This is a blast from the past. Be warned.
It hardly even feels like it was in 2012 anymore.
But it was so fun I am posting now.
Better late than never, right??
Can you guess what it is, too?
If you said the Aridity you would be wrong.
You would also be the auto-correct function on my computer.
But if you said the Iditarod,
Congratulations!
This year, the weather was beautiful for it.
It hardly even feels like it was in 2012 anymore.
But it was so fun I am posting now.
Better late than never, right??
Can you guess what it is, too?
If you said the Aridity you would be wrong.
You would also be the auto-correct function on my computer.
But if you said the Iditarod,
Congratulations!
This year, the weather was beautiful for it.
It was a very sunny day, with views of McKinley in the distance,
overly excited dogs, and deep snow drifts : )
(yes, Luke is standing in there)
The noise from the dog teams is actually quite exhilarating..
Their excitement is contagious!
.....
and, no, contrary to popular belief, sled dogs are not just huskies.
.....
and, no, contrary to popular belief, sled dogs are not just huskies.
This is where people's drawings of Alaskans wearing fur hooded coats comes from.
: ) Lots of furred-up people.
The guy on the right looked like he skinned an ox and put it on,
Exuberant dog teams, anxiously awaiting their turn to race down the starting line had to be held onto by handlers.. they were literally jumping sideways over each other sometimes.
.....
We were pumped.
The dogs were pumped.
Pumped up kids found awesome places to watch from.
What a wonderful day!
-------
Fast forward.
Hang onto your hat.
to July dipnetting.
Luke was excited over his new waders,
his new dipnet,
and couldn't wait to dive into the midst of the dipnetting frenzy : )
That's how it's done- just stand in the water, hold your net and catch the salmon heading upstream
into the river.. Our limit was 35 salmon this year, and Luke was determined to limit us out
....
In the top right photo, I took it while heading back from town- you can get a good view
of how you just crowd onto the beach at the mouth of the river
wherever you can fit your vehicle, and camp as long as it takes to catch your limit
...
To say Luke enjoyed himself is a huge understatement.
I think they need to come up with a whole new word for "enjoyment" to describe his glee over it all.
Me, I enjoyed my relaxation with magazines. And soda waters. And running to town.
.....
Luke's first catch!
The seagulls are EVERYwhere
Since everyone rinses and guts their catch then tosses the guts aside..
lots of easy pickins for the gulls.
I love how the above picture shows the tidal change.. The river comes up to the dark sand line
(a bit higher up than where the wet sand ends.. can you find it?)
(hint- the person walking out of the picture is almost exactly on the line)
The river narrows so much at low tide!
You can also see the beauty of when the sky gets confused over whether it's nighttime or not. : )
...........
Some hub-bub of dipnetting.
Coolers scattered,
Commercial fishing boats heading in and out,
people dipnetting wherever there is room,
swimmers (nutsy. that water is COLD)
And waay at the bottom of this collage, you can see the tent where a group from a local
church comes to hand out free coffee, hot chocolate and hot dogs : )
so nice of them!
...........
Step 1-hang onto your net, even if you get tired.
2-Yay! Grin and fire up when you get one to haul into shore.
Bonus if you get more than one per haul.
3- Knock them out.
4- Gut, clean and add to your stash!
Since I am not a resident yet this year, I wasn't allowed to join in at all, but was exciting to watch!
When we got home, the results of the weekend was so worth it!
Coolers full of fresh, delicious, wild caught salmon, Luke cleaned, I vacuum packed them..
So nice to have a bunch of fish ready for meals in the freezer!
And to think people all over the world pay big bucks for what we have fresh in our 'backyard'..
We felt pretty lucky! : )
-------
August, we had Luke's mom and dad in town, and while they were here,
we enjoyed a ferry ride from Whittier to Valdez..
We enjoyed completely different rides at times though.
Being newly pregnant, I napped and he got as close to the bow as possible. : )
.......
While awake, the ride is so beautiful!!
Mountains, glaciers, sea life, (we saw whales, but they were too fast to capture..),
We even saw one of the crab boats that stars in "Deadliest Catch"..
(the Cornelia Marie for those who watch that..)
Upper left, leaving Whittier, lower right, entering Valdez..
The end of the pipeline is in the other lower picture..
And the icebergs that were all over were so cool!
Someone wise once described them as 'like listening to ice cubes crackling in a glass of water'
That's a perfect description. Sounds unreal.
Sea lions hanging out.
Hi sea lions!
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Cute husband post. Sorry, this day was too wonderful not to add.
My first day of work, Luke got me flowers, and wrote a letter to
myself and our unborn baby- to say thank you for going to work even though
mom feels yucky right now.. :) so diggin sweet.
He also made supper.
2 t-bones apiece.
I was smack dab in the middle of my red-meat craving week,
and he figured vegetables would just bog down the beauty of steak to me.
He was right :)
And for my mother, most likely, here is part of our cabin :)
I had lots of fun adding a closet.. Just a piece of plywood, stained in a fun chevron pattern,
then nailed into place, add a curtain, and wa-la!
Our closetless cabin is closetful now.
That is also where our baby will sleep. It's about 4x5 in there..
Will fit our mini pack and play just perfect!
And our living room.
Each piece of furniture was a craigslist steal.
Things can be inexpensive if you look : )
The middle is my exciting finds at target, nothing like decorating for a season in under 8 dollars
And on the right, I added shelves out of free, unused chunks of board,
spray painted them and their .80 cent brackets, and yay, helped our lack of cupboard space : )
My favorite thing so far is to figure out how to live in this cabin cheap.
It's a fun challenge to try to make the most out of what space we have :)
Even though our space isn't gigantic, we hope to see everyone here at some point!
We would love to have you!!
