Ups & Downs

Wednesday, Oct. 5th

The past few weeks has been full of a lot of "Ups & Downs" for me. First, there was the emotional "ups & downs" of being a die-hard Dallas Cowboy's football fan. Talk about a roller coaster!! In their game against the Detroit Lions, first they kick butt and have a 27 point lead halfway through the 3rd quarter...I'm UP!! That's when we start the plunge until they end up losing the game by 3 points...I'm DOWN!! Good thing it's just a game and by Monday I was feeling OK again (if I didn't think or hear about it) but...I think it is going to be a loooong season.

Spaz "WAD"

Since I had some time off and Lori was working, I decided to go for a hike that I knew she would not really enjoy - heck, I wasn't even sure I would enjoy it - but I knew Spaz (Wilderness Adventure Dog) would so off we went. The day was sunny and cool with no wind...perfect for a hike "up & down" to peak 3920. I packed us some lunch and we drove 7 miles out the Haines highway to the trailhead and started up and up and up and up.

There were enough breaks in the forest where I could catch glimpses of the incredible views up and down the Chilkat Valley that it kept enticing me up the mountain.

Don't tell Lori but I took her bear spray along with me for the first time ever. An hour into the hike I start thinking about bears so I whistle for Spaz who is further up the trail. When I do, right next to me there is this loud rustling of the trees which causes my life to flash before my eyes and makes me jump so suddenly I almost fall off the trail. But I end up laughing out loud at myself as I realize I have scared an eagle I didn’t see from the tree next to me.

When we got to “7 mile saddle” we had lunch and the peak was in sight – covered with snow - and starting to cloud over. The alpine meadow at the saddle was lush and carpeted with muskeg which is very fun to walk across as it is so spongy it feels like walking on your bed. We had climbed over 3,000 feet in about 2 miles which is - trust me on this - very steep. It was like a slippery stair master the whole way.

The view was spectacular from this elevation as you can see from this photo looking down the Chilkat river delta and on into the Lynn Canal. I swear you could almost see Juneau - 80 miles away -  from up there. That is the Haines airport down there in the foreground.

The telephoto lens really highlights the Chilkat river channels through the mud flats

Spaz took this shot of me on the way down

As we had our lunch it started to cloud up so I decided not to attempt the peak. It wasn't because I was already sore and stiff as the tin man or because it was another 900 foot climb in a mile and a half or because Lori would be home before we got down and worry about us. Noooo, surely it was only because it was getting cloudy and we could die! So we headed down and down and down.

Saturday, Oct. 8th

We moved our belongings out of Patrick & Ivanca's house. If you remember from the picture in our last post, you know they have a 3 story house. The bedroom and our clothes were on the top floor - our food and bathroom stuff on the second floor - everything else including our truck was on the bottom floor so...lots of "ups & downs" on the stairs. We took almost everything over to our winter quarters on Dalton street which is a 2 story house so…you guessed it…more “ups & downs”. Cathy and Stan (the owners) would not be leaving for Arizona for another 10 days but were kind enough to let us move in anyway. Actually, Lori would be moving in as I was off to work on Annette Island for the next 8 days.

Termination Dust !!

Saturday, October 1st

Chilkat River flowing beside the Haines Highway

Fall is here and it comes, as always, with lots of change. Change in the weather, change in nature and change in our lifestyle. The changes here are much more dramatic and different than the changes we used to go through back in Vegas. For one thing, we didn’t have these big tall sticks they call “trees” that have “leaves” which turn beautiful colors and then fall off. For the locals, the season has changed not to fall, but to something much more important…moose season. To Alaskans, the 4 weather seasons don’t seem as important as their seasons…bear season, salmon season, halibut season and moose season.

Termination Dust

We have also learned some new phrases that we had never heard before like “termination dust”. That is what they call the first new snow of the season on the mountain peaks surrounding town. It signals the “termination” of summer. The locals also say that when it comes, it will be about 6 more weeks until the first snows hit town. We had our “termination dust” show up on September 6^th which means we should expect snow around October 18^th.

 

Mosquito Lake http://lordaveus.blogspot.com/2011_07_17_archive.html

So far this fall we have had LOTS of rain…about 7 years worth by Vegas standards. It has also taught us another new phrase, the “sucker hole” (which I’m sure has a different meaning in Vegas). We learned that phrase after it had been raining nonstop for a week. We looked up and saw a little spot of blue sky amongst the grey and we got all excited at the thought of some sunshine until Fred told us they call that a “sucker hole” around here. When it didn’t clear up and we didn’t see a day of sunshine for another week, we figured out why. It wasn’t the first time – or I’m sure the last - I have ever been a sucker. We had 11" of rain in the month of September!! If you want to check out what the weather was like click on this http://www.weather.com/weather/monthly/USAK0101?month=-1

Almost in Canada...eh!

The changes in nature are pretty dramatic also. We left the country last week to see some of the fall colors. OK…what that really means is we took a drive out the Haines highway (which is designated a National Scenic Highway) where at 40 miles from town you enter Canada, eh. 

We immediately began speaking Canadian again, eh, which we had gotten fluent in on our way up here in spring…eh. The sun was out and the colors were beautiful, eh. We even saw these two, must be…Canadian geese (since they were in Canada…eh). Another 100 miles up the highway would have brought us to the Alcan highway and the town of Haines Junction…eh. Which is by the way is the nearest town to Haines that you can drive to. But after being in a foreign country for a good hour we were eager to get back to the good ole USA (where they speak English) and turned around…eh.

Chilkoot River buzzing with a bird buffet

It has been very interesting to watch the Chilkoot river as it changes through the year. When we got here in June the river was a quiet place we seemed to have mostly to ourselves. In July, the salmon started coming up the river to spawn and with them came fishermen – human and grizzly. We all fished together, hoping to catch fish. Now, with the spawn over you don’t even have to fish!

Fish...it's what's for dinner !!

You can just walk along and pick them up because all the salmon die and float down the river, washing up thickly along every foot of river bank and perfuming the air with that smell we all know as rotting fish. Of course you don’t want to pick them up and even the bears don’t like to eat them at this point (go figure) and seemed to have moved on for the most part. The seagulls, on the other hand, seem to consider them a free and easy delicacy and have moved in by the gazillions making for a noisy and chaotic scene all along the river.

The end of summer also means the end of the garden that Lori had planted out at our friends place. We went out to pick the last of her broccoli and little bite sized carrots. In exchange for pulling up all the remaining plants and weeds for winter, we were able to pick a dinner’s worth of green beans, a zucchini and some lettuce for a salad. Along with the halibut we got from Fred and Shirley when they emptied their freezer before they flew south for the winter, it made for a tasty and free dinner (my favorite kind).If you want to see the garden when she planted it in June, see this post http://lordaveus.blogspot.com/2011/06/becoming-alaskans.html

 

There has been a lot of change in our lives lately also. We have moved out of the MLS. It will spend the winter stored outside at the Hitch Up. We winterized it (hopefully) and removed everything that would freeze and that we will need for winter. We have been living in Patrick and Ivanca’s house for about 2 weeks now while they are up moose hunting in Eagle, AK. They have a beautiful home about two miles from town on a big lot that was carved like a hole in the middle of very dense forest. The bedroom is on the top floor and has a large balcony with sliding glass doors so that the first view after opening your eyes is over the trees to the termination dusted mountains across the Chilkat Inlet. We don’t have any internet access and the cell phone coverage is not very reliable…in fact it is painful. They also have a huge 70” DLP television with direct TV, although the trees seem to block the signal for whatever channel it is you are trying to watch. I’m not complaining though (OK, maybe just a little) and we are definitely enjoying the house and the extreme peacefulness. We are hoping they won’t be in a hurry to come home and we can stay until it is time to move into her parent’s house in town.

Living LARGE in Pat & Ivanca's house

Lori is still working at the bakery without much change. I have been working 60 hours per week with SE Roadbuilders since leaving the RV park September 1st. We finished the project in town last week and I am not working right now (my sugar momma is). However, they would like to send me down south next week near Ketchikan Alaska, for a week or two, to do a job for them. They want me to survey for a new ferry terminal they are building on a place called “Annette Island”. The whole island is a native reservation, the only one in the state of Alaska, and is technically not even a part of the United States. There is really only one community on the island called “Metlakatla” with a population of around 1500. It should be interesting and I will let you know all about it when it happens. If you want to check it out you can start with this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metlakatla,_Alaska

Fishing boat cruises past Davidson Glacier

Some things of course never seem to change. Yesterday we hiked to Moose point like we did at the start of summer and the Davidson Glacier still looks the same – just a different color frame. 

And Spaz’s desire to fetch something will NEVER change!