Alaska! The Adventure Begins

We took our time getting going Thursday morning. We had all day to get up to Healy, AK since we didn't have anywhere to be until 10AM on Friday. We joined our fellow EIS Officers in the hotel hospitality suite for breakfast, said our goodbyes, and headed to the airport to pick up our rental car. We had reserved a compact car after much discussion about the need for 4-wheel drive. Several people assured us that the roads were clear and we would not have any problems in a compact car. I should perhaps specify that I'm sure they were referring to snow related problems.

We left the airport around 10:30 started our leisurely drive to Healy. We decided we would take a detour through Talkeetna, which is the jumping off point for mountaineers headed to climb Mt. McKinley. Once we arrived in Talkeetna, we walked around for a bit. It didn't take us very long to cover the entire town, and that included stopping in the one gift shop that was open in the off season. We decided we would hang out at the Denali Brewing Company for a bit. Our original plan was to have lunch there but we left Anchorage so late that we had been snacking and had spoiled our appetites. We opted for cups of seafood chowder (yum!) and Christina helped me work through a tasting flight of their different beers (also yum!).

Christina with the flight.

My turn!

From Talkeetna, we headed back out to Highway 3 and up towards Denali State Park. We were actually able to spot one of the viewpoints as we drove through the park and pulled over to check it out.

It was exactly open to cars yet, so we left ours on the side of the road and headed in on foot.

The snow was really deep. If we strayed from the trampled part too much, we found ourselves up to our knees in snow.

After gingerly making our way to the look out point, we were greeted by a spectacular view.

Mt. McKinley (I'm sure this time).

Christina, Me, and Meagan

Christina

Me

Shortly after leaving the look out point, we encountered this igloo. It would have been way cooler if it had been made out of ice, but I suppose it would be hard to be a tourist site during the summer if it were...

Christina, Meagan, and Me

We arrived at our hotel (Motel Nord Haven) in Healy around 8PM. While checking in, we asked a couple of questions. Where to get dinner - not surprisingly, the options were sparse. The food options were limited to two places, the Rose's Cafe (diner food) and the The Totem Inn (diner food, plus pizza and bar). Meagan and I were pretty hungry and we opted for pizza. It was really good. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly exceeded whatever it was. Christina was tired and opted to nap at the hotel while we ate.

We also asked about the Northern Lights. Prior to arriving in Alaska, we had heard that they were cyclical (22 years) and that we are currently in the bottom of the cycle. Translation - don't get your hopes up. One of our classmates had also told us that he and his girlfriend had gone up to Fairbanks for a long weekend solely to see the Northern Lights and didn't see a thing. I think we were fairly resigned to not seeing them but up for giving it a go none the less. We were slightly encouraged by the response we got from the hotel attendant. She at least gave the impression that seeing them was no big deal, it was a clear night, so why wouldn't we see them. She told us to drive about 5 miles north of town to get away from the lights around midnight, so that's what we did. Shortly after getting the car, we were sure we saw a glow in the sky. We couldn't quite convince ourselves that we were actually seeing them until we were a few miles outside of town and the green ribbon in the sky was clearly visible. We pulled off to the side of the road when we hit the 5 mile mark outside of town and started taking pictures. It took a bit of experimenting, but we finally realized that our best option was to set the exposure time to the maximum the camera would let us. Picasa helped me enhance the photos a bit since they were still a bit dark even after a 15 second exposure. I was very happy I had my tripod. After our light show, we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep. The real fun was about to begin.

Alaska! The "Work" Part

I was hoping to get this all into one post, but I can't seem to upload any more video files, and well, I want to. I guess I will have to do this in a few different posts.

Anyways, you can only imagine my excitement when I learned I was going to get to go to Anchorage, AK for my Regional EIS Conference. The other options were Denver - I could have made a ski weekend of it; Hershey - I could have headed into NYC to see friends for the weekend, and Indianapolis - I can't think of any pluses. Since I had never been to AK before, I feel like I got really lucky. After learning of my destination, the hard part became deciding what to do after the work part was over, but I'll come back to that in a later post.

I flew up via Seattle on Monday, March 29. I took the earliest flight I could so that I could get in and get settled, leaving the rest of the day for a bit of exploring. It was cloudy for most of the flight up and I didn't have a window sea,t but what I did see out of the window was pretty spectacular as we were approaching Anchorage. There was a brief moment of clear skies and I could see mountain peaks below me. The snow was so deep that the whole scene looked like meringue. Once we landed in Anchorage and I emerged from the gangway, I was greeted by huge windows filled with the views of the surrounding mountains. It was quite spectacular. I grabbed my luggage (had to check a bag since I had to bring a suit) and a cab and headed to the hotel.

View from the taxi on the way to the hotel.

I was the first one to arrive, which was good. It gave me time to iron my suit, check e-mail, and run through my presentation a couple of times. By the time I was finishing up with all of that stuff I got a text from my friend Christina saying she, Meagan, and James had arrived at the airport and would be looking to grab lunch once they got to the airport. Yay - company and food!

James, Meagan, and Christina enjoying fresh Alaskan oysters on the half shell. Meagan had never had one before. I believe her verdict, at least for this one, was it tastes like cocktail sauce.

After lunch, we took a stroll through downtown Anchorage and came across a souvenir store selling mostly fur items. Christina and Meagan purchased a few post cards, but the real entertainment came from exploring the fur items.

Beaver head - yick!

James looking aristocratic in a sheep skin.

Meagan sporting a nose warmer and breaking the rules in the process. Apparently I was as well, since we were told that we should not be taking photos or trying on the nose warmers shortly after taking this photo. Sadly, this request came before we discovered the fur bra and thong set and fur jock strap. If only we would have found them sooner...

Our first encounter with a Mexican restaurant in AK. It seemed somewhat out of place. Little did we know there would be Thai restaurants on nearly every corner and all of the cab drivers seem to have immigrated from countries with tropical climates. We were all curious as to what brought them from their steamy climates to Alaska, of all places. I was curious enough that I asked my cab driver from the airport what brought him to AK after he mentioned he had been in AK for 31 years. He told me it was God's will. Not quite the answer I was hoping for.

We noticed this little thingy and extended our walk a bit just to get a better picture of it. We all thought it was chicken, but now that I am looking at this photo a bit closer I'm not really sure what it is.

Taking in the views from the hotel post walk.

James, Christina, and Meagan

Sleeping Lady on a cloudy day

Sleeping Lady on a clear day

This might be Mt. McKinley. My understanding is that it is visible from Anchorage on a clear day and was in the general direction that I took this photo. I've been wrong on this before though...

Eva, Me, Meagan, Christina, James, Willy, and James heading to lunch during our break from giving presentations. We, of course, dined on Thai food. Christina gave it a thumbs up given we were in Anchorage.

After a long day of giving and listening to presentations, we headed to a seafood restaurant for dinner. I was having trouble deciding if I would get salmon, halibut, scallops, or crab for dinner, but once I saw the menu my troubles were over. I was able to dine on smoked salmon wrapped scallops and Dungeness crab stuffed halibut - it was so yummy!

After dinner there were a couple of activities to partake of. One group went out to a bar, and based on the photos I've seen from that group it looks like it was a fun evening. What evening that ends with an EIS Officer hanging upside down out of tree isn't fun, right? I opted for the sledding option. Willy's family lives in Anchorage, so we had access to sleds if we could get to them. Luckily Betsy, the statistician for the EIS Field Assignments Branch that we are all a part of, was interested in joining us. That gave us access to the car our supervisors had rented. It was pretty funny watching her ask Diana, one of our supervisors, to use the car to take us sledding. It was very much like watching a kid ask their mom to borrow the car. Once we got to the car, we decided that perhaps Willy should drive since he knows the area. An entire conversation ensued debating whether or not he could actually drive the car since it was a rental and he wasn't a listed driver. In the end, we decided he should still drive. The next morning, Diana informed Betsy that any federal employee can drive government rental cars. Apparently, Betsy had pocket dialed Diana right at the moment we were having that conversation - the timing! We got a good laugh out it.

We made the rounds to Willy's sister's and mom's places to pick up the sleds. Three of them fit nicely in the trunk of the car but one was a bit too big. We made it fit, although it did mean driving around Anchorage with the window down.

Betsy, Me, Christina, Meagan and the sled

Willy took us to a "not dangerous" sledding hill. I thought it was a pretty good hill, maybe not as steep as the one I used to go down as a kid, but we had enough near missess with the trees at the bottom to get my adrenaline going.

The sledders - Meagan, Betsy, Willy, Christina, and Me

An early run

Me testing out the depth of the snow. Knee-deep was the verdict.

Our final, and fastest, run. We nearly hit the tree at the bottom, but Willy was able to stop us just inches from the hay bale that would have supposedly kept us from being injured.

Our second work day was filled with presentation critiques. It was less painful than I thought it would be, and this is coming from someone who had to make fairly substantial changes. We went out for pizza for dinner and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for our real Alaskan adventure. More on that soon!

Cross country road trip again! - Ottawa, IL to Point Richmond, CA (Days 5-8)

This post is a bit tardy but things have been hectic over the last several days. Michelle and I departed Ottawa en route to my friend Cyndi's place in Wahoo, NE. I was so excited that my route was taking me past her because it's been a long time since we've seen each other. The drive was pretty but fairly monotonous - lots of corn. We did give a cheer when we crossed the Mississippi River from Illinois into Iowa. Crossing into new states always made us feel like we were accomplishing something and crossing the Mississippi gave it a little something extra - we were entering the "West." I use quotes because we were still only about a third of the way across the country at that point so while we wanted to be west, it didn't feel very west.

A token corn photo from Michelle

Michelle and I had a blast in Wahoo with Cyndi and Chad. We went to the local VFW for pre-dinner beers. It was within walking distance of their place and Gus was able to come with us as well. We partook of a local brew called a red beer, a.k.a. Bud Light with tomato juice and a couple of green olives. I thought it was pretty good, certainly better than a plain Bud Light.

Cyndi, me, and Michelle with our red beers

For those of you thinking, Wahoo, NE, why have I heard of that before - here's why. It the "Home Office" of the Late Show with David Letterman. We swung by the official sign on our way back to Cyndi and Chad's.

Michelle and I

Cyndi, Gus, and Chad

Cyndi and Chad grilled us an awesome dinner that evening, complete with fresh Nebraska corn - yummy! We capped off the evening with chocolate banana milkshakes and a game of Cranium. Thanks Cyndi and Chad for such a wonderful time!

Michelle and I departed the next morning after Cyndi and Chad had left work. We said goodbye to Gus and headed out. Although something did catch our eye and made us giggle a bit on the way out the door, and we felt compelled to take a photo.

Nuff' said

Shortly after returning to I-80 (final destination for the evening - my friend and EIS classmate Jeff's in Fort Collins, CO), we encountered two of these "things." We kept running into them at various stops and each time tried to figure out what they were. I think Michelle was the one that finally figured it out - they were wind mill propellers.

In action... Although our discovery did lead to the obvious question of why were their only two of them?

Cool photo of clouds over Nebraska that Michelle took

A storm we saw from a distance. We got a bit of rain along the way but nothing as bad as this photo suggests.

Finally in WY - the sign upon entering said "Forever West" - so whatever doubts about being west we may have had when we crossed the Mississippi were surely gone at this point. The scenery was starting to change a bit from the corn fields we had grown accustomed.

Our slight detour south to my friend's in Fort Collins, CO gave us our first glimpse of the Rockies.

We arrived at Jeff's at 6PM, just in time to head to a Mexican place for dinner, where we would also be meeting up with another one of my classmates, Katherine, and her husband Marcus and daughter Natasha. Dinner was yummy, the margaritas were strong, and it was great to see everyone again (even though it really hadn't been that long since we had been together in the hotel in Atlanta). After dinner, we went for a walk around Fort Collins. It's a really cute town and bicycle friendly to boot. I liked it there.

We left Fort Collins early the next morning because we knew we had a long day ahead of us (Thanks so much Jeff for being so hospitable!). We had a good portion of the state of Wyoming still left to get through, all of Utah, and we were hoping to get at least half way across Nevada. When we set off, we figured it would be a 10-12 hour day - long but not painfully long.

Wyoming seemed to drag on forever, so when we finally entered Utah we were quite excited. On my last cross country road trip, I spent a lot of time in Southern Utah and was amazed by its beauty. Northern Utah did not disappoint either. There was a bit of the red sand stone that I had seen so much of in Southern Utah, but overall it was amazingly beautiful in a completely different way.

The Great Salt Lake just west of Salt Lake City (thanks again to Michelle for taking so many photos along the way)

Salt Flats

Morton salt factory conveniently located in the salt flats

We were both quite excited when a rest stop was situated at the Bonneville Salt Flats (also home of the "Miracle Mile" were the world land speed record was set - 622.407 mph by Gary Gabelich in 1970 in case you're wondering). This place was awesome (in the true sense of the word as opposed to the surfer dude interpretation that popularized the word).

We made it into Nevada, although later than we had hoped. But with the time change to Pacific time we felt that trying to get to Carlin was still possible. It would push our day to the 14 hour mark, but since we had both had a bit of a chance to doze during the day we felt okay about that. We reached Carlin right at nightfall, and I know I was really happy to be there. My butt was sore from sitting all day long and I didn't exactly want to be driving in the middle of nowhere with few other vehicles on the road and spotty cell phone reception after dark. We made our ritual stop to refuel the truck so we would have a full tank to start with in the morning and headed to the hotel. When I say "the hotel," I don't mean the the hotel we were planning on going to, but rather the ony hotel in all of Carlin. We parked the truck, and I headed in to secure a room while Michelle got stuff out of the back of the truck. Alas, there were no available rooms and the nearest town to the west was an hour away. I managed to make it back to the truck just before Michelle put the lock back on it, so we tossed things back in and headed back out on the highway. The drive from Carlin to Battle Mountain was reassuring and creepy at the same time. Reassuring in the sense that while there wasn't a whole lot of traffic, there was enough that if something had happend to us or our truck it wouldn't have been too long before someone found us, and I think we at least had roaming cell phone service the whole way. The creepiness was due to the fact that if you looked to the left or right off of the highway, there was nothing, no lights, nothing. We made it to Battle Mountain and were lucky enough to get one of the last few rooms. It had been a long day and we were beat.

I headed out to the breakfast area at the hotel before Michelle did the next morning and was amusing myself by the news story being broadcast on the television about a farm that provides water beds for their cows. I was thinking it was some podunk local news station when I realized it was Fox News. Seriously, there's nothing better to report on? I mean they spent at least 5 minutes on this story. As that was wrapping up, I was joined at my table by a 12 year girl named Olivia, although she hated her name and was going by Fu-Li instead. She was really talkative and obviously incredibly intelligent. We were soon joined by her 9 year old sister Mia, who was clearly the more rule oriented of the two since she was quietly admonishing her sister for talking to a stranger. As she continued to make attempts at getting her sister to go back to the hotel room where their father was still sleeping, we were joined by Michelle. All in all, we really enjoyed chatting with the girls - they were also planning to go all the way to the Bay Area that day. We left them to their breakfasts and headed out to resume our driving.

We were expecting about an 8 hour day, which would put us into Point Richmond around 3:30 in the afternoon. We were staying on schedule fairly well until we hit CA. We had to stop at the agriculture inspection station, where we had an orange confiscated from us and shortly thereafter found ourselves in single lane traffic heading through the Sierras. It was slow going. Not only was there a lot of volume, but at best we could only go as fast as the slowest moving semi in front of us heading up to Donner Pass. We took a break from the traffic to grab lunch in Truckee at a coffee shop, but in the end it took us at least two hours just to get through the Sierras. While we were now severly behind schedule, at least the scenery was nice. I did a quick look for branches of my bank in Sacramento since I still needed to get a check for my security deposit before picking up my keys that evening, and we were now in jeopardy of not making it to Point Richmond before 5PM. Traffic got heavy again around Scramento, but I think detouring to the bank may have helped us out a bit. Once we were back on the road, things were moving fairly smoothly and it was pretty easy the rest of the way. We pulled up to my Realtor's office with only 10 minutes to spare to pick up the keys and then made our way over to my place with the hopes of finding a parking space for the truck near enough that we could haul the mattress in for the night. I had forgotten that my apartment is on a crazy steep hill, so needless to say there was not a good place to park the truck. We ended up parking it about a quarter of a mile away and abandoned the idea of getting the mattresses in that evening. Luckily, our friend Rebecca was able to put up for the night.

The movers came the next morning and did a great job unloading the truck, so now I sit amongst a jungle of boxes to overwhelmed to figure out where to put things. Thankfully, my parents are arriving tomorrow and my mom loves to do that kind of stuff. By the time they leave, I will essentially be settled and can truly begin my life here on the West Coast.