Snow, snow and more snow!

Home from Talkeetna yesterday and back in Anchorage in time for an afternoon ski on more fresh snow. They had already set a diagonal track on the Chester Creek trail, and we had time for a 10k out and back before we vegged out on the couch and watched a movie.  We didn't take pictures, but one notable thing on the trail were the lovely glass Christmas balls that someone had hung carefully from the tree branches over the trail in one section.

Today we wanted to do something different, so we went to a different section of the trails off of the Campbell Airstrip Loop Rd.  Usually we do the groomed trails on the right hand side, and we took our back country skis and had an enjoyable two hours in some really fresh snow - it was snowing most of the time, and they had about 16 inches overnight in that part of town -- much less where we live.

We saw a moose today in the woods, but perhaps more interesting was the one we saw this morning from our window -- right across the street with his big rump in the air reaching up to eat off the tree, then just casually moseying down the street, just like he owned the place.  We stopped in the pictures above to have some tea.  Our landlords arrived home today from Florida and came for a lasagna dinner, and Jessica arrived for a post-Christmas visit later this evening.  It is supposed to get much colder again tonight, but they did forecast a couple of inches more of snow!

Christmas Day in Talkeetna

We got three good morning texts from the East Coast at 5 am, 6 am, and 6:30 am.  We'll be calling all of you at midnight our time on New Year's Eve!  Seriously, it was great to hear from everyone, and we got coffee and tea and opened our Christmas presents in bed (tiny cabin, remember?) after it was clear we weren't going back to sleep!  We had a great and somewhat unusual breakfast -- eggs baked in the middle of some great bread with pecans and currants and creamed spinach with a tangerine for garnish - very colorful and not everyone's cup of tea but really good!

Some more reading and then we took off for a ski through the same park that we've been skiing but a different trail today as a snowmobile had rolled a trail around the lakes.

It was really a beautiful day, even though the sun never did get very high in the sky.  You can see that beautiful "weak winter sun" here, and the day was lighter than it looks in the picture.  We skied just about 2 hours - warmer today, about 10 degrees, and then back to the cabin for snacks and a glass of wine.  We brought some of the wonderful smoked salmon with us that I helped to smoke and jar in Klukwan this summer, with smoked cheese and apples and pears.  I hope we're still hungry for that turkey breast and cranberry dressing cooking in the miniature oven here!

Back to reading in bed for awhile - Brian's reading sailing stories and I'm starting another book -- or I did bring some knitting with me.  We went to an irreverent Christmas show in town last night at 7:30 but probably won't go anywhere tonight - just a nice dinner when it's done.  Or we may go out to a "town caroling" and local musicians at, I think, the Fairview, which takes place after the last Christmas show is enacted tonight.  The show, Brian says, is like a Saturday Night Live routine about living in Alaska.  It was pretty funny, most of the time anyway and -- support the local arts!  The Denali Arts Center puts it on.

We both hope you all had a day to remember (in a good way!) with family and friends.  We miss all of you but feel blessed to be enjoying Alaska -- we think we were meant to live here and were born elsewhere by mistake!

Love to all.

Christmas Eve in Talkeetna

An invigorating snowshoe this morning when it finally got light about 10:30 - but it was still 10 below 0!  We could see Denali in the background of these pictures very clearly, but you can't see it as well!  The Alaska Range is a beautiful view from here, and the light was just striking the mountains as the sun was rising.

Then we headed home -- to the Munchin Moose Cabin - to get warm.  It was still 6 below when we finished.  

Sooo . . . even after lunch next to the heater, we were still cold!  Back to bed to read and get warmed up there! 

And then back out for the afternoon ski, as tempting as it was to stay inside . . .  diagonal skiing today (or classical).  It was a beautiful day with sunny skies and all of the way up to about 4 degrees when we left!  

Pictures are chosen for when I feel as though I can take my hands out of my mittens to hold the camera and point and shoot without having them completely freeze!

Happy Holidays to everyone - may everyone feel as blessed on Christmas Eve as we do -- even without the friends and family with us -- we're all sharing the same planet!

Christmas in Talkeetna

Since we decided not to go back East for Christmas this year, we thought we'd do something different - a little cabin in the woods for Christmas is one of Brian's long-held wishes.  We started out for Talkeetna yesterday, waiting for the remains of a snowstorm to clear.  We celebrated Brian's birthday the night before (Thursday the 22nd) at the Anchorage Museum's "Muse" Cafe, with friends Diane and Carl.  Some of you may know Carl Roberts from the Utica area - when we came up here, Brian hadn't been in touch with Carl for 23 years - accident of providence that he had a friend here when he arrived a year ago!  The roads were pretty good on the way up, and we had a short ski after checking in just before it got dark.  Our cabin is very "cozy" (read small!), but it proved to be very comfortable for a dinner with some of our last shrimp from Prince William Sound last spring-summer and a shrimp bisque that I made before we came up accompanied by a very nice Sauvignon Blanc.  Then we read and watched a John Oliver stand up comedy show via computer before falling asleep - I said it was SMALL, I didn't say we were roughing it! 

We finished off our dinner with the most beautiful Christmas cookies made by Diane - I can't believe I didn't take a picture of them first, but we started in on them on our way up here.  

They've groomed skating trails since we were here last March in the state park and use it for races, evidently.  The snow was soft still yesterday, but it was absolutely gorgeous with big soft hunks of snow held in all of the trees.  

This morning it was oatmeal with pears and dried blueberries - we're going to fix an entire Christmas dinner in this tiny, inconvenient kitchen so we'll see how that goes!  Best wishes for the  holiday to all of the friends and family we're missing!