Saturday, June 20: Day 8

Today was the longest day of the year, the blessed summer solstice! There were a lot of great things going on to celebrate all the sunlight we get up here in AK. One of them was a marathon:

Okay, so I wanted to lead you on a bit and make you think we actually ran a marathon....truth be told, we ran 5.6 miles. I'm not ashamed of that...I'd just like to be a little bit tougher and say I ran a marathon. Someday. It was a beautiful run that went along the coast and we got some great food at the end: Great Harvest bread and cookies, watermelon (which I never eat up here because it's so dang expensive), and maybe other stuff I didn't get to because I got stuck at the watermelon.

Then we went to the down town market where there are all sorts of goodies to be had. But that's for another day's blog. Too much to write! We also went to eat at Moose's Tooth. You may recall our enthusiasm for Moose's Tooth on the other blog Matthias and I have. If you aren't aware of it, click this link:

http://matthiasandmichellecicotte.blogspot.com/2008/09/mooses-tooth.html

Maybe my favorite part of the day was going to the Glacier Pilots' (Anchorage's semi-pro baseball team) baseball game at 10:30 p.m. At midnight we took a few photos of the sky and such:

This was a fun little ditty they did in-between innings. The guy in red won. It was pretty funny to watch them bounce as they fell and not be able to get up on their own. Not sure why it was so amusing. Anyway, you can see the mascot below is appropriately a moose.

The Pilot's finally won around 1:30 a.m. When we got home, this is what the microwave clock said:

And this is what the sky looked like.

So you can see the sun does go down where we are, but it is dusky the whole night, never getting completely dark. The sun rises at 4:21 a.m. and sets at 11:42 p.m. making 19 hours and 21 minutes of daylight (compared to 5 hours and 28 minutes of daylight in the winter). Up further North in Barrow, for example, the sun is up 85 days from May 10 to Aug. 2, without ever setting at all! If you're curious about other parts of Alaska, here's a good site to go to: http://www.alaska.com/about/weather/story/1920.html

Anyway, it was pretty amazing to be at the baseball game and then to look down at your watch thinking it was maybe 8:30 or 9:00 and seeing it was 12:30 a.m. Probably even crazier was when the game finally ended and we saw it was 1:30 a.m. but it felt more like 10:00 p.m. If you ever get a chance to come to Alaska, making your visit fall on the summer solstice would be my best advice. We are thinking of celebrating next year's solstice further north in Fairbanks, so if you're feeling adventurous...

Friday, June 19: Day 7

Today we went down to the town of Seward to go on a tour of a kennel that raises and trains dogs that race in the Iditarod. They gave some background on the race and what they do to survive. Then the dogs were hooked up in pairs to pull us on a summer-friendly sled on some of the trails nearby. You can see the back of one below:

They got so excited to run, they'd bark and bark until the musher gave the signal to go. One interesting fact I learned that has nothing to do with the race, really, is that some of the smaller towns in the more remote places of AK have a shipment of food once a year. So they have to plan out their year of food and put their order in because that's all they'll get. I think that's pretty crazy. No emergency midnight runs to Wal-Mart. Here's a funny do who perched himself up on his little "dog house". You can see from this picture how the kennel is laid out. The dogs each have this little cylinder they sleep in and a chain that keeps them close. It makes for a pretty nasty smell and lots of noise if they're all excited to get hooked up to run.

After the ride, we got to hold some of the puppies.


Then they showed us what they do to keep themselves and the dogs warm during the race. The mushers have an inner lining to their coat that absorbs the moisture from sweat and then when they get to the checkpoints, they put it out to freeze and shake off th ice. With all the gear they put on, it's amazing to me that they can even move at all. It reminds me of The Christmas Story movie where the little kid is all bundled up and can hardly walk to school. But they're bundled for good reason, as the temperatures can get colder than 60 degrees. The hat in the picture below was more for amusement than anything. They showed that they cook food using something called "Heet" and everything they eat has been vacuum-packed before hand. They eat everything from fish to pizza.

Earlier in the day we hiked (more like walked) to the side and toe of Exit Glacier. The walk to the side of the glacier was easy compared to the toe. Here we are at the side:

Here's Sariah at the toe. Matthias and Sariah braved the glacier ice water that you'd have to walk through either with your socks and shoes getting all wet or go barefoot. I'm not that much of a die-hard. It did turn out to be an awesome picture, though.

On the drive home, we saw some dall sheep (the only white sheep that is wild, I learned):

And then we drove off into the sunset...

Pretty much a perfect day!

Thursday, June 18: Day 6

Sariah, Matthias's sister, came to visit and our first order of business was to take a day cruise. It took off from Whittier, which is about 1 hour south of Anchorage. Here are my personal top 5 things about the cruise:

5. Eating glacier ice.
4. The cute little sea otters.
3. The color of the water and the deep blue of the glaciers.
2. Seeing a billion waterfalls all along the mountain sides.
1. Watching glacier calving.

I wanted to add somewhere in there discovering the most amazing chips I've ever eaten. They're some sort of Alaska-labeled chip that are sort of like kettle chips but not as thick and a better flavor. Amaaazing. (I allowed a little bit of cheating during this past week for traveling reasons. Try not to judge.)

Anyway, I think the pictures speak for themselves. Let it be known these are the first pictures with my brand new camera. I took more than 100 pictures on the cruise...got a little excited. So it was hard to narrow them down.

This last picture was just a little piece of heaven we found while wandering around on a trail before boarding.

Wednesday, June 17: Day 5

Some of you may know that one of my favorite phrases is "Don't judge!" I got it from an old roommate almost four years ago and I use it in all sorts of contexts, although most of the time it involves delicious bad-for-you-foods. Matthias uses it now to. Let's give a hypothetical: I might walk into the kitchen to find him eating some chocolate chips and he'll immediately say, "Don't judge!" Which, of course, I never do...but that was hypothetical anyway. Never happened.

Anyway, when we were "gym shopping" up here back in August, we were excited to find a gym that was literally almost $100 cheaper than any other gym we had looked into. Of course we were delighted to hear, as well, that they were a "judgement free zone." That's right, this motto displayed and discussed when having your first tour of the place sets everyone at ease and ensures that no matter your size or fitness level, you will never be judged for it. They even have an alarm they call the "lunk alarm" that employees can ring whenever someone is judging. This raises the question in my mind: how do they know if you are judging someone else, or even if you are in the process of being judged by someone else?

Brain Cloud: Day 4

So I've been feeling a bit under the weather the past day or so and I was telling Matthias that I think I have a brain cloud. Even though I'm mostly joking...let me just tell you my symptoms: I feel like there is an inflated balloon inside my head. I'm also extremely tired almost like when I had mono but not as bad. Those are my only two symptoms. I couldn't help but think of Joe vs. the Volcano. This scene is where he quits because of his brain cloud diagnosis. Fortunately for me, I don't have an awful job to quit, but I am a bit curious about what's going on. Any ideas?

Monday, June 15: Day 3

I went to pick up some friends from our ward at the airport. Whenever you come into the North Terminal, this is what is there to greet you...

So the reflection off the glass isn't that great...but you can get the idea. This was one of the first things we saw when we moved up here and got off the plane and I knew we were somewhere different. Not long after that, I was at the nearby mall with my friend Janina and saw some stuffed moose, brown bears, and geese right where you might normally see little kiosks for cell phone covers or knick-knacks. It's pretty awesome.

Sunday, June 14: Day 2

Lately since it's so light out at night and we're not very tired or ready for bed, Matthias and I will go exploring. We've enjoyed driving up on the hillside in the various neighborhoods and getting out to enjoy the view. Tonight we found a new neighborhood that was a little further south than we normally go. Check out the view:

I love how the clouds look like a blanket, and how the sun made several different reflections on the inlet and lakes.

I love this tree that is just hanging out on the edge of nowhere. It's all too pretty for words. I wish it were summer all year round!