My Week as a Tour Guide, pt1
So, here's how my week with instantamazon and Mike went, in which we:
• dink around
• road trip to a fishwheel
• kill fish
• explore abandoned/rusted/burnt buildings
• hike around a glacier
• drive home.
Notes:
*All the pictures in this post were taken on Ash's camera, mostly by her.
**Cassandra + Morgan = Morgandra. It's easier and faster to type.
Getting Here a Day Early (or, getting the day they arrived wrong)
So, Ash and Mike were coming in on a midnight flight. I was careful to make sure I had the correct midnight - you know how that can go. Well, go me, I had the day correctly marked on the calendar but I had it in my head incorrectly. So on the midnight between Monday and Tuesday, I was finally getting to sleep when the phone rang. It was Ashley. They were at the airport. *headdesk*
Luckily my mom was awake (Cassandra was my original ride to the airport but her phone was off and I couldn't get ahold of her) and we made a mad dash to the airport. On our way, we came across what we thought was a big block of wood in the road. With no time to swerve around it mom tried to straddle it with the car. I saw the object turn at the last second before we hit it and I recognized it as a porcupine. We hit that thing so hard it felt like hitting a rock. I whirled around just in time to see its body splayed out, rolling down the road behind us. It was the biggest porcupine I'd ever seen and seeing it's poor body like that just broke my heart. :'(
Then in town, the car started making strange noises as we slowed down for stoplights. Mom thought hitting the porcupine had done something to the breaks. At about the 4th light, she started to smell something and was positive it was coming from the car. With a lot of swearing we pulled into a parking lot and I crawled under the front of the car with the cell phone to inspect the damage. Turned out we were dragging a big piece of plastic and that's what the sound was - the porcupine had shattered all the plastic under the front of the car. And the smell was from some construction people tarring the road. :P
We finally made it to the airport around 2am and retrieved Ash and Mike, who I think were relieved to discover I was not a creepy old man after all (I'm their first net person they've met. :D)
Took some time finding our way out of Anchorage but we made it home safe and sound.
Tuesday: First Full Day Here
Luckily it was a mostly nice day. Ash was trying to get over a cold so I tried to keep it low key. I drove them up to the scenic lookout over the Matanuska just north of Fishook road, drove them up to the A-frames up in Hatcher Pass, and took them to my dad's house. At Pop's I took them back to see the musk-ox and we found a freshly hatched butterfly hanging from a blade of tall grass. It was so fresh its wings were still curled and damp.
Next day or three
I had to work for a bit on Wednesday. For the next few days we crammed in DDR and a few games of Settlers of Catan with Cassandra and Morgan. And Ash and I began The Great Media Transfer of 2006, networking our Macs and swapping anime and music. Well, me mostly snagging anermay and Ash mostly gacking moosik. This would continue nearly every evening and parts of some days til the night before Ash and Mike had to leave. You would not believe the sheer volume of stuffs I got! O_O; Yay! We also watched a little bit of anime, too - we watched the first few eps of Kaleido Star which was pretty good and I eventually got them to watch Puni Puni Poemi, which is of course pure crack.
Friday: to the Fishwheel!
Friday we packed up the car and headed off to Glenallen, our final destination being the Copper River where Cassandra's dad has grandfather rights to a fishwheel, where we were going to camp and get fish. Mike, Ash and I took Kaisa's car and Morgan and Cassandra met us later in Glenallen. Our car left early so we could stop and sightsee and dink around as we went. The weather was patchy clouds with a few spots of sprinkles but we had some pretty sights.
Our first glacier of the trip, the Matanuska Glacier. STAY AWAY!!! :P
We stopped in Eureka and had a late lunch before continuing on. Gotta stop in Eureka, always. :D
Got to Glenallen around 5:40pm with the absolute meet-up time with Morgandra being at 7pm so Ash, Mike and I dinked around in the gas station gift shop (quite a large affair) and hung out at the fireworks stand for a bit where the poor Californians drooled at what would otherwise be illegal in their homestate. :D They both got some cheap/free fireworks which was cool but with the nice weather on the trip it was never dark enough to set them off or we weren't somewhere where we *could* set them off. They'll have to come back up to Alaska in the winter to set them off then. :)
Hung out at the Visitors Center after that when the rain started POURING down. Morgandra arrived and we followed them to the fishwheel on the Copper River. Generally, only native Alaskans have rights to fishwheels because of the high volume of fish the wheels can catch. Cassandra's dad, Bob (who is white) was grandfathered into the fishwheel that he has (don't ask me how that works), though Cassandra is half native and could probably get her own if she wanted. Anyway, luckily the rain calmed down so we were able to set up our tent.
The land we were camped on is owned by one of the local chiefs, the daughter of whom invited us to their fish camp/shack for fish patties and fish soup. It's an Athabaskan cultural thing to offer food to guests/strangers and impolite to refuse so we went. I was still full from our late lunch/dinner but I had a fish patty and some soup anyway. The patties were a bit dry and the fish soup had organs in it (which I ate) and we stayed long enough to be polite - Mike even washing dishes. I was so full I hurt.
After that, we retreated to our tent and taught Ash and Mike how to play Mau. We played til we got to where some of the cards had multiple rules - it was a lot of fun.
That night...
...wasn't fun. I ate so much and then on top of that had a ton of M&M's - stupid, stupid, stupid. I had the runs and was so nauseous I made myself throw up til I felt better (which wasn't too hard to do). Which wasn't working so well so I tracked down Morgan & Cassandra, who were trying to sleep in their car, and asked them if they had anything for nausea. They didn't, so we drove back to Glenallen where we found nothing of help. So we drove back. They couldn't sleep well in their car so I invited them to our tent. It was pouring rain then and everyone but Mike was touching the sides of the tent, which drew in water, so a lot of our stuff got wet - especially Morgandra's bedding. So they didnt' sleep well.
Saturday
I finally got some sleep - yay! And the sun slowly came out. Mike and Ash made breakfast while I packed up all the mats and sleeping bags. We ate, and then tore down the tent and packed everything else away in preperation for checking the fishwheel for fish:
(Above) Left to right: Mike, Kara (me), Cassandra, & Morgan on the fishwheel. The wheel scoops up fish and the fish slide into the big box area where inside is basically like a water-cage where the fish can't swim out. We scoop them out of the box with a net. We were catching sockeye (red) salmon - it was so fresh from the ocean that the fish hadn't turned red yet.
(Above) Everyone took turns trying netting fish out of the wheel before we worked out a system where Morgan and Ash took turns netting fish which they'd then swing up to Mike and I where we were standing on either side of one of the wheel ramps. I'd grab the fish through the netting and hold it still and upright where Mike could whack the fish in the head with a large rock, dubbed "Fishbane". I'd then declare when the fish was dead and then grab the fish by the gills and haul it over to the cooler. I pretty much got the job since I was the only one willing to be slimy and stick my hands inside the fishs' breathing apparatuses. ;)
We filled the cooler completely with salmon. I'm not sure how many total; I'll have to ask Cassandra.
Abandoned stuff!!!!
On the way out we stopped to take photos of these burned/tumbled down old buildings. We have no clue what they were originally for but they were SO friggin' awesome. We all took a zillion photos - I only had my manual camera so I'll have to post my pics at a later date. I'm only posting two pics below; I'll do a seperate post with more for those of you interested in such things.
Me, Morgan, Cassandra, and Mike on part of what was most likely once a dome, now collapsed.
Me inside one of two of the only still standing structures. This one looked to be a trashy local hangout.
From here our two cars parted ways. Cassandra and Morgan went to meet Cassandra's dad while our car traveled on south toward Valdez with the intention of seeing Worthington Glacier in Thompson Pass. Along the way we saw 3 roadkill porcupines and a squirrel. We also stopped to look at the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which brings oil from the furthest north you can drive at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, on the Arctic Ocean, all the way to Valdez.
Here's Ash at the Pipeline stop:
We lucked out that the day turned out so beautiful in Thompson Pass. I had been really afraid it would be clogged with rain clouds but it was gorgeous:
Worthington Glacier flows right out of the mountains, down from the peaks and into the pass. At one time it went right up to the highway. As it is they now have a paved parking lot with latrines and a small seasonal visitors center, informational signs, telescopes, and some ramps. And if you are a bit more entrepid (and careful), another 5 minutes on the moraine will put you on the ice itself. So though it's a killer long drive, it's the easiest glacier to drive to in the state and the easiest to hike to:
Mike & Ash
We hung out at the glacier for some time, drank some fresh glacier water, skipped perfect slate skipping stones, and enjoyed the sun. With such a good end to the drive we decided not to go the rest of the way to Valdez, our hunger instead driving us back to Eureka for food. I was so tired from puking all night that Ash drove us home. :) It was a nice drive but we were so tired and hungry we really didn't stop anywhere other than Eureka (to eat). And we didnt' see a single damn animal larger than a dead porcupine the whole trip!!! WTF?!
That evening we were crazy enough to attempt to watch an episode of Xena once we got home. This was after Midnight, mind you. Ash and I both fell asleep during the ep ("Fish, Femmes, and Gems"). Bah. SLEEP!
Continued in the next post...
• dink around
• road trip to a fishwheel
• kill fish
• explore abandoned/rusted/burnt buildings
• hike around a glacier
• drive home.
Notes:
*All the pictures in this post were taken on Ash's camera, mostly by her.
**Cassandra + Morgan = Morgandra. It's easier and faster to type.
Getting Here a Day Early (or, getting the day they arrived wrong)
So, Ash and Mike were coming in on a midnight flight. I was careful to make sure I had the correct midnight - you know how that can go. Well, go me, I had the day correctly marked on the calendar but I had it in my head incorrectly. So on the midnight between Monday and Tuesday, I was finally getting to sleep when the phone rang. It was Ashley. They were at the airport. *headdesk*
Luckily my mom was awake (Cassandra was my original ride to the airport but her phone was off and I couldn't get ahold of her) and we made a mad dash to the airport. On our way, we came across what we thought was a big block of wood in the road. With no time to swerve around it mom tried to straddle it with the car. I saw the object turn at the last second before we hit it and I recognized it as a porcupine. We hit that thing so hard it felt like hitting a rock. I whirled around just in time to see its body splayed out, rolling down the road behind us. It was the biggest porcupine I'd ever seen and seeing it's poor body like that just broke my heart. :'(
Then in town, the car started making strange noises as we slowed down for stoplights. Mom thought hitting the porcupine had done something to the breaks. At about the 4th light, she started to smell something and was positive it was coming from the car. With a lot of swearing we pulled into a parking lot and I crawled under the front of the car with the cell phone to inspect the damage. Turned out we were dragging a big piece of plastic and that's what the sound was - the porcupine had shattered all the plastic under the front of the car. And the smell was from some construction people tarring the road. :P
We finally made it to the airport around 2am and retrieved Ash and Mike, who I think were relieved to discover I was not a creepy old man after all (I'm their first net person they've met. :D)
Took some time finding our way out of Anchorage but we made it home safe and sound.
Tuesday: First Full Day Here
Luckily it was a mostly nice day. Ash was trying to get over a cold so I tried to keep it low key. I drove them up to the scenic lookout over the Matanuska just north of Fishook road, drove them up to the A-frames up in Hatcher Pass, and took them to my dad's house. At Pop's I took them back to see the musk-ox and we found a freshly hatched butterfly hanging from a blade of tall grass. It was so fresh its wings were still curled and damp.
Next day or three
I had to work for a bit on Wednesday. For the next few days we crammed in DDR and a few games of Settlers of Catan with Cassandra and Morgan. And Ash and I began The Great Media Transfer of 2006, networking our Macs and swapping anime and music. Well, me mostly snagging anermay and Ash mostly gacking moosik. This would continue nearly every evening and parts of some days til the night before Ash and Mike had to leave. You would not believe the sheer volume of stuffs I got! O_O; Yay! We also watched a little bit of anime, too - we watched the first few eps of Kaleido Star which was pretty good and I eventually got them to watch Puni Puni Poemi, which is of course pure crack.
Friday: to the Fishwheel!
Friday we packed up the car and headed off to Glenallen, our final destination being the Copper River where Cassandra's dad has grandfather rights to a fishwheel, where we were going to camp and get fish. Mike, Ash and I took Kaisa's car and Morgan and Cassandra met us later in Glenallen. Our car left early so we could stop and sightsee and dink around as we went. The weather was patchy clouds with a few spots of sprinkles but we had some pretty sights.
Our first glacier of the trip, the Matanuska Glacier. STAY AWAY!!! :P
We stopped in Eureka and had a late lunch before continuing on. Gotta stop in Eureka, always. :D
Got to Glenallen around 5:40pm with the absolute meet-up time with Morgandra being at 7pm so Ash, Mike and I dinked around in the gas station gift shop (quite a large affair) and hung out at the fireworks stand for a bit where the poor Californians drooled at what would otherwise be illegal in their homestate. :D They both got some cheap/free fireworks which was cool but with the nice weather on the trip it was never dark enough to set them off or we weren't somewhere where we *could* set them off. They'll have to come back up to Alaska in the winter to set them off then. :)
Hung out at the Visitors Center after that when the rain started POURING down. Morgandra arrived and we followed them to the fishwheel on the Copper River. Generally, only native Alaskans have rights to fishwheels because of the high volume of fish the wheels can catch. Cassandra's dad, Bob (who is white) was grandfathered into the fishwheel that he has (don't ask me how that works), though Cassandra is half native and could probably get her own if she wanted. Anyway, luckily the rain calmed down so we were able to set up our tent.
The land we were camped on is owned by one of the local chiefs, the daughter of whom invited us to their fish camp/shack for fish patties and fish soup. It's an Athabaskan cultural thing to offer food to guests/strangers and impolite to refuse so we went. I was still full from our late lunch/dinner but I had a fish patty and some soup anyway. The patties were a bit dry and the fish soup had organs in it (which I ate) and we stayed long enough to be polite - Mike even washing dishes. I was so full I hurt.
After that, we retreated to our tent and taught Ash and Mike how to play Mau. We played til we got to where some of the cards had multiple rules - it was a lot of fun.
That night...
...wasn't fun. I ate so much and then on top of that had a ton of M&M's - stupid, stupid, stupid. I had the runs and was so nauseous I made myself throw up til I felt better (which wasn't too hard to do). Which wasn't working so well so I tracked down Morgan & Cassandra, who were trying to sleep in their car, and asked them if they had anything for nausea. They didn't, so we drove back to Glenallen where we found nothing of help. So we drove back. They couldn't sleep well in their car so I invited them to our tent. It was pouring rain then and everyone but Mike was touching the sides of the tent, which drew in water, so a lot of our stuff got wet - especially Morgandra's bedding. So they didnt' sleep well.
Saturday
I finally got some sleep - yay! And the sun slowly came out. Mike and Ash made breakfast while I packed up all the mats and sleeping bags. We ate, and then tore down the tent and packed everything else away in preperation for checking the fishwheel for fish:
(Above) Left to right: Mike, Kara (me), Cassandra, & Morgan on the fishwheel. The wheel scoops up fish and the fish slide into the big box area where inside is basically like a water-cage where the fish can't swim out. We scoop them out of the box with a net. We were catching sockeye (red) salmon - it was so fresh from the ocean that the fish hadn't turned red yet.
(Above) Everyone took turns trying netting fish out of the wheel before we worked out a system where Morgan and Ash took turns netting fish which they'd then swing up to Mike and I where we were standing on either side of one of the wheel ramps. I'd grab the fish through the netting and hold it still and upright where Mike could whack the fish in the head with a large rock, dubbed "Fishbane". I'd then declare when the fish was dead and then grab the fish by the gills and haul it over to the cooler. I pretty much got the job since I was the only one willing to be slimy and stick my hands inside the fishs' breathing apparatuses. ;)
We filled the cooler completely with salmon. I'm not sure how many total; I'll have to ask Cassandra.
Abandoned stuff!!!!
On the way out we stopped to take photos of these burned/tumbled down old buildings. We have no clue what they were originally for but they were SO friggin' awesome. We all took a zillion photos - I only had my manual camera so I'll have to post my pics at a later date. I'm only posting two pics below; I'll do a seperate post with more for those of you interested in such things.
Me, Morgan, Cassandra, and Mike on part of what was most likely once a dome, now collapsed.
Me inside one of two of the only still standing structures. This one looked to be a trashy local hangout.
From here our two cars parted ways. Cassandra and Morgan went to meet Cassandra's dad while our car traveled on south toward Valdez with the intention of seeing Worthington Glacier in Thompson Pass. Along the way we saw 3 roadkill porcupines and a squirrel. We also stopped to look at the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which brings oil from the furthest north you can drive at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, on the Arctic Ocean, all the way to Valdez.
Here's Ash at the Pipeline stop:
We lucked out that the day turned out so beautiful in Thompson Pass. I had been really afraid it would be clogged with rain clouds but it was gorgeous:
Worthington Glacier flows right out of the mountains, down from the peaks and into the pass. At one time it went right up to the highway. As it is they now have a paved parking lot with latrines and a small seasonal visitors center, informational signs, telescopes, and some ramps. And if you are a bit more entrepid (and careful), another 5 minutes on the moraine will put you on the ice itself. So though it's a killer long drive, it's the easiest glacier to drive to in the state and the easiest to hike to:
Mike & Ash
We hung out at the glacier for some time, drank some fresh glacier water, skipped perfect slate skipping stones, and enjoyed the sun. With such a good end to the drive we decided not to go the rest of the way to Valdez, our hunger instead driving us back to Eureka for food. I was so tired from puking all night that Ash drove us home. :) It was a nice drive but we were so tired and hungry we really didn't stop anywhere other than Eureka (to eat). And we didnt' see a single damn animal larger than a dead porcupine the whole trip!!! WTF?!
That evening we were crazy enough to attempt to watch an episode of Xena once we got home. This was after Midnight, mind you. Ash and I both fell asleep during the ep ("Fish, Femmes, and Gems"). Bah. SLEEP!
Continued in the next post...