Nugget Creek trail

This past week Peter and I went on a 3 day trip along a 15mi trail to Nugget Creek for survey and control work. We were able to get a UTV to use so we didn’t have to have to hike the entire way out and back. On Monday we left the headquarters and started our journey to the trail. The trail starts along the McCarthy road, but we didn’t have to drive the entire three hours to get to the end we just needed to go about an hour. After we got to the trail head we loaded up and were on our way. It took us about 2 hours to get to the end; we had to drive over some pretty big boulders, go through 3 or 4 creek (aka smallish river, and by no means gentle) crossings and some pretty wet swampy terrain. At our ending point was Nugget Creek. Now earlier in the season you are able to cross the creek; but not now, this creek was a good sized fast moving river. We unpacked our things at a camp site a little ways from the river and when we were finished Peter looked at me and said ok are you ready to cross?

Um, no!

So Peter failed to tell me there would be a creek crossing so I did not have do sturdy sandals to cross with, I had rain boots that were going to fill up super fast. Thus I elected to try and just walk through the river on the smooth river rocks. Peter went first, I wasn’t really watching him cross because I was attempting to get to the crossing location. So he gets across and goes to me, “it should be fine it was able this high.” The this high apparently meant his knee, but I was looking at the water at that point and didn’t really register what he was saying and I sort of was getting antsy knowing this was going to be cold so I just went for it instead of trying to figure out to where he had indicated. I did look up and see his rolled pants weren’t wet at all so I just figured it would be fine. Wrong! So Peter is a 6’4” tall guy who is pretty solid verses my 5’4” body. That foot in height makes a lot of difference when crossing a river because about a quarter of the way in I was getting soaked up to my thigh. We both had found walking sticks to help us cross, I heard walking stick so I assumed use it like you would a walking stick. Well apparently that is not the right technique I lost my footing and almost fell. At this point I am so cold by body is starting to shake (that water was fricken cold), so crossing is getting harder. Peter had to come out and help me to rest of the way, because it was getting harder and harder to manage. My bare feet were really hurting, I was soaked up to my butt and it can be difficult to recover from a near fall when water is still barreling down on you from above trying to make you fall. In the end I got across, plus I had on my 5.11 gear pants that are quick drying and awesome, so I was dry pretty quickly

Once on the other side we walked around the public cabin that was just up the river bank and surveyed the area. As you may recall our camp was set up on the other side of Nugget Creek so we got to go back across, Oh joy! : (

At this point I developed a new strategy, this is one of those things I won’t let beat me. I was determined to get across with no assistance. For one I was prepared for the fact that I was going to get super wet. Also after Peter came over to help me the rest of the way I saw how he crossed and developed that stance. Finally, and I think probably most importantly, I took the insoles out of my rain boots and put those on for some protection against the rocks. This time I crossed like a pro and only managed to get my rolled up pants wet to the mid-thigh, whoo! The rest of the night we made some food and had a nice little campfire near the river.

wooo bug jacket!

The next morning we woke up had some breakfast and got ready for the day. The night before all we had done was survey the area at the public cabin so today we needed to go back and pull everything we found. From the time I got up I was sort of dreading having to cross the creek. Mainly because it was quite a bit colder than the previous night and the sun also hadn’t peaked out of the mountains yet. So when Peter asked if I was ready I was slightly less than enthusiastic with my response. When we got to the creek I tried to suggest several different areas to cross but each and every one turned out to be far worse on closer inspection than the original spot from the day before. So much for trying to stay slightly drier. Either way, you gotta to what ya gotta do. So I slapped on my rain boots, shoved my hiking boots in my backpack, rolled up my pants, walked up to the river, did a sort ‘Don’t let me fall because that would really suck prayer’, and death gripped my walking stick (in the proper stance) all the way across without any problems. Plus, once again my paints weren’t as wet had they had been after both crossing from the night before.

After I poured the glacial water out of my boots and had a little bit of time to recover from the shivering I had a little ‘hell yeah!’ moment in my head and we were off to the cabin. Peter was ahead of me and was going

to go into the cabin to retrieve the garbage bag we had left there for the night. I was just walking up the bank and Peter was almost to the door when he let out a little shriek scream. (I was making fun of him today about it and he claimed it was a manly scream, it wasn’t, but if he asks say it was.) I stopped in my tracks because he backed away pretty quickly from the door. I asked if it was a bear. To which he responded, “No a porcupine!” Sure enough was is a very large porcupine displaying its many large barbs just chilling on some logs that were near the cabin entrance. Apparently it wasn’t too happy with Peter interrupting its sleep haha. We had to yell at it a few times because he wasn’t willing to leave this fine spot. The rest of the morning went like normal just controlling the weeds around the cabin. Then we headed back across the creek. I got across with no problems, Like a BOSS! We loaded up the UTV and were off back to the beginning of the trail.

Now the first day and night out on the trail really wasn’t very buggy. We were in a pretty open area with the creek nearby. This was not the case heading back slowly along the trail. The mosquitoes were everywhere. I wore my bug jacket the entire day and was even forced to eat lunch and dinner inside the jacket. I felt like a freak, but being a freak is better than being covered in mosquito bites. At the end of the day we reached the half way camp and unpacked. There was no sitting out in this buggy area for longer than you really needed to so once we were done eating dinner I stood by my tent planning how I was going to get into my tent with the least amount of mosquitoes. I decided on standing a few feet away breathing out hard a few times to get those horrible things to fly around my face (I still had the bug jacket on), and then I ran quickly unzipped the tent and dove in. Again I am sure I looked like something is wrong with me, but I don’t really care.

The final day we packed up and continued mapping and pulling invasives along the trail. About a mile away from the half way camp the UTV just died. Luckily we had a satellite phone and we were able to call the maintenance people. They had to drive all the way from headquarters to pick us up after finding some ATVs to get to us on the trail. Needless to say we called at 10am and they weren’t there until 2:30pm. Two guys showed up each on an ATV, they weren’t able to figure out how to fix the UTV with the limited resources they had so they decided to tow it out. The towing went pretty well considering we still had to cross a few creeks and some pretty swampy areas. Really I was just glad we didn’t have to hike out. We would have had to carry a lot of crap for about 7 miles. Plus we still had to make it the rest of the way along the McCarthy road to reach Kennecott by nights end, if we had to hike and then drive 2 more hours I would have just keeled over. We ended up making it to Kennecott at around 7pm so it wasn’t that bad from our planned 4:30pm.

Happy Belated Birthday

Because my parent’s flight back to Michigan was on July 5^th, or in other words my birthday, I didn’t really celebrate it too much. So my fellow boxtownies proposed we celebrate the next weekend. I had to work on Saturday because we had to do the Weed Smack Down. This was a little event set up by several different organizations to inform people about invasive plants in Alaska and to get some community involvement. The

event went really well, and we ended with a pretty large area in Glennallen being weeded of white sweet clover. (White sweet clover is a very aggressive invasive plant that can cause serious damage to river systems, by causing the systems to narrow. River narrowing is bad news for running Alaskan salmon.) When I got home from work my roommate Amy looked at me and smiled saying “I have something for you!” She led me into the kitchen and there on the counter were cupcakes with my name written on them. It was so sweet.

I got to make the movie choice; I picked Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 because it is adorable. Then we made a fire and just hung out the rest of the night. A great belated birthday!

Parents to Alaska

I am sure many of you who know my parents closely have already heard a lot about their trip to visit me, but here are some more pictures anyway.

A birthday gift from a gift shop in Glennallen. I laugh every time I look at the guy's face

Mom and Dad in Kennecott

So my mom and dad flew into Anchorage on June 29^th. I had just flown back from Grizzly Lake earlier in the day. So I had to get back to boxtown, quickly wash some clothes and then pack to go pick up my parents. I got into Anchorage at about 10:15pm and just had to hang out for a while until their flight came in at 11pm. I drove them directly to the hotel because they were pretty tired when they finally were able to get out of the crowd of people along with their bags. I asked my parents to pack lightly before they came; so of course they both had large checked bags, the largest allowed carry on and a smaller personal item. (Rolling my eyes, haha) Luckily my car has a large trunk.

orca pod

The next day we woke up early because we had to have the car packed and ready to go by 8:30 in order to get to Seward on time for a day Cruise. Seward is about a 2hour and 40min drive and we need to be there by 11 am with the trip at 12pm, so we had enough time. The day cruise was really fun. At the beginning of the trip my mom asked me what I wanted to see. I had 4 things that I have always wanted to see; humpback whales, orcas, porpoise, and puffins. If I got to see those my trip was complete and I was more than happy. Well what do you know, wishes do come true because

humpback whale (there were two)

I got to see each and every one of those animals and then some (although the porpoise I saw really only lifted its fine out of the water for a half of a second so I am not actually sure I saw it, but who is complaining?).

Our hotel was in Seward so we hung out there for about half of the next day, but we needed to make our way to Anchorage to pick up supplies and also to continue on to Wrangell-St. Elias. I showed my parents the awesome Brown Jug Warehouse liquor store (my dad enjoyed, mom not so much but oh well). We also stopped and

ate at Moose’s Tooth. They make super good homemade pizza there so it was an obvious suggestion. Then we were on our way to the park. Now for those of you who do not know, Alaska is a very VERY mountainous state. So when driving really anywhere you have to drive up, down, and around mountains. In addition to this, guard rails are not always present (actually there are a lot of times they are no more than a few poles sticking in the ground with reflectors). Call me crazy, but I am not too fazed about that sort of thing. Now my mom on the other hand does not like heights and she just so happened to be sitting on the side closest to the edge. I thought it was funny but I don’t think she did haha.

The rest of the week I had work as normal so I didn’t see my parents during the day. I did cook for them a couple of nights. The first night I cooked up a fillet of burbot I had from Grizzly Lake. The second night we make steak and fresh salmon my parents had caught down in the coastal town of Valdez.

On the 4^th of July I had to be in McCarthy early to run a booth for the Exotic Plant Management Team. That means we got to wake up and be out the door by 6am to make the 3hr trip on the dirt road to McCarthy. It wasn’t that bad though. There was a little parade in the town we got to watch and people seemed pretty happy that we were working to keep out invasive plants in the park. My parents decided to go on a flight seeing tour so I had some free time to hang out with some of my co-workers who were in McCarthy for the festivities. We all ended up going swimming in this little area that is sort of offset from the glacial fed river. It was super nice. Some of the people were complaining it was cold, but compared to the river it was a hot ^th of July.

spring so I wasn’t saying anything. When my parents returned from their flight we all went up to Kennecott (it is an old copper mine from the early 1900’s and is a national historic site that is being restored), to look around and do a little hiking. My parents wanted to go out on the glacier, but we got up there too late for that, so we just hiked to the top of this little waterfall with a foot bridge across it. All in all it was a pretty good 4

On the 5^th we all got up early again and were out the door by 6am. It is a 7hour drive from McCarthy to Anchorage and my parents wanted to do some souvenir shopping in Anchorage before their flight at 4pm. In Anchorage we went to the Ulu factory (an ulu is a type of knife that has been used for many hundreds of years by native Alaskans), to a pretty huge super tourist shop, and my mom got to go to a quilt shop. Then it was off to the airport.

Grizzly Lake

I spent this past week at Grizzly Lake, located kind of in the northwest region of the park. I got to fly there in a float plane which was pretty cool. I was able to see a lot of the terrain and we flew through the mountains. The whole purpose for the trip was to do a fishery survey of the burbot in Grizzly Lake. Burbot are a kind of bottom dwelling fish, that sort of look a little like catfish in body shape, so they have that snaky shape to them. They are super slimy and difficult to hold onto. I almost made it the entire time without a fish really turning on me, until the second to last fish started to freak out and it smacked me in the face with its tail, stupid fish.

The work entailed setting 25 hoop traps with cut up herring in the ends and letting them sit a day. Then we went back to the traps and I hauled them up into our little boat. If there were fish in the trap we emptied them in a big tub with water and then drove them and the trap to the shore so we could mark them and get measurements. I was charged with restraining

the fish which is why I got smacked in the face with the tail. The traps were broken down and reset in another part of the lake, and on and on we go.

The trip would have been great if it wasn't for the weather. Most of the week was just miserable. I’m not exactly sure how cold it was but it felt pretty dang cold, it was windy and rainy the first 2 days. The lake water was 45 degrees. I was just chilled to the bone and not having any fun. Those first few days I was counting the hours until we were done with the work and just hoping it would go faster. The 3^rd day the rain stopped and I was really happy

about that, but still the wind and cold wouldn't let up. The 4th day was great, there was actually sunlight
: D so awesome!

On the whole I am glad I went. I was able to fly in a float plane, I saw a lot of new wildlife (including one very pissed off beaver who was not appreciative of us in his lake), I caught my first Alaskan fish, and most importantly I figured out I sure as heck don’t want to be a fish biologist : )

Note: Most of these pictures are from the last day, because that was the first time I was warm enough for my brain and body to function properly

My first grayling

This is how I slept at night, so ca..ca...cold

Summer Solstice

Saturday June 21^st was the summer solstice. So what I never realized was that people here actually do   This was my second try at making bread, both times were here in boxtown, and I think it turned out pretty well.

12:07am on the solstic

things on the solstice, unlike in most places where it is sort of an afterthought. Like “hey is it the first day of summer” and not think about it for the rest of the day. But here people wish each other a happy solstice like it is any other holiday. A local bar was hosted a band and some people from the park were going. I didn’t really feel like it all that much though, because this was my first actual full day off that didn’t entail traveling or anything that I have had in a few weeks. So naturally this was a day to get some things done, like unpack from my trip up to the Slana ranger station, clean my room, do some laundry, oh and bake bread.

Anyway, my fellow boxtownies and I decided we just wanted to hang out in boxtown and celebrate the solstice here. Pretty much solstice celebrations are like New Year’s Eve celebrations without out the freezing cold weather, annoying noise makers, and champagne; but you do have to add a few thousand mosquitoes to the mix. Basically you just hand out like normal and wait for the sun to set (which took place at 11:36pm), upon which time you take a shot. Wooo, yay solstice! So it wasn’t really a bad time at all : )

This next week I will be helping the park’s fishery biologist with a fish survey of Grizzly Lake. I am super excited to get to go on this trip, for one we have to ride in a float plane to get to the site. Plus, the biologist I am going with is going to show me how to fly

fish; this lake is apparently a super awesome fly fishing spot. I’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures, I am told this is an absolutely gorgeous place to visit.

Chicago Botanical Gardens

After my super FUN experience trying to leave Alaska I made it to Chicago. I actually have a theory about that see if you agree. So people are constantly telling me about people they know who have went to Alaska for a trip and just have stayed because they liked it so much. It is because they like it so much it is because Alaska wouldn't let them leave! Haha ok maybe not, back to my trip to the gardens.

The entire reason I went to Chicago in the first place is because there was a training for my internship. Since the internship is through the Chicago Botanical Gardens that is where they host the training. The people from the Botanical Gardens came and picked up a group of us interns at the airport a little bit after my flight got in and brought us to the hotel.

When the training started up on Monday they went through a little bit about the stats of who got the internships and what government agencies people were working for. So I was the only National Parks service intern, there were about 3 non-profits, and the rest were Bureau of Land Management (BLM) people, so most of the training sessions were sort of geared towards them. Oh well now I know more about the BLM plus I got a free trip to the Chicago area for awhile. We did some sessions on

seed collection, plant taxonomy, how to conduct plant surveys, etc. Most of the people there were plant biology majors. When we did some work on identification I felt pretty knowledgeable because I already knew most of the plant (including their latin spelling) while the other people were trying to key out the plant, thank you Michigan State Horticulture
 : )

The botanical gardens are about an hour or so north of downtown Chicago, so I didn't go downtown because the lagistics of getting there and around were not really worth the effort. Plus my internal clock was still on Alaska time (3 hours behind) so I wasn't the most alert of people all of the time, especially after spending most of the training days sitting inside with PowerPoint training sessions. But I did get to explore the Chicago Botanical Gardens a lot, I would definitly recommend people stop there for a visit if you are in the area. For one it is free to the public, also there are a lot of really cool landscapes and sites throughout the gardens.

 My trip back to Alaska was far less eventful than my trip from Alaska. There were no major problems I just sort of had a long day of flying and waiting. Although, there was this really annoying drinking fountain in the Seattle airport that someone had installed with a speaker that made amplified running water sounds along with a 'kurplunk' sound whenever someone used it. It was fine for the first half hour but 3 hours later I was about to pull the stupid thing out of the wall and go on the hunt for its inventor. There was a name on a plague by it, this David fellow is on my list.

After getting into Anchorage it was getting late so I slept at a hotel. The next day a few of my friends from boxtown were heading through Anchorage and they were able to drop me off at my car with its newly installed alternator and battery. Thank you so much Jarrod from Victory Bible Camp you are awesome!

Trip to Anchorage

I have been super excited to be able to travel to Chicago for training. Why? You may ask. Well because I set it up so I could lay over a little over a day at home in Grandville before having to get to training at the Chicago Botanical gardens. My flight was scheduled for 11pm in Anchorage on Friday. In order to get to anchorage and have enough time to get my car all parked I planned on having my car packed and ready to leave right after work at 5.

So Friday work went well and we actually got out at 3:30. I just decided to leave right then so I could go explore a little bit in Anchorage and maybe take some pictures along the way. There are some really pretty sights along the way so that was definitely worth doing. Then about half way to Anchorage my car started acting funny. It was shifting sort of hard and making an odd sound. Then I used my blinker to let someone pass me and I got a "click click blaaaaaaaa" sound...then my car was dead. To make matters worse, at that point there was no shoulder. (When I say no shoulder I mean there is a wall of rock to my right and the same on the other other side.) Luckily I had been going about 50 and headed down a mountain. I was able to coast down the road and at the bottom there just so happened to be a side road and parking area. I was able to roll far enough to make it to the road and get off the road to a gravel parking spot. This was my "Oh God please no!" moment. My first action was check my phone, as most of you have probably found out cell service in the mountains is crappy at best. But I had one bar! I have never been so happy to see one bar on my phone in my life. So what do I do? Call mom and dad :) What is that going to do? Not sure. Did I think about that, or care? Nope.

The call went like this...
Ring ring ring.
Dad: hello?
Me: My car is dead on the side of the road and I am no where near anything.
Dad: hello...hello megan. I can't hear you
Me: (yelling a little bit) MY CAR IS DEAD
Dad: hello...Michelle take the phone I can't hear her. She sounds like she is in distress.
Mom:hello megan? What's wrong?
Me: Caaaarrrr deeeead, CAR DEAD! (I decided to keep it sort and slow maybe that would get through. And also apparently not use proper English.)
Then the call cut off.

I would like to start off by thanking the inventor of texting and that the text will continue to try to go through with little to no service because I don't really know what I would have done. Now it was serious. I messaged my mentor at the Wrangell, my co-worker Peter, and of course my parent's. (That would have been a crappy move to call like that and not say what was happening.) Luckily all parties got the message. Peter texted me back quickly letting me know he was on his way. In actuality, of places for my car to die in Alaska, this was probably one the best places. First of all I was located on an actual marked side road. Second I was near a river that actually had a name posted along the road. I was able to tell Peter where I was actually and not just say by a mountain... although true is not very descriptive in Alaska, just sayin.

Peter made it to where I was by about 8pm. At this point, we are still around 1hr 45min away (flight is still at 11 and I wont be let in unless I am there at least 45min ahead of time). I'm still good at this point, close but everything will be ok.

This is the point where I found out why calling mom was a good idea. My mom being the wonderful woman she is contacted the people I stayed with in Anchorage to see if they had any ideas. Joel replied saying that I was only about three miles up the road from Victory Bible Camp and they would probably be able to tow my car to the camp and have their mechanic look at it. My mom called the camp and was able to tell me who to find and talk to. So when Peter arrived I packed my things in his car and we drove to the camp. After finding the camp, everyone was more than willing to help out. I can't even begin say how grateful I was and still am for their help. They made this bad experience far better than it otherwise would have been. I was able to give them my keys so they could tow it to the camp while Peter drove me to the airport.

When we finally left the camp it was about 8:15pm. Which was fine there was enough time for me to still get to the airport. So we are going along our merry way and then we get stuck behind this janky camper. Now when I say janky I don't mean this was old and worn out. It was janky as in it was a flat bed truck that had an old camper with the bottom cut off and held onto the truck with what looked like some sort of strap system. So naturally this vehicle is going at 25mph down the road (it is a 55mph road) and the road is winding through the mountains (aka there are no passing zones) plus the truck driver didn't really seem to be able to keep it within the lane. Several miles down the road there still has not been a passing zone and now there are 8 cars stacked up behind us. Just for everyone who is not aware of this, it is illegal to back up traffic on these types of roads and you are required by law to pull over and let the traffic flow past once you have 5 cars behind you (that sure wasn't happening here, even with several paved pull off areas for sight seeing that could have been used for this. ) Eventually we made it down the mountain and there was enough of a straight away to merit a passing zone.

At this point I am doing the calculations on time and looking at my GPS to figure out when I am going to get there, which are all saying 10:17pm. I had to be there with my ticket at 10:15pm. So while driving through Anchorage I am willing the lights to change or stat green. Somehow I was able to run in the doors at 10:13 and there was an open clerk that got me my ticket and I was at the TSA check-in by 10:15.

The flight to Grand Rapids and the flight later to Chicago all went off without a hitch. I was able to spend a little time home and see Marc and the family. This wasn't really how I planned on starting the trip, but it worked out in the end.

Starting Work up...Well Sort of

The rest of my week in Anchorage went pretty well I don't have any complaints. On Thursday we all went out to the Glacier Brewhouse for just an end of week get together. I ended up having a beer (it was alright, I really am not a beer drinker but I felt I needed to have an Alaskan beer while in an Alaskan brewhouse), and a steak for dinner which was really really good, sometimes I still think about that steak. I definitely paid for it though...$35 later, oh well when in Rome.

That Friday we had a half day so I ventured around Anchorage a bit to get some supplies. I was able to find a fishing pole at the Army Surplus Store which was having their tent sale. They were liquidating all of their fishing gear so I got a really good deal on the pole and it is super nice. I think we are going to have some good times here. Then I met up with my co-worker at Wrangell, Peter, and we had lunch at Moose's Tooth, it is this bar that makes fresh pizza that is super good. Put it this way I had to drive around for at least 15 min just to find a spot to park and it was a good sized parking lot. After that I stopped at what is known as the Brown Jug to pick up some libations for my down time in box town. This was the largest liquor store I have ever been in, there were so many types of beer, wine, and liquor I had no idea where to start. I actually started getting a little paranoid someone would kick me out because I could decide and probably looked like an underage kid trying to figure out how to steal a bottle of booze. I ended up with some basic beers because I didn't want to spend a ton of time in the store. I think next time I am in Anchorage I will take dedicate some time to looking around that store. After the beer I went to the grocery store for food. Haha ok that sounds a little bad I chose beer before food, but there was a reason I wanted to wait to get all of the cold stuff until last due to the 4 hour drive ahead of me.

This is what happens when you have nothing
better to do_ Amy and Matthew

My drive back to the park went off without a hitch. I would say my time in Anchorage was pretty great on the whole as well. Although, I did have a lot of people trying to ask me for money everywhere I went. I think I need to stop smiling so much when I am walking around and develop the resting bitch face for moments like that ; )

After getting back from Anchorage I had three whole days off. I sort of didn't know what to do with myself I am not used to having time off for that long. Usually I have some papers to type or something to do for hort club or some other thing. I really need to set up a list of things I want to so see and do while I am here because I basically just did random things around box town. I made bread for a party we went to (it was so good), I bough car insurance (super fun), we started work on some raised beds for box town, played a few games, and watched a lot of movies.

This here is box town. I'm in box 2 with my roomy Amy
The darker box on the right is the kitchen and there is a
separate bathroom and a community room

This week we took a trip up north to the Slana ranger station and just looked around the park a bit and helped one of the rangers with some plant id. While on our walk we saw some huge bear tracks, they were about 6in across, I wish I would have taken a picture so you all could understand the size this bear had to have been. Not lying though, I am glad we didn't see it up close. Today we are doing flight safety training, it is so sooooo boring, it is one of those times where you are more or less hurting yourself in a horribly failed attempt to stay awake. Tomorrow and Friday should be a lot better though, we are going south to Kennecott for two days to do some land assessment so that should be cool.

Flat top mountain

This week is week two of my training, this time I am in Anchorage and training with the other Exotic Plant Management Team (EMPT) interns. We have learned about the various invasive plants that we will need to control and also learning how to get the GPS coordinates of the plant stands.

Yesterday after work a group of us climbed flat top mountain. I am pretty sure this was the first mountain that I have climbed, either way it is the first one I climbed while in Alaska. We had a ton of fun, although after a little way up the hill I was definitely breathing a little harder. I'm sure in a few months if I try it again I will get up with no problem. There is a pretty good trail up the mountain so that made it a little easier, but when you get towards the top there are a good set of boulders to climb up. Getting to see pretty much all of Anchorage was well worth it.

Trip to Valdez

On Saturday, 9 of the temporary works/interns took a trip to Valdez (which is along the coast, about 2 hrs south of where I am staying) just to pick up some supplies from the slightly less expensive grocery store and walk around a bit. On the way down we saw a bear; I have no idea if it was a brown bear or just a blond black bear we noticed it too late. Upon getting to Valdez the group broke up a bit and walked around the town. Myself along with two other people headed off to one of the thrift stores. I bought a small food processor, yay to making homemade hummus, seriously food is expensive.

After looking at that store and a few others we headed to a nearby hotel, which has a bar/restaurant attached to it, to get some food and a drink. We sat at the bar and had an interesting conversation with the bar tender, who turned out to be the owner of the bar. After a while he comes over shaking a drink and sets up three shots (we didn't ask for them). We asked what it was and I joking said I was a little scared but he told us to try them. After asking what it was he told us the name (it was Russian no idea what is was). After drinking it he goes “this is a $100 bottle of vodka.” I must say it was pretty good, but I was a little scared for a second I wasn't about to pay $20 for a shot or whatever it would have equated to. In the end we were about to leave and after having 5 beers plus the shots between the three of us he hands us a $10 total bill, saying it was the family price. We gave him a good tip because that was definitely worth a lot more than $10. That was a nice little surprise for trip. Don’t worry anyone none of us were on driving duty…thank god because that vodka was REALLY good ; )

A little later in the day the group met up and we headed to the store for the supplies. Then we went across the bay to see the fish hatchery. When we got to the other side we stopped to look around and got to see some sea otters. This was the perfect time to scan the water with my binoculars (Thank you Marc for 

loaning them to me, I have found them handy many times already…and to everyone else, no I am not using them to creep on people). I was able to locate several sea gulls, a few arctic terns, a raven getting attacked by some pretty annoyed crows, and I heard a bald eagle, I couldn't find it though (sad days). During my searching I kept seeing these darker birds, but they were just too far away for me to see them properly. After at least 15min of me following these birds

willing them to land closer, three of the birds landed close enough in the water for me to get a halfway decent look and a picture. With a little investigation I found out they were harlequin ducks, they are pretty sweet looking

After taking some pictures around the hatchery we all headed back, stopping along the way to catch some cool pictures. Then we hit a little snag, there was a tree on the road. So all 9 of us got out along with some other drivers and started trying to move this tree. A tow truck just happened to be going along the road so we were able to hook up a strap

Harlequin duck

to the tree and he pulled it off of the road.

I would say that was probably the most interesting day I have had here yet.

Pictures thus far

 Trip to Alaska

 First moose of the trip

 Me and Clifford

 my Alaska family the Kiekintvelds
Thank you so much guys

Drum Mt.

Matanuska Glacier

 box #2=home