An Island In Alaska

A little while ago, I was asked to post some Alaska related stuff. I'm not from Alaska but I did live there during my four years in high school in Fairbanks and then later after college in Anchorage. So I'm going to post a huge flash-back for me...back to 1995. Scary!

Our family had just moved to Alaska and my brother and I were privileged to be asked to go to a little island community called Kaktovik on Barter Island which is in the Beufort Sea (in the Arctic Ocean) just North of the mainland of Alaska. Here's a map for reference:
The people there are native Inupiat and some of the nicest, gracious people I have met. We were just there for a couple days doing a vacation Bible school with the kids but we had quite the experience.

As we were flying up we saw the Brooks Range and a whole herd of musk ox (from the pilot that's pretty rare to see). Here's the island from the air from our little plane before we descended:
As you can tell...that far North there are no trees. The kids said that the things they liked when they went down to Fairbanks (a huge city to them) were the trees, automatic doors, large stores and Nike (I'm guessing Foot Locker?). I swear walking around, with no trees and just the big sky I could feel the curvature of the earth. It was pretty cool.

They were so friendly. When we landed tons of kids rushed out to meet us on the runway. They pulled up on bikes and everything! It was...I think August and we were freezing. They were wearing T-shirts. But they took us everywhere. We toured the town, the school, drove by a DEW site (I don't think it was an active site), and even got to dip our toes in the Arctic Ocean...it was beyond freezing. I think I saw a tiny iceberg in the distance...not kidding.
We even got to tour around the beach where they dice up the whales they catch. Believe me they use every scrap of meat and it's a big staple of their diet. I believe they are allowed to hunt three whales a year which feeds their entire village. I even remember asking one boy a common question "What do you want to do when you grow up?" And he just looked at me like I was daft and said "Be a whale hunter" like that was the most obvious answer and I should have known that.

Side note: A few months later I actually was able to try a piece of muktuk. It was a square half white half black...blubber and skin. Honestly I think it's an acquired taste.

I found this interesting article you can check out for more whaling info.

Here's my brother and I near some whale bones on the beach:
They have to keep the village pretty far from where they pull in the whale because predators will roam that area. Polar bears are a big deal there and when the kids walk to school there's usually a person on "polar bear" watch with a gun. Scary, huh?

But the trip went well, we had a lot of fun, and we didn't see any polar bears.

Things I remember:

1) No plumbing then (they do now, I believe) so their toilets were called "honey pots". Basically a trash can type of thing with a seat and you bagged it up and put it on the "curb" for pick-up like trash. Weird.

2) They have the most gorgeous school I have ever seen.

3) The kids are learning to speak Inupiaq from their grandparents. There were two girls with the same name so one went by her Inupiaq name. Very cool.

We did ask the kids to put on their winter coats because they were just too cute. What do you think?
Hope you enjoyed the Alaska story!

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Additional links:

Polar Bear in Kaktovik
Kaktovik housing
Kaktovik students

Blast to My Past

My brother recently found some old photos of ours family's and scanned and sent them to me. Ahhh..the good old days.

Here's one of my dad walking down the road near our house. We lived outside city limits so the streets are unpaved.



This is the cute house we lived in while in Alaska. The entire inside was all wood and I loved it. The gazebo outside caused a friend's kid to call it "Amanda's Castle". How cute!

When we moved back to Colorado my mom, brother, and I went on an old family favorite cross-country skiing trip to Mayflower Gulch in Summit County. It's so gorgeous and I recommend it during the winter or summer.

Italian Honeymoon Planning

My husband and I are still enjoying planning our honeymoon for next September. We are going to the Italian Riviera and you can check out my blog post about that. In the meantime, I am going to reminisce about my trip to Italy back in 2003. I think I went in October-ish sometime. I went with a couple people from the University and we went to flew in to Piza (saw the leaning tower), took a train to Rome, and then was in Florence for a night. I would love love love to go to Florence again since I didn't get the chance to see any of the museums, shops, etc. But here's what I did see.

We took a bus in to town and to our lodgings. We stayed at Camping Michelangelo which has an awesome location overlooking the city:

It was a cool little campsite where you could either RV it, camp using your own gear, or use these already set up little blue tents with beds and blankets (no lights though so bring a flashlight!). It was great because there was a general store with tons of wine produced by Camping Michelangelo among others, picninc tables were everyone of all sorts of nationalities hang out at night, chat, talk, and share wine and stories. There is also a washer/dryer (which was great because my clothes got drenched in a downpour in Rome the night before). Here's some more views which capture the Duomo perfectly:

You know you are nearing Camping Michelangelo because of the huge statue of Michelangelo's David by the road:

The real David is in the Accademia Gallery in Florence while a copy of where the original once stood is in the Palazzo Vecchio. The copy was being restored when we scampered by so I don't have a photo.

Being around four or five in the evening by the time we dumped our belongings off we literally ran down the hill, across the river, to the city to see what we could while it was still daylight. We ran to Duomo which was amazing!

I was so excited to see the Duomo because I had learned all about it's construction during my art history class. The building had been completed in 1380 but no one could figure out how to put a dome (cupola) over it because the span was so huge. Contests were held and there was a huge rivelry between Lorenzo Ghilberti and Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi won the contest and mastered the cupola to the cathedral. If you are interested in the architecture, it is an amazing feat. Think of the Duomo as leaves resting on a drum with the spire (light house) on top holding all the leaves from springing out. There's a walkway inside the dome spiraling to the top which is what the workers used during construction. We didn't have time to go to the top but I will someday. We did pop our heads inside to take a look at all the marvelous frescos by Vasari.

If you feel bad for Ghilberti for losing the contest, don't...he won the commission to do the beautiful Biblical plates for the doors:

Funny story...while I was taking photos of the Duomo an Asian businessman said something to me I didn't understand, handed me a fake flower, and pointed behind me. I turned to look and there were at least fifty Asian businessmen grinning at us. The guy puts his arm around my shoulder and they all took a picture. He said thank you and they all took off. Weird.

So after seeing the Duomo we went to the Palazzo della Signoria and grabed a slice of pizza at a little restaurant. The Palazzo at night is amazing:

We rambled some more around the Uffizi Palace (very creepy at night), statues everywhere, and finally saw the Ponte Vecchio (Old bridge) which spans the Arno River.
The sun was setting beautifully by the time our bus arrived and we went back to the camp site and drank some wine with fellow travelers.

The end!

Stuck in Wisconsin

So my husband went to some training thing in Wisconsin for a few days (since Sunday) and they just announced due to weather his flight's been cancelled!!! He was supposed to fly out tonight red-eye and get in early this morning. So he and co-workers are getting a car and driving five hours to Chicago to fly from there. How awful! So please pray that he makes it to Chicago and home safely.

Since I miss my hubby...I thought I'd take us back in time...about one year ago to a little vacation we took. My husband has a great friend back in Vegas and his girlfriend likes to do something extremely awesome every year for his birthday. So we all rented a condo in Brianhead, UT...drove out...and had a great time using the fire place, cooking, playing games, snowboarding, watching movies, etc. Did I mention Brianhead got tons and tons (probably record breaking) snow that weekend and the trip involved digging people out of a ditch, a random snowball fight, and a new puppy. (Note: Not all my photos from the trip are at my work computer so you'll just have to deal with gaps in the story) Enjoy!

Arriving at the Condo with supplies...I thought this was an awesome picture I took. HUGE snowflakes!! And Anna guarding her food as usual...
Charlie guarding the room:
Snow puppy!!!
I can never get my husband to take a serious picture but I thought this was funny...they were posing for me...
Being silly
The puppies crack me up...look at Anna's face:

Me and the little stinkers...Charlie just wants to chase the rabbit that my husband swore was a deer.
On the way home our friends (who were at that point dog-less) decided to buy a dog. Ok, they had been thinking about it for a while. But at the gas station in the middle of nowhere we saw a sign posted for the cutest little puppies. Since the town was only two streets big...ok slight exageration...we swung by to see them. And voila...our friends had a new puppy...who could resist...
Ok...my husband could because I was begging to get one too. He is a smart man. Instead I became Aunt Amanda to the new puppy Koa:
The End!

Winter Blues = Virtual Vacation

It is freeeeezing here in New York City. It's nice because the sun was out today but sometimes that just makes it all the more freezing :) So I thought I'd take a little trip down memory lane to back when we lived in Las Vegas. Ok, so this little jaunt was in late February, but still...it'll probably still be freezing here in late February. Oh and good tip for people visiting Las Vegas...head just ten minutes out of town and see what you find...gorgeous!!!!!

2006 - Trip to Calico Tank, Red Rock

Robb and Anna at the trail head:



We dared my husband to climb up this rock and in two seconds he was up...I was amazed and a little scared:



I love how red the rocks are...ummm...obvious why it's called "Red Rocks" ;)


Ok, so now we know the dogs weren't supposed to be in the water (I think I read that somewhere) but back then we didn't. Something about wild burros drinking or something. But the dogs were hot and it was fun watching them play (and they have all their shots...so...):


I think Anna looks like a water rat...my husband would kill me if he heard me say that...good thing he doesn't read this :)




This was Charlie's first time around water. He just would not get in the water...


Finally Robb just picked him up and tossed him in.


This is afterwards....he was not pleased (you can tell by that glare):


After the swim I took the dogs up on some rocks for a nice view of the desert and Las Vegas. I didn't have the camera on me....darn:




And back in the truck:



Hope you enjoyed the mini-vacation!

Reminiscing

Well I now have less than a week until Spring semester starts back up and my free time is diminishing. Although I love to procrastinate so my blogging should pick up ;) In the meantime, I've avoided my computer at home almost like the plague and I don't have recent photos at work. So I'll be taking you back to some fun days before my husband and I became New Yorkers.

My husband and I met in Colorado while I was an undergraduate studying History and he was getting his Masters in Engineering (mechanical). My roommate and I were taking off to go to Wales for our Fall semester and my husband was one of our sub-leasers for our house for that semester. So we met, fell for each other, and then I took off for four months :)

The following summer we both graduated and I already had plans to go to Alaska to live with my sister and brother-in-law and help out with their new baby. So I took off again for a few months. Poor DH :( But then he decided that maybe Alaska would be a fun place to live and work so that fall I met him in Seattle and we drove to Alaska. Here are some photos we took of that trip...and I suggest that trip to anyone :)

This is Vancouver city in British Columbia as seen from Stanley Park. Yes...that Stanley (the Cup). I was so blown away by how beautiful the city is. I could have spent weeks and weeks there.


Oh...and did I mention we camped the entire way there too? Most of the time is was gorgeous...a little cold but gorgeous. Here's one of the sites:


My husband's dog is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever and she loves water...the colder the better. She loved this campsite. (We hadn't gotten Charlie yet). Here's what entertained us for hours:





And we loved stopping at all the little pubs...I like how they are called pubs. This one was my favorite because of the owner chatting away at us and DH's embarassment at pronouncing Canadian Kokanee beer "co-caine":



Another fun pub or two:




One of the coolest things we did was detour to see an old Ghost Town: Barkerville. The best thing is that the whole town is still populated by actors...kind of like a Barkerville Theme Park. So all the old buildings you can go inside and the actors play their roles as who'd they be in the town. It was a lot of fun. I especially loved the town's church:





We visited the graveyard which is kind of a must see...if you are into that kind of thing. But while we were out walking (not at the graveyard) Anna decided to find a stick:



Still looking


Almost found it


Wow...she really is a (normally) pretty dog...seriously


And if you travel by car with an active dog...you know that "normal" drive-time doesn't come close to being how long it takes us to get places. This was a common scene every couple of hours.


And after a few nights of waking up with ice on our tent AND Anna...we entered Alaska.


If you've never been to Alaska...go!!






My views from the trip:






The End!