Mid-Winter Skiing and Fur Rondy

The winter has been excellent all during February - mild, light snows to keep the ski trails fresh, and even a full moon last night!  Fur Rondy this weekend and next meant sprint dog races this weekend and the start of the Iditarod next Saturday!  

Sprint Races! 

And then there was the parade -- lots of things going on around town . . . carnival, dog sled rides, blanket toss, fun run . . . then fireworks early evening as it got dark.

A Fun Run in Costume! 

Parade down 5th & 6th Avenues 

Dog Sled rides around the park 3 blocks from our house!

A great weekend for skiing again -- Saturday was a late afternoon skate ski  on the Chester Creek trail, then home for scallops and salad before walking up to the symphony for an evening concert.  A light snow, and we could even see the fireworks from our window, even though we didn't have time to get downtown far enough to see them up close.  The Anchorage Symphony was a great program last night from Beethoven to Ravel with a young composer with a very different composition for cello in-between.  Then today a classical ski on the Campbell Creek trails, and the tracks were perfect.  Weather forecast is for right around 30 degrees all week - so mild and an easy winter!  

A "No Blog" Month!

Oh my goodness . . . I can't believe it's been almost a month since we posted anything.  Just after I posted the last time, the spring semester started, which is an inevitable rush of everything that has to be taken care of.  Brian began a photography course at the university, which has been fun for him, but we both also had bad colds, first Brian for 2 weeks and then me for the last week and a half.

Brian's been "upping" the ski workouts getting ready for the Tour-a-thon March 2, and unfortunately I got sick just as the skiing got really good again.  We went out Wednesday night, though, for a short diagonal ski and tonight for a skate ski. It's been beautiful at night, 25-30 degrees, and we had fresh snowfalls for a couple of days this week, just a few inches!  Scott, Brian's son, and his girlfriend, Tara, are coming out March 1 for a few days, so we're really looking forward to that!

Thursday night we went out to dinner to treat a couple who lent us their house over Christmas in Talkeetna - thanks to Karen and Eric!  Brian and I both had rockfish at the Brewhouse - it may not be salmon or halibut (both of which we're just about out of!) but we both really like rockfish (and it's cheaper!)  We hadn't eaten there for a long time, because it's really noisy there and busy, but Karen and Eric like it, and I'm glad we went - the food was delicious!

Work is busy for me, not as busy for Brian, but we're both occupied!  4 1/2 months to our trip back east - still seems a long ways away, but I'm not ready to let go of winter and skiing yet -- and it's getting lighter longer every day!

A Different January

We skied a few days back in Anchorage while my "vacation" was winding down.  It got warmer and warmer, so the usual places that we skied sort of deteriorated.  I went back to work on the 7th, but Brian found another part of the trail that was still in decent shape.  Before it got too warm, we skied a little "backcountry" on the east side of Basher Rd.  It was much traveled by mountain bikes and barely enough snow coverage for the roots, etc., but a fun afternoon!  By the next day it was warm and icy, and we took a long hike with our katoolas (spikes).

We haven't seen nearly as many moose this year, as they usually come more into town when the snow is higher in the upper elevations.  This one though was snapped while crossing a main road downtown near our house!

But New Year's Eve we had another wonderful celebration at Carl and Diane's -- great food, great champagne, a Mayan theme including a chocolate pecan torte to die for, and . . . . FIREWORKS!  For those of you who don't know, much more usual to have fireworks on New Year's Eve in Alaska, since on 4th of July, it doesn't get dark til maybe 2 am on the 5th!

It's predicted to be in the upper 40s tomorrow, January 13th.  Last January the average temperature was 2 degrees!  We're also down 40 inches of snow from what fell last year, although last year was an unusually snowy year!  It's been rough on the skiing, but if you check around at different parts of the trail system, you can find good places still to ski.  Brian is training for a 40K Tour-a-thon scheduled for the first part of March, and Scott, his son, will be here visiting to do it with him.  The Tour is the day after the start of the Iditarod here in Anchorage.  Even today it was raining slightly, but the skiing was pretty darn good!

I went back to work at the university after 2 1/2 weeks off, getting ready for the spring semester, and Brian starts Monday morning, along with 16,000 other students, in a photography class!  He can take classes for free because of my working there, and he's interested in learning to take good pictures since we're living in such a beautiful place!

Brian skied this morning with Lance, our landlord, and then again this afternoon with me. This morning he saw a moose with a big rack walking right down the street again, but he didn't have the camera with him!  Last night, we walked to what we consider "the neighborhood bar" for a glass of wine and our usual appetizers (crab cakes and ceasar salad - and added a Brazilian soup with coconut milk and swordfish!) then walked up to the Town Square to see the ice sculptures recently completed.  An Alaska Native carver was sitting in the square, which basically is an ice skating rink in the winter, with a few of  his carvings, so we stopped to talk to him and bought a little soapstone bear.  Not a bad weekend, overall - and there's still tomorrow - rain, upper 40s and all!

Post Christmas Ski and Visiting New Friends

I know, this can get boring . . . let us guess . . . you skied again.  Yup!  Back to the trails, but today at least, sunshine as bright as you can get when the sun doesn't make it up very high in the sky!  I diagonal skied today and Brian skate skied.  We had just a light dusting of snow and went out about an hour and 45 minutes.

Then back for a light lunch about 2:00 since we were going to visit Klaus and Laura in Trapper Creek for dinner.  Before we left for Trapper Creek, we drove to the end of Main St. where, as we'd heard, the flooding in the fall and then a subsequent ice jam, has forced huge boulders of ice up along the banks of the river, some of them nearly as tall as Brian!  We wanted pictures, but it was getting dark, and we may go back today on our way (detour) out of town!

To get to Trapper Creek, which is directly across the river from Talkeetna, one has to drive 15 miles back down the spur road from the "highway" to a Y connection, then up the other side 18 miles!  When the river freezes over, they can ski across the river!  Klaus has a log home, and we had a wonderful meal of goose (first time eating goose for me, and it was their own goose!) that I wish we'd taken a picture of - it was quite delicious and served with potato dumplings and gravy, homemade cranberry sauce, red cabbage, and carrots.  Oh, and we started with homemade eggnog from their own eggs - not at all like store eggnog, very light and fresh.

They have real candles on their tree, in the European tradition, if you look closely at the picture.  They had a Swiss friend visiting, who lives in Anchorage now, and both men have a tour guide business with float trips, some as long as 11 days in the Brooks Range.  Klaus also has a machine shop and does fabrication and milling work for small airplanes - Brian of course liked seeing the machine shop!  Great company and enjoyable evening - we headed home very late for us!

Merry Christmas All!

And Happy Holidays from Talkeetna, Alaska.  Last Christmas we came up here too, a little over 2 hours from Anchorage.  Talkeetna is located at 62°18′41″N 150°5′13″W (62.311397, -150.087053)^[1] at the confluence of three rivers, the Susitna, Chulitna and Talkeetna. The Talkeetna townsite was established in 1919 when the railroad surveyed and auctioned 80 lots. The average price at the sale was $14.25.^[2] Flightseeing, rafting, mountain biking, hiking, camping, fishing and hunting make up a large portion of the local economy. Talkeetna is a 2.5 hour drive from Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. The core downtown area is classified as a National Historic Site, with buildings dating from the early 1900s including Nagley's General Store,^[3] Fairview Inn and the Talkeetna Roadhouse.  Population = 772!  Talkeetna is close to salmon fishing areas and Denali (also known as Mt. McKinley). Tourists travel to Talkeetna each summer to fish, raft and go flightseeing.(All from Wikipedia!)  We come here to ski -- and because it's a neat place to hang out and not too far away! 

Skiing at XYZ Lakes

And we had dinner at the Roadhouse last night, a community potluck that everyone is invited to -- turkey & mulled wine put out by the owners, and everyone brought a dish.  We made pearl cous-cous with vegetables and there were lots of different dishes - potato dumplings from Klaus, and everyone's "special recipes."  Cookies, pumpkin pie and fudge for dessert!  We're staying in a wonderful house loaned by a friend, a big change from the tiny cottage that we were in last year.  Karen and her partner are up on the slope working, and look what we are enjoying! 

What a good frined!  In between skiing twice a day (very closely scheduled since the sun rises a little after 10 and sets about 3:45!), we have two jigsaw puzzles with us, this one that's completed of Ketchikan. 

Today we had a little pile of presents - no tree, but we opened them on the big island in Karen's kitchen.  

One of my real surprises was another of the Alaska Native sculptures that I love, a drum beater.  They are carved form soapstone and ivory by Edith Oktollik, a woman from Point Hope, Alaska, who is in her 80s now.  She began carving in 1978.  Brian bought it at Aurora Fine Art, where I "store" the rest of my sculptures that I don't actually own yet! Isn't she wonderful?!  

Today, for Christmas, we missed all of our friends and family, but we made the best of it skiing and eating.  We skate skied for about an hour and 20 minutes after it got light, about 11 am.  Back for soup, etc. and a rest (and puzzle doing), then out for an hour again about 3 pm.  The light was strange today, overcast and like it never really got to be daytime completely!  I was whooped by the time we stopped - we had intended to classic ski in the afternoon, but the conditions were better for skate skiing.  Christmas dinner I puzzled over - didn't want to cook a big turkey for the two of us.  We ended up with our wonderful shrimp in a shrimp cocktail and a very nice cheese fondue - I guess it DOES make a difference if you spend an arm and a leg on the cheese - and use wonderful white wine that you could just as easily have drunk!  

All in all, a great day, even missing all of the people who are most important to us.  There was live music in town tonight, but we were too tired (and full!) to move.  Love and best wishes for the entire holiday season to all of the people that we love and care about!  

Snow, Snow, Snow!

Finally - it snowed 9 inches, a record snowfall for this date in Anchorage!  It was a rough drive to work, and it snowed most of the day - Brian had a day of pushing cars, keeping the driveway clean with Mary (downstairs), and waiting for the plow - which seems to never come down our street - cars just struggle through the snow!  Perfect for skiing though - they may not get the roads plowed, but somehow the trails get groomed!  Or at least rolled - there wasn't a track set yet tonight but lots of people had been out on the multi-use trails!

We skied up to Goose Lake from Valley of the Moon park, and what a beautiful night - near 30 degrees.  Brian's gone out the last two nights and skate skied for a short workout, but this is the first night that I'd skied since Thanksgiving and Sheep Mountain.  The temperature is supposed to go back down in the single digits by the weekend, but for now, it surely was an enjoyable evening.  We didn't even go out til about 8 o'clock after dinner - ya gotta love these lit trails through the city - it's really great!

Waiting for Snow

The one un-redeeming factor of living in a cold climate is when it refuses to snow!  The only thing that gets you through the dark and the cold is being active.  Brian and I have been going to a workout place called Elite Performance in a class with other skiers on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a pretty good workout, but there have been days upon days with single digits and no snow to play in!

Brian went skiing on Friday (being the one with more time on his hands!) in Portage, the only place that's really had a LOT of snow, and he went down to check on the boat at the same time.  He said his eyes were frozen shut!  They had 20 inches of snow there, and it's only a little over an hour from here, but nothing even 15 minutes north of there!

We spent part of Saturday at the annual Craft Fair at the Anchorage Museum and finished up our Christmas shopping for presents that had to be shipped.  http://www.anchoragemuseum.org/about/aboutus.aspx
Later we bundled up and walked up to Sullivan's, a restaurant and bar with jazz on the weekends - we like to walk up and sit in the bar for appetizers and a glass of wine!  http://sullivanssteakhouse.com/index.php
That was pretty much the high point of the weekend, other than WAITING FOR SNOW!

Work has been pretty intense - last week of classes - with presentations by my students on Monday night and Friday morning and lots to get ready with end of semester for our other students.  Next week - finals - and then finishing up til the 21st, and out of work til probably January 7th.
Friday early evening it began SNOWING - FINALLY, and Brian and I went for a walk in the middle of what felt like a blizzard - the wind was blowing harder than we realized.

We walked up through the Town Square, where all of the trees are strung with lights, very pretty, and on to my favorite gallery where I keep all of my Alaska Native sculptures that I haven't actually paid for yet (stopped in for a visit with them and also to dry off and get out of the wind temporarily.  Here is the sculpture that I have managed to pay for and bring home.  The rest are still being held hostage.

Isn't she gorgeous?  Carving in soapstone by Edith Oktollik, an Alaska Native woman in her 80s living in Point Hope, AK.  Many more that I want!  And, as they should be, they are expensive!

I was in a Wisdom weekend all weekend (Webex) and Brian skied on Saturday with Lance in Girdwood and then joined me for a Community Sunday this morning.  We went out for a long walk afterwards in the snow, and then Brian went for a quick ski by himself - still minimal snow, I'm waiting for the "real thing."

Back to work tomorrow, a busy week again til finals are over and grades are in -- looking forward to Christmas vacation, but it will be one without family again - we decided not to spend the time and money to go back east.  :-(