Merry Christmas!

First, the disclaimer:

This is not my video. I have never been to this village.

Now, that being said...it could be any and all of the villages Lithus and I have visited. The grocery stores I know look like this one. The schools, the fields, even the post offices. And mostly, the people. The people I know are this happy, look this kind, are as wonderful as these people appear.

So happy holidays, from Alaska.

Not Tubing, Tubas

Last weekend, Lithus and I stumbled onto a free carols concert in downtown Anchorage. It was all tubas, all the time. In fact, it billed itself as Tuba Christmas. Tuba players from all over the state come together in various towns and cities, dress themselves, dress their horns, and play Christmas music. As my best friend, the Divine M put it, Tubas huh. That must have been something. When I think of Christmas music (or I guess really music in general) tuba is not the first instrument I think of. Interesting.

Now, in fairness, while I do think of brass ensembles, I don't necessarily think of tubas. Or I didn't realize I thought of tubas. I had no freaking idea all of these instruments were in the tuba family. No clue. But they are. It was a delightful, unexpected find. And trust me, if you'd seen them and heard it, you'd think tubas from now on, too.

Frozen Fog

Oh, how I wish I had my camera. It is, however, in Spain with Lithus right now. Instead, I will have to try to describe frozen fog. I won't do it justice. You've been warned.

Interestingly enough, I don't have huge amounts of experience with really dense fog. Dense like 19th c. London Jack the Ripper dense fog. Boston, while it gets a little foggy occasionally, has nothing on 19th century London. The Portland/Vancouver area got it every now and then ~ but we could always see the street lights at least. There was one particular night when I was driving from New Jersey to Suffolk, VA at two in the morning where the fog was impressively heavy. And that's really about it. Until we got to Anchorage.

Anchorage gets fog. Fog as in you can't see out the windows fog. As in the lights get swallowed. As in please-God-don't-let-me-have-woken-up-in-a-Stephen-King-novel fog.

Friday night, such a fog rolled in. Yesterday morning, the world was covered in frozen fog. I've seen ice. I've seen snow. I've seen hail. Frozen fog isn't any of those things. If you've seen frozen fog, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, you'll have to trust me.

The world is painted a flat white. It's not glittery with ice. It's not reflective, like snow. It's a flat white. And once you get close enough to see it, you discover each individual, miniscule round kernel, packed together like the world's tightest, smallest and whitest bunch of grapes.

It is stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful ~ and unlike anything I've ever seen before.

We officially need two cameras.

Not A Wasted Day

In my world, no day is wasted in which we have learned something. No matter how dull it may seem on the outside, if I've learned some new factoid or piece of information, no matter how trivial, it has been, if not a good day, then at least a day unwasted.

Check it out:

These little cards are all over Valdez, AK. Seriously ~ everywhere. Since my camera isn't all that great, allow me to translate for you:

IF YOU FEEL AN EARTHQUAKE, A TSUNAMI MAY FOLLOW

HOW TO ESCAPE A TSUNAMI

1. Drop, cover and hold during earthquake.
2. Move insland quickly, or use local evacuation route.
3. Wait for official all clear before returning to beach.

Now, I will be the first to admit that these are pretty commonsense instructions so, in that way, I didn't actually learn anything. However! Valdez being so tsunami-prone that these little cards are everywhere is new information. New, intriguing, disconcerting information. But now we know how to escape a tsunami.

Aren't you excited? I knew you were.

My Own View

We have a home base. Downtown Anchorage. Expect to see lots of pictures taken out of our living room window. Why? Because it looks like this:

Daytime View

Rainy Day

Full Moon

Full Moon and the City

From Fairbanks to Anchorage, by way of Denali

Some times, you just have to let the pictures speak for themselves.

But I have to be completely and totally honest here. Of all the truly beautiful and magnificent sights we saw this day, the most beautiful things I saw were these:

My beloved Lithus

And after four months in the Interior and the bush...The city of Anchorage. :)

Deadhorse - Prudhoe Bay

The previous pictures of Brooks Range were taken en route to Deadhorse - Prudhoe Bay. Where is Deadhorse - Prudhoe Bay? It's here:

Yep. That's very very north-ish. And no, I don't know why it's called Deadhorse sometimes and Prudhoe Bay others. The town itself was best described to me as a large work camp, rather than an actual town. This makes sense once you've been there. We had some time the day we got there so asked at the desk of the hotel what there was to do in town and were told, after a very long pause, "well, you don't have to be staying here to use our pool table so lots of people come in for that." In fairness, there are a couple other hotels in town. And the one where we were staying had a lobby coffee shop. So, without further ado, Deadhorse:

The Alaskan Pipeline itself. For real and up close.

Our Hotel

Town, as we walked out the hotel door

The hotel in context of town

Same spot, different direction

Smurf shoes, worn inside the hotel at the request of management and housekeeping to avoid muddiness.

 

 

The Brooks Range

The Brooks Range is the northern-most mountain range on the continent. We flew over it. :)

There are 2 little dots about 5 o'clock. They are bears. :)

Then there is the view of the helicopter, from the helicopter:

With apologies, this is a little more obscene than I'd intended.

Looking down from my seat

Lithus being all studly. Most pilots use white helmets. I like that he wears a yellow one; I know him when I see him.