Year in Review

I'm so grateful that I've kept a blog this year so that I can remember all the wonderful times that we had. Whether visiting with family or relaxing with our favorite friends it's been a good year. We hope you are able to reflect on 2011 with the same happiness.

We house- and dog-sat for 20 days.

Hiked Anvil Mountain in Nome

Attended my grandmother's funeral in Washington

Hosted Gram, Granpa and Mom - which included going to the Yukon

Visited family in Washington DC, Michigan, and Indiana

and Hosted my brother John.

Happy First Day of Winter

It's the shortest day of the year.
That means tomorrow will be a little longer.
I am glad. Relieved really.

Reason #785 to rent

Never pay a plumber for gushing 2.5 inch water pipes.

It's in the crawlspace. The plumber is coming today. We didn't notice anything wrong with our water (maybe it's the upstairs water supply?), but I could hear water running and running. When our landlord's winter caretaker came over last night he couldn't hear it, but he sure found it.

Thanksgiving power outage

At about 6:30 am we experienced a power outage. AELP got us back up and running a little over an hour later by firing up the diesel generators. Reports today are that a tower on the Snettisham line is leaning into another tower. Two of its anchors have been sheared off - apparantly not due to an avalanche (which is surprising because we have had heavy snow and gusty winds).

As you can imagine the outage created a bit of panic for some Juneau-ites. Our friends in charge of the turkey for Thanksgiving lunch had already prepared the bird and preheated the oven when the lights went out.

The good news is that we should be back on 100% hydro in about a week. Right now we do have four small hydro generators running along with the diesel generators (and as we all know diesel generation is 5x more expensive than hydro).

Happy Thanksgiving

image credit: The party-animal blog

Wherever you are today. Whatever you're doing. I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving, even if you're surrounded by family, especially if you're celebrating alone. I'm thankful to know you. I'm thankful for you.

Anchorage - Girdwood - Whittier

A few weeks before John was to arrive, Mr. X received an invitation to a Fisheries Conference in Girdwood. We decided to go and take John with us.

Wednesday morning we left Juneau early and arrived in Anchorage in time for lunch. We did a little shopping at REI - a treat for us, not so much for John - and a used book store. Then we headed south on the Seward Highway.

We made our way south on the Scenic Highway, passing through several avalanche areas until we reached Girdwood and found our way to the Alyeska Resort. It was still light out so we took some more time exploring the beautiful scenery along the Turnagin Arm. It was near zero and the wind was gusting like daggers. John got to see the country's two largest national forests - the Tongass in Juneau and the Chugach in Anchorage.

After nightfall we returned to the hotel in time for Mr. X to register for the conference.

Thursday morning, John and I found the only open ski rental facility (thank you Jim at Girdwood Ski and Cyclery) and ran out to get some X-country skis. John and I spent most of the day gliding around Moose Meadows, the Enchanted Forest and the New Nordic Trail. Of course since Girdwood is the home of some of the world's best Nordic skiiers, we definitely were out of place.

It was a beautiful sunny day and since the wind had stopped, quite pleasant.

Friday Mr. X was finished with his meetings. Before John got up, Mr. X and I took the skis down to Moose Meadows for a sunrise lap. I could really get used to a sunny, snowy, no work lifestyle.

We then took the highway south again to Portage to see Portage lake, Portage Glacier and Bryson Glacier. We also traveled through the 2.5 mile Anton Anderson tunnel to Whittier. This is the longest multi-use tunnel in North America. There is only one lane of traffic so cars and trains have to take turns in both directions. We quickly toured Whittier, awed by the view of the ice free Prince William Sound and the WWII era condominiums which house about 1/2 of the town's population and headed back to Portage.

We stopped at the Conservation Center to see bison, moose, elk, musk ox, eagles, Kodiak bears, black bears, and caribou.

From there we headed back to Anchorage. Found the temple, visited the Dimond Mall and returned to the airport.

X-Country Skiing

Yesterday was our first real snow. We have about 20 inches at the house (and expect 12 more in the next 24 hours). That meant John did some serious postholing all day (he says 12.1 miles) on the Nugget Creek trail. This also meant that I dragged him out the door for some night skiing at 7 pm. We skied out the door and soon found that the icy streets were better suited to skiing than the powdery sidewalks. We didn't make it far, 'cause the binding on my $2 skis kept popping open, but John didn't fall on his head so I'll count his first X-country ski trip a success.