up the dalton

ben and i drove up the dalton towards the arctic circle on sat. ben has another amazing camera, the linhof 4x5 that he borrowed from dennis. this is a nicer camera than we will ever own in our lifetime, the body alone is over 6 grand. ben was excited to shoot portraits of the crazy moose hunters coming off the Yukon River. it was a cold brown day, snow over the hills, but not down at the river. this is dave, he was down river 25omiles toward the bering sea with his family for 3 weeks at their moose camp. everyone is interested in the this camera and all the portraits ben shot, the people were totally into standing there for awhile.
pella and i hiked way down the banks of the Yukon River. we saw grizzly tracks, but no bears.

4 years!

today was our 4 year anniversary. here we are taking pella for a walk before our big night out and modeling our woolly rhino wear(me-royal robbins,/patagucci and ben-horny toad/arcteryx)

we went to Lavelle's for dinner and here is ben cruising the downtown streets of the 'Banks.we spent the evening at the grand opening for woolly rhino. our 2nd store to shop at in Fairbanks. our friend cheryl left Beaver Sports to open her own store. we modeled clothes and helped people. in return we got a great discount on the clothes and new puffy coats for the 40 below weather. here i am "helping". ben was a sales rock star and i think he met half the town tonight the place was packed.on a more serious note, it is has now been over a year waiting for a kidney transplant and being on dialysis 3 days a week. i still have a positive attitude and i know things will work out someday, but i could not have done it with out ben. thanks best husband. love , dea

we had friends over for dinner sat. we all loved sarah's boiled frosting chocolate cake.
we did the creamer's field boardwalk and tried out the winter coats.
the northern lights were amazing again. here is another crappy photo from my camera, the lights were intense as early as 9pm or so.

it was a beautiful night last night at creamers field, in the 40's but no wind. the low lying fast moving clouds were very dramtic. here is ben shooting his 8x10 while i ran with pella. the leaves are almost gone and there is snow is the forecast!

Matias Wins!

ben and i decided go cheer on the equinox runners this year even though i was not racing. we saw all of our friends running, enjoyed some brisk end of fall weather and Matias won! his time was 2:50 and that is great for this hilly, steep, rooty trail course. the equinox marathon has been around 25 years and is rated 3rd toughest in the country, come on up and race!
kristen, ned and anna. kristen and ned run the marathon every year. kristin was third for the women this year and she has won it in the past.
smiling trevor ran his first equinox marathon!

jackson finishing, showing his butt off, again. watching the finish.

congrats martin on passing your orals! we had some good toasts and wine at fancy lavelle's downtown tonight. martin is moving up to PhD candidate...headed to Russia to study more walrus.

smith lake is so pretty in the fall. stac, tim and the dogs joined us for a ride around campus.

Cachou (kash-oo)

another successful game night at ed's. it was cool enough for the wood fired stove and time for balderdash. we learned we can go the store and by kamtulicon, look at paintings with putti, and hope we don't run into a bedswerver.
trevor hogging the luv sac. pella had a great time visiting with Caz, even though julie is far away, 'cause ted is watching her.

well, I have nothing going on right now except school...which is everything, but not that fun to blog. So I'll blog again about other friends. My newest blog link is my friend Megan from Boulder who just moved to Mexico City. She is starting her career as a scientist and we are in similar atmospheric chemistry fields. I am excited for her in new adventure!

this is my favorite picture of poor sky, the only one with out a boat on ed, dan, brian and trevor's alaskan adventure most people only dream of doing. check out ed's blog for the full story. (check out the alpacka rafts, packs out at 4lbs!)

ben's new toy. he borrowed this 8x10 large format camera from fellow photographer dennis. he has a light meter and film too. he has not been this happy since he met me :-) what a great weekend it was to be out shooting, riding and running.setting up the glass for a shot, this camera is huge. the negative is 8 "x 10", hence the name.

we went to silver gulch brewery, way out in Fox sat night. it is so packed with people every day and night. this is the new beer tasting room, which is totally unfinished. construction lights in the corner, plywood floors and half finished is still hands down the nicest restaurant in fairbanks.
we headed out to sarah and greg's to watch the aurora later that night.

here is sarah looking overhead at the aurora from her chair. oops. the aurora was just fantastic last night, but my camera can not capture it. i would check out Patrick's blog for some awesome shots over the last few nights. lots of solar flare.

enjoying the last of the nice weather last night. the leaves are turning, but it is still 70.
we ran into tim, bellie and beaufort out on the UAF trails.

working in the cold room

i've been working in the cold room down in the basement of the geophysical institute this past week. it is -30 in this picture, pretty hard to tell though. that is not that cold for Fairbanks, but man i am not ready for winter yet. luckily it was 75 and sunny again today, just perfect riding weather. we did a great ester loop with stac and even pella! other than that, it is that time in my grad school career to pass my oral defense of my thesis proposal. i think my weekend trips are over for awhile until i fully prepare and pass.

Gulkana Glacier

gulkana glacier is off the richardson at about mile marker 200. this is the start of our hike and you see gulkana in the background.

dan, ashley and ben looking for sky. she took off chasing two caribou out of the valley.
dan crossing the suspension bring over college river. pella, caz and sky had to swim across and they were caught in the current for a little ways as they made their way over to the other side.
ashley crossing the bridge and pella in the river making her way across.
Julie (more photos) and Ashely up the canyon to the right of where we started our glacier, they are crossing the runoff creek here. I like the perspective of the canyon walls, these glaciers are huge.
Farther up the glacier, we separated here because of the dogs and crevasse danger.Here is Ashley on the glacier hike over a small crevasse.
inside a small crevasse, ben took this...i already headed back with pella.
julie and caz crossing and julie getting ready to cross one of many small braids of the river on the way back.
lunch break near the end of our hike. pella was one tired dog.

picking raspberries last week.

transplant update

well this last set of bad news just flew by, it is becoming the regular deal around here. dialysis is becoming a way of life for me and this may be for along while. there is nothing to do but be positive and keep heading outdoors while i can. our last blood test still had a high crossmatch and we can not have a transplant. they(Mayo Clinic) are going to do one last test in two weeks. after that it is back to the drawing board. this is a link on positive crossmatch transplants and the trouble they cause. we are heading out tomorrow afternoon on another spectular weekend alaska trip to gulkana glacier.
i love my new car. the greatest feature is that is has a cassette player and a 6 CD changer. i can use the cassetter play with my ipod shuffle and it plays tunes! very simple and cheap adapter. i guess that is one benefit of an older car (2001 jetta wagon).

moose mountain moutain bike ride has everything. stac and i on wide fast downhill.
fun, ridable, water. a few not so fun bogs later, myself and the camera fell in. great single trac thru a really dense forest, but i have no pics of that after the water.

Pella was very sick this week and had to stay overnight at the vet. She is finally getting better. This picture is with her iv removed, just the tape. She is a little drama queen here and still didn't want to walk on that leg. They think it may have been poisonous mushrooms. She is on leash for awhile now. I have her at school in my new used car! It has been 2 years without a car and our schedules just aren't working out. In addition I bet Ben, Martin and Julie 20 bucks each that I won't go into Beaver Sports for 6 months(on August 8) ! There it is out on the internet, I have to live up to it and collect my money to help pay for the car.

ed had a barbacue last night and we celebrated brian jackson's MS defense. here he is dancing with the fake butt instead of giving a speech.

Indigo Girls in Fairbanks

i had to steal both of these pictures from Martin's blog. we had a blast at the show last night. as you can see we were in the front row and there were only a few hundred people. martin, julie, ben and i went early to eat at the blue loon. we don't get big names up here very often and I love the Indigo girls. I danced most of the night and we had a big group of friends there that danced even after the show. Of course I am wearing my t-shirt today.ben and martin's friend turtle.

biking denali national park road

ben and i road part of the denali national park road and it was amazing, one of a dozen favorite alaska trips. this national park does not allow cars on the 90 mile dirt road into the wilderness. only 2 bikes per camper bus which drops backpackers off at specific quadrants. the bus ride started out very entertaining with a crazy bus driver and monte the country singer on the drive in. we took the bus to polychrome pass, 46 miles and started our ride out at 8pm. ed and julie took the bus to fish creek 64 miles in, but we did not see them until the campground at 1:30 am!

this is the start, a screaming down hill past caribou, moose and a grizzly bear with a cub.

i stayed behind to get this great perspective, it is still hard to tell the drop off was very steep and about 1,000 feet. it seemed safer on the bike then on those buses.sable pass area. even though all big mountains(denali 20,500ft, foraker ect.) were covered in the clouds it was still beautiful.
another sable pass area.
ben fixing his seat up our last climb to descend to savage river. next time maybe we will ride all 90 miles. i was so excited to do this ride on a friday after dialysis and ride thru the night. i am already dreaming up our next adventure to Gaulkona glacier next weekend!