The home of the Iditarod

Today we visited Wasilla & Palmer. Palmer is the home of the Alaska State Fair -- which we intend to visit at the end of the month. Among other things, that's where the competition is held for the largest vegetables in the world.
Wasilla is home of the Iditarod headquarters. The trail was originally over 1,000 miles long -- from Seward all the way to Nome. This was an important supply line (also called the "mail trail") until bush pilots started flying in the 1920s. Among other things, supplies could always be shipped to Seward -- because the waters in that port don't ever freeze. But in Nome, the port waters are frozen over for 8 months a year! But even after the bush pilots started flying, the trail was still important -- for instance there was a diptheria outbreak in Nome in 1925 where vaccine needed to be rushed to the city, but the weather prevented any planes from getting there. So an emergency shipment of vaccine was hustled to Nome via a series of sled dog teams, reportedly saving the town from the impending epidemic.
The famous sled-dog race wasn't actually started until 1967 -- it was introduced by an Alaskan who was worried that the tradition of the sled dog was going to go by the wayside. It was run in 1967 and again in 1969, but the race as it is run today (from Anchorage to Nome) wasn't started until 1973 (as we all know, a very good year). Currently, it is run every year in in March. Each team can run up to 20 dogs, and goes through thousands of pounds of dogfood.

mush, puppy!

a future Iditarod champion

Alaska's state bird

OK, I know this is a bit of stretch... but if you click on the photo to enlarge it, in the middle of the path you'll see a bird that looks a lot like a brown & white chicken (and a little ways behind it, on the left side of the trail, it's chick). From everything I've read, this is a Ptarmigan -- the Alaska state bird. They are supposed to be related to the grouse, and they nest on the ground. From our experience: a very, very dumb bird.
Tom and I came upon this bird & its chick on Saturday while hiking along this trail. As we approached, this mom and her half-grown chick started running away. We thought this was amusing, but after about 1/4 mile we started to feel bad -- so we stopped and stepped off the side of the trail, hoping the birds would go back to their nest. They didn't. We waited several minutes, and eventually gave up & kept walking... so the birds kept clucking & waddling as fast as their little legs would carry them. It was pretty pathetic!
After another several hundred yards, a group of hikers (with a big dog!) came from the other direction. What did the bird do? (By this time I say bird, instead of birds, because the baby bird had given up trying to keep up with its dumb mother, and finally ducked into the undergrowth along the path.) It flew away. After all that, and it could have flown away the whole time? What a dumb bird.

view of downtown Anchorage

Yesterday we took an 11 mile hike along Rabbit Creek. It was a beautiful day -- and on the return hike we had good views of Anchorage. The hillsides were covered with flowers -- and I could even identify many of them. There were lots of Arctic daisies, wildy celery & Nootka lupines.

Rabbit Lake

This was the destination of our hike -- Rabbit Lake. The trailhead is only about 5 miles south of Anchorage, so it was very easy to get to for a day hike. Tom was content to have hiked here without his fishing pole, because he said the water is much to cold for any fish to live in -- he said because the lake freezes in the winter, it cannot support plants & other things for the fish to feed on. But when we were leaving, we both saw a fish jump in the lake -- and I could tell that Tom wanted to try to catch whatever it was!

such clear water

Rabbit lake is crystal clear.... you can see the bottom easily.

What a feast!

Last night, after an 11 mile hike (which was beautiful -- I'll get a picture or two up soon) Tom outdid himself with our dinner. Hand rolled pasta (he doesn't have his pasta maker here) and parmesan-encrusted salmon with creamy dill sauce. There was also fresh broccoli, but the main course was so good that we forgot about the broccoli until after we'd cleaned our plates! So we had it as a second course, which was delicious. We washed everything down with a nice bottle of Bogle (cabernet). MMmmmmm.

Bird Creek

This is where Tom has done most of his salmon fishing. Bird Creek is south of Anchorage -- so from Eagle River (east of Anchorage) probably a 40 minute drive. (No problem for Timmy!) The best time to catch the salmon is when the tide is coming in -- the fish go along for the ride. Tom says on a good day you can see hundreds of them swimming by... I have yet to figure out why, but evidently the runs are better when the weather is good. Today and yesterday were both spectacular days here (weather-wise), and viola! Tom caught plenty of fish.

Tom is on a roll!!!!

Tom did not catch his limit today, but the two silvers he brought home were each about 10 pounds -- 30-32 inches long. Yowsa! Tom is going to take a break this weekend... he says his shoulder and wrist are actually getting sore.

filet from said fish

these filets are so beautiful... I think I'm going to start eating salmon sushi! of course, I've never rolled sushi before -- but hey, what else am I going to do to amuse myself here in Alaska?

Tom caught his limit... which makes Sable very happy!

Tom had a great day fishing today. He caught a pink salmon first, and decided to keep it in case he didn't catch anything else. It was about 21 inches and 4 pounds. Then, when the tide came in, he caught 2 silver salmon immediately! At that point he was very disappointed that he'd kept the pink, since the bag limit is 3. The silvers were each about 30 inches -- 10 pounds each!!
He came home and spent 2 hours filleting and vaccuum packing the fish. As you can see, Sable was a very attentive audience during this process.... she got a piece off of each filet. Yummy!
We are eating salmon salad tonight -- awesome. Tom saved us the back meat for dinner -- he says it's the the equivalent of a filet mignon, but for salmon -- it's thick, very red, and quite tasty. I can't wait!!

The biggest peony bloom I've ever seen

Lastsummer (or was it the year before?) my parents and Aunt Kathee & Uncle Paul went to Alaska for vacation. Kathee commented how enormous the blooms were because of the spectacular growing conditions. I'd have to agree -- this peony, for instance, was gargantuan.
I've tried to include a sample of some of the flowers we saw at the Alaska botanical garden in Anchorage (from our visit last weekend). They also had an impressive herb garden, but I've posted the flowers because they are so gorgeous & colorful. Lanie -- if you come visit, we'll definitely go back and admire them again.

Nootka lupine

We see these flowers on just about every hike we take around here.

Loosestrife

Tom said this plant had so many blooms, if it opened any more it might hurt itself!

Himalayan poppy

Definitely one of my favorites.

Dwarf blue flag iris

I'm wondering if I have the right identification of this one... because to me it looks nothing like an iris, nor is it blue -- but the identifier with "Dwarf blue flag iris" was directly in the midst of a whole bunch of these flowers! Anyways, I liked them...

Dianthus

These reminded me of how we used to color carnations when we were kids by putting food coloring in the carnations' water supply...

Columbine

These looked very different than the blue columbines in Colorado, but I thought they were pretty cool.

Clustered bellflower

Since purple is my favorite color, I loved these flowers.

Asiatic Lily

As we were walking around here, I imagined that Simmona could be quite content here for weeks on end...

Tussock Bellflower

There were so many gorgeous flowers in every color imaginable!

Arctic Daisy

These flowers seem to be everywhere here -- people call them "wild daisies" (pretty much weeds, I think).

Tom's first silver success!

Tom assures me that this is only a "small" fish -- but yesterday he caught his first silver salmon. Yummy! (We had salmon salad for dinner.) She was about 4 pounds, and 21 inches long, and full of eggs -- which Tom saved (to be used as bait later). He says that these fish, especially the males, can often be 36+ inches and 20-25+ pounds. Wow.

tom succeeds...

... in vaccuum packing the remote?!
As you know, Tom's been looking forward to the catching silver salmon. He's hoping to catch lots of fish, process & pack them at home, and then ship them "outside." We've borrowed a vaccuum packer from our landlady, and Tom decided that he should get some practice with it before starting with salmon... I told him that Sable was definitely off limits. (sorry, dad.)

peonies

the blooms were as big as our heads! (even a brown-sized noggin)

plenty of time at the botanical gardens!

This just cracked me up... I guess we could spend an awfully long time here!
We visited the botanical gardens this weekend -- and it was gorgeous. With all of the daylight and moisture, the flowers were spectacular. I took about 100 pictures -- originally planning on posting tons of them (thinking of Lanie, Simmona & Kathee!), but since I'm having uploading issues, I'll have to refrain.

Downtown Anchorage

This is a view of the "skyline" in downtown Anchorage. Anchorage is easily the biggest city in Alaska -- with about 1/2 of all of Alaska's residents. (Total state population around 1/2 million people.)
This is a very interesting state... it's so far from the rest of the U.S., it almost seems like it should be its own country.
Having a state be so spread out is bizarre. There are lots (and lots) of places that have no roads in or out -- the only access is via air travel. For instance, in today's paper I read about a community up north that got a federal grant to start a football team at the local high school (which only has a few hundred students to begin with). The team's budget will be >$100,000 for a six game season (two home games, 4 away games) because they will have to fly to all of their games (or fly in their opponents). Their closest competitor is 500 miles away, and their farther game will be 1,500 miles away! They're doing this because (not surprisingly) the high school has a high drop-out rate, and lots of drug abusers, so they're trying to provide some after school activities. Wow.
Despite its large size, navigation in Alaska is actually quite easy -- there aren't very many roads. Downtown is set up like a grid, and from Anchorage there are only 2 main highways -- one that goes south/east to Seward & Kenai, and the other that goes north/east to Talkeetna, Denali & Fairbanks. Everywhere else you need to take a ferry or fly.

Huffy Heaven

OK, I've been having major Blogger issues... so I'm a bit behind. I'll try to catch up -- but I'm not going to be able to post as many pictures, and I'm also going to have to cut the image quality... sorry about that, but Alaska dial-up leaves a little to be desired.
So last week we found a thrift store bike -- a Huffy ATV (the black one). Our landlady offered us the use of her bike (amazingly, also a Huffy! -- the red one) so we returned to Eklutna Lake to try to ride on the lakeside trail to the Eklutna Glacier.
We ended up turning around at about mile 12 -- which was one mile by bike and then 1/2 mile by foot short of the glacier. The ride was great -- but my legs were burning, and my butt was screaming! (The next day I found a fuzzy seat cover at a garage sale for 50 cents... I'm definitely going to use that next time.) It wasn't a difficult ride, which is fortunate since Tom's brakes didn't work all that well and my derailers weren't up to snuff (I could reliably hit gears 2-5, and sometimes 1st gear, but I couldn't move my front derailer, so no high gears). I knew we'd have to ride the 12 miles back, so I called "Mercy!"
I was happy to discover that the return ride was more downhill than I'd realized. (I figured that on the outbound direction my burning quads were from deconditioning... which I'm sure is true, but there was also a steady uphill the whole way.) This allowed for a lot of coasting on the return, thankfully.
When I went back to work yesterday, a coworker told me that we absolutely have to try this ride again -- as the end result is well worth it -- he says the glacier is spectacular. So we're going to try some shorter rides to get into shape (neither of us has been on a bicycle in many years, so perhaps starting with a 24 mile ride wasn't the brightest idea) and try again later in the summer.

The elusive Eklutna

Well, this picture is a little fuzzy, but that's OK -- because in the end we didn't quite make it to the glacier. But I'm told it's a spectacular sight to see, so now we'll be working on getting into better biking-shape so we can try again.

Welcome, Kiran!

We were so glad to hear that Kiran was born on July 15th, 2006 -- tipping the scales at 7 lbs, 12 oz. Kiran: we cannot wait to meet you, hold your little hands, count your little toes, sing you lullabies, see you smile, and even change your diapers (especially your Uncle Tom)!! We are especially happy to hear that Anu is doing well, and cannot imagine the look on proud-papa's face.

Eklutna Lake

This lake is only 15 miles or so from our house in Eagle River, in the Chugach State Park. Today we walked along the lakeside trail for about 5 miles (round trip) -- which was only a small portion of the trail. Once we get a 2nd bicycle (something we are looking to thrift) we want to return and ride the whole 13 miles (one way) to the other end of the lake -- where there's a short trail to see the Eklutna Glacier. They also have kayak rentals on this lake (and unfortunately ATV rentals -- but only Sun-Wed).

now that I'm overweight, and Tom is over 40...

Of course, the best way to finish a nice hike is to visit the local ice-cream parlor... for Tom, a hot fudge Sundae, and for me -- a chocolate waffle cone.... Burn off 500 calories, consume 1000, right?

just like Phoenix!!

Ha! Tom and I were marveling at the grass and wildflowers growing taller than we are. Tom snapped this picture in Bear Meadow (we didn't see any bears, though) along a portion of the Iditarod Trail along Eagle River. The original Iditarod Trail was established on the late 1800s, and was actually over 1,000 miles long. It extended all the way from Nome to Seward. The portion that we hiked is part of the trail that was used as a dog-sled mail route between Seward and Fairbanks (until the Alaska Railroad established regular service between these cities).

glacier melt

I'm not sure if you can tell from this picture, but the water in this river is grey -- which means it's glacier melt. I've heard it called "silt" before, and Tom says he's heard people call it "flour" in the water. Either way, (unfortunately for Tom) this usually means there are no trout in the water (unless they are stocked). Although they are able to survive in this water, trout will not seek out water that has glacier sediment to live in.

moss everywhere

This stuff was not as deep as the moss Leo & I encountered in Denali, but it sure makes the landscape look a bit unearthly. We also saw plenty of ferns, and a few mushrooms -- all signs of the never-ending moisture.

Local News

Only in Alaska!! Yes, you are seeing this correctly: this is a baby moose playing in someone's sprinklers... the photo is on the front page of the local newspaper today, taken this weekend. The caption said the moose played in the water for about 10 minutes before taking off (maybe it was late for dinner and its mom was getting anxious?) I guess kids really are the same all around the world -- on a warm day, you just gotta play in the sprinklers. Hahaha. Gotta love Alaska.

Ptarmigan Valley Trail

We went hiking yesterday in Chugach State Park. This sign was posted at the trailhead, which cracked me up. I guess it's very clear that we are supposed to share the trail with the moose and the bears... not that I was going to ask them to leave.
Yesterday was our first experience of a million and one bugs. Fortunately half of them were butterflies! But since we had not been having any mosquito problems, we had neglected to use any bug spray -- big mistake. We each got bitten several times... I'm glad we both had on long pants and long shirts. Ugh. We won't be making that mistake again... bug spray all around.
The trail wasbeautiful -- very lush. Our pictures are kinda washed out, though -- because it was an overcast day -- so I don't really have any good pictures to show. Oh well.

Not so fast!

When viewed from a distance, Tom says the glaciers look like freeways. I hope this picture gives a sense of the ruggedness... I don't think you could cruise too quickly on this street!

Another view of the Ruth Glacier

You can start to appreciate how vast it really is...

The Ruth Glacier

This glacier is 38 miles long, and in places over 2 miles deep -- the deepest gorge in the world. In some areas towards the bottom, there are grass & trees growing on top of the glacier. This is because the lateral/sides pick up dirt along the way, and move inward/medially. When the sides full of dirt eventually meet in the middle, the dirt areas crush against one another and seem to erupt with soil. There is enough soil that eventually the glacier gets covered, and there are large areas that can sustain a whole section of forest-looking land.

Sheldon Amphitheatre

As we were flying around the top of Denali (about 10,000 feet higher than this) our pilot was saying that climbing to the top of the mountain was actually not terribly technically demanding -- I suppose in some circles it is "easier" than a climb like Mt. Everest. He said, "It's just a really, really long walk...." Of course, this is after he'd talked about various people who had died over the years: either been blown off the mountain, fallen off the mountain, frozen to death, etc etc etc. Not for me!

I've got about 100 of these pictures

The whole trip was so stunning that I couldn't stop taking pictures. If you want me to send you any more, just let me know! I was so lucky to have such a beautifully clear, blue afternoon for this trip. The day before some friends took the same ride, but were not allowed to circle the mountain because of clouds & inclimate weather.

The Great One

Move over Wayne Gretzky: here is the original. Although we call it Mount McKinley, it has always been called Denali (the Great One) by the indiginous people. According to Athabascan legend, it was created during a fierce battle between two great warriors when one of them turned a gigantic wave into stone to defect a magic spear hurled by the other one.
Denali became known as Mt. McKinley in 1896 because of an Ohio prospector, William Dickey. Evidently, while camped at the base of the mountain, he would often argue in favor of the gold standard -- and since William McKinley was a presendential candidate from Ohio and he also favored the gold standard, when McKinley was elected president, Dickey proposed the renaming of the mountain.... and eventually the name of the mountain was officially changed.

Mount Foraker

I believe this is Mount Foraker, whose peak is "only" 17,400 feet.

Mount Hunter

I believe this is Mount Hunter (although it may be Mount Foraker). If I'm correct, it's just southwest of Denali, and on it's west is the Kahiltna Base Camp. Many Denali climbers get flown into base camp and then attempt to summit from there.

Kanikula Glacier

According to the route map on the brochure, this is the Tokositna Glacier, but I'm pretty sure our tourguide took a slightly different route -- and told us we were flying over the Kanikula Glacier. Although it looks like a road, each of those "little" crevasses can be up to 300 feet deep!

Little Switzerland

OK, I'm gonna post a whole lot of pictures from my flight-seeing tour, and I hope I label them all correctly. The trip was so beautiful -- it was truly awe-inspiring. Unbelievable. Fabulous.

Tigger Lake

While in Talkeetna, Tom and I went to Tigger Lake (how could we refuse?) to go fishing & hiking. We found a rowboat which we promptly borrowed -- no, really -- we returned it as soon as we were done! It only had one oar, which made for a sufficiently slow trip around the lake that Tom could fish. There weren't very many fish, but the lake was crystal clear, and we were the only ones on the whole lake -- so it was quite beautiful & peaceful.

Talkeetna

We went to Talkeetna this weekend -- for the annual Moose Dropping Festival (which is sponsored by the local VFW). You can by a numbered moose turd, which is then dropped (along with all the other turds) from about 50 feet in the air over a big bull's eye. The one that lands closest to the bulls eye earns the purchaser $1,000. There are other prizes, too -- most of them for $100. The rest of the festival is the usual booths with art, foot, pottery, and "hippie-clothes" (as Tom says). There was lots o music, too -- including bagpipers, fiddlers, jazz, etc.

driving back to Anchorage from Seward

Lots of people have been asking me about the job here. I don't have a picture of the hospital, though... by the way, this picture was taken around midnight -- this is "dark" up here.
With regard to the job: I like the people I have met so far. They are nice, and seem to have good medicine practices. Pretty much every subspecialty is available here -- neurosurgery, cardiovascular surgery (e.g. if someone needs a bypass), etc etc. The ICU is a "real" ICU -- people are not there just because they need an IV medicine every 4 hours. They can handle any patient, no matter how sick...
It's extremely different from Ketchikan -- for many reasons, including the fact that Ketchikan has about 10,000 people and Anchorage has about 250,000 people. So we end up getting patients transferred here from all over the state. There are still a fair number of patients who are travelers from "outside" (the local term for the lower 48) -- which of course complicates things when you have no access to their historical information. But I'd say the majority of patients are actually locals.
I'm still working out my time-management. I am the "swing shift" person for the group: I cover hospital admissions from 2p-9p, M-F -- covering 2 hospitals (which are only about 2 miles apart). If there aren't admissions I don't have to actually be in the hospital, but since we live about 30 min from the hospitals, it can be awkward to figure out the timing (if someone calls, I prefer to be there right away). Last week I went to the hospital right at 2p, and sat on my duff for quite a while on one or two of the days. So by Friday I tried staying at home waiting for the page -- but got paged right at 2p, and wished I had gone in earlier. It's still a work in progress. So far I'm also hampered by not knowing the system & the people, so I'm deathly slow. But that will get better within a few weeks....