Manley Hot Springs Picture Dump

First, we drove from Fairbanks to Manley Hot Springs. 156 miles, on mostly gravel roads. In a gold chevy Impala. Yeah, we were subtle. Again. As usual.

We found the fires:

See the gold hood?

But got through to Manley safe enough. Checked into the roadhouse:

Lithus went to work at the airstrip:

The BLM tent

Closer up

Not Lithus's helicopter, but you get the idea.

And I went exploring. Those pictures next time. :)

Home Construction by Aviators

Friends of ours, BossMan and LadyBoss, are building a house out on Big Lake, about 1 1/2 hours outside of Anchorage. The spot they've picked out is really beautiful, up on the top of the hill, overlooking the lake. They've been planning it all winter, prepping the property and bringing in the parts and pieces, getting ready for spring and building season.

Last week, BossMan asked Lithus if he would come out Saturday and help get everything up the hill because the spring thaw was coming about three weeks early this year. The lake was melting, which is fine ~ unless the parts of your house are scattered on it like so many legos on a living room floor. So, with the help of a third line pilot, BossMan and Lithus cleared the lake of the house. It looked like this:




The trailer they've been staging out of.



BossLady is at the end of their pier. Yes, we are all standing on lake.





What the view will be eventually



The ice road across the lake. Yes, I'm driving our firebird. On a lake.

As I told Lithus on the drive home, while it might have just been another day for those guys, for the rest of the world, it was a really cool day.

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.

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.

Potlatch Take 2

We're backing up in time here (this won't be the last time it happens, either; you still haven't heard anything about last summer) and heading back to Galena. Remember earlier in the season I wrote about Potlatch? Well, my friends Dee Dee and Shirley invited us. We only made it one night out of the three but it was beautiful, emotional, and I would imagine, healing. 

It starts with a community dinner. And it is a community event. The elders are given the best seats. The adults have organized and prepared the food. The teens and tweens serve, dim sum style. Very small portions of huge amounts of food and everyone gets plenty. Several macaroni salads, soups and bear ribs. Yep. Bear ribs.

After cleaning up, the mourning ritual starts. The families come out, bound together by material and furs ~ bear, moose, and wolf furs are most common. The singers stand in the middle of the circle and/or sit just outside of it. They sing the songs for the dead; the families form the circle, dancing round. This continues for two nights. On the third night, the material and furs are sewn together and the families give gifts to the people in the community who have attended the potlatch.

I was honored to be there.

My friend, Dee Dee

Me, in traditional dress (from Shirley), filming for Dee Dee