February 2006 Archives
At first we thought getting a snowmobile might be prohibitively expensive, what with 5,000-8,000 dollar prices and the 300 dollar shipping fee from Fairbanks. But soon enough a local woman sent out an email advertising her 2003 Ski-Doo Grand Touring. Since the directions to her house sounded something like this "walk down towards the clinic, take that right, take the first left, go past the slew, take the next right, then the next left, and then it's down a rabbitt trail" we happily jumped on the back of her daughter's four wheeler for a ride
Josie's husband Jonathan explained in detail all the problems the machine had, but gave us a chance to hear its solid engine, and we were sold. We caught another ride the following afternoon with a money order in hand(checks are no good here...with the nearest bank 150 miles away). And we rode home on the sno-go--the proper nomenclature in these parts.
So, there are no lights, the speedometer doesn't budge from zero...and we sure do, the shocks are shot, the hand-grip warmers are unplugged, the windshield is broken into jagged shards of plexi-glass (imagine 30mph wind at 30 below zero?) and one steering arm is bent. But our pigeon-toed sno-go does go. In the dark I sit on a red flashlight and wrap my arm around Keith to hold a big white flashlight out the front. We haven't gotten hit, or pulled over by the local police officer yet. Friends tell us just to dive down a rabbit trail if any copper pulls close in his truck.
Besides that the only advice we've gotten about sno-gos is "Hit the throttle." You see a big snow bank in front of you? "Hit the throttle." You start getting into open water on the river? "Hit the throttle." You get a deep drift beneath you and you start to sink? "Hit the throttle."
This advice would have kept us from getting stuck in our own backyard on our maiden voyage. Luckily Keith was able to lift the whole backside of the machine and aim it in a more sturdy direction. I was still digging out of the four foot drift I got dumped into.
So far the machine has started well in negative thirty...although only then for Keith's strong arm. (It's a pull start, it has an electric start, but that, well of course that doesn't work.)
Now I set a hairdryer on the engine for about thirty minutes and it's ready to go even for my weakling arms.
It turns a twenty minute walk to work into a two minute trip...and when we found ourselves without enough flour to finish bread dough with only 15 minutes til store closing, we zipped in, me still in my slippers, and were back to catch the rising loaf in time.
Great deal, great machine. Happy Keith and Eliza
A few Saturday nights ago we tuned into KZPA which is "the only show in town." We listened as a fundraiser for a Canadian(Old Crow) Gwichi'in family went late into the night. When four jars of silver salmon came up to auction we called in our bid of thirty dollars. We dozed off as they mentioned my name and bid over and over again. At 11:30 that night we were awakened by a phone call that we had won. A high school girl dropped by with our prize and took away our cash.
We've eaten the salmon on crackers and baked it into melts on our home made bread with some mustard and cheese. It's pretty tasty stuff, fresh from the Yukon this past summer.
Since then we've gotten to try some of Bunny's famous salmon strips. I work with Bunny, who is very generous. Everyone in town has tried her strips. Its hard work cutting the strips I've been told and people talk a lot about Bunny's talent. Her strips are about one inch by two inch pieces with the scales still on one edge. They are cut out of the fish the day they are netted out of the Yukon, then hung on birch poles to smoke dry. They have a lot of flavor and color--bright pink/red. A good source of fish oils to chew on all day. Yummy Omega-3.
This guy (see the rabbitt?) made his home just behind ours. But when we were hit with a decent snowstorm his front door was buried. Here's to hoping he has a back door.
Thirty minutes into our pleasant Sunday stroll.
We arrived in 40 below, just warm enough to safely land the plane. We were shuttled around in a van and eventually found keys and our house. The organization for which I work here saved this place for us as soon as it came open. In any case, its not much to speak of, cause its a pre-fab house, quite white and sterile. Not really what we were expecting. But then again, we were expecting running water, heat, and electricity, and most of the other places don't have all that in combination.
Within five days of our arrival the temperature dropped to 60 degrees below zero. The ice crept up the inside of out windows, covered the inside of door handles, and started to seep in under the exterior doors. Like living in a freezer. But the furnace chugged away, keeping it 130 degrees warmer inside than out. Happy to have the prefab insulation now, aren't we.
Our first weekend here, in 55 below Keith and I headed out for a walk. We lasted almost an hour and a half, though Keith had to run down the road to keep the blood flowing. In about thirty pounds of gear we could do alright...though eyelashes quickly froze together, as our breath rose inside our face masks and froze at the exposed eye-slit.
Best quote the next week, when the temperature eased up to a mere 20 degrees below zero?
"Oh, I hope it stays this warm!" My o-worker chirped as she arrived at the office and peeled off her ski-pants.
Just a week later I was walking to work in a cotton T-shirt when the temperature stretched to 15 degrees above.
How quickly we adapt.
We were delayed another day in Fairbanks when temperatures dipped too low for Warbelows to fly--negative forty. No complaints to join Susan and Gary for another dinner. But we boarded the first flight out the next day, on a plane identical to the one in the picture. We both were packing our eighty pounds of free baggage as well as a total of a hundred or so pounds more. Most of that weight in bulk food and vew-do board.
The pilot rushed through his spiel about emergency exits and where the beacon was in case we wanted to call for help without him knowing. But a picky passenger (one of the other three on the packed flight) asked him to point it out. "Well, lets see. Where is that...." Eventually the device was located and we took off.
Although too cloudy for much scenery, the flight went well and an hour later we bumped down in Fort Yukon.
Heading out of Homer, we caught a post office drop box and then Keith white-knuckled it all the way to Anchorage, as the driving conditions were less than favorable. It was dark (before ten thirty am). There was lots of snow on the road, and lots of wind changing the topography of the surfaces continuously. We passed a sign for "Whittier 15 miles." We had just been there on the boat...four days earlier. We shook the thought of the entire 2370 mile trip at 3.75 miles per day.
Once in Anchorage we got off the "highway" one maybe two lane road for some tire chains, far cheaper than snow tires that we thought we might need for the Ester Dome incline in Fairbanks. We didn't have chai at the Starbucks across the street. No we didn't.
It was more white knuckles for Keith into Talkeetna. We spotted a few moose along the road. Which I had pegged for lawn ornaments, until they twisted their heads to eat some bushes. Right. No lawns for miles. And we should have been heeding the signs anyways: Caution Moose Browsing. No such thing as literate lawn ornaments.
In Talkeetna we stayed in a cabin, with a view of Denali across the river. We ate really good pizza at Mile High Pizza Pie, while we worked out checkers strategy. Really good pizza.
The next morning we headed North again with spectacular views of Denali at every turn. Once past it the weather stiffened everything on the car...and pausing to look back at the sunset behind the mountains we didn't know what to expect when we opened the car door. But it wasn't so bad. Not nearly the lows we'd see in just a few days.
We made it right up Ester Dome with no chains, and met Aunt April. April and Merritt have a beautiful spot with a view purported to be the size of Ireland. At the very least it is that impressive. She let us into the garage to tune the engine to the cold as best we could...we arrived to thirty below in Fairbanks. We also tried on the snow tires, and used them when we headed down the hill. Then we tried to take them off.
Not using all the brain power we should have, we got one of the chains stuck around the axle. In thin socks, and thin layers we tried to loosen the chain. It was quickly clear how fast you can get yourself in trouble in this weather. Even in what they like to call "urban Alaska." Noses were turing white, fingers stiffening, boogers freezing. Though on the other hand we were twice asked if we needed help. No one was going to let us freeze. Keith got us out of the sticky situation and I've worn long-underwear every single day since.
We spent a very comfortable week at Susan's and Gary's, aunt and uncle by proxy. They were incredibly hospitable and we got lots of errands done, in preparation for part three of the journey, by air.
It was Friday the 13th, of course, when we learned our brief stop in Kodiak, before heading back across the gulf to Homer, would not be so brief. But not so bad. We wandered around the harbor and three sea lions came out to play. We meandered through a park perched above a peaceful sound and then I got heckled by a middleschooler for wearing NorthFace. We all know I deserved it. When Keith asked for the flip-flop aisle at the only grocery-clothing-appliance store around, I ducked behind a row of refridgerators.
Keith snapped this shot back at the commercial harbor from a bridge that crossed to the island with the park. Lots of commercial fishing out of here. And dozens of Bald Eagles, young, old and all eyeing me suspiciously, you can be sure.
After leaving our comfortable launch pad in West Seattle, we raced Alaska license plates up I5 to Bellingham and drove around entry lanes and ticket windows almost too late to sit in line for two hours. After putting the car in her place we checked out sleeping possibilities. We heard tell of some camping on the Sun Deck. And there we found it. Veterans had already staked out their folding deck chairs near the sides of deck, so we had to settle around a post under a plexi glass roof spotted with heaters. These are heaters like at El stops in Chicago, or kind of like the broiling part of your oven. We camped out there for four nights.
As we motored North at 20 knots we could feel the beating of the heart of darkness pulling us in. The days seemed to shrink and melt. We slept, we ate freeze-dried meals, we drank tea, read, scrabbled, and slept again.
When the sun would only tug gently on our eyelids around ten in the morning we'd rise groggy on the sundeck to tall white peaks all around. The heavy night fell around four thirty and with it, our bodies onto our stretched out plastic deck chairs, to ponder what might lay ahead as we rocked to sleep.
While there was hardly any sunlight, an old sourdough stopped by our chairs to handout a solar powered porch light. He mentioned he had tens of the suckers, cause he picked em up whenever he spotted em. Uh, thanks. Keith feigned sleep through this conversation.
We were accused of stealing some couple's Scrabble Travel Edition, but we wouldn't be tricked and kept our noses in our game.
We saw lots of young families heading back to military bases all over the state. And quite a few young recruits headed to their first Coast Guard Station.
After a great two day stay in Juneau, with friends of relatives Doug and Martina, we boarded the Kennicott which would deliver us to Homer. Although only after letting everyone else off at Whittier, did we learn there was in fact a road to Anchorage. Only Keith and I, and another clueless passenger ended up making the trip across the gulf to Kodiak, en route to Homer, which by car would have been an easy drive from Whittier.
To further highlight my geographical error, we were stranded in Kodiak for an extra thirty hours when the St. Augustine started puffing ash across our path.
We watched the Seahawks game in the same restaurant as the crew of our boat, who grew friendly with us, two of three passengers on their 748 passenger vessel.
We disembarked only an hour and a day behind schedule on January 15, to begin part two, by land.
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for days and days....
four days on a boat deck'll do this to you
Mendenhall Glacier-this thing just appears at you as you drive around Juneau.
