Solstice Weekend in Fairbanks

So this weekend I was up in Fairbanks. I like that city a lot more than Anchorage… but it is still a city nonetheless. I went up Saturday morning because it was raining cats and dogs in Northway… I packed for that type of weather. Man was I wrong. It was SO HOT in Fairbanks and even worse I probably haven’t showered in a week or so. Oops.

 I love this quote. I LOVE IT! I had never heard of Michio till I came up here but he was a photographer. I have read a lot about him and find him very interesting. He has some beautiful photographs. Here is a link to his photography portfolios if you are interested: http://www.uaf.edu/museum/exhibit/galleries/hoshino/portfolios.html

I went to the UAF Museum of the North. I bet my parents don’t even know this but I applied to go to college here, Winona and UAF were the only two schools I applied too and got accepted to both. The museum was sweet! When I showed up barely anyone was there and it was cheap too- $10 admission and $5 movie ticket. I love cheap! I realize now that I am trying to upload everything that I took way too many pictures- mainly of rocks and used-to-be-real animals. The movies were really interesting. The first one I watched was on winter in Alaska and how people cope and the science behind it. This may ruffle a few feathers but I think I could live up here- I will suffer through the winter so I can bask in the short summer weather. The other movie I watched was about the Aurora Borealis and that was really cool! Very sciencey and I liked it- many of the other people didn’t. I heard so many complaints after it was over on how they didn’t get it. I learned that a lot of the pipeline was built underground because the magnetic force in the aurora screws with the oil- it can even corrode the metal of the pipeline. I also didn’t know this but there is the southern and northern borealis’- southern you have to be on Antarctica to see but it is actually the same borealis. They sent two planes out to the poles to take a picture of the borealis at the exact same time and the pictures came out as mirror images. Too cool.

I seperated everything into groups. Scroll to whatever fascinates you.

ROCK PICTURES:

Fellow Rock nerd friends- this is a 3,550 pound hunk of Jade... oh you know just found up the river.

 Gem Collection.

 Epidote.

Rock collection. 

Beautiful sample of Malachite!!!

ANIMALS THAT USED TO BE REAL:

 Mammoth skull!

 Mammoth tooth and my sausage fingers for comparison.

 I am terrified of polar bears.

 Part of a whale. Huge.

 Caribou Skeleton.

 WOLVES! I want one. They are so pretty!

 Lynx. If you ever get to feel a Lynx skin... it is so soft!

Black bear with a more cinnamon color.

RANDOM:

 I LOVE totem poles. They are so so so cool!

 Called a pig. This is used to clean out the oil pipeline. When the oil shoots through from Prudhoe up north all the way down to Valdez the temperature changes and creates a wax buildup on the inside of the pipeline... this pig thing takes care of that wax. Whatever floats your boat I say.

 All the guns. Took this one just for my Dad because even though I spent like maybe a minute looking at them and over an hour looking at the rocks... it would have been the other way around if he was here. HAPPY FATHERS DAY!

ARTWORK:

 An outhouse. In a museum. Only in Alaska.

 Beautiful bead work!!

I needed somewhere to camp so I was going to go to Chena River SP in town- drove through there and totally changed my mind. 1) they charge too much for very little camping 2) it was loud as heck and 3) I don’t like people really and there were too many of them. So I drove towards Chena Hot Springs and ended up camping at Rosehip SP and loved it! It was gorgeous woods and very quiet and cool little sites (and cheap). Only issue- mosquitoes. I probably set the world record for setting up my tent… you see I don’t have bug spray… I made a mental goal when I came up here to tough it out and not use it. Regret it. But… it is now Sunday and I am back at my cabins and I still haven’t used bug spray… so I did it.

 Campsite.

 I thought it was raining when I woke up... nope just these guys being a pain.

 Chena River along Rosehip SP

Now it was time to go run my 10k. Remember how I said I packed clothes for rain and cold… it was SO HOT! Yuck! I got sunburned sitting in my truck, reading and waiting for the race to start. Well needless to say I still ran it, got sick to my stomach around mile 5 but still finished 6.2 miles. This is my first 10k (I have done a 5k and a 10 mile before) and I am proud to say I have done it in Alaska. It was cool to be running at 11pm and have it still be daylight out! Everyone was pretty intoxicated though that we ran by and sometimes that stinks because it makes you second guess why you choose to run, get sweaty and feel your joints hurt instead of sit down and have a beer or some wop. Oh well. On that note I have a 5k in North Pole, AK in July and it is to raise money to find a cure for Arthritis- something a lot of people have and I will soon be included if I am not already (thank you track and field, ballet, volleyball and especially… rugby). Here is the link to donate (no pressure): http://NorthPoleJingleBellRun.kintera.org/vej1689

 Yup that's me. I finished. I felt ill. But I still managed to make a stranger take my picture.

 The drive home (my tent)- mind you it is about 12:45.

 What a beautiful night to celebrate the solstice!

Ummm otherwise that is all I really got. I got to have Wendy’s and go to Walmart so I was pretty stoked about all that. Not that I like Walmart but it reminds me of Winona… weird I know. Well now that it is past my bed time since it took like 2 hours to upload all this... I will leave you with... BUSH PLANES!

 Moon Lake SP- some planes landed. SO COOL!

 Bush pilots are some of the coolest and craziest people I have ever met. They have huge cahonas.

Don't Blink...

Because you may just miss the interesting town of Chicken, AK if you do.

 Yup. That is the whole town. Told you not to blink.

So today I decided to drive up to Chicken, AK along the Taylor Highway, which is also known as the Top of the World Highway.  I also checked out Mt. Fairplay where I plan to hike in the next few weeks!

 Mt. Fairplay at her finest.

Chicken is pretty cool… it is a little odd and they really love their name but otherwise yeah, its cool. It is super small but this weekend it was booming because Chickenstock 2011 starts tonight. “Music on top of the world!” they boast and have all kinds of Alaska bands at the party. I was going to go but decided just to check the town out and call it a day. Basically it is eccentric.

 Click on it to make it bigger. The door labels are funny. Also as I was taking this someone came out of the ladies room. Oops.

 Everyone has a big metal chicken in their town... duh.

 It started as a camp in the Gold Rush!! The equipment is still there and gold is still found sometimes!

Last year Taylor Highway and the Chicken Bridge which runs over Chicken Creek got washed out because it was a really wet summer… and heck you can tell on that road. They boast about being paved and all that but it is still Alaska and paved roads mean nothing. My Dad will totally disagree about this but I kind of like driving on these roads, it keeps me on my toes and I think this was the reason basically that trucks where made… this is what they live for. My favorite part is when they don’t mark road damage and you are going about 70mph and have to make a split decision on what to do…

This brings me to a list I compiled while driving. The 7 reasons I hate RV’s/Campers. If you have one and I “offend” you I am sorry… kind of… but at the same time I speak the truth and you might be a culprit of this but people have never been ballsy enough to tell you- so in all reality you should be thanking me to opening your eyes to the world. So here it is:

The 7 Reasons (no specific order) that I hate Campers/RV’s

1.     They cannot seem to stay in their lane while driving- straight aways, bridges, turns… everything. I am sorry but me vs. you is going to be a fail on my part and if you can’t turn that partial semi of yours maybe you shouldn’t have one.

2.     They NEVER go the speed limit. At least 10 under. All the time. I am going to KILL you if you don’t go the speed limit. It isn’t like that huge ass thing has a Prius engine in it… so get trucking and at least do 5 under so I don’t have a coronary while driving. And for that matter they make passing virtually impossible… move over so I can pass you. It is illegal in AK to cause a 5-car traffic jam (no joke)… MOVE OVER.

3.     They throw up rocks. Okay they may not realize this. When they are towing whatever behind them, normally a car, they put a guard on their RV so that they don’t throw up rocks to hit their OWN vehicle and break its windshield, but they never realize that while the vehicle is bouncing around all over the place I am behind them suffering the asteroid game that we are playing. Move further back you say? I tested this theory… the rocks bounce for almost a mile behind that damn car. Also on this note if I pulled in front of them and attempted to throw rocks up, just to show ‘em how it feels, it wouldn’t do squat- their windshields are too high to get broken.

4.     They camp. Pardon the French but bullllllllshit. Just because you park in a campground does not mean you are camping so do not refer to what you do as camping. You are in a hard sided vehicle, with heat, air conditioning, a tv, a microwave and a couch. You are not camping. If a bear comes you simply close your door. If you don’t want to cook on the fire you simply nuke some food in the microwave. You have never froze your butt off in a camper in the middle of a monsoon or had a windstorm collapse your RV on top of you. So do not tell me how you are camping.

5.     Shut your effing generator off. I can hear it… so can the rest of the world that is not inside your RV with you. I would like to sleep to the hum of nature rather to the hum of your energy sucker.

6.     They complain the MOST about road conditions and gas prices. Road conditions… well yeah if I dragged my entire house across the last 50 miles of the AlCan Highway my pots and pans would fall out of the cupboard too and shatter everywhere. But I thought maybe that would be a bad idea. And yeah gas is expensive when you drive something that could fit the entire offensive team of the Green Bay Packers for the two of you and the dog (who does not normally pool his money in for gas may I add). 

7. Now let's discuss global warming. Now look at an RV. That is all, no more needs to be said.

First Interp Presentation

So TNWR has two campgrounds that are on our property and we have the pleasure of running them (very untypical of any refuge to have campgrounds). At Deadman Lake Campground we host interp talks every night during the week, starting this week. So my chosen day is Wednesday’s and I get to go talk to people for about 2 hours- give or take a bit.

 Deadman Lake

My talk this week was originally going to be on Map & Compass Skills since no one knows how to use a compass anymore thanks to GPS and even less know how to use a topographic map… and in Alaska your GPS is bound to fail- this attributes to a large amount of hiking/mountaineering search and rescues!

But I decided against it and took the easy route for the first week and showed off my new Phenology Research Skills.

What is Phenology you may ask? Well good question. Here is the short and simple of it: study of the way nature changes over the years and what attributes to those changes. Well at least that’s the definition that makes sense to me. Basically the refuge entered into NPN (National Phenology Network). Phenology is one of those things that you basically volunteer to do and in the interior of Alaska summer is normally spent getting ready to survive the winter therefore not too many people want to participate. So they left it up to us! We have set up a handful of plots along the Alaska Highway and are keeping notes on these plots. This is a brain child of one of our biologists and as Pletta would say it I am the brainchild’s nanny basically. I am in charge of the plots at Highway Lake and the Visitors Center as well as keeping an eye on the plots at Deadman Lake Campground (the camp hosts are doing the research right now). We have pollinator plots, tree plots and plant plots and I get to watch em’ all! Basically every other day I need to go outside for 15 minutes and watch the pollinator plot and note a bunch of different things- i.e. flowering, bees, butterflies and all that jazz. The trees I need to note the phases the tree is going through, and what songbirds and mammals I see around the tree. The plant plots I note the variation in the plants once again. We have specific species we are looking for with songbirds, butterflies, dragonflies and all those guys- therefore I am relearning biology (“I am a geologist, I just scrape the biology off the geology normally and don’t look at it”). So its been interesting. It is a lot to take in and we just started this project this week, this year. So I am kind of a pioneer! COOL!

 Pheno Plot

 Pollinator Garden

So why do we do it? Well basically it is to try to check on this whole global warming hubbub. These changes, when recorded over years and years are compiled in a huge database with NPN and looked at in small and large scale. This is the kind of science that I wont see and probably my kids wont even see the result of. You know… the best kind of science.

One way you might have heard of it is if the name Aldo Leopald rings a bell- author of Sand County Almanac which is actually phenology at its finest! If you are from WI and especially the Madison/Dells/Baraboo area and have not heard of Mr. Leopald you should be seriously ashamed of yourself. Basically this guy did phenology for years in Sauk County.

The cool thing about phenology and the thing I stress is that everyone can do it. Anyone who ever realized when they were done with college and they studied the wrong thing and really secretly wished they wanted to be a scientist (we are the coolest people actually) can be a phenologist! All you need is a notebook and a pencil. Maybe some binoculars. Write down big picture changes- first snowfall, leaves changing, first flowers blooming… keep track of that! And if you want to get into detail- go for it man- the world is your oyster! This information is held pretty highly by federal, state and even county agencies since phenology is currently the hottest scientific trend.  

And some flowers!

 Arctic Rose

 Labrador Tea

 Arctic Rose

 Something puffy

Blueberry?? (or is it cranberry?? i think its blueberry.)

Anchorage and Kennicott (fail)

So the plan this weekend was Anchorage and then Kennicott on the way back. Plan failed.

I drove to Anchorage on Friday, which is a beautiful but LONG drive. On my way there I hit some road construction and found out two things- their construction crews here are all very attractive, men and women and people must get paid really well to water gravel because that is all they were doing. Needless to say I got into Anchorage and had a reality check… I haven’t been in a town of more than 100 people in almost a month. Holy. Crap. One way streets, traffic lights, taxis… I was so overwhelmed and quickly asked myself why I drove all the way here for this when I could have stayed in the woods. Ben Walker was why. I made really good friends with a Fish and Wildlife Bio Tech student in LaCrosse when I was working for Winona and he was up here for a conference on parasites (riveting!) and I didn’t mind driving to see a familiar face. Accidentally, we got drunk. We decided it was a good idea to try as many of the beers that they made at this one bar as possible and then decided it was an even better idea to go to some of the other bars… we ended up at some weird places with some weird people. The constant daylight tricked us and wouldn’t you know it, it started to get dusk and in my drunk mind I thought that meant it was an okay time… no, idiot, it was 2am. The end of the night included trying to find our way back to his hotel and stopping to take a pee break in the Native Bar. Only white people in there. Cool.

 No matter where you go these days people have to put their names in stuff!! Kind of annoying.

Needless to say I woke up a little late on Saturday morning… as in like 4 hours later than I wanted to. And hung over. I am getting too old to drink- it even hurts my joints now when I get hung over. So I made an attempt to go get gas and find McDonalds breakfast to soak up my internal leftovers. Success and fail. The one way streets tricked me and I gave up on McDonalds… drove my pitiful drive back up north feeling horrible.

Once I finally got towards Chitina I realized that it was late (5:30pm) and for me to get all the way to McCarthy, where the mines are, it was another hour and a half at least. So I bit the bullet and set up camp at Liberty Falls State Park. Cool state park let me tell ya! As I was unloading my stuff some guy literally scared me so good that I pulled my knife out on him (he didn’t notice). It was someone I had talked to earlier in the week at visitors services, he recognized me and I had told him all about the hikes in the area… he couldn’t find the hike here and was wondering if I knew. Something I wish for sometimes is that I was foreign, two reasons, one: no one ever talks to them which is what I would like and two: they get to wear the oddest looking outfits but they always look so comfortable and warm. 

I set up camp and ended up going to be around 8pm. Woke up after sleeping for what felt like forever at 10… am or pm? Good question. I laid there for a while, if it was pm why did I feel so rested? If it was am I am SUPER late for what I was planning on doing. But the sun is out… well it is out for am or pm. I did everything I could to figure out what time it was till I finally dragged my butt out of my tent and hiked back to the car to get my phone. 10pm. Ugh now that my body realized it was actually tired it decided to shut down again and back to the tent I went.

My outdoors skills have proved me well since around 2 or 3am I woke up to a stick breaking… yeah. Something was outside my tent. Luckily I am armed with bear spray and a lot of knives. I didn’t leave any food out so there really was no reason for a bear to be near me… I listened and listened. I could hear a stick break every minute or so and then heard a sound that was slightly familiar. It was a moose. I am 99% sure. He was eating and I heard him knock his rack on the tree… back to bed.

Now I was planning on getting into Kennicott today. It just didn’t happen. The stars weren’t lining up correctly and I had a funny feeling about stuff and decided to drive back home. So I am back in Northway with enough time to do some laundry. Back to work tomorrow.

**ALSO: I drove through my first fire that I can remember. Looks so cool.