you see something different happening with the vegetation because of all the above. It was a pleasant surprise to see how beautiful the park had become with arrival of fall. And the icing on the cake was coming into site of the majestic “High One” known as Denali.

A view from the air

Our pilot, Dave Wiewel, is one of the kindest people I know and instead of dismissing us as just a bunch of park bums he still educated us on the flight by pointing out the glaciers we passed, explaining the phenomenon of moraines in glaciers (where two glaciers meet together and push up sediment forming a ridge in the middle of the glacier). We flew so close to the mountain you felt like you could reach out of the plane and touch it. Out one window were the snowy peaks that some people only dream about seeing and the other window the other plane filming us with Denali as our backdrop. We were pretty much playing in the air, the two pilots communicating and flying to get the best shots, and also looking for the different climbing camps and landmarks of the mountain like Wickersham Wall. We circled the mountain seven times or more, more than the average flight seeing tour would, before the camera men were satisfied with their footage and we returned home. Having had time to chit chat before the flight took off, some of the employees and friends of mine were talking about recent camping trips in the park, so good ol’ Dave decided to fly over them on the way back so we could see the areas from the air. It was absolutely amazing! I have never seen such a plethora of color so beautifully proportioned you could only find it in nature.

The rest of the summer included a bunch of festivals, mostly bluegrass festivals and all of them required camping out, an amazing backcountry trip full of adventure, naming glaciers, falling down rock faces, seeing McKinley in full glory from the ground where it seemed to dominate the landscape (all other sightings were from the air or from much much further away), beautiful outings, and one last backpacking hurrah in Kachemak State Park at the tip of the Kenai Peninsula, across the bay from Homer. There I not only saw an amazing glacier, I played on it, ate its century old ice, skinny dipped in a glacier filled lake, listened to the thawing crackle of ice one morning, used a tram to cross a raging "creek", and crossed the crotch high creek again by getting in it (it was the second coldest I've ever been... first was when I did the overnight bike ride in the park close to solstice). I'm not going to lie, I wasn't too excited about crossing this river/creek, but we went in twos and swallowed the pain of cold flowing water and crossed that bad boy, congratulating ourselves when we got to the other side because we were close to writing the river/creek off as too swift and deep to cross. Sadly, all my euphoric and heroic pictures were lost along with my camera which did not return with me on the ferry back to Homer. Luckily Molly had hers so I can cherish these memories. :D

I saw many many rainbows this summer

Molly meandering her way up to our camp site.

The awesome campsite with a glacier as our backdrop.

So red and pretty

Alaska tundra in fall

Molly looking at Denali on our last leg of our two day hike

Denali

Kechemak Glacier

That'd be me a little closer to the glacier

That'd be me on the glacier


So this wasn’t short, but I sure tried. I didn't mention the missing girls in the park cause they aren't worth writing about. I didn't talk about Palin but I can admit she scares me and that's all the media talks about here. My title refers to the advertisments in paper to get me some authentic Palin specs. They're also looking for look alikes and asking if anyone has photos of her from whenever they've run into her. What now you ask? I have no idea. I'm spending my time in Anchorage doing as much biking as I can to avoid driving. In case you were wondering Alaskans (again media tells me this) are pretty ticked that we have oil here yet our gas prices are much grander than you lower 48 folks. Though I did a little jig yesterday cause they finally dipped below $4/gallon for ONCE. The highest I saw it this summer was something like $5.63 something/gallon at the more pricey gas station in Healy. Lucky for me, Anchorage has a trail system that nagivates through the city so I don't have to be sharing the road with traffic and I can hear my ipod as I bike through tree domed passages, my tires crunching on the fallen golden leaves as I meander to whatever the destination. I probably have a week of this before it snows. It already snowed in Healy since I left.

Forgive me to everyone, especially my family, for not being in touch. I owe a lot of you emails. However, this is typical of me. Hopefully this catches everyone up on things. You know how to get ahold of me. Until next time. And sorry if any of you are offended by the cartoons.

Just photos

My beautiful drive to Homer back in the beginning of May... the calmest I've ever seen the ocean

View from out house in Homer

Bill's prized kill hanging out in the basement where I stayed in Anchorage

one of a million people who took this similar photo in Seward, AK

The last hike I got in before my stupid accident

My life at the beginning of my Healy adventure

I still managed to get around

A not as gruesome photo of my foot... I'll spare you the very tragic looking ones. This may be offensive enough to some.

a bus ride in this tiny park called Denali National Park, ran into some caribou that leisurely enjoyed some road crossing



cute little baby owls

Came across these antlers on display... two bull moose went at it over a lady and killed each other, their antlers got locked together and they died probably thinking "damn, that hurt and I didn't even get to procreate"

If you look close enough you'll notice part of the antler of one of the moose went through the eye socket of the other moose. The moose who's eye got taken out's antler went through it's enemy's cheek.

I didn't have to steal this one from the internet.

Oh these were just left on the road for us tourist folk to play with

What do you get when you cross a brown chicken with a brown cow?

I have been in Healy now for three weeks. Between when I last wrote to you and now a lot has happened. I visited the beautiful town of Homer Alaska and enjoyed relieving myself in an outhouse that will soon fall off into the ocean due to the peet these buildings were built on that is eroding very fast. I walked along beaches of rocks, most with imprints of leaves and bugs in them from a time long past. If you found a large rock you could pick it apart and find all the layers of leaves and things, it was cool. I was touching black remindents of leaves that existed possibly when dinosaurs were hanging out. I’m going to read this book called the Geology of Alaska that explains a lot of things I've seen, how mountains became, types of rock, what was here a long long time ago such as ocean, etc.

Homer is amazing because it’s warmer (and rainier) and is right on the water. Across the bay is a mountain range that has volcanoes, one of which erupted just a few years ago. There’s a glacier there too. It was really scenic but I know that it can get even more beautiful when the green returns. It was still pretty brown when I was there. However, had it been lush and green I certainly wouldn't have been able to see out of the window of the port o potty voted "best view" in some contest in 1997.

I took a little weekend trip down to Seward with some good friends from Anchorage in means of going sea kayaking and hiking to the nearby glacier. Unfortunately, this is Alaska, it does not warm up very fast and it was not the season to do either of our tasks so we pretty much just had a short road trip, enjoyed hanging out in the oldest bar in Alaska called the Yukon Bar, and went straight back again to a barbecue. It was the last barbecue of the summer for me. :(

So conveniently two nights before I left, I went hiking up this big mountain and came across this bear on this mountain top and I stopped short, waved my hands in the air and loudly called “hey bear” as I backed away (Like I saw in those videos for back country hiking and camping). The bear did a false charge to see what I’d do, which scared me for a split second, but it was a false charge and he stopped… but since I was walking backwards I tripped over a rock and fell down 20, no 30 feet down this hillside getting smacked by rocks and debris and getting tangled in bushes. On that glorious fall a rock sliced through my ankle and I was bleeding pretty bad. So I had to hike the 20 miles back, fording two rivers, one that was up to my waste and just barely above freezing. The last 10 miles I was so exhausted I crawled the rest of the way.

Good story right? yeah, much better than what really happened. So my last night of being out with friends I attempted to side saddle on the back of my friend’s bike. Whilst resting my heal on the small bar, my friend took off on the bike and the spoke of the tire hit the edge of my shoe pulling the shoe in with my foot in tow. After repeated strikes on my ankle by the spoke we stopped and my ankle was thoroughly mangled and bleeding. My shoe was saturated in blood. I really thought I could get away with no stitches for the first bit, until I really looked at it and realized how bad it was. So my buddy took me to the hospital and I got 13 stitches and a lot of disgusting pictures of the doctor putting me back together. They were so bad that I put them on myspace for friends to see and they were removed within 24 hours for being “too offensive”. I was put on crutches for a week and told not to wear shoes with backs for a month. I tried to be in good spirits for all of that, but it meant I could finish packing myself up for the move, nor could I drive my own car to Healy. Luckily we caravaned so two of my new co-workers took my car and I hopped in the big 15 passenger van.

Before heading to Healy we stopped for provisions in Anchorage where I got to drive those little motorized carts around the store. It was pretty awesome. Everyone moves out of your way.

So Healy: small town, very small. Nearest bit of activity is the Canyon which is a good 10 miles or so, which is close to the park entrance. I live in a pimped out house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, each equipped with showers so there is never waiting in line. Though I went from a very very active life to a lot of down time, I am getting used to it. I play a lot of Sudoku now, killer Sudoku. It’s much harder than regular Sudoku and requires lots of note taking. To be honest this first leg has been pretty hard considering I was on crutches, dependent on everyone helping me with everything, not being able to go anywhere, forced to drive places, no hiking, biking, rafting… I got pretty lonely and sad for a bit. Oh yeah, getting pretty good at Scrabble from playing Scrabulous online and we sometimes have Scrabble parties at our place. Just learned to knit too.

You really don’t acknowledge the simple things in life. Just walking to the post office without crutches for the first time was AWESOME. It was only two blocks and it should take me maybe 15 minutes to get there and back normally, took me much longer to hobble along. I think I was celebrating the day I could even put weight on my foot again. I celebrated when 12 of the 13 stitches came out, via my roommate. Then was most ecstatic when the last one was dug out by the other roommate two days later. (It was a bad wound, I’m going to have a pretty wicked scar).

But it’s been three weeks and I’ve taken the summit flight through our company and got close to Mt. McKinley, saw camps 14 and 17 where the climbers on the mountain were hanging out. Our pilot took us all around the mountain and showed us the glaciers and Wickersham wall on the mountain which is this steep side that only a handful of skiers were successful at skiing it all the way down. First, I’m curious what happened to the unsuccessful ones. And second, if you saw this freakin’ wall, how steep it was, you’d probably poop yourself at even the THOUGHT of trying to ski it. It was pretty much one of the coolest flights ever. Tuttle is a very funny pilot, but he was pretty professional during the flight. On the ground when he takes off and radios in he’s usually saying/singing/gurgling weird stuff to us. We’re the only ones who hear it so it’s okay. We had a puker in front of me so he had to take it easy on us, we could’ve gotten real close along one of the glaciers which would have been bumpy and roller-coaster feeling, but that damn puker ruined it for us hardcore flight lovers. No complaints, he paid $329 and I was on it for free.

We have a glacier landing as well which is on the Ruth Glacier on Mount McKinley. We land in the Don Sheldon Amphitheater and we’re the only one who lands in the park, on the mountain, that flies out of Healy. They are our most popular flights and because of my injury I have yet to be up on it. Will be soon.

Thanks to working here, we put other employees that work here on flights for free and we get on their tours for free. When I take the shuttle into the Denali National Park I should be able to get in for free. I went rafting on Friday for free, and plan on going again when the water is higher. We met a girl that works at a place with horse tours which we can get in on for cheap to free.

So I’m heading to Fairbanks today for provisions. The other roomies went at different times so I’m going to head there and stay over night with my buddy Lily and see a movie, which is a luxury for me out here in the wilderness in my lavish pad. We have satellite here but that’s just not as cool as seeing Indiana Jones in a theater!

I’ve been doing a lot of research on what to do next. I love Alaska a lot and can see myself staying here long term, but that means settling down now and I don’t really want to do that. I’ve been researching stuff anywhere from working in the down under, to sailing, to going to school in Thailand to become a diving instructor. I’m pretty open and still have the world at my finger tips. Problem is there is so much amazing things to do, so little time. So that’s my story, too bad none of you folks will come out to visit me cause I could get you sweet deals on flights too. Not to make anyone feel guilty or anything, just sayin’.

I have pictures that I will put in a separate blog, our internet connection is so bad here that I can't upload anything. Bueno, cheers.

I've survived the Alaskan winter and will be rewarded by its summer

It certainly has been a while since I’ve written, but that only means I’m having a good time and haven’t had time to write. I got settled in a pretty good life here in Anchorage. I work, I play, I have lots of friends, I see live music, I got hiking… and soon I will be moving… again.

Since I last wrote I attended the events of Fur Rendezvous which is like a week long party with lots of bands and a fair (and it was still freakin’ cold out… people were riding the ferris wheel and other rides). At the end of the Rendezvous is the beginning of the Iditarod, the longest dog sled race in the world. My friend’s father was a racer so I got to be on the other side of the line and play with the pooches before they left at the false start. False start is where they start in Anchorage, then they stop in Eagle River 20 miles away only to have the real start in Wasilla. Lance Mackey won, it was a close race and exciting. Everyday the paper wrote about it. Sadly, a snowmobiler hit one of the racers and killed a dog.

Anchorage skyline just before fireworks went off for Fur Rondy





Playing with a pup before she started her race at the start of Iditarod



I also hiked Flattop. I’m not sure what names go with what, but whenever I went to this mountainous area I called the whole thing Flattop, but there is a mountain called Flattop that you hike. Hiking it in the summer is pretty easy, it’s literally very flat on the top and people party and camp up there. Doing it in the winter is MUCH harder and I had to wear crampons and carry a pick ax. Bill called me a “true mountaineer” for that which I thought was funny cause it wasn’t like climbing Denali.

On my way up Flattop














Taking in the summit on Flattop


How it WAS pretty hardcore of me was that I was just coming down with something that turned out to be mono. I woke up that day feeling awful. Bill suggested we go skiing and I wanted to do something less exhausting cause we do a lot of hills when we ski. I figured a nice scenic hike would work… didn’t realize how bad Flat top was. So of course, I hadn’t eaten anything, we hike, we go to eat and I was hit hard by something and was sick for three days. Went away and came back for 3 weeks, 1 of which was probably the worst week of sickness I’ve ever experienced. I couldn’t do anything, it was so frustrating.

I went snowboarding! First time in 7 years (and it will NOT be another 7 before I go again cause I have a board now, thanks Brian!) This is me with Susy from Amsterdam who I will talk about much more later.

And the coolest thing was I bought a car! I don’t make a lot of money here and have been living off my savings but this opportunity fell in my lap. I drove Brian to work one day (in Bill’s car) and mumbled “I need to buy a car”. That evening I get word from him and his friend Brett (the weather man) that the reporter for the news station is leaving and needs to sell his car fast. So I bought his car for $900. I know Steve, the reporter, and trusted him. His only stipulation was I continued to call it the thin mint. It’s a Hyundai Accent. This car has history. First, it’s not physically in the best shape, has a light duck taped on, a few dents, and I noticed AFTER I bought it that someone carved “southern” above where it says Accent on the back. Some people think it’s funny, I guess it gives it character. However, I just found out that the water pump broke and I have to put in more moola to fix it. It’s being fixed as I write this actually. So I went to Steve’s going away party with all the news folk and the stories people were telling me once they found out I bought the thin mint! I like having a car that’s mine, in my name, under my insurance. And it’s my way of getting around Alaska for the summer because I have a LOT of plans that will require some transportation.

I went home briefly at the beginning of April and found that I was homesick for Alaska. While home I got to see friends and family, went to Chicago, saw some museums, sat in a planetarium made in 1913, saw the Blue Man Group, and got pulled over twice for expired plates. I went to Oshkosh with friends because they are filming a Johnny Depp movie there (and Christian Bale) and they were supposed to film on the day we were there, but they moved it to Monday. But I got to walk around downtown which they revamped into 1930s looking Main Street. Fake cobble stones and all (which are rubber by the way). It was pretty awesome. The movie is about John Dillinger so when it comes out you can know that the scenes with planes and the scenes or a small town were filmed in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and that I was there.

I was scared that I would miss the overnight spring in Alaska by being home at the time I was. Here in Alaska there are only two seasons: Winter and Summer. Our springs and falls are so short they pass in a blip and literally one day it will be brown and wet and the next green everywhere. Luckily or not, the weather has been crappy everywhere. It snowed in the Midwest (rained in Chicago, nothing like wondering through a breezy museum soaked) and snowed in Alaska at the same time. Now everything is muck as the days are getting brighter and warmer and all that snow is finally melting… but the wetness is taking its time to disappear. I think I got caught in a billion sink holes playing disc golf the other day because of how wet the ground was. So I didn’t miss the overnight spring and now I’m afraid it’ll happen AFTER I leave.

The sun rises at about 6am (or sooner, I just happened to wake up and see it this morning) and sets at 10:30pm. It’s sooooo confusing for me and always a surprise to look at my watch and see how late it is. I LOVE it. And the days will be longer further north where I’ll be this summer too.

I am moving to Healy, Alaska in two weeks for the summer, just south a bit from Fairbanks, the interior. “Interior Alaska, anchored by Fairbanks, is the real Alaska, the real frontier.” What I’ll miss about the south part is kayaking, glacier hiking, and Sixmile, the hardcore river rafting which is all 8-12 hour drives from Healy.



BUT, the interior has a lot to offer too. Denali National Park, McKinley as my daily back yard view, bugs the size of my head, swarms of tourists. It’s a bizarre place, it’s colder in the winter and warmer in the summer as opposed to the sourthern parts of Alaska. It’s drier, the flowers get massive because of the sunlight, and yes, the bugs are HUGE. I was watching a documentary about the grizzly man, the dude who documented bears, lived with them, then got eaten by them. While interviewing a pilot you could see all the flies and swarms of bugs flying around him… It’s all a part of being an Alaskan, or a part timer Alaskan.













Now what big mountain would this be?
















mmmm my incredibly large backyard



This summer is going to be awesome. For the last month I’ve been very sad about leaving Anchorage because I did make a lot of great friends here and some of them will leave mid summer. I’m going to try to come back to Anchorage for things here and there, but Healy is a great opportunity that I’m looking forward to. This summer I hope to hike this path from Girdwood to Eagle River which is a two day hike and very pretty. There will be river fording and whatnot which I heard was “so cold it’ll make you cry”. I hope to do some river rafting, go to some festivals, hike around Denali national park, definitely celebrate solstice (hopefully with the couchsurfing collective who will have their own DJ… will explain in a second), and volunteer with the couchsurfing collective in Homer, AK (8 hour drive from Healy). There is just so much to do!

I know I make these too long and no one likes reading all this, but I’m going to write it anyway. I’m sure at least ONE person will make it all the way through. haha. (That wouldn’t be you Sara, I know). So, I mentioned couchsurfing before, it started here in Alaska by Casey Fenton. Two of my good buds know him and have been part of it from the start. One was Matt, the guy who got me to come here. The couchsurfing collective is coming here to Alaska for three months, following their last collective which was in Thailand. The collective is a bunch of smart people, house people, PR folks, random folks that get together and work on the site and make it better. They live and work together for three months and move around. The next collective will be in Argentina. So, they need a house and they sent Susy to be the house hunter to Alaska and look. Casey told Susy, a funny chica from Amsterdam, to meet up with Matt. Matt has a birthday party in Girdwood (40 miles or so south of Anchorage) and leaves his car at the Anchorage airport for Susy who gets off her flight from Amsterdam and drives all the way to us at the party. Susy ends up staying with me and Bill while she house hunts and we hang out and put together a couchsurfing “party” where we just looked up and invited everyone to come meet at Humpy's. It was quite a turnout and was really fun. It was awesome to have met different people separately and come together to find they all know each other. We met these fire circus people there too! Later that week I attended a bonfire at the beach to watch them practice.

Fire practice on the beach





I’ve been doing my best to help Susy out. She now has Matt’s car, Matt’s phone, Casey’s phone, and the help of us couchsurfers to make her way around. She found a house in Homer where they will live, work, and play. I’m so attracted to the idea of a bunch of foreign folk getting together for a common goal. I love this site too! I’m going to Homer next week to couchsurf cause I want to see it before I move to Healy. A lot of the people I’ve spoken too already hosted some of my friends here. We’re all intertwined in a way. So Susy invited me to come volunteer this summer, and since it’s so far and I only have three day weekends, she is willing to have me as a “guest” which is reserved for just 2-3 people per collective. Big deal in my book. If that doesn’t work out I’ll camp in their yard for the time I’m there. So by going to work with them, I’ll meet the other collective members who come from all over the world and possibly have an in to work with them in Argentina starting in Novemberish. So all in all things are awesome.

This weekend I’m going to Girdwood to watch the Slush Cup (snowboarders/skiers who try to jump a big puddle… it’s a festival, lots of people) and Sunday is my last day of work at Sugarspoon as a server/barista. Then onto Homer (south of Anchorage about 3 hours? on the Kenai Penisula), and back to enjoy one last awesome week of Anchorage. If you’ve made it this far, way to go, I’m impressed. Is your name Ann?

For reference purposes:
Where I live now till May 8th or 9th










Girdwood is where the big resort is and where a lot of awesome events like the Slush Cup is held, and "Hippie Fest" otherwise known as Forest Fest officially. It really is where the hippies reside, but they are wierd rich hippies... not quite fulfilling my personal definition of hippy but whatever, it's a cool small little town and the drive to it is scenic


And finally a reference to how big Alaska really is.

"To be a true Alaskan you have to piss in the Yukon River and make love to a native." I will probably do neither. And some radio talk show host twisted it to say something even naughtier and it caused some issues with people. I pasted a group of native protesters and one of them did a wierd gesture to my car as I passed them. This was before I knew what was going on so I was pretty offended. I'm still offended cause I didn't even hear the show but that just comes with the territory of living in this crazy place.

"To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.”