Living in Alaska - Life in the Last Frontier

(written on July 19th)

Steve and I are in Homer. We’ve been here since Friday. We had a bear trip scheduled for Saturday, with a back up date of Sunday. Neither date worked for us, as the cloud cover and visibility (fog) was poor enough that Chris and Ken called the trip on both days for weather. This makes the third year in a row that we’ve been weathered out. It’s getting pretty old… We’re both extremely disappointed, but since we’re old hats at this weathering out we just took it in stride. I guess when the time is right, it’ll happen. We’ll just keep on trying. We’ve briefly discussed coming back in September, but it’s a long drive to make based on chance.

We have a single soldier staying at our house while we’re gone. (Steve knows him very well, and he’s not the type to have wild parties! *grin*) He lives in the barracks, so he jumped at the opportunity to stay in a comfortable home, in exchange for keeping an eye on our house while we’re gone. We asked him to keep our vegetable plants and flowers watered, and to take care of Sushi (my Beta fish).

Well, “fish-sitting” was removed from the list because my dear Sushi died the day before we left town. I was both shocked and saddened to find his lifeless body floating in the tank when I woke on Wednesday morning. I even got a bit teary eyed, when Steve sent him swirling to the ‘big septic tank in the sky’. My poor Sushi! I only had him for four months. Who knows how old he was - or if he was sick - when I brought him home from WalMart. I’ll be adopting another fish when we get back, and I hope this one lasts more than four months.

The drive from Fairbanks to Palmer was long and uneventful. We stopped in Wasilla to check out the new Target store. We don’t have a Target in Fairbanks. In fact, the only big box department stores we have in Fairbanks are WalMart, Fred Meyer, and Sears. We have quite a few smaller locally-owned shops, and we have several other big-name stores (Old Navy, Barnes and Noble, Sports Authority, etc), but not much else if you’re a diehard shopaholic (which I’m not). So, the addition of Target to both Wasilla and Anchorage has been big news for those who consider retail therapy a sport. Quite a few folks are keeping their hopes up that one comes to Fairbanks.

Well, my experience in Target wasn’t all that great. It wasn’t anything like I remember the Targets of the Lower 48 being. There weren’t any of those big sale racks with clothing marked down to ridiculously low prices. And the sale racks that they did have, weren’t all that ‘cheap’, nor were the sale items plentiful. The regularly priced merchandise was up-priced for Alaska like everything else in this state. Needless to say, I could care less if Fairbanks ever gets a Target. All it will do is cause even more traffic congestion to an already busy part of town.

We stayed at Homestead RV Park in Palmer. The park is nice, in that the gravel RV sites are surrounded by tall birch and cottonwood trees, to give a more woodsy feeling. And the sites are very level too. There’s no cable TV, and the antenna didn’t pick up anything but snowy channels, so we popped in a movie to put us to sleep. WiFi is available for a price: $2.00/day, with additional options for weekly or monthly service. The showers are nice, and there are laundry facilities. There’s a community building at the RV park, and while we were there, a group of folks were using it for some square dancing. I stopped to watch through the windows for a few minutes while walking Sedona.

I didn’t take many photos between Fairbanks and Palmer. The sky was hazy with smoke in some areas, and the mountain (Denali) wasn’t out. We did stop at the Alaska Veterans Memorial at mile 147.2 on the Parks Highway to stretch our legs and make a sandwich, and I took a few photos there.

The next morning, we packed up the camper and continued our trip to Homer. As always, we made a stop at the Fort Richardson Commissary to pick up perishable food, as well as a stop at the gas station to fill our gas tanks. Gas was $2.88 on post - two cents more than we paid in Fairbanks. Why is it that gas prices go up when the weekend comes?

The views along Turnagain Arm were pretty, but not as pretty as we have seen it. Clouds were low hanging, and the sky was a hazy gray color, but still it was a beautiful drive. I didn’t take many still shots while we drove, but I did play with Steve’s new video camera (bought for the bear trip that never happened).

We stopped at Turnagain Pass to walk Sedona, stretch our legs, and have some lunch. We always stop at the rest stop there, as it’s absolutely gorgeous! The fireweed is blooming here on the Kenai Peninsula, but the flower petals are only about 1/3 of the way up the stalk. We’re at least 1/2 way up (if not more) in the Interior. It is said that once the flowers are all the way to the top, and the plant goes to seed, winter is only six weeks away. We’re not going to think about that…

Here are photos that I took on our drive from Anchorage to Homer:

(more…)

Spires of the Fireweed
by Ian Emberson

Spires of the fireweed on the fretted sky –
Tints of magenta on tranquility,
Do you feel nurture for the life within,
The burst of bloom that yields your progeny.
Do you have sense of flowering’s fleeting glow,
Bearing its part in continuity
To charge the seed and rip its casing wall
And float its fluff upon the autumn wind?

(The above excerpt is from the novel-in-verse “Pirouette of Earth”. You can find more of Ian Emberson’s paintings and poems on his website: www.ianemberson.co.uk )

As I wrote in my last entry, Lisa and I planned to drive out past Eagle Summit in search of the magnificent fields of fireweed that I remember from a couple of years ago. Magnificent doesn’t even begin to describe the stunning beauty of the magenta hills along the Steese Hwy.

We started our drive at around 9:15am.  We saw large pockets of fireweed along the highway, but the larger fields of color didn’t appear until we passed Chatanika Lodge, thirty miles up the road.  We were both enthralled by the bright pinkish purple of the fireweed where it contrasted to the darker colors of burned trees, but I knew that what we were seeing was merely a teasing glimpse of what lay ahead.

We stopped at Eagle Summit to hike to the top. The last time I was there, I couldn’t make the climb to the top (not enough stamina). That day, I handed off my camera to Steve and asked him to finish the hike up and take some photos for me. This time, I had my camera case - which was fully loaded - as well as a full water bottle clipped to the case. I estimate that my camera bag weighs about 30lbs. I seriously didn’t think I’d make it to the top of the hill - especially with all that weight on my back. I had to stop and rest a few times, but I made it!

The view from the summit was spectacular! From Wikipedia: Eagle Summit is a 3,652′ tall gap through the White Mountains of central Alaska. Its high-latitude location means that it is one of a handful of places on Earth where the sun can be seen at midnight by an observer standing south of the Arctic Circle or north of the Antarctic Circle. The trail of the annual Yukon Quest 1,000-mile sled dog race also passes over Eagle Summit. The area’s high winds, drifting snow, and steep terrain make it the most difficult section of trail in the race, and some competitors have called it the most difficult section of trail in any sled dog race in the world.

From Eagle Summit, you can really see the expanse of hills off in the distance - in all directions. The hills north of the summit had a purple tint to them, and I just knew that we were going to find the fireweed a few miles further down the highway.

(more…)

Yesterday, while standing out on my back deck, I heard mama Sandpiper ‘tweeting’ in the rear of my yard. I picked up my camera to go in search of the distressed whistles, thinking for sure she was back there distracting another animal from a chick again. Just as I passed my wildflower garden, I happened to glance up into a tree, and saw the most beautiful - and huge - great horned owl! No wonder the sandpiper was making a lot of racket. A little research on my part showed that great horned owls like to eat bunnies, rodents, and birds - among other things. Apparently, there are quite a few things on the menu - to include cats!

I crept a little closer, but didn’t  have my long lens on my camera. I managed to snap a few photos before my neighbor cranked up his 4-wheeler and frightened the owl away! I was very upset about that.

The owl looked to be almost 2′ tall, and when he flew away his wingspan was amazing. I don’t know how he managed to fly through all the trees without hitting any of them! What a gorgeous bird. I do hope that he’ll return to my yard again - when the neighbor isn’t home!

(more…)