It's good to be alive in Alaska
There've been a few changes in me life in the last 6 months since I've posted :). Lately, the addtion of an almost unbearably cute puppy. She's a half malemute, half newfoundland gal by the name of Dante, rescued from the Kenai pound by Chaia (me gf) and Rebecca on the weekend after finals. For those non-Alaskans, the round trip drive to Kenai from Fairbanks is 1000 miles ;). She's a well mannered and energetic pup, who's enough food motivated to be pretty easy to train. She also has webbed toes, and enjoys frolicing in the shallows.
In other news, Chaia and I are signed up for private SCUBA lessons, which we'll start whenever we can get physicals done up here. Apparently there are no walk-in clinics up here that will give them to the general public. We're also moving out of our apartment in about a month, and going to me brother's, where the overall rent is all of 500+1/2 utilities, rather than the 950+electricity/cable that we be paying now.
Last week was Design Alaska's employee outing, where we all went to Denali Park and went white water rafting down the Nenana river, which get to class III and class IV rapids in places. Needless to say, Chaia and I had a blast, and I got to show Chaia what car camping is like- breaking her in slowly to what we did this weekend.
From Wed till yesterday we canoed the Tangle Lakes river basin, which is about 32 miles long from the put in to the take out. On the way is two portages separated by a beaver lake (walking around two rather pretty but nasty waterfalls). There were some decent rapids and rocks in the rivers, in the orders of class II and class III, which were interesting navigating by open canoe and puppy in the bow. We managed rather well- I had to dive out and yank the canoe off of shore once when I accidentally rammed it, but that was the worst bit for our boat Whimsey. The Unicorn and Inedible didn't fare quite as well, the former getting caught up on rocks 3 times, filling with water each time and the latter going under once and having its folks bail once. All in all though, it was a beautiful and awesome trip :). Now tis time for me to slowly relax and enjoy the feeling of well worked muscles- that white water and portaging is hard work.
In other news, Chaia and I are signed up for private SCUBA lessons, which we'll start whenever we can get physicals done up here. Apparently there are no walk-in clinics up here that will give them to the general public. We're also moving out of our apartment in about a month, and going to me brother's, where the overall rent is all of 500+1/2 utilities, rather than the 950+electricity/cable that we be paying now.
Last week was Design Alaska's employee outing, where we all went to Denali Park and went white water rafting down the Nenana river, which get to class III and class IV rapids in places. Needless to say, Chaia and I had a blast, and I got to show Chaia what car camping is like- breaking her in slowly to what we did this weekend.
From Wed till yesterday we canoed the Tangle Lakes river basin, which is about 32 miles long from the put in to the take out. On the way is two portages separated by a beaver lake (walking around two rather pretty but nasty waterfalls). There were some decent rapids and rocks in the rivers, in the orders of class II and class III, which were interesting navigating by open canoe and puppy in the bow. We managed rather well- I had to dive out and yank the canoe off of shore once when I accidentally rammed it, but that was the worst bit for our boat Whimsey. The Unicorn and Inedible didn't fare quite as well, the former getting caught up on rocks 3 times, filling with water each time and the latter going under once and having its folks bail once. All in all though, it was a beautiful and awesome trip :). Now tis time for me to slowly relax and enjoy the feeling of well worked muscles- that white water and portaging is hard work.