I dropped Dan and Ed off in Nenana today and they are skiing the river back to Fairbanks. The distance is 100K. It is ususally a race, but they did not have it this year. They are finishing at the Pump House later today. It is supposed to be ABOVE freezing today with a high of 33F. The last time it was above freezing was Dec. 9th for 1 hour.

one more pic of "old faithful"

Chatanika, AK

Here we are on a hike at McKay Creek before the big Outhouse races at Chatanika Days.


Caz and Turtle getting into the competitive spirit in this little race, Caz is still the fastest pup in the gang.

This is Ed, Trevor, George, Brian(in the pink hat) and Melissa in the "driver" seat as they push their outhouse 1 mile to the finish. The crowds were getting into the race all lined up on the steese.
The rear of this outhouse was just as nice as the front. That is Ed's huge fake butt. They came in second to some local fairbanks runners who pushed there outhouse 1 mile in 4 minutes and 40 seconds, come who runs that fast pushing an outhouse? ed and crew came in second.
Tawna and Martin in the human bowling part of Chatanika Days. all in all it was one fine day out at the outhouses races.

this is me frazzled after a long week and ben was goofing around with his camera. i read my last post and laugh, race? today, i woke up in the reality of dialysis and i can not race. not that i am complaining, i am just better for now with a skijor dog. BUT i am good at dominos, so we are having a game night tonight at ed's. it might be lame, but i love it.

20th Anniversary Sonot race this weekend. The course is below, we did most of the 20K sunday, but I had Caz as a skijor dog. Thinking about doing the race this weekend for fun, but not the 50K. The 50K route climbs Birch Hill and back to the river.
Julie riding, Ben and I out for a ski on beautiful Sunday on the Chena River.

GCI Open North American

GCI sled dog race is all this weekend. It is a fun community event because the start is right on second street downtown and then on the river, the curvy slough and creamer's field.

A team of sled dogs heads back from the 20 mile course, this picture coming from the slough on the chena river.Julie, Kumi and I cheering a sled dog team on about 1 mile into the race.Here is the start of the race downtown Fairbanks. The pace is crazy fast, it is a sprint dog race not like the 1000 mile Iditarod and Yukon Quest. I guess it would be the equivalent of a crit in cycling. Of course we also took in a few ice sculptures and the fur auction.

Julie had a get together last night after her last day of work. We had homemade caribou jerky that Julie made and chocolate zuccinni bread from Kumi. yum.
Our instruments are finally in the field at this shed off campus. We have been working outside hooking up all the inlets, pumps and exhaust lines. It is still 26 below this morning, colder than normal for march.

Skijor Race

Ted stopped by and I asked if I wanted to race sky tonight in the skijor race and I did. It was a blast, it is hard to tell from the pics, but the dogs were really flying. It was a 3.6 mile course and veteran racer Ted won with his dog Ty. I came in second by 22 seconds, it was hard, fast race. We all won lots of dog treats as prizes. Sky was so crazy at the start line in the above picture, luckily I had Stef as a handler(on the right).

Ted and Ty tearing it up in the lead.
Sky and I had a great run. Ted and I after the race. Ben came and cheered us on.

Iditarod Race

Lance Mackey is in the lead right now and they may finish as early as 8pm tomorrow. Check out the link for info. If Lance wins, he will make history as the only one to win Yukon Quest and Iditarod, the last great race. Jeff King who won last year keeps his dogs in an altitude tent at home, now that is a some serious dog mushing.

We went to the IPY (International Polar Year) lecture tonight by Tim Flannery. He wrote The Weather Makers. He is also Austrialia's 2007 man of the year.

Big Kidney News

Hi All. Last week we heard some very big news. Roger's (ben's dad, my father in-law) test results came back from Mayo and he has a negative cross match. This means he can potentially donate a kidney. He still has to go to Mayo Clinic for an evaluation and we are hoping it all goes well. I was beginning to think we would not find a donor at all and I even scheduled my permanent access surgery in anchorage(for dialysis). We will now hold off on that and hope we have a transplant instead. Of course it is not for sure yet, but I am very grateful that Roger is going through this for me.

In other news, It is finally warm here, around 11 below this morning and now 2 above. Ben and I headed out for a skate ski the University and the trails were great. Here is Ben getting his climb on.

We had a great sushi dinner last night too with Sarah, Greg and Julie. it was typical hysterical Fairbanks style dinner. It took over an hour to get the food, the wrong food arrived and then the right food arrived. No clean glasses or something so beer out of the bottle...the sushi was good and the waitress didn't quit while serving us. The new standard for a good night out.

It is spring break this week for school, so I have more free time without my labs and class. We hope to get out and go on some good ski trips with the warmer weather and daylight.

Pella and Turtle chasing a moose today at Creamer's Field. Beautiful sunny day!

This picture is from a couple of days ago when I kicked Martin and Ben's butt in dominos!! Last night we went to an epic bonfire party, it around 20 below. Venessa and Seth cleared part of their yard and we had two huge fire pits. Today the forcast is still 45 below for the next 7 days! Sometimes the slight warm up around 5pm is not enough to get a long ski in.

We are still waiting to hear news from Fairbanks friends that have been tested to donate a kidney...hopefully next week. -Dea

40 below funk

it has warmed up to 35 below today. in the paper they call this the "40 below funk", after two weeks people start getting crabby and not much warming coming our way. luckily i have been so busy at school i am hardly noticing the temps. we have big bonfire party this weekend, a first at 4o below.

good morning. this post looks like the last few, still 41 below(-55 with the wind chill, but does it really matter at this point) this morning. i am headed to the lab this morning, good temp to get some work done. of course we had nice game night get together at martin's cabin last night. Trevor is just back from Thailand (installing a water system in a remote village) and trying to get back into the cold weather.
patrick still rode his bike, colder than 45 below the pedals will not turn...hopefully he made it home last night because it was pretty close.

36 below

it is 36 below this morning and supposed to be this cold until Tuesday of next week. it does warm up slightly late in the day. i need my snow pants to go for a walk, the car door latches froze this morning so we had to hold them shut a few miles until the oil i am guessing warmed up enough to let the latch fall. after 40 min the car is still not warm, all and all it pretty great though.

thanks for all the emails regarding getting tested to donate. i really, really appreciate the support.

transplant update/ saturday's earthquake

small earthquakes are pretty common here in Alaska. Saturday morning several of us felt the birch lakes, 4.9 earthquake. they always display the current earthquake report with the weather.

in other news, we are still searching for a donor for a kidney transplant. all of the family came back with a positive crossmatch, which means they can not donate. now, several friends from Fairbanks and Ben's dad Roger are getting tested. we are hoping this round goes better. thanks to everyone that has been tested. i am so lucky to have such great friends and family willing to donate.

cold sunday

our interior warm spell is officially over - we awoke to a frigid 23 degrees below zero this morning. i had kind of gotten used to the comfortable range of 10 below to 10 above. the sun is shining though, and we're gaining about 8 minutes of light a day.

we're both really busy here. i'm shooting quite a bit, and working several projects that i'll share later. Dea is really busy at school right now too. papers, classes, research...she's studying like mad. the blog will probably be a little dead here for a while.


Dea at the lab - here home away from home


the lab's instrument for measuring N2O5


Dea- happy to be going home for the night

i'm finally processing, and printing, some photos from the Midwest in Dec/Jan. ..

Sharae & Caden

till later.

ben

the love sac

we had another game night at ed's last night. ben, julie and i sat on the love sac, it is very comfy. ed got it last time he was in boulder. we played balderdash and it was hilarious.
dan flew to barrow this morning (check out your AK map, norhern most point to the north pole that is still land) so we are watching sky. we went for a skijor and i took this while holding on as we chased down ben skijoring with lucy and ted skiijoring with ty. it was 5 below this morning, not a bad temp for a ski. pella she won't pull, so she just runs along the side.
sky at full speed.

CAZ was sooo fast this weekend on our river ski. The river was good for skate skiing. I think we have to have a ski down, Caz vs. Sky.

we did a moonlight ski at stacia's friday night. she had these ice pillars with candles in them that lined her driveway. pretty cool.
then we played a homemade game that kumi gave to laura for her bachelorette party, she is married now, but it is still a fun game. grad school is getting crazy busy so not too much time to blog. we also went to a good first friday's at wells street gallery.

just skate skiing

Taryn, Stac and I had a great ski today with dogs on the henrik loop. We left from stac's cabin, like most of our places skate skiing right out the door.

Game Night tonight at the Huff house, bring it on. balmy 15 above today- this weather is soo great.

Last week Randy and I finally went in the field to gather some data, it was pretty fun and we discovered a multitude of problems with our tubing/cords and battery life when it is 20 below.

Taryn is a new grad student in our department and she is from Rochester MN! We may stay with her parents after the transplant...whenever that is. we are still waiting for a second round of tests to come back from Mayo next week. -dea

We had a great ski into Tolovana Hotsprings. The trail was a trapline and pella tried to steal the food in the traps. Ben and Ed skiing in the begining of the route, a downhill snow plow screamer on cross country non metal edge skis. Ed made some incredible enchilades he carried in for us.
Ben going over the top of tolovana dome, about 8 miles into our 11mile ski. This part was really steep and Ben carried my sled and his pack! That was awesome because we were able to get there in plenty of time to enjoy the hot springs.Patrick and Ben arriving at the cabin, where Ed had the wood fire stove buring and hot coca waiting, nice.



Dan skied in the 60 mile route intsead from Fairbanks and he made it in 1 day! That is a looooong way, he ran into a wolverine in trap that was growling at him in the middle of the night and alone on the trail (i would have crapped my pants). His dog would not come and when he went to investigate, he saw the animal in the trap. Patrick brought a can of dominos and that was the main entertainment after the hotsprings.

ben and i left from the house today on a backcountry ski on the slough. we were trying out our sled system for our trip next week into Tolovana Hot Springs. it is in very rural part of alaska and then an 11 mile hike in to a remote natural hot spring. Not that far of a ski, but hilly, windy and lots of snow. our friends hit a blizzard last weekend and took it forever not to mention frostbite...so we are getting prepared.

we went on a great long skate ski today, the dog musher hall trails are in perfect condition and freshly groomed, only one skijor women the entire loop. it was 5 above, which is crazy warm compared to the rest of the week with temps as cold as 51 below, of course without a wind chill. it only supposed to be 10 below tonight, this warm spell is great. then we all settled at roasters for a good catch up chat, everyone just showed up at the same time.

Nothing says home like 40 below and your car won't start. Here is Martin and Ben jumping our frozen car. It is 11am and they are also enjoying an IPA to help celebrate being back in AK. We had a great visit in the midwest, but it is also good to be home.