Nome, Day 6, Mushers Keep coming

I walked down to the convention center this morning shortly after dawn (10 am) and got a couple shots of the dog yard.  You remember it earlier when it was empty, and now it is filling up. 

From there it was back to the finishing chute for the arrival of two favorites... Aily Zirkle and Pete Kaiser.  Aily was one of the two mushers whose teams were attacked by a drunk snow machine rider last year outside of Nulato.  She is a fan favorite.  This year she is doing a youth program throughout Alaska to encourage leadership.  Kids at the finish were wearing tee-shirts with her program name on it.

Aily Zirkle

Pete to the finish

Following close behind her was a "local" boy -- Pete Kaiser from Kotzebue (on the coast north of Nome).  He has won the Kotzebue 300 three times so his nickname is three-pete.  He too drew a good crowd.  For me, the best thing about Pete was when he left the chute he ran ahead of his dogs, leading them down the hill to the dog lot. 

Pete - lead "dog"

After lunch Jeff King arrived.  He has designed a new coat -- he said he got tired of being cold when his sleeping bag was in the sled so he now has a full-length hooded, down-lined outfit that covers everything. 

Jeff King in his sleeping bag coat

Each of the mushers go down the line to talk to their dogs after they finish.  Jeff King got an icy kiss from one of his dogs as he was posing with the dogs for the local media. 


















We made beef stew for dinner... it was nearly done when the office called to tell us not to cook dinner -- that sponsor Exxon-Mobil was buying 15 pizzas for the volunteers. 

We finished up the evening with a run down to the chute to catch the arrival of Norwegian Lars Monson and Alaskan Hugh Neff from Tok.  Long day, but fun.  I'll post the night shots tomorrow.  Good night.

Nome, Day 5 The First Musher Arrives

When we got up this morning we knew that the winner would be in today, and, over breakfast everyone was saying that it would be around 5 pm.  We had just finished prepping all the stuff for dinner when the word came in that he would be in around three.  In fifteen minutes we got our cold weather gear out and raced over to pick up our security badges.  We got to the chute about 2:45 and had to get people out of the VIP area to make room for the real VIPs (corporate sponsors - Exxon/Mobil, GCI (telephone), Donlin Mining, & Anchorage Chrysler Dodge).

We heard the siren that announces that the musher is coming up onto Front Street from the ice.  Looking down the street you could see that the city road grader was still moving snow up onto the street so the mushers would have a track to run down.

The announcer started telling tales about the first race... it finished at city hall and one of the city workers just walked out onto the street with a box of Jello and spread it on the street to create a finish line.  The first race took 30 days.

Today Mitch Seavey came in in a record time of 8 days 3 hours and 40 minutes.  Here's his arrival.

After the race he promptly went down the line giving his dogs a treat.  Then he had to deal with the awards ceremony and the media interviews. 

They bring out a platform for the winner to sit on with his dogs.  The dogs did not really want to be there, but Mitch held onto them, scratching their ears.  The one on his left just curled up and went to sleep. 

Afterwards, the winner went down to the convention center and had a "press conference" -- it was really more taking questions from the audience.  Fun. 

We walked back to the church and were fixing dinner when #2 came in -- Mitch's son Dallas.  Less than 5 minutes later, the siren went off again and #3 Nick Petit came.  (Both beat the previous record, owned by Dallas.)  We are sitting her at 10:30 waiting for the next musher - one of the Norwegians.  I am sitting next to the teacher on the trail, a gal from Chicago who has been moving along the trail with the mushers.  She flew in to Nome from White Mountain and missed the finish. 

Nome, Day 4 - the lull before the storm

Lunch is over and we have prepped for dinner, so I can take a break.  I just went out to get a quick look at how things are setting up around town.

We are staying in the United Community Methodist Church, at the corner of 2nd and C. 

Here's a glimpse of inside the church sanctuary...
which has turned into the sleeping quarters.







Debski and I have a private room...

About two blocks away from us is St. Joseph's Catholic Church -- an easily identifiable landmark as its steeple is probably the tallest thing in town.  At night the cross atop the church is lighted ... a nice addition to the evening sky.

The church sits on Anvil City Square, an area lined by mining buckets -- remnants of the town's gold rush past.  At one end of the square is a giant gold pan, as well.





Yesterday, I had noticed a bunch of people working on blocks of snow, so today I went over to see what sculptures had been completed.  This is nothing as fancy as the world snow carving championships in Fairbanks, but there were a few good ones.

Behind the snowbird you can one of the gas stations... current price of regular here is $4.67 per gallon... and diesel is $5.26.

From St Joe's I headed downtown.  I got a closer shot of the forest -- note the polar bear, penguin and camel.

Here's another shot of the finishing ramp.  The banners have been hung and the flags of the nations whose mushers are running. 

I also went down and checked on how the dog lot was being set up. The city moved the containers in place and the volunteers have strung the chains between them. 

the office

lines ready for dogs

The dog food that the mushers sent up from Anchorage is being offloaded into the containers and soon there will be straw for each musher to use for their dogs. 

unloading food bags

The dog yard is right on the edge of the harbor... nice view.

Tonight's dinner - chicken parmesan, salad, roasted potatoes and brownies with strawberries and cream.  Yummy!

10 p.m. update... three people just arrived from the airport.  Microwaving leftovers.

Word has it that the leader may be in to White Mountain by midnight... that means we could see a winner around 3 pm tomorrow.  Fast race.

Bye for now.

Nome, Day 3

Not much to post... today was busy.  We started being treated to breakfast by one of the local volunteers -- a Florida boy who came up here in '83 for what was supposed to be two years.  He's still here, going strong.  He's an Iditarod finisher himself, and his daughter is racing in this year's. 

After the church people finished their service, we took over the kitchen and finished moving in all our equipment and food.  We sat down and planned out the menus and started thawing out meats for various dishes.  We precooked bacon and sausage for breakfasts for the next couple of days, baked two batches of cookies, made an egg-casserole for breakfast tomorrow, made two batches of jambalaya and had dinner ready to go at 6:30 -- not bad for 6 hours work!

Only problem was that no one showed up at 6:30.  One group called to tell us they'd be late, then we got word that another guy who was coming in was still holding in Unakleet for the fog to lift and wouldn't be in until after 8.  We finally got dinner on the table at about 7:45... and most of the conversation was about the missing guy from Unakleet.  (Anchorage HQ kept telling our team that he was already in Nome, but nobody could find him and he wasn't answering his phone.  Everyone left about 8:30.

As I was finishing the dishes, the driver popped in with one person, and delivered a message that he was returning to the airport for the missing guy from Unakleet.  I rewarmed a bowl of jambalaya for the first guy and he was just finishing when the driver returned with not one, but EIGHT people.  So the food came out again and at 10 pm we fed a team of vet techs, dropped dog team members, and communications people.  Things finally wound down around 11 pm.  We are pooped!!!

Across the street from HQ!

Nome, Day 2

First things first.  Here is the promised shot of the Nome National Forest...

Everyone was tired of the lack of trees around here, so every year they put up trees offshore, creating a little forest.  They also have some statues of animals (some, like the penguin not indigenous to the area).  I'll get better shots with my telephoto next.

Today was a get organized day... Debski went out to the air cargo office and picked up our food, so we spent the morning opening all the boxes, inventorying what we got against what we were supposed to get, and putting everything away in the kitchen. 

the "combi" -- no windows on the cargo half!

I was called into service as the van driver, so I had to meet the morning aircraft... only it did not come in until after lunch.  They held the flight in Anchorage to wait for a flight to come in from Kotzebue with 60 pieces of luggage that had been offloaded the night before so that they could take off under less than desirable conditions.  When they were approaching Nome, they put the AK Air flight in a holding pattern for "air control" situation.  There were two 8-passenger planes from Bering Air that needed to take off.  Once they got in the 737 could land -- and of course, it was chaos in the baggage claim chute because of all the extra bags. 

I did get a couple of shots of the burled arch that is the official end point of the race.  So far they have moved the arch to the street and have started to build up the snow around it.  In the next few days they will put snow down over the paved streets to the ramp where the mushers come off the sea.

I got back to the Methodist Church in time to help Debski with dinner preps.  We did spaghetti, green salad and chocolate cake.  Just as the HQ folks came in, a plane landed.  I was supposed to meet the evening plane which was due in at 7:44... a six p.m. arrival was not on the schedule.  Well it turned out that that was the plane I was supposed to meet, so it was back to the airport.  (The plane had come in early because Kotzebue was socked in and they couldn't land.)

After dinner I was taking the folks to their hotel, and it happened to be the full moon rising just as the sun set.  While I was waiting at the hotel, I got a shot of the burled arch. 

moon rising behind city hall and the arch

sunset over the Iditarod HQ building

It's off to bed for us... the spring forward happens tonight!

NOME!!!

Another adventure has begun.  This time I am flying solo... Scott is holding down the fort in Talkeetna and good friend Debski and I are off to Nome to cook for the volunteers supporting the Iditarod. 

We flew in today on Alaska Air.  This was on one of their "combi" aircraft -- part cargo and part passenger (rows 17-35).  It starts off strangely because instead of going down the jetway, you have to go down the stairs and walk across the tarmac to the rear of the plane.  The folks in wheelchairs who left the boarding area first ended up being the last people on the plane because the driver who could operate the lift to get them to the plane was late showing up.

We had clear air leaving Anchorage, so we got a great view of the Alaska range... saw some great glaciers.  Once we cleared the ridge it clouded up, and I thought I wouldn't be able to see anything else.  As we neared the coast, the clouds went away, so we could see the Yukon River... an impressive sight. 

Coming across Norton Sound, I managed to get one shot.  I was surprised by the amount of open water visible in some areas.

Nome sits right at the edge of the sound... in fact the mushers come up off the sea ice right onto Front Street. 

It was cloudy as we came in... and the rest of the day.  The temp when we arrived was 1 degree.  (Considering that it was 30 below earlier in the week, we did not mind.)  Here's the terminal in Nome. 

I would have tried a selfie, but the tarmac was sheet ice and trying to balance the phone and the bag containing 10 dozen eggs was not something I wanted to do.  We had one of the volunteers fall at Wendy's in Anchorage and break her wrist and another fell at the hotel injuring her foot... I didn't want to be the third to go down.

We are staying and working at the Methodist Church.  When we got here today we discovered that the water pipes had frozen - no bathroom.  The plumber did try to get things working... but as of this evening we are still waterless.  Luckily tonight it is just the two of us and the pastor and his wife are letting us use the bathroom over in the parsonage. 

We got in just before lunch, spent some time getting organized (cleaning out cupboards so we can fill them tomorrow when our food is delivered), and even managed to get the 10 cent tour of town as we took another of the volunteers out to the place she will be staying.  We went out to the area where the musk ox herd is sometimes visible, but no oxen.  I did see one of the gold dredges, the famous burled arch that is the finishing line for the Iditarod, and the infamous Nome National Forest.  I will post the picture of that tomorrow.  Today I only had my phone, and you can't even see the trees.  More to come....

2016 - A look back

The saying “Stop and smell the roses” – with a few changes – could be used to describe this year.  For us it was “slow down and enjoy the rhododendrons.” 

Winter

We are alternate year snowbirds (leaving AK for a warmer climate) and Sept 15-April 16 was our winter to be in Oregon.  Scott likes to say the snow is easier to shovel in Waldport.

Ibis

We kicked off the new year with a trip to Napa to see Gretchen’s parents.  On our way we visited one of our favorite birding sites – the Sacramento Wildlife Refuge. 

In addition to the snow geese and ducks we expected to see, we were surprised to find flocks of ibis and white pelicans and a rare Eurasian Widgeon. 

As we were leaving some folks were excited about an eagle in the tree... for us it is routine to see eagles, but in California it is a treat.

Green winged teals

Spring

Scott celebrated the arrival of spring by getting a trolling motor for the boat.  Of course that required a test drive.













Out on the bay we saw lots of birds – including a new one for us, the surf scoter. 

surf scoter

the spit at the mouth of Alsea Bay

One of the fun things about Waldport is the gathering of seals on the sand bars just inside the bridge.  Every day at low tide, they gather by the hundreds.

After braving snowstorms on our last trip north, this year we did not start off until the end of April.  This meant we actually got to enjoy our Oregon backyard in bloom.  The rhododendrons were incredible – in some areas the plants are 20 feet high.

Summer

our gourmet conducts her pre-planting inspection

Arriving back in Alaska, we jumped right into projects to get the cabins ready for the summer season.  The biggest was a replacement floor in Moose’s Tooth cabin, and we had the sore knees and aching backs to prove it.  While that work was going on, our friendly, neighborhood "gourmet" moose wandered through the garden checking to see what we’d planted.  (We call her the gourmet, because this is the one that ate our broccoli, chard, and kale the past few years -- we're sure it's the same one because we watched her check out the cold frame to see if anything good to eat was there.) 

This year we fooled her and only planted potatoes in the cold frame. One morning we found moose prints through the potato bed.  Apparently she doesn't like potato plants.  But she did get a treat -- a friend had given us a few broccoli and cauliflower plants, which we put in a bed behind the greenhouse.  The trail of hoof prints went from the potatoes straight to them.... she nibbled all right down to the ground. 

Business was brisk at The Laughing Moose all summer.  We ended up with lots of fish because three fishermen from Washington could only carry back two 50-lb fish boxes.  They left us 15 lbs of sockeye and 20 lbs of coho!

As summer wound down, Scott’s niece Tammie and her husband Brian came for a visit.  We took a couple of days off and explored, renting public-use cabins at Byers Lake in Denali State Park and Chena River Rec Area.  After soaking in the Chena Hot Springs and watching the northern lights over our campsite, we took them to Fairbanks where the sand hill cranes were gathering before heading south.

Fall

Our September trip – house sitting in Maui – was nearly put in jeopardy when, two days before departure, Gretchen fell in the garage and broke her pelvis.   The orthopedist gave his OK, so, with wheelchair assistance at the airports, we made the trip. 

Vitamin D therapy (sitting in the sun reading and hydrotherapy (slow exercises in the pool), and  did the trick. 

Haleakala crater

Friends from AK visited, too, and we had fun showing them the island.  We took them to the top of Haleakala, to Lahaina and to Makena Beach.  (It is amazing how far one can go with a walker... although a long nap was required to recover from each trip.)

"Frick" (one of two mynahs

who entertained us

The highlight of their visit was a special lunch at Mama's Fish House in Paia. 

We came back to AK via the beach house in Oregon… to one of the rainiest Octobers on record.  When the weather cleared we finally got to do some crabbing using our boat – our first effort yielded five crabs in only a half hour of having the pots in the water.  Not bad for us amateurs.  We got nearly 2.5 pounds of crabmeat -- at the current market price of $39.95 a pound, we more than covered our costs of licenses, fuel, etc.

While we were gone, our dogs were being cared for by a team of dog sitters.  We found out that they were becoming local celebrities... we kept seeing pictures of them posted on Facebook. 

They went to the office with April...

Moore Hardware's new security team!

watched TV...

and became the unofficial cheerleaders for Kaitlyn's volleyball team.

With cold weather (-15^o) and snow on the ground, it is beginning to feel like Christmas.  Scott’s favorite day of the year (December 21^st ) is coming.  He looks forward to the solstice—it's when we start gaining daylight.  We'll celebrate it with a bonfire and outdoor potluck at our friends' house. 

The bonfire is a vertical burn -- also known as a Norwegian candle.  You cut the logs lengthwise (but not all the way through), then coat them in kerosene, stand them upright, and light them.  It makes a tall, long lasting fire.




We’re all busy getting ready for the holidays.   

As we look back at the year, we are thankful for many things.  We have our aches and pains, but we manage to muddle through.  We are grateful for close friends and family who love us and support us.  

We wish you all health and happiness in the new year.

Merry Christmas!