migration celebration

the birds landing at creamers field yesterday. these are sand hill cranes.

Ben cooked these incredible enchiladas last night with homemade tomatillo sauce. Julie came over and Matias stopped by after his 1/2 marathon in anchorage, a nice mellow evening...

the sunrise today was at 3:47am and sunset at 11:57pm; the sun barely goes below the horizon and really never gets dark at all.

this is Ben and Pella climbing moose mountain for our "mellow" mountain bike ride. I missed or was not sure of the last left turn and our 1 hour ride turned into almost four hours. Ben and I had a great ride, Pella....she not so sure...


moose mountain climb to this ridge line trail and out there somewhere a left and another left, either loop is a good ride.

We had a great visit with my parents, lots of eating and hiking.
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Julie had us over to her cabin for smoked salmon we caught together last year in chitna(she caught many more fish), she smoked it herself and it was awesome.


the last night we all ate at Gamberdella's Pasta Bella


dad getting into the alaskan lifestyle using the outhouse!

we went all the way to Denali to see grizzly bears and there were two right in town in Fairbanks on Monday. Check out the news-miner(click).

fantastic trip to Denali!!

on the drive into Denali national park we were greeted with great views of Denaliin person. this pic is just too far,Denali is in the background, it is still hundreds of miles away and you have to fly in on a bush plane to get near the base and climb, there are no roads or trails.....


then we went to hike at savage creek and just past the trailhead we saw three GRIZZLY BEARS! It was so awesome. a mom and her two cubs, my mom was the one that spotted them in the bush and then they came out on to the snow so we got a great look.



more bears...



and a caribou herd, what a day!



after that we hiked up part of Mt. Healy, my parents were troopers and made it to this bridge crossing where the water was flowing underneath and still frozen above the bridge. you had to jump to get over it, they decided to turn back....



we did not.

ben and I are already planning our backpacking adventure into Denali national park next weekend...

we had a great soak at chena hot springs today and my parents first moose sighting.
the weather was awesome, on our way we hiked at angel rocks, picnic lunch and back for a river boat dinner cruise. we have had a busy visit already, hitting the alaska coffee roasters, our cabin in the valley and a little shopping at Beaver Sports...

the UAF tour

we took the parents on a tour of UAF today and great hike to smith lake from my building, of course Pella was swimming


the roof of the Geophysical Institute and the Dobson in the background where we take ozone measurements from.

research

started full time on the research this week and it is a great change. I like problem solving and calculations. randy and I both working on the CRDS have fear factor for nerds races to assemble and dissasemble parts, when did I become such a dork?

so excited for the parents to visit this week and we have a ton of stuff planned.

check out the newest blog link on the right Martin, great pics and stories of the arctic island he is working on. ben has been shooting more stock, but that is on his "other" blog.

borrowed from Ben's photo blog....

murphy dome

dea and i went on a hike with julie, matias and the dogs this afternoon. it was 70 degrees in town, and 55up on the murphy dome. there were still patches of snow on the top, but spring is here.


matias ties rainy and pika together, because rainy runs away and pika stays close. they are the abbott and costello of the dog world.


julie throwing a snowball at me- just missed (and dea gettign tooo much enjoyment out of it).


the gang on the rocks at the turn around point.

we also had a chance to see matias' cabin after the hike as well. he built a awesome log cabin up off murphy dome road a few years ago. it's really a perfect spot- unobstructed views of the alaska range, 5 acres all to himself...perfect.

we capped the day with moose pasta at julie's. it was a good day with good friends.

Pella had a great day, swimming at the lake on our hike and here at the Tanana river. we went on a mellow hike today, I was feeling a little under the weather. then of course a stop at local HOT LICKS ice cream...

the current was moving pretty fast and she just kept swimming out to all the big branches that floated by.

we are still planning on riding bikes into Denali National Park tomorrow, but something mellow. The road is open, but the tourist busses do not start until next weekend. It is the only weekend to ride with no one on the road. Julie(great pics on her blog) was there birding this week and said the road is in good shape, they saw bear and lynx too.....

Golden Heart Utilities run was tonight. I stayed home to study, but Ben was out shooting. Like how the ballons outline the tallest smokestack at the utilities plant?
that's my ben:-) cool picture.


ted and dan at the start- eyeing their competition. ben said he saw #465 was winning until dan tripped her at the turn around:-)


matias local running legend (2nd at chena river run), is also a sports editor for the fairbanks news-miner. here he is interviewing Dan,he was 2nd tonight and ted 4th. all the cool kids were out.

for more insight and great photography check out ben's until now, "secret" artsy fartsy blog, it has some way interesting stuff at www.huffphoto.blogspot.com

fun alaska fact tonight

tonight is the last night the sun will set until Augurst 2nd in Barrow and the north slope of Alaska. Stacia's up there now, but the temps are still chilly. the north slope is about 400 miles north of here. we only drove 285 miles north on the Haul road last time we headed that way. there is no road to Barrow though, you have to fly.
dea

riding out in goldstream valley

Ben, Julie and I went out on a great road ride today. Julie just bought a bike and she is climbing really strong! We headed up the "city route" past the trap shooters to Hagelburger lookout and then up the old steese out to goldstream valley.


Ben up ahead on the last desent into Fairbanks, they both kicked my butt!

racing and dogs

we had a great day today. dea raced a 5k this morning, along with Matias, Dan, Ted, and Julie. they all did well and had a blast. today was three months to the day that dea headed to the hospital in seattle. the race was a good day to mark the return to good health for her. there were over 700 people for the race, and it was 60 degrees.

after the race we all went for coffee, and then to the trails at uaf to run the dogs. just a normal day in fairbanks.


dea gettin' her run on!


ted finishing strong


julie protecting young caz


caz & julie

Martin was in for a day, he studies walrus and walrus hunters on a tiny island as close as you can get to Russia, called Svaoonga. you need to get out the Alaska map for that one. it was a quick visit with great stories of the island natives bringing all kinds of guts for him to inspect...what a PhD..we will see him at the gemini birthday bash in June!

the tripod falls!

Holy crap, I can't believe I missed it. I know you all have been sitting on the edge of your seats, but the tripod has fallen. I guess the rivers are going to unfreeze this year.

the ice broke May 2nd at 5:29pm, 7 winning tickets split the jackpot of $270,000. there is however some controversy

because the entire block of ice moved triggering the clock, but the tripod did not actually fall over until today.

last minute fun drive tonight to see the sunset at 10:45pm, in my pajamas we dashed to ballaine lake to see this cool reflection....the lake though, is still frickin' frozen.

BETH: on the music note, we were jammin' to my favorite new tune:
Talk on Idolence by the avett brothers (i AM a litTLE nerVOUS 'bout what you'll think when YOU see ME in my swimmin' trunks..) seriously good tune.

more music snobery...Ben is lovin' the new Collin Herring and Jesse Malin CD's.
-Dea