Settling in at Home

Back in Alaska SHOULD mean great skiing again -- but no new snow in quite a while.  Because they groom the trails, we skate skied on Saturday and it was still good -- and pretty fast.  Judy got new skate skis for Christmas, so it was a good chance to try them out!  On Sunday we decided to do a longer hike and spent 3 hrs on the trails from Prospect Heights, up in the hills, on hard-packed snow.

Saturday morning Brian walked down to the trails while Judy was at yoga to check out the ski trails.  Bikers were flashing by on their "fat tire" bikes, and it turned out they were doing a 25K or 50 K race!  Then skiers and runners, so it was everything, but Brian was most impressed by anyone biking at 10 degrees on fat tires for a 50K race!

Last night we had a meet up pot-luck again with a presentation by a diver in the Antarctic - - great pictures and by a student about 27 yrs old from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks who got hooked up with a National Science Foundation trip with Norman Chu, photographer.  Leopard seals, penguins, lots of birds, and he spent 6 wks at a substation in the Antarctic diving and photographing any wildlife and lots of undersea life.

Always interesting here!  Brian walked down to the trail this afternoon since Judy had the car and changed direction to avoid a moose on the trail!  We've had fog, fog, and more fog, that becomes an ice fog and truly turns the trees into a winter wonderland, everything is frosted white as the fog freezes.  We're enjoying all of the stories we'll have about our life in Alaska!