To Celebrate Twenty Eight

Brian is still deployed and it's his 28th birthday today...

Normally, to celebrate his life, I would have planned an adventure for him but it's a little hard to do that when you're thousands of miles apart and one of you isn't allowed to leave the base you're stationed on. So this year I bought him what he asked for, two custom tailored suits and a subscription to the Dollar Shave Club, along with the promise for a couple dates out on the town to wear said suits when he returns home. 

I have a hard time accepting the idea of Brian only getting gifts for his birthday so I decided to make a list of 28 new [and hopefully amazing] adventures to go on in the upcoming months to celebrate his birth throughout the year entire.

1. Hike to South Fork Falls

2. Backpacking trip

3. Bike the Stampede Trail

4. Whale watching

5. Deep sea fishing

6. Take in a Broadway show on Broadway

7. Walk around the Statue of Liberty

8. See the lights of Times Square

9. Go skiing

10. Set lanterns free is a Festival of Light

11. Take a handsome carriage ride

12. Get away on a weekend mini-vacation

13. Fish for king salmon

14. Eat cheesecake at Junior's

15. Hike the Harding Ice Field

16. Get a drink at the Ice Museum

17. Take a dip in the Chena Hot Springs

18. Try not to scream on zip lines

19. Kayaking

20. Pan for gold

21. Catch a close up glimpse of an Alaskan brown bear

22. Take a road trip somewhere new

23. Photograph the inside of an ice cave

24. Watch the northern lights

25. Tell Santa if we've been naughty or nice

26. Eat fresh Alaskan king crab

27. Spend an afternoon at Chuck E Cheese

28. Surprise!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIAN!

I celebrated by treating myself to an ice cream cone!

You Shook Me All Night Long

There's nothing quite like being woken from a deep slumber by the movement of a 7.1 magnitude earthquake (with an epicenter only about 150 miles away) to get your blood pumping! Thankfully all is well in our humble abode. Others nearby cannot say the same. 

Jonas

For all my friends in the lower 48 complaining about the impending snowstorm Jonas, I say this to you:

South Fork Falls

It was cold -like single digits cold- but otherwise a fairweather winter day in southcentral Alaska. The  riverside portion of the trail was flat and fast with enough trees to block the bone chilling breeze that was following the path of the river through the canyon. My partners in crime for the day, Bosco & Ray, and I made quick time through this part of the trail and were crossing over the South Fork Eagle River via a natural ice bridge before we knew it. After that, the trail begins to make slight, but continual elevation gains over the next mile until the final short climb to the falls overlook.

Once at the overlook, I made my way over the railing and down a rope to a steep, icy path that led to the bottom of the falls. At the end of the rope, but still 40 feet above the canyon floor, I started sliding down the steep 'trail' I was standing on. As soon as I got myself stopped, I dropped down onto my bum figuring I would eventually end up there anyways if I tried to proceed any further on the cliff. Knowing at this point, with the severity of the ice and coupled with the pitch and remaining height of the cliff I was traversing, that I wasn't going to be able to do down this way any further, I sat there and took a few photos before heading back up to the overlook.

Bosco, who had been worried about my safety since I crawled over the railing, was impatiently waiting at the overlook for me to return. He was not impressed with my adventuring so close to such a cliff. I imagine he was giving me about the same look my own mother would if she had been there with me.

We meandered around the woods for a while, tackling some nearby geocaches, which took us down a side trail where my day was completely made (as if spending the day in the woods and seeing a stunning, half frozen over waterfall hadn't already done that) when I walked down a quarter mile corridor of beautifully decorated Christmas trees alongside the trail.

Around this time we discovered a side path through the woods along the South Fork that seemed to be going back in the direction of the falls. Still wanting to get some pictures from the bottom, we followed this random trail through the woods and were happily surprised when we found ourselves standing at the bottom of the falls.

I stopped here for a long while, sitting to finish off my lunch I had packed along with me, take some pictures, and relax for a bit before heading back into the woods after a few more nearby geocaches. All in all we turned a 6 mile round trip hike into nearly 10 and a half miles. The short winter sun had long set when we made it back to the car so I readily welcomed the warmth of the little Subaru as we drove back to Anchorage. I can't always say I love living in Anchorage, Alaska, but today was one of those days that made up for all the darkness we endure.

Hello 2016

2015 has been an interesting year to say the least. Interesting is probably an understatement, but it's the best that's going to flow from my sleepy brain today. Although today doesn't feel much different than the distant past of yesterday, there's a lot to come in the upcoming year.

Walking into 2016 I feel a lot of anticipation and hope for the BIG changes we have coming our way this year - Brian's finally coming home from his current deployment(!!!), we're doing a bit of traveling while also scratching and clawing our way out of debt as quickly as we can at the same time, I'm going to be turning the big 3-0 this year, and who know, perhaps a little Bennett will make its way into the world this year? Or we could just get another cat! I want a puppy, but Brian wants a baby, so we'll call it compromise and get another kitten. Calm down future grandparents! We'll probably just get another cat. I wouldn't want the next epic cat name to go to waste. Unless you want your future grandchild to be named Captain Fuzz-Fuzz?!

New kitten or no new kitten, here's to hoping for many new adventures, smiles, laughs, and memories in the upcoming year.

White Christmas

Geo Art

Geo art is when geocaches form a shape to make a picture. They're more common in the lower 48, but have recently started making an appearance in the rugged landscape here in south central Alaska as well.

Recently, a local cacher known as li1gray, put out a piece of geo art in honor of the Iditarod. His artwork, when looked at on one's GPS is in the shape of a dog sled. It's also a ? cache, so when the puzzles are all completed, turns into a 40 cache power trail.

Until today, I had never done a power trail or a piece of geo art, so myself and two friends, Cally & Ray, set off down the highway to complete the finds after solving the puzzles earlier this week.

Cally made her 100th find while out on the trail!

At the end of the trail, we attempted to take a group photo of us jumping in the air to rejoice the end of the trial, but it turned out to be a series of bloopers, including this one, where Bosco decided to take out my feet mid air.

Having completed the power trail much quicker than anticipated, we set our sights on finding 50 caches each before the end of the day. Normally, this wouldn't be much of an issue, but when the sun is only out for about 5 hours each day right now, we knew our time was quickly -and quite literally-fading.

So we drove down the highway in hopes of finding a few more winter friendly caches, but the further north we drove, the deeper the snow. None of us seemed to mind tho, as we had the Talkeetna Brewery in our sights, which also meant pulling out the JetBoil to heat up some homemade tomato basil soup I'd made just that morning.

After we'd had our fill of warm soup and cold beer, we were back in the car (don't worry mom, everyone was sober). Daylight was completely gone at this point, but it didn't matter anyways. The sky was clear and the stars were out in full force to light our paths.

We had just parked the Subaru in front of the ITC headquarters in Wasilla, when I looked up and saw the northern lights were just starting to flicker above us. We moved to a more suitable spot to view the show, and I witnessed one of the better aurora shows I've seen to date.

When we'd had our fill... actually, it was more like when the numbness became to great in our limbs, we got back in the car and headed to a nearby neighborhood that was decked out in Christmas lights and in sync to a short wave radio. There's something magical and truly un-describable about driving through a neighborhood, listening to your favorite Christmas carols and watching the lights flicker in sync while the northern lights dance across the sky above you.