Almost missed them

The lights were a dancing again. I checked my app and saw that the auroral oval was right overhead at about 11:30pm. Off we went, and yes, they were out. Driving up the Steese Hwy we could see them right outside the car windows. Trying to get to our spot before they fade away. We had passed up the local viewing spots at the top of a hill. It was fairly busy for a small area plus I wanted to see if I could get reflections by the pond.

The lights are still dancing at this point but, the sky was getting cloudy, and we were driving straight into fog. So, we pull in the pull out and realize the fog is just getting thicker no lights out here. I was amazed what 15 miles makes in weather and clouds. We decide let’s turn around and head back to the place where the locals hang. I’m glad we passed it by the first time because this time we had one pullout all by ourselves.

We shot here for about an hour before I got too cold, and the lights started to fizzle out. The fizzle didn’t fizzle for that long, as I was getting ready to put the camera away. I go and snap a picture right as Roy turned on the car lights. Here is the result of that picture.

There are some disadvantages to shooting in a pullout near the road and I also took a few of those pictures.

There is one picture where Roy flashed headlights.

I enjoyed watching the lights ebb and flow. The clouds wisps in my opinion put some added personality to the lights. Once everything was packed back in the car it was time to head home. We did do a detour because the lights came out again a stop by Creamer’s Field explore Fairbanks said this was a good place for viewing the lights it was. I stayed in the car and just enjoyed the view. It was funny seeing people pulled off the side of the road out of their cars to watch the sky.

Enjoy the slide show of lights.

Clear SKIES

Yes, it did happen. We have had almost two weeks of clouds and rain at night. I was starting to give up hope of seeing the Auroras this trip. I looked at the forecast for possible lights it looked promising. (Just like 5 times before) The next thing was to find out if it was cloudy or not. I found an app for that windy the clouds were not overhead. Time to pack and go outside I look up and see stars and what looks like a small green cloud. I will give you a clue stars don’t shine through clouds. I knew the lights were coming out. We had plans of driving off the base to a spot northeast of town plans changed. The lights were out and did not want to drive for an hour. We went right down the road from the camper and set up the camera. After a few pictures we noticed that a tree was blocking some of the light so, we changed locations.

The next location had an added bonus of a beaver dragging a tree to his lodge. It was cute but made me paranoid of every noise I heard when I was outside. I was imagining that a beaver was right next to me with every sound I heard.

bigger than him

I took a few more pictures here and decided to head back to where it all started for the night. The whole show lasted about two hours and the lights were gone.

Enjoy the slideshow.

Space Force

No, I did not get on base. We did drive over to the base in Clear Alaska. Roy and I tried to talk our way on to the base, the best we could do was take a picture of the sign. The AP at the gate said they have a BX and they only have radar at the base. We did turn around and I did take a photo. Clear did have an airport and a heliport.

the airport Clear AK

This was an area that had a major wildfire move through earlier this summer, although we saw no evidence of the fire.

The locals did mention how a few weeks ago Anderson was full of firefighters and equipment. Speaking of Anderson. The town has seen better days, it was originally used to house civilians who were building the Air Base.

There is also a local campground, great for people who would like to be off the main road. Some sites have electric, they are also very level. The lions club maintains the campground. There is also a shooting range for the town. I have to say this is the first time I’ve seen a 5mph road sign.

At one point there was an annual music festival but unfortunately not anymore.

The whole town does seem to be well kept even though it doesn’t have many people living there. They do have a DMV which is interesting beats the alternative of having to drive into Fairbanks. I did not see a bank though.

The one thing I did see in Anderson that you won’t see in a big city is a guy chasing his cow. Yes, that is what I videotaped. Strange things happen in Alaska. It was comical to watch. I think the cow knew exactly what she was doing.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE

After spending the day south of Nenana, we decided to go out to eat north of town and grab a sunset after 10:30pm. That I have to say was hard for me.

The Monderosa Restaurant we ate at is known for a 1lb burger. That is one thing I have noticed in Alaska they do not skimp on food. I’ve been working on composition and trying to catch the right light so that is what we did on the way home. I love this color purple, I’ve never seen anything like it.

The rest of the week we hung around town and explored the history of Nenana had some great food and met some interesting people. I will share more soon.

The Mountain

I have gotten lucky this trip I consider myself in the 7.5 % because this is the third time, I’ve seen Denali in all its glory. We spent the week in Nenana Alaska and decided to head down to Denali it is only a 61-mile trip. Hell, in 5 weeks on the Kenai we put 2,500 miles on the car. I’m not sure how many of you have watch the movie or read the book ‘Into the Wild’ Here is a background article of Chris McCandles who inspired ‘Into the Wild’ I go down this rabbit hole, because I wanted to visit the replica of his magic bus. We did just that when we ate at the ‘49th State Brewing Company‘ in Healy.

Roy and I decided let’s get the scooter and chair out to go eat. That was a great plan until we get inside the restaurant. The bar area has booths and high-top tables (not that handicap friendly). The other area of the restaurant had low tables, but you had to go down a step. I have to give a shout out to the manager and the owner, because they brought a low table into the bar area so we could sit and eat. The manager came over and apologized for the oversight and that they might try and figure out how to keep on low table over in the area. I had a soda flight and Roy had a beer flight. He also had some smoky popcorn used to clear the palette. I tried one; smoky does equal hot here. I kept my mouth shut until Roy asked how I liked the popcorn. I liked the root beer and the spruce tip soda, the cola was ok, and the fourth flavor was not memorable at all.

After lunch we head to Denali there were no clouds in the area, so I knew there was another chance to see the mountain in its glory. We drove until the visitor center where I got back in my chair and decided to explore the visitor center campus like never before.

In that way I am loving my chair. I had never thought about exploring museums or visitor centers before I actually was able to travel on some of the trails.

After zooming around the campus, I got back in the car, and we drove as far as we could which was mile 15 on the Denali Highway. We decided not to take a bus further into the park because of the landslide that occurred at mile 46.

We did not see any animals on this trip into the park. We did, however, see the mountain clear as day again. The other thing that was intriguing was the snow level and how it just stopped.

One of the close mountains had a fresh light layer of snow. This is as close as I would like to get this year to any snow. I love seeing it from the distance.

After a full day of sightseeing, we headed back to Nenana. My aurora app said that there was a chance for sightings that night. So, the skies were clear, it wasn’t that cold, and we found a good spot. All that was needed was some lights.

I did get some pictures of the barge that was right in front of the car. After a lit bit we decided maybe a change of scenery was needed. I also was getting cold. Back inside the car we head up the road to a wayside with a different view.

The new view was more profitable in the fact that the auroras had appeared. These were the first we had seen this trip. They were fleeting and very short. The most interesting thing was seeing the lights at twilight. I am hoping to see more of the lights this year but, the clouds are hanging around. This is not good. Here are three photos of the lights from that night.

Something Fishy

Salmon that is. We had an opportunity to watch the fleet of small boats go out and catch salmon then bring it back to the dock and dump the catch. This happened over many days while we were in Ninilchik. This is an advantage to staying in one place for an extended amount of time. When you find something interesting you can continue to return to the scene and watch it develop.

When we first came upon the harbor at Ninilchik there were just a few boats, so our thought was nice local harbor. When the fleet was all in the boats were lined up three or four deep on both sides of the dock.

I would really hate to be the boat that was first in and set up against the dock. First in last out is the case here. Someone let us know that this was an actual working fishing harbor. So of course, we had to check back often to see if there was something going on.

The type of fishing vessels are gillnetters, and the process of fishing is called gillnetting. We were also lucky to see one of the boats get ready to go out and fish. It seems that the salmon are kept on ice for the whole process from being caught to being delivered to the store. We watched one boat being loaded with ice and found out that all but one fish hold is filled with ice. The empty fish hold is where the first part of the catch goes, the deckhands then pull the ice from the other holds to cover the catch. The video below was taken right after they had spilled a whole tub of ice.

making it level

Once the fleet comes back in the fish are pulled up from the holds and poured out on a metal table. The first load of fish harvesting for lack of a better description the workers did very little sorting as compared to the second time we went out to watch them. The two crews accomplished the same tasks but approached them differently.

I do know one of the boats we watched had three full bags of fish. It was fascinating to watch the whole process from lifting the catch out of the hold to watching it go in the crates to head to market.

Crew number one all guys in my opinion they just wanted to get it done

The second crew was all business

I was also surprised how quickly the crews were able to clear the fish and go home. There have been about 161 million salmon taken by commercial fisheries this year so far. This fishery was just a small part of that catch.

I put a page together with the videos I took of the fish sorting and some other things you might enjoy. Fishy Videos Also Enjoy the slide show I found the balding guy in the orange to be quite the fish tosser.

The Transportation and Industry Slide Show

Stepping back into the past.

I have to say some of the displays to me did not seem that far in the past. For example, a telephone booth with a telephone. (More on that later). We drove 67 miles back down the Parks Highway to visit the ‘Alaska Museum of Transportation and Industry’ on 15 acres in Wasilla AK. I’ve also have become addicted to the non starbucks espresso drive-thru coffee places, so we also had to make a 5-mile detour to get me a coffee.

I need to start trusting Roy more when he says I’ll enjoy something. I did enjoy and I only got slightly stuck once with the chair. This place has everything old and in my opinion things that are not so old even though they say they are.

Here is an example of what I am talking about.

So, after we get the scooter and wheelchair out of the car, we were off to the races. The cashier who took the $10 admission (because Thursday is only $5 a person) was helpful in directing us to the inside museum and the path we needed to take to get outside to the trains and zillion other old things. Inside we found quite the history from the first glider to leave the summit of Denali, to the car that President Harding road in. Also, some not so old things. Yes, I know some of the things from the 70s, 80s, and 90s are SOOO last century.

The indoor museum is an open floor plan with a few dividers set up to break up the room into certain sections. If you look in the upper left-hand corner of the picture that is the glider I mentioned earlier. Those pictures below the glider are pictures taken from different viewpoint

Roy is hiding a couple old snow mobiles, behind Roy is one of the first snow chains for driving in the snow over mountain passes. It is actually a tire that you had to put on.
The sled pictured with the dog on it was donated by the Seavey dog teams who won numerous Iditarod races.

There was also an area devoted to old cars, but the cars were all models in glass display cases. we are working our way around the room to the not so old history. First, we encounter an old teletype which Roy used a similar one in the service.

I had a few minutes of seeing pride and astonishment on Roy’s face and in his voice when he was describing the Linotype Machine. I was amazed to learn how this one machine made the printing process easier. It would take what was done one letter at a time and be able to put together a whole line of text. I am way oversimplifying this. If you are interested ask Roy I’m sure he would love to explain. The fascination was the material used to make the text was one string of lead. When finished the lead would get melted down again and reused. He actually got to do a field trip where he could make his own name with the lead and see how it worked..

Now to something that is not old it may not be around anymore, if you can find one it probably takes dollar bills instead of a quarter like this one. The thing that made me go wow that was a long time ago. They had a sign that read: ‘Before cell phones people had to carry change to put into the phone so they could call someone. ‘ I’m like there are kids out there who will never know the joy of having to do this. I can see where it would be strange to them.

There was also a bank of wall phones through the years and even a display case of princess phones. It was an interesting trip down memory lane.

The whole thing gave me the back in the day we had milk delivered in glass bottles and had to rinse out and return the empties. I never experienced that and thought geez your old. So, I guess if a kid never had to make a call from a payphone, he would think I’m old. Just a funny thought I am not having an age crisis. It is amazing when you realize OMG, I’ve become my parents’ age when I was a kid. The cool thing was it was handicap accessible, and I tried to call someone but had no change in my pocket. Roy gave me the quarter and then I got put on hold.

Stepping, ok I mean rolling outside was not bad. We listen to the girl inside who said go to the left and you have one big loop around the property and can get in the train easily. (She was so on base). I have also learned to follow in Roy’s tire tracks, it works most of the time.

Inside the train from the Alaska Railroad, there were early track, switches, old time pictures of the early railroad and how and why the railroad was built. Interesting reading and well worth the effort up the ramp. We did not attempt to head into the caboose as it was very narrow and I’m not fond of tight spaces, plus it was dark. Back out the way we came and on to some very well maintained hard packed gravel.

Outside there was a car from the Department of the Interior it had to do with mines. Along that line there was a small train that was used in the mining and had ore cars that had different uses. At the end of this area there was a mammoth piece of crane on wheels to be used on the tracks.

Also, outside was every year and type of tractor a person could imagine. A hand made plane to land on ice, old fire trucks and ambulances. The first Chevy Suburban to make it to the north slope all the way to Prudhoe Bay Alaska. We made it to the end of the path but couldn’t get back in the door on the right side of the building. So, what to do we went back the way we came and prayed the rain held off. I did stop and take a picture of a random mushroom, and you will find that in the slide show. It did until we made it all snug in the car.

the slide show and mushroom is coming.

I enjoyed stepping back in the past with Roy.

Have you ever wondered….

what you would do if you lost your phone down a vault toilet. I did not neither did Roy. We did watch the retrieval process. It involved Duct tape. More on that later.

In the big cities of Alaska and the lower 48 there is a place called Wal-Mart. Trapper Creek Alaska has Wal-Mike’s an emporium of strange things for lack of a better description. Someone told me yesterday to not buy the Pepto Bismol it expired in 1986. Everything there was for sale. I think he would have sold his wife given half a chance. It was warm in the sun, so we didn’t stay long. Just long enough for me to take some photos. On the way out the driveway we spotted an old truck that was now home to some weeds and trees. So, I had to snap a photo or two that I will turn into black and white as that is what old truck pictures should be. It was a mostly clear sky, so we headed up to Denali.

Of course, you know we never take the direct path to anywhere. The detour involved the Mt McKinley Princess Wilderness lodge. The property was at the top of a winding road with great views. It looked like a planned senior community.

You’ve heard the saying about the weather around Denali wait five minutes and it will change. It sure did socked right in. The clouds were not moving. This all occurred during the 30-minute drive up to the viewpoint along with our side trip. Well, I wasn’t going to waste a trip to explore the Denali south viewpoint. We got my chair out I put on my hat and off I went. It was cloudy and even dark over the mountain, so I snapped a few pictures of the river below and set off on a mission.

There is a gravel trail that goes up to a higher viewpoint (I think).

I did not make it to the top because higher up the path there was pea gravel that my chair hates. So, I had to settle for the first plateau that had a bench and a large rock. I stayed there for a while just thinking that wasn’t half bad taking the chair up a gravel curvy incline. It has taken all summer but, I can handle almost anything in it. I start my way down and realize that there is a hump in the middle of the path and if you get to the outside edge of the path the wheelchair kept wanting to head for the ditch. I experienced this firsthand as I moved over to let a group pass me. That was not one of my better thoughts. The quick thinking of that group saved me from falling off the cliff. I was able to get angled back to semi solid ground and finish heading down the hill. I have to say going downhill is a little harder than going uphill.

smile

Back at the overlook I was still waiting for Denali to show and that was a no go. I asked someone to take my picture and then decided to head back to the car. This is where the duct tape comes in.

Over my shoulder I hear do you work here, you’re in a white truck. The two people did not but they asked what do you need. The daughter of the guy asking for help did it. She dropped her phone in no man’s land. Of course, we had to stay around and watch.

Truck guy said he had Duct tape and that they could wrap it around something lower that down and grab the phone. So, we watched as they wrapped the tape around a stick and disappeared into the bathroom only to return and get a larger stick prepared the same way. That did not work. Someone then brought a small empty box into the picture. I’m wondering what they were attempting. They decided to tape the box to the bottom of the stick that could reach the phone and scoop it into the box. Success! I will let you know that they did not want to try and use it they just need to get the sims card out of it.

I would have to say just leave it be. I will bet that the girl who dropped it will not bring her phone with her to the bathroom for a very long time.

Another Episode of …..

People you meet. I have been craving WISCONSIN cheese curds for a few months who would have thunk I would have to come to Alaska to get some. You know with me there is always a back story to how I get the things I get. Here it is.

Having the chair, I was able to run rampant, at the air show. (I see new wheels in my future.) I’m headed down the flight line and I see a booth selling real Wisconsin Cheese curds. (You can find them on Facebook.) I’m from there so I had to investigate. Danielle was cute and very helpful. I asked were they for real and why here in Alaska. She explained that her SO had moved up to Sterling Alaska and she followed with cheese curds in tow. I guess there was no good cheese in Alaska. That is how it started and now they do local events and serve deep fried cheese curds. I put on my sad face because deep fried cheese curds are not the same. Danielle said that they only bring frozen cheese curds to big events for sale purposes, they do have fresh curds at the Soldotna Wednesday markets. So, I get all sad and say that’s ok. After some more banter about cheese curds. I was able to get a little more than a pound of frozen cheese curds. They have thawed and I am now squeaking to my heart’s content

CHEESE

Today started with Roy and I meeting one of the campers in the park we are staying at (Three Bears, Trapper Creek AK). Roy had helped them when they had checked in with some questions about the area. We got to talking and gave them some ideas on what to do in Fairbanks because that is the next place they will be. The woman kept calling us her ‘Angels of Life’.

Being a chair user and having MS you just know things. That is what happened today. We stopped at Alaska Birch Syrup and Wild Harvest Products on are way to Talkeetna. The shop is cute with lots of free samples. I’m in the store and I look over and see a woman with a walker, (she has that MS stance). I didn’t want to go up to her and ask how long she has had MS because that is strange. Long story short. We did start talking and I said something like I’m not drunk it’s MS. She goes I have MS very small world. We traded the dates of our diagnosis and how we were getting along. It was something I think I needed today to help me realize I’m not the only one. They leave and I make my purchases and leave. So off to Talkeetna we head. The town has a cat for the mayor, so it has to be cool.

We find a parking spot (which was hard to find), I see that there are ramps into some of the stores. I have been so good this trip about shopping. I fell off the wagon I had to go shopping. So back in the chair, paved bike/people lane and I was good to go. Driving up and down the street who do I see, but my MS buddy. So, we chatted some more and enjoyed each other company. She also has just started using a chair and agrees with me it is bittersweet. You get a little more freedom to go more places, but it is with the need of some motorized device. You lose some freedom to do it yourself.

Today was also a day of just talking to people. (I knew I should have written his name down) At the end of the street there are tents set up flea market style, I see a photography tent. I make an effort to talk to photographers who sell their work, either to get some pointers or let them know I enjoy their work. We sat and talked about why photos sell, what photo sells. Inspiration. I was able to share one of my baby birds phots from Ninilchik. That is when he brought up getting a little burned out because he seems to sell the same photos over and over. So, he had been itching for photo field trip. Although, he said he doesn’t like to shoot in the summer. He just does not like the colors plus he sells his works to tourists. He did say he might have to go down and see for himself. He thanked me for stopping in and talking to him, this made part of my day.

Just on a side note those ramps that looked handicap accessible were not all that accessible. I will give them an E for effort. I do have to say the one store I stopped at that had a ramp but had a lip my chair would not get over to get in the store the owner was very helpful in bringing the things to me.

Every once in a while, you have to take the day and just meet people. Slow down and reflect. See how they touch you and how you touch them.