CHRISTMAS AT THE HOMESTEAD

Today we celebrated Christmas at our housing 
The cooks made an unbeleivable meal!... real roasted turkey, ham, and Prime Rib
Stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, gravy, salads
Numerous pies and cakes

Santa Claus was even there, with an elf.

 Our Manager Tad showed up with his one month baby girl

 Our lady friends, had a great meal and time.....

 There was a Gingerbread House Contest.....terrific entries.

 There was a Door Decorating Contest

 The Office and Entryway was decorated too Our Resident Mom, Duckie, has her hand in some artifical snow, it actually feels cold:

The guys enjoy some Christmas music and Christmas movies

BEAR...in our hood

Monday nite, one of our bus drivers spotted a Black Bear walking around The Homestead., at about 1:30 am..oh yeah, its dark now at night. Theres been a few Moose, but this is the first Bear.  Sure made for some concern among those that have to go in to work really early!!!!!!!

Touring Denali to Eilson Visitors Center

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Today Ginger and I decided to take the tour bus into the Park.  Its partly cloud, and a relatively warm 55 degrees. We board the bus with 44 others, and driver Elton Parks. He makes us assured in that he has driven here for 18 years. With the narrow gravel roads, and 300 foot cliffs, we are ready to roll.
Its an 8 hour trip (4 hours out and back).

Elton is a wealth of knowledge! He narrates on geography, history, and wildlife.  But for the first 2 hours, we haven't seen an animal..I can tell he's disappointed.  The many berries here are full. The ideal food for bears. (Because there are no Salmon in this area, the berries exist on fruits and roots.)

On the way back, we begin to see lots of animals. Think totally we see:
2 Red Foxes, 3 Wolves, 9 Grizzly Bears, 1 Caribou, several Ptarmigans (its the AK state bird, like a Grouse, brown in the summer, and white in the Winter), numerous ground squirells

Fall is quickly approaching.  Some of the Willows have turned gold/red. But mostly what is truly bautiful is the various red, oranges, and yellows of the ground covers. Pluss the diffent colors of berries. I have seen one that is really bright orange, almost looked artifical.  Heres some of my shots. Don't forget by "clicking" on the photo you can enlarge it.

                                                    Moose and Caribou antlers

                                                         Ginger holding a Dahl sheep horn

                                                     Red Fox No 1

One photo:upper view is actual scenery, lower is photo mural with Mt McKinley. Note that it is covered with clouds. barely 25% of visitors get to see the mountain. Later that day we saw the summit, through some holes in the clouds.  It is over 40 miles away.

                                                    Red Fox No 2

                                                         Fall colors along the Toklat River

                                                    A grizzley feeding on the numerous berries.

Fall colors

Below: A Lynx crosses a dry creek.He's turned to face us.

A bull caribou feeding along a ridge

ONE MONTH TODAY...we'll be headed south...

eSeptember 21 is our last day of work!!!

Nearly everyone are counting the days.

Like buying a boat..the day you buy it is the best day, then you can't wait till you sell it.

It has , and will continue to be a great adventure. 

Positves:
Alaska is like no where else we have been. Its VAST. Unforgettable mountain ranges, wildlife, rivers.
The people are the true new pioneers oa America.
We've met lots of new friends. Many our age. Several from Florida and Georgia.
Met lots of local people through the local Baptist church.
Ginger loves her job.
I love the four warehouseman I work with (can't say that for my supervisor).
Housing and food here has been good.  We like our little room, its like living in a mini house, and going out to eat three meals a day for $10 total for each (6 meals for $ 20 )

Negatives:
After being retired for a while, its hard getting back to a 40 hour week!
No car. We rely on the Princess buses to get around.  They have trips to Fairbanks (the closest big city) occasionally, but since we've been here we've only been able to go twice.
No Lily, No family.
The WIFI here stinks.
Restricted meal times, though good, its only open certain hours.
Doing laundry, where there are about 150 people per floor with 6 machines.

When we leave, co;worker Larry is going to drive us to Anchorage. His daughter lives there. He'll drop us off at Elmendorf Air Force Base. We will fly from there on a military hop. But not after we take a boat ride to see the glaciers and the Orca whales. Also Gingers co-woker has invited us to her house, said her Dad would take me fishing.
The AF will fly us to California. Where brother Craig is going to show us the sites of the Eastern Sierra Mountains.  From there we will take the AMTRAK to Salt Lake City and visit with Ginger's Sister Fran. We will take AMTRAK again to Denver..we plan tp spend a couple days there touring a beautiful area we've never spent time seeing.

We arrive in Savannah Oct 10. Then we'll head up to Dean's to see if our Lily still remembers us.
 

DAHL SHEEP

In the early spring we would see the Dahl Sheep on the cliffs, as we drove to work.  Then they disappeared, headed into the higher elevations, where the colder temperatures would be.

http://www.alaskaphotographics.com/dall_sheep_photos.shtml
This week, they are back. It is fun on the bus when everybody is searching to see them.

What Does Minus 10 Feel Like????

I can tell you!  Every Monday-Wednesday-Friday we receive at the warehouse our shipment of food.
Because our glasses fog up everytime we step out of the freezer, co;worker Larry , age 71, and I voulunteer to stay in the freezer to stack everything.  We only have Carhart coats, and winter gloves.

We spend about an hour in there! Yep, its cold. We work hard and joke. Getting ouy just before our ears and feet freeze up.

ONLY 12 more times till we leave.

Fishing at Horshoe Lake

August 25, 2011
I brought my fly rod, and fishing gear to work. On Fridays I work 6 am till 2:30 pm. Immediately I took the shuttle to Horseshoe Lake.  As usual on the shuttle ride I met several visitors, all interested by my flyrod and fishing vest. Getting off the bus I become the guide to a small entoruge of tourists.

Showing them the way to the beaver dam, and creeks, I excuse myself to go fishing.

That night I am using the black ant flies that brother caught bought and mailed to me. Along the deep water, the grayling rise to hit my flies. I catch about 15 of them. Some very nice sized for that species.

The beavers are busy. Swimming with logs they have cut down. Taking them to their den across from me.  Then one swims toward me from the right, and one straight ahead. The meet, and beginning swimming together..it becomes aparrent they are a mating pair. My presence does not bother them.

I look behind me and see a moose standing in the shallows, feeding on the grass. There are a group of people on shore watching her. She looks like she is posing for them.

Shortly a mother duck, swims by, and has it ducklings following her, with one that is trailing behind.
(I enter the photo in our contest at our housing. Duckie. the resident manager asks if she can have it, of course, yes.)

Snow then Sun, and Termination Dust

Sunday, as the Pastors Wife drives us back to our housing we note the powder sugar effect to the mountaintops.  She tells us the locals call it "Termination Dust". That is it declares the END of Summer.
August 11,2011:  As we stood on the freight dock, the drizzly rain became WHITE, "Its snow!" exclaimed our whole crew at once.  Mixed in the drizzle was snow. It didn't stick.

August 12, 2011:  5:30 am on the bus to work, the mountains around us are covered with snow down to about the 3,000 foot level. The sky is perfectly clear blue, it is 44 degrees.
By 11:00 am it is nearly 70, I strip off my sweatshirt and long underwear shirt.
I call Mom to greet her with Happy Birthday (83 yrs young), she is on the beach in DelMar California with brother Dana. It is warmer here at the Denali Natl Park, Alaska then it is in California!

Snow today, AUGUST 5th

Its been rainy, foggy, and cool.I think I saw a snowflake a couple days ago. Today, Friday it was a warm 58, at 5:30 when I caught the bus to go to work.  By lunch time it was in the low 40's, and wind of about 30 mph.  Friend Nina, from Orlando a 27 yr Disney worker who sewed names on the Mickey Mouse hat on Main Street, said they saw snow on a windshield. Once the clouds lift, the mountains should be beautiful. We are told that in the next 2 weeks the leaves will change colors.

Headed out trout fishing tomorrow (Saturday), will be wearing my longjohns!!!

Princess McKinley Lodge Trip, July 23-24

July 23 thru 25, 2011

Ginger and I got a 3 day weekend off together. Our HR office arranged a trip for us to visit our lodge nearer to Mount McKinley.  

We took the train (Space-A) free. All cars were viewing cars. They had a Host who gave history and geography as we gently rode along . We love riding trains. These are part of the Alaska RailRoad. Cars may be from different companies, ie: Princess, Holland America, etc, but the locomotive is from ARR.  We met many wonderful people. One a recently retired Alaskan commercial fisherman,  He fished the waters where the TV show Deadliest Catch fishes for crab, He goes for Halibut, Cod, etc. Met a young couple that live in Deltona. Became friends with a sweet girl that went to our Julie' high school, she immediately called her friend in Deltona who was one of Julie's cheerleaders (Julie was her coach) 

(Don't forget...you can click on the photo to make it larger)

              
the Engineer waves to us.

 Our Princess train arrives

 How do they remove snow from the tracks, in the long winter in Alaska..with this mean machine!

 The Dining car..food was very good, prices reasonable. Drinks, with a bartender,was available in each viewing car.

 Ginger got a strawberry smoothie in a souvenier cup.....

 Yes, Ginger loves to ride the train...she relaxes to the gentle rocking, and clickety-clack...

Tiffany Kratzer, a Deltona 2007 graduate, who now lives in Apopka, when not working at various lodges.  We ate lunch next to her. Our waiter was a recent Florida State grad

Wilderness views from the train, some excellent trout and salmon fishing in some of these rivers.

It was cloudy, and raining the entire weekend. The lodge had decks, and inside areas where you could sit and view Mt McKinley. As like the normal 70%, we could not see it. It was so cloudy and foggy! So instead of paying for a chartered fishing trip, I was advised to go to a stream on property. It was a nice hike, along a grades, gravel road, behind the employee housing. It was tough getting down the hill to the stream, that fed into a large river...unfortunatley the King Salmon had just run the week before, but I was told could catch graylings and trout.  My second cast into a small clear pool, the merged with the muddy glacier water, I caught this nice clean rainbow trout.

I hiked up and down the creek, over rocks, and downed trees. If you remember the scene from Rambo 2, where he was being chased up the stream, thats how it looked.

 Note they used tree trunks, as the beams for this bridge.( Restricted area)

 Note the tree growing out of this large rock.

Its a rain forest here, so things grow fast and large.

I returned back to the room, to warm up, and see how Ginger was doing. She was ready to go see the town of Talketna. This is the town where the TV program, Northern Exposure , was based off of . The first few exposed were filmed here, then moved some place not as rugged.  It is exactly like the show! Historic, artsy (lots of hippies, and unusual characters inhabit it) it reminded us of a beach town. We walked up and down the street in the coool drizzle. Went to the 2nd hand book store, ahd a great talk with the owner, walked by the Landmark Hotel, where President Harding had stayed, mainly a bar now, it sounded  pretty rowdy, went to the Denali Brewing Co, tasting room, had a sample small glass of beer, Ginger had a brewed rootbeer that smelled and tasted wonderful, sat in the fireplaced sitting area of an old hotel where the original mountain clibers would stay while preparing their climb of McKinley, Enjoy these colorful photos of this neat Alaskan town:

Coffee shop, made from an original gold miners cabin(above)

Original trappers cabin

Denali Brewing Co. host..they make rootbeer

Pesident Bush Sr ate at this restuarant

Incredibly, the next 2 photos were original wall murals in the public mens room. They love fishing here!

The next day we rode the train back to Denali and our home away from home.