Oh. Time.

Well, the best laid plans and all that.

I had such high hopes of competing NaBloPoMo this year, but life seems to be getting in the way again. I'm now away from my stash of Alaska photos after a few hectic days that kept me from posting. 

The biggest thing that has happened is that Darcy turned NINE!! It doesn't really seem like we left Alaska eight years ago, but it was the day after her first birthday that we flew out of King Salmon for life in the desert. She has provided us with adventures ever since. From our months spent living with as the Wright brothers to cross-country drives, from the desert to the red woods, she has adapted to what we've thrown at her and continued to amaze us with new skills and interests.

So...I will continue with the Alaskan tour when I get back home and I might try to post in the mean time, but I've failed in the daily posting goal. 

Alaska: Day 11

Last night, I gave a teaser for today's post: I got to pet a dinosaur! A baby dinosaur!

This is a fossilized dinosaur footprint. It was just being brought into the lab while we were visiting Denali. Because we have great friends, the paleontologist (NOT archaeologist) carrying it stopped to give us a look. It was a three-toed beastie, quite young based on the size. And the coolest thing? You could see skin impressions -- the actual texture of the beastie-skin:

See those ripples in the rock? That's the skin. I got to touch it. Pet it. Like you'd pet a baby dinosaur. Pretty darn cool, right?!

Alaska: Day 10 of NaBloPoMo

It seems like this single-topic NaBloPoMo might be cheating, but life is BUSY this November. I started a new job on Friday, but I'm still dragging from an early-season Crescent City cold, so it's been tough. We're recruiting for my old position, I'm learning my new position...also recruiting for a new VISTA. I have jobs to fill! 

So I'll take my cheat and stick to my topic.

We stopped for part of a day and one very fun night outside/in/near Denali National Park to visit with Jim and Jess, friends from Michael's ELEDP days. Jim made CHIEF while we were there, which was very exciting. Also exciting? Denali's fairly new main visitor center and the nearby Murie education center. 

There was so much art in both places and it was all art to a purpose, there to teach something cool about the park. In this photo, for example, is just one corner of a massive quilt made by a local quilter's guild. It is a map of Denali National Park depicting its different ecosystems. The boarder featured scenes from a variety of those ecosystems and you can see that even the background was treated thoughtfully, with animal tracks quilted onto the white. It was very, very cool and there were a couple other quilts from the same guild in the visitor center as well. (I was only going to do one picture, but it deserves more, so enjoy!)

(Teaser for tomorrow: I got to pet a BABY DINOSAUR at Denali!!)

Alaska: Day 9

We were in Alaska the week after President Obama's visit and the very tail end of the tourist season. The last cruise ship of the year was in harbor while we were in Seward and we got to take the very last of the summer sled dog rides. These pups were resting mid-run because it was "so hot" -- at least 60 degrees! They were amazing pups. They'd all drift a little during the rests and the musher would practically whisper, "Tighten up," and they'd all hustle back into a straight line, ready to run again.

Got a picture during the rest -- otherwise, it was too bouncy! Those dogs were FAST despite carrying a dozen passengers on a "sled" that weighed 800 pounds empty.

At the end, we got puppies! This is a training center for Itidarod winners and these pups have serious bloodlines attached to their names. There was much snuggling of puppies:

Alaska: Day 8 Friends Past and Present

Next stop was Seward! I had never been to Seward before and good friends of ours from Katmai are now at Kenai Fjords National Park, so we were excited to get there. We headed straight for the Alaska Sea Life Center for some closeups with the sea creatures. 

I love myself a good octopus and this one was showing off! Darcy got a cameo with it, too. 

The highlight, though, was meeting up with our good friends Sharon and Bryce and their daughter, who was born just two months after Darcy and slept in the same bassinet we'd bought used in Anchorage and passed along when we headed home to King Salmon. They were each other's first playmates, as seen in the very last photo. 

 It was very sweet to see how well they got along now that they were reunited after almost eight years. There will be more evidence of that tomorrow.

Alaska: Day 7

Well, I thought I was going to get us out of Bristol Bay with this post, but then I realized I didn't actually show Bristol Bay! And we did make a special trip to Naknek just so we could show Darcy. First, though: this is the bulletin board in the multi-agency visitor center next door to the King Salmon airport. The little piece of paper in the corner is four haiku I sent with a Christmas card our second Christmas out of Alaska. The photo at the bottom is of Darcy Jo from the same year. She is CRAZY-LOVED in her first home.

And here is Bristol Bay, home of some of the world's largest salmon runs, where peat and tundra fall off the cliff onto the beach. Where set-net rights are emblazoned on small billboards with ramshackle buildings for fish camps. So beautiful.

Alaska: Day 6

It is, of course, really Day 6 of NaBloPoMo, not of our trip to Alaska. So far, all of the photos are of just the first two days. Time moves slowly in Alaska. 

I can't really show pictures of Katmai without showing pictures of at least one bear, so here's your bear. The salmon runs are all dying out and spawned-out salmon are just hanging around in the water waiting to die. They are easy pickings for the fat, happy September bears. If you want to see what I mean by fat, happy September bears, check out Katmai National Park's Facebook "Fat Bear Week". So fat. So happy.

But let's move on, shall we?

Flying back from Brooks Camp, we got a great view of King Salmon before landing on the Naknek River. I couldn't quite get the "supermarket" in the frame, but otherwise, this is pretty much all of downtown King Salmon. We lived in the large building in the top center of the picture, just to the left of the weather dome. Convenient to the airport and downtown!

Alaska: Day 5

So it's my last day as Food Projects Director for the Community Food Council for Del Norte and the Adjacent Tribal Lands. That makes me sad, even though I am truly excited for my new job. Part of my motivation for doing the work at the Food Council is that I understand from lived experience what it's like to live without a real grocery store and have out-of-control food prices eat every pay check. 

We visited both of our "supermarkets" in Bristol Bay and I couldn't resist snapping some of the food prices. This is part of what made us leave Alaska -- we just couldn't afford to eat!

Alaska: Day 4

This might not look all that exciting. But it's for my mom. The light bits floating on top of the water are all pumice -- that is, of course, floating rocks courtesy of the eruption that created the Valley of 10,000 Smokes, the original reason for the creation of Katmai National Park. We have video, too, of Michael and Darcy throwing armloads of pumice into the lake and having them bob back up to the surface. Mom/Kathy/Grandma loves the floating rocks!

Alaska: Day 3

(There may be some time travel involved in the next two posts. I am transitioning from one job to another AND I'm sick, so I'm allowing myself the gift of procrastination of pre-dating posts.)

Katmai Lodge is a true icon of old-fashioned park lodges. There's a big 360-degree fire place with ancient arm chairs around it. Old-school benches and tables in the dining room. And a permanent hot drink corner.

Darcy missed school for this trip, so we signed her up for independent study to avoid having her listed as absent for 10 days right at the beginning of the school year. She was ready to take a break from the rain and we were bear-jammed on the lodge side of the river anyway. Here she is doing her math homework with the Katmai poster behind her and a cup of cocoa in hand. About 15 minutes later, we rushed out to watch a mama and two cubs walking down the beach.

Alaska, Day 2

Day 2: Still flying!

So after four flights to get us from Medford, OR, to King Salmon, AK, we got to sleep one night in King Salmon before taking a float plane to Brooks Camp to see the bears. Darcy got to be co-pilot and had a blast! Rain, which would follow us for most of our trip, didn't stop us from seeing the tundra on the flight. These float planes saw service in World War II, so they don't fly high or fast.

NaBloPoMo

Ah, November. The air gets cooler (and wetter, here). The days get shorter. And National Blog Posting Month once again rears its head. I had only the vaguest thought about doing this because, um, I'm starting a new job on Friday. "But," I thought to myself, "we DID just go to Alaska. If I posted a photo a day with a brief description, it wouldn't be THAT much work."

And then a friend asked me on Facebook and reminded me that I got her involved last year. 

So here I am. And here you are. Let's just do it, shall we?

Picture #1: One very happy Alaskan-born chicklet very, very early in the morning, waiting to board the first of four flights to get us from Medford, OR, to King Salmon, AK, on the first day of our Alaska adventure. As you can see, she is sporting an Alaska shirt for the journey.