sled dogs by our house

Here are a few from by our house (down on the slough) on the area that I call the snow machine highway. There is also a picture of the river bridge where the dogs enter and leave the Chena River and also where I enter and leave the river on my way to work.

North American Sled dog Championships

Today dominik and I went downtown to watch our first ever dog sled race. It was packed! Teams are made up of anywhere from 10-16 or more dogs, as far as I can tell. The dogs are so funny to watch when they are at the starting line. You'll never see animals that are more full of life. They are really anxious to go!

The dogs ran down 2nd avenue and then down the Wendell street river bridge before racing along the Chena river. They turn off the Chena and head up the slough and then out onto Creamer's field and the golf course before turnig back for home. This is the same route I take to work on my snow machine! I'm going to include a few pictures from dowtown at the start/finish line and then a few from down on the slough.....right beside our house. We just walked down there to snap a few pics.

Far North Workout

Since I'm still dreaming of doing the 2009 Northwest Atlas Bodybuilding contest, I have been working hard to get in shape. The funny thing is, the workouts are a little different here. Rather than get up and ride the bike for 45 mins, I decided to go out at 6:00 am and split wood for the same amount of time. I should have thought of this earlier! Sitting on a bike feels like a total waste of time when there is wood to be worked on.....and there is ALWAYS wood to work on around here.

I feel like Rocky Balboa...punching sides of beef....while the other guy trains with all the high tech stuff.

We have hit an end of winter cold snap the last week or so. It has been -30 ish. The good news is that we have now officially passed 12 hours of daylight. The sun rose today at 7:55 and sets at 8:06....and we're adding about 7 minutes more each day. Pretty soon we'll have bright mornings and late evening sun and it will warm up fast. I don't know what is going to happen when all this snow melts.

We thought we had a line on an 06 Toyota Tundra that was old man driven, but he decided to keep it at the last minute. It's probably for the best as $$$ has felt very tight. I'm still very much in the building stage and we haven't had much of an income to make us feel ready to jump on a truck. We definitely need one up here, though. A big summer job will be to track down good wood cutting areas and stock pile for winter...need a truck for that.

Moose blocks path

Hahaha. Moose overload. Only in AK could this happen. Dominik and I were cruising around town on the snow machine and decided to fly down a skinny little bike path along the expressway. We come around a corner and are face to face with a young moose! We stopped and tried to figure out what to do. The moose wasn't giving us any space and didn't seem afraid at all.......it was the same one that stomped our broom! We figured mama had to be right around there and mama moose are known to be very protective so we were a little concerned. To make it even worse, a local drunk was stumbling up the path from the other direction and collapsing the space that the moose had between us. Ahhh!

With a mild panic I turned our heavy machine around in a space that I'm absolutely certain was narrower than the length of our machine and we got the hell out of there. We hung out below the young moose on the slough and watched to see what the drunk woud do. This guy was DRUNK! Would he actually try to wak by? Would he turn around? Would he try to make love to the moose? Hey, the guy was DRUNK. From our vantage point we saw mama and now the drunk was between mama and baby. Mama's ears went back and she began walking toward them. We heard some yelling and then mama seemed to relax. I think the drunk pissed his pants and dove onto the expressway. We decided to drive away quickly before we put ourselves into the hopeless good samaritan scenario. What was I going to do? Leave Dominik on the snow machine and go toe to toe with a mama moose over some damn drunk? An easy ethical dilemna. Never a dull moment around here!!

snowmachine commute!

Here I am at 8:15 this morning getting ready for my commute. I am always looking to do something unique, so today I drove the snowmachine to work. It was -18F when I left home and -28F at the clinic, but I hardly noticed. The clothes were warm enough and the experience made it fun. I might make this a Saturday routine until it gets too warm out. The largest part of my commute involves speeding down the slough and then the Chena river and I'm not a very good swimmer. It's pretty neat....it's like a highway for snow machines!

After work, Dominik and I spent 2 hours skating at the Big Dipper outdoor rink. After that we hit the library for some kiddy spanish books. As soon as we got home we saw our new wood had been delivered, so we set to work chopping it. Kari and Dominik played sled dog and hauled the wood away. It's amazing how much work you can get out of a 6 year old when they are pretending. 

The air is cold today and it is going to be -30 tonight, but the sun is getting MUCH stronger and at least we have wood for a fire tonight. 

Cheers, family and friends!

more moosey

Pictures of the moose that killed our broom.

Moose visit

This morning we had another moose in our yard. The mother and youngster returned again and  we snapped some amazing pictures. I intended to put them on here right now, but I left my cable at home so I'll have to do it tonight. You'll definitely want to see these pictures. The moose was literally peering in our windows and Dominik and Yanik were nose to nose with the moose.

I just received an instant message from Kari and I can't stop laughing. The moose started jumping and playing and running laps around the house when mama showed up. The little one went over to where I park the car and checked it all out and found where I keep my yellow broom plunged upside down in the snowbank. He sniffed it and darted to and fro and then finally trampled it down into the snow! Right now mama and baby are peeking into the garage and exploring the rest of the yard. It's going to be awfully hard to keep a garden this year! I'll publish pictures later today. What a great start to the day!

Light and wood stoves

What a difference we see every day now. Fairbanks is adding about 8 minutes of light daily. Do the math on that and you can imagine how different it is over just one week. It gets light at around 8:00 now and stays pretty light until 7:45 at night. The dark seems to be the only thing that gets people bummed out, so people are really happy now. We're seeing highs of just below freezing on most days, but it still hits around 5-10 degrees by morning. Strangely enough, at 30 degrees we're all good in very light sweaters and 5 degrees doesn't even feel like heavy coat weather anymore either. I guess we have toughened up.

I learned an important lesson in wood stoves. Only get wood that bloody well fits in the stove. Some lessons leave a mark....I had to cut 2 cords of wood so that it would fit in our stove. What a pile of work out of sheer stupidity.

We have not had a return visit from the moose just yet. I shouldn't have told him he'd look good in my freezer. I think he understood me. It's too bad....they're such beautiful animals, but I couldn't help but think..."look at all that lean, hormone free, protein!"

Some thoughts after 6 weeks in Alaska

Our minds are amazing. A quote that screams out to me is, "wherever you go, there you are".
We seem to have a natural setpoint for happiness and we can fiddle with our surrounding, buy a new car, etc., but eventualy we settle in to our original setpoint. The newness of AK is wearing off and I have settled at my original setpoint. I still like chopping wood, but it is a pain in the butt when you have other things to do....and I am a little frustrated that it is 77 bloody degrees in here right now.....a side effect of the less delicate controls of a wood stove. No fear, I can count on 65 degrees before morning! Hahahaha.

The newness of the relationship is wearing off and we are getting more real now. It is certainly more expensive to live here, but the air is clear and people are so darned nice. We still love it here, but we are tempering the reality of being up here, with the distance of family and the ease of life in Idaho...but we are adjusting. I' be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to spring! The weather is fine, but I'm looking forward to getting back on my bike and being free from fossil fuels for a while. My old hockey team played the first playoff game tonight and I felt a twinge of sadness that I wasn't involved. I miss my buddies. That was the best locker room I ever experienced and I miss it. I particularly miss Dan Burgett, Monte and Gary Brookshire and Ken Malach. It's funny how you take so many things for granted until they are no longer part of the norm. There is a price to be paid for a life of adventure. Business is good, but it remains to be reflected upon.....the truly most important things in life. Either way, there is plenty to learn and life is full of surprises. Live and learn! I don't know if it is the wine (Im 3 glasses deep) or just the mood of sentimentality..but I'm missing people right now. I love it here, but I miss my family and buddies. It will take a while to build that here. Come visit!!

Ice Alaska at night

Ice Alaska

Here are a few pictures from Ice Alaska. They have the annual worold ice carving championships going on now so I'll be adding some really interesting pictures when the professionals come to town and make some killer sculptures! I'll also head down to the ice park and get a few pictures at night time when they are illuminated. Have a great day everyone!