June 20 – 23, 2009 Summer Solstice, Work, and an Owl

On Saturday, 20th, was the annual Dragonfly Day here at Creamer’s Refuge and it was BUSY!!  I really felt that I was WORKING that day – WOW! 

Our replacements, Bill and Shelly, have arrived and are now camped with us so we spent Saturday afternoon/evening getting acquainted and doing some training.

Sunday, 21st, was Summer Solstice – the longest daylight of the year here with almost 22 hours of sunlight – WOW!! 

Check this out:

Andy and I spent the day working with Shelly and Bill on the duties.   And then we went to the celebration in downtown Fairbanks – it was like a big street fair – lots of fun.

 

When we came back to Creamer’s, we found the back gate open and took a ride thru the yard and saw this fellow (he was HUGH)

 

 

We came back to our MH and ended up chatting until midnight (and the sun was still up – :-)) 

Monday, 22nd, was our last work day.  It is hard to believe that we have been here over 6 weeks, the longest we have stayed at any place.  It has been a great experience for us and we have had a good time.  (Thank you Alexis, Melissa, Mark and Sarah.)  Would we come back again?  ABSOLUTELY!

Tuesday, 23rd, was a long rainy day and our last day here.  So the morning was spent doing the usual – laundry, cleaning, groceries and initial packing.  For supper, we got together with Shelly and Bill for hamburgers on the grill and some great chatting.  We really hope that we met up again with them, if not in AK, then in the lower 48.

And now we start to lose daylight (but not twilight):

 

Stay tuned for our next adventures.

June 13 - 19, 2009 – Work, Dalton Highway, Arctic Circle and more WOW!

Saturday, 13th, was a work day for us. The visiting artists today were Hilda and Herb Melchior. Hilda does Silversmithing, Sculpturing, and Jewelry Making and Herb does Photography. What a wonderful couple. Their work is just beautiful. Hilda and I had some long conversations about jewelry and beading. She looked at my pieces and gave me some insights – Thank you Hilda. Andy and I had a great time chatting with both of them and hope to keep in touch.

Sunday, 14th, was a work day for us and it was also my father’s birthday – he would have been 84 today so Happy Birthday, Dad.

Monday, 15th, another work day and the end of our second to last weekend of work.

Tuesday, 16th, I decided that I wanted to have lunch by the Yukon River so up the Elliot and Dalton Highway we went. Two years ago we went this way on a tour and the road was terrible. We decided to go as far as we could and if the road was bad we would turn back. Well, the road was so much BETTER. The Elliot Highway is paved to the junction with the Dalton. The Dalton started out a little rough and then it was good. Some of it is now paved. So I will take you on a little picture tour.

The Alaska pipeline runs alongside a good portion of the Dalton (FYI, the Dalton is also known as the “Long Haul Road”). Here is our first sighting of the pipeline:

And another:

The pictures do not do the vastness of this area justice. If you remember the picture of Andy by one of the supports of the pipeline – it towered over him. Now image all those supports in the picture – I hope you can get an idea.

Here is another picture of from one of the overlooks:

Our first sighting of the Yukon:

And the bridge:

And the barge/ferry that goes to the many villages along the River:

This river has so much history – from the Native Peoples to the present. As we sat by the river and had lunch, I thought about all the people who have used this river to travel, to survive and who still use it today.

The Arctic Circle is 60 miles from here and once we inquired about the road (OK) we decided to head up there.

How about this part of the road (and yes, I was driving – :-))):

This area is know as Finger Mountain. There is evidence here that hunters knew about this rock when shaggy mammoths and bison roamed the surrounding hills. The rock marked a premier location to watch for game that continued for many generations. Later, bush pilots used the rock to guide their way home, since the granite finger points directly to Fairbanks.

A view of the other rocks in the area:

This is heading down Finger Mountain into the valley – I have fallen in love with this valley. All the white you see on the valley floor are tundra wildflowers. This area was abloom and it was gorgeous!!!

15 miles later we arrived at the Arctic Circle:

And just to prove we drove there – :-))):

We met a number of people there and four of them were also Escapee members. I should have thought about getting a picture of all of us and sending it into the magazine (but I thought about it later – :-( ).

And the road back. That plume of smoke is from a large truck coming down the hill.

More of the valley with the wildflowers and more of the road – I truly wish the pictures showed the vastness and the beauty.

And with one last stop at the mighty Yukon – the longest river in America. Will this be the last time I see this river??? – maybe, maybe not – :-).

As we continued down the highway, we were stopped. Apparently there was a large oversized load going up to Prudhoe Bay. Before I go into this, I need to tell you that I also enjoy watching the show Ice Road Truckers so THIS was neat to see. It was also more fascinating that there was a long haul trucker parked with us who explained some of the things we saw.

Here is the truck coming down the hill. Now I also need to explain that there were two other trucks (with large loads right behind him). The first was connected, the second was not. So there are three trucks involved here. The first one has the oversized heavy load and he is pulling. The second one is connected and he is a pusher – to help the first up those LARGE, STEEP hills, and the third is also a pusher to give that extra push if needed.

Here he comes: The second truck or first pusher:

The third truck or second pusher:

WOW! and more WOW! An extra treat to the end of the day. The whole day took us over twelve hours – was it worth it – YES!!!

One of the things on our bucket list was to go to Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean but because of the cost of tours we decided not to do it. I know that the Tracker might make it but some day when I win the lottery, I think I would get a truck camper with extra gas tanks and do this road – WOW!!!

Wednesday, 17th, we did grocery shopping, and washed the car – it was really dusty and dirty from yesterday’s trip.

Our Elliot had a rough day – :-))):

So he had to take it easy – LOL.

This afternoon, we saw our local fox crossing the field – what a treat!

This evening, Melissa and Alexis held a potluck at Melissa’s house for us. What a nice treat and a great time. Thank you Melissa and Derek for having us. And thanks to Melissa, Derek, Alexis, Mark and Sarah for a great time at the dinner and also for our stay here.

Thursday, 18th, and Friday, 19th, were just hang out days and getting caught up with odds and ends. We will be leaving here next Wednesday and heading for Denali. Right now I have reservations for Wed thru Sat night and then onto Anchorage and Seward. But who know, plans change daily. I also found out that Talkeetna has a Moose Dropping Festival on July 11-12 so hopefully we will get there.

Tomorrow thru Monday will be working days for us and the next hosts will be here tomorrow so we will be doing some transitioning. On Sunday is Solstice – the longest day – and Fairbanks is having a festival from noon to midnight so our plans are to head there on Sunday after work.

So stay tuned.

June 9-12, 2009 – Domes, Satellites, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Pipeline, and Cold Climate Housing

On Tuesday morning, I woke at 5 AM to the smell of smoke.  I looked out the window and saw lots of smoke so out the door I went to check out the farmhouse, buildings, and field.  By the time I was fully awake, I realized that the whole valley was filled with smoke.  Turned out there is a forest fire burning about 100 miles away and the wind was blowing just right to bring the smoke into Fairbanks. It is very dry in the interior right now and there are a number of fires burning.  Very scary.

So this morning, I washed all our rugs and went grocery shopping.

This afternoon we took a drive to Murphy Dome:

The views of the area from the top of the dome hill are beautiful although with the haze/smoke it was hard to see the Alaskan Range:

 

We made a stop at Wal-Mart to get Andy’s glasses fixed and found out that there is a line of Sophia Loren frames now out – remember the big eyeglasses she use to wear – :-))  That will be my next pair!

We then stopped at the American Legion and supper at the VFW – had a great time.

The day continues to grow:

Wednesday, 10th,  we took two tours at the University of Alaska.  Our first tour was at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center in their virtual reality Discovery Lab.  They have a number of HUGH computers and we had a number of 3D tours of their labs and various places of Alaska.  WOW!

Our second tour was at the Geophysical Institute.  There were three parts to this tour.  In the first part of this tour we learned about the Alaska Satellite Facility.  This is where they monitor and download information on a number of the north-south satellites.  They showed us a number of satellite images – it was incredible.

Here is one of their receivers on the roof of the University:

In the second part we went to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center where they monitor earthquakes throughout Alaska.  Here is one of the control centers:

The Earthquake Center works closely with the Tsunami Center and the Volcano Observatory and NOAA to help warn the public and emergency personnel as well as scientific research and predictions.

And from there we went to the Alaska Volcano Observatory.  Here is one of their control centers:

For Andy and I who love science and are tech heads, these areas were a highlight.  We learned about the various volcanoes and of particular interest was Mt. Redoubt which has had 19 eruptions since March and possibly more on the way.  (And yes, we are still heading that way this summer.)  It was so interesting to see the satellite images of the various eruptions in the ring of fire.  They also follow ash (from the volcanoes) in the atmosphere to warn planes and the public (and the supercomputer center helps model the ash predictions).

It was one of those times where we had information overload.  I have listed web pages at the bottom of this blog – check them out.  For the AVO, there are 3 webcam’s pointed at Mt. Redoubt – Still smoking and the lava dome is still growing….

What a great way to spend an afternoon.

On Thursday, 11th, we continued our touring.  Our first stop was at one of the overlooks for the Alaska pipeline:

When permafrost was detected, the pipeline was built above ground on VSMs (Vertical Support Members).  These VSMs are filled with Anhydrous Ammonia, which boils at 33 degrees F. This allows the heat from the ground to be absorbed by the Anhydrous Ammonia, which rises as a gas and dissipates the heat from the thawing permafrost through the metal fins located atop the VSMs.  This maintains the ground’s stability year round by keeping the permafrost frozen all year round.

We then headed up the Steese Highway to the Poker Flat Research Range which is the largest land based rocket research range in the world and the only high latitude rocket range in the US.  The one brochure we had said that there were tours on Thursdays but everything was shut down..  so we went back to Fairbanks to the tour at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center.  The center was created to facilitate the development and use of energy efficient, healthy, and cost effective building technologies for Alaska and other cold climate regions.  As our guide told us - “what works for the lower 48 does not always work when the temperature is minus 25 and lower and there is little or no light for a length of time”.  They do a lot of testing of building materials, windows, heaters, water and sewage systems.  With the permafrost and temperatures, sewage systems can be a real problem.

Here is their lobby’s centerpiece – a large masonry heater:

“The masonry heater features local river rock and weighs about 12,000 pounds.  A single firing of dry wood is all that is required to heat throughout the day.  The masonry heater returns 80 percent of its heat to the building with 98 percent combustion efficiency.”

This was another great tour and I have also included their web page on the bottom of the blog.

Then this evening, we had dinner with Pennie and Dave, fellow Escapees that we met last week on the Discovery Boat Tour.  They came back to our MH afterwards and we all had a great time chatting.  Hopefully we will meet up with them again on this trip.

Today, Friday, was a take it easy day.  This morning I did laundry and some cleaning and Andy did some cleanup around our site.  The next three days we will be working so stay tuned.

Here are the sites…

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/

http://www.arsc.edu/homepage.html

http://www.giseis.alaska.edu/

www.asf.alaska.edu

http://www.cchrc.org/

Have a great weekend.