A better visual...

While I was surfing tonight I found a really good video that shows the Rolex Cross Country Course. I could live without the music however, but the video is good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iefNnDF7fA

As for me I am back at work and let me tell you, where I sit here, four miles from the Arctic Ocean there are NO signs of Global Warming! I watched the Kentucky Derby today and was longing for that green grass that I was laying in just a week ago. I'm ready to go home...

If anyone is looking for a good Charity to support with some of your tax refund or your economic stimulus check (neither of which I received) check out the Equestrian Aid Foundation and support a young American Olympic hopeful.

A ten day reprieve...

The last two weeks have been pretty busy for us; we always like to try and plan a trip in April to get a break from the last part of winter and since we woke up on the morning of Wednesday April 16th with six inches of new snow and snow drifts at the front door from the wind, the timing was perfect. We flew to Seattle for five days in the Great Northwest, however we weren't prepared for it to be so cold. We rented a car and drove to Coeur d' Alene, Idaho for the 2008 Western Timber Framers Conference. Since we got into Seattle so early it gave Sandi enough time to get a riding lesson from a friend who is a riding instructor for Dressage and Eventing and lives in Central Washington which was right on the way. Thursday evening we arrived Coeur d' Aelene tired and ready for bed. The next three days consisted of early morning wake ups and a few late nights. We sat through a few good lectures on green building and net zero impact housing as well as a few timberframe presentations. I talked in depth to a geothermal consultant about converting our heating system over to geothermal and was happy to here that it is a real possibility. We also helped with the children's workshop which teaches the kids to cut and raise a small timberframe (usually a playground) over the weekend.
This was our second Timberframers Conference so we got to visit with a lot of the people we met two years ago as well as new ones. We were sitting with a guy and his wife from Wyoming and it turned out that he went to high school with my brother-in-law Tim's two boys in Laramie. It is a really small world.
Thane's favorite part was of course the swimming pool. We used to take him swimming when he was an infant and we lived near a high school with a pool but since we moved to the middle of nowhere he hasn't got to swim much. The first day he wouldn't let go of me at all, and the second day he kicked around with a foam kick board but wouldn't get very far from me, but the third day I got him a pair of goggles and he turned into a fish. He wasn't nearly as clingy as soon as he could see underwater. We had four or five more days during the trip that he got to swim and every day he got a little better and a little braver. He never liked showers either because he hates getting water into his eyes but after he got his goggles he was fine with taking a shower too.

After the conference we left Coeur d'Alene and drove through a snowstorm headed back to central Washington. This made me feel a little better that it wasn't just Alaska that wasn't done with winter yet. As it turned out, while we were gone we got over a foot of snow at home, but again so did a bunch of the northern states. We spent the night in Yakima where I went to Technical School, I hadn't been back since '95 when I graduated and headed back to Alaska. It was neat to see how much the town has grown in the last thirteen years. It wasn't much warmer there either and Yakima is usually pretty warm this time of the year. After we left Yakima we drove south to the Columbia River Gorge. We took some back roads and saw a lot of places I have never been to because I always took the main highways everywhere when I lived down there. There are some places in south central Washington that I really like and are really nice and green when our yard is still white. Maybe Sandi will buy me a piece of land to build her another barn on somewhere down there. At least then we'd have a place to sneak off to when we get over a foot of snow in April.
We drove over to Western Washington and stayed in a great cottage next to my friend Chris Johnson's house which is on an island in the middle of the Columbia River. It was a beautiful spot, not real warm there either but the setting is gorgeous. If anyone finds themselves between Longview and Long Beach Washington I recommend checking out this cottage. http://www.stockhousesfarm.com/guest.html
The next morning we drove back to Seattle and got on a plane to Cincinnati.

I'm not sure what kind of thoughts most people have when they think of Cincinnati, but mine weren't anything close to what Southern Ohio is really like. I had envisioned something like Detroit or the landscape around Chicago, I don't know why I thought that, but I learned that it is nothing even close. The green rolling hills and red bud trees are beautiful! I really liked Kentucky.
On our first day there we did a little Internet stalking and went and visited Thomas Massie's timberframe home (castle) in progress. There is a link to his blog in my links box. I have been watching his progress for several years and finally emailed him about a year ago when I saw that he was building a Rumford Fireplace about the same time that I started my outdoor Rumford. We have emailed a few times and since we were going to be so close I had to see his place. It is more impressive in person than it appears on his blog. It doesn't seem as big in person as I thought it was going to be but it is really awesome. His attention to detail and desire to use all of his own resources and labor is amazing. All of the timbers and stone have come from his farm and were cultivated and cut on site. He is a really inspiring and talented guy. The best part was that they had the pizza oven fired up and all of the ingredients and a bunch of fresh pizza dough that his wife had made, so we made pizza. I have to add one of these wood fired pizza ovens to my project list, it is really awesome.

The next day was the first day of the Rolex three day event and our day started at six AM. We didn't get back from Thomas' until after midnight so this was not my idea of a restful vacation. We did however beat the crowd (and half of the vendors) to the Kentucky Horse Park for the first day of the event. About mid morning we walked the cross country course which was something like five miles (if it wasn't it sure felt like it). It was nice though to walk through all of that nice soft green grass. The course walk was led by a guy who had ridden in the Rolex several times previously and knew the intricacies of the course. There were probably forty or more people on the walk but that didn't stop Thane from running ahead and befriending our guide. He wanted to be out front for almost the whole walk from one jump to the next. I was really impressed by his amazing amount of energy expended on the walk. We all slept really good that night.
The next morning wasn't as bad since we knew the times and where we were going. Some people might be inclined to think that watching Dressage for two days might be like watching paint dry but really it is amazing to watch what these horses can do. The gracefulness and finesse of some of these horses is pretty unbelievable. The first two days were dressage, the third day was the cross country course and the last day was stadium jumping. It is listed as a three day event but because the dressage takes so long they it takes two days to complete and the last two are the cross country and stadium jumping. With the exception of Saturday morning, the morning of the cross country event, the weather was superb. I did however almost freeze to death on Saturday morning but it warmed up to the mid seventies in the afternoon so I was able to thaw out and get a bit of a sunburn. All in all the event was pretty awesome; there were two severe crashes on the cross country course that injured both horse and riders and we witnessed them both which I could have lived without. The worst injured rider was Laine Ashker who was riding a horse named Frodo Baggins that was in the Lord of the Rings movies and an amazing animal. She was airlifted to a hospital after the accident and is still there with some pretty severe injuries. She was hoping for a good placing at Rolex to secure a spot on the 2008 US Olympic Team, unfortunately this tragic accident has prevented her from making it.
Sunday was the Stadium Jumping which is a lot safer than the cross country (the jumps are knocked over if touched by the horse) but still very impressive. It is pretty funny to hear twenty thousand (plus) people hold their breath, ooh, ahh, and exhale all together. After the event we drove around the outskirts of Lexington admiring the beautiful green fields and miles of fence.

We flew home on Monday afternoon despite Delta canceling our Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Anchorage. I'm not really excited about them becoming the biggest airline in the world! We still have a foot or three of snow on the ground but it is going to be gone soon enough. Hopefully my next time off will see green buds on the trees.

While we were gone we had Jon's Woodworking install kitchen cabinet doors in our kitchen so coming home was like walking into a new house, it was great! What to do with all of these drawers and cabinets that don't allow dust and dog/cat hair to get on everything. We are pretty excited to have a finished kitchen (finally). It isn't quite finished, I started installing a tile back splash and then the kitchen will be done. I have always been deathly afraid of attempting to do my own tile but finally bit the bullet and decided I could figure it out.

Well that is in a nutshell what we have been up to since my last post.

Thane and two friends he met two years ago at the Timberframers Guild Conference on Vancouver Island.

Sandi and Thane at a pit stop in south central Washington.

The cottage we stayed at on the Columbia River, I recommend it if you are in the area.

Thane, happy to finally take a shower without getting water in his eyes. Cute!

I didn't take many pictures at Thomas' because I couldn't take any better than he has on his blog, but I had to show this awesome piece of craftsmanship.

Thomas put on his own slate roof and was complimented by the editor of a slate roof journal as being a homeowner who's DIY installation was better than a professional one. Plus his house was on the cover of the magazine.

Thane paying full attention to the description of the next jump from our guide during the Rolex crosscountry course walk.

A picture of the dressage from really far away!

The hammock jump with a looming storm in the background.

Thane with two of the course volunteers.

This one was called the sunken road.

The exit of the sunken road.

My camera zoom isn't that great on this little camera but it gives you an idea of how challenging this course really was.

I couldn't get over how impressive this jump was.

This horse wasn't sure he wanted to go over this duck.

Sandi and Thane at the first jump on the cross country course.

Sandi at a jump that I'm glad I wouldn't have to jump over.

Thane showed the usefulness of his Crocks by wading out to demonstrate the middle of this five part jump.

As we were wandering through one of the barns we met the guy who designed this cart. Turns out he used to live in Alaska, right down the road from Thane's school. He let Thane test out the drivers seat before the afternoon event. This cart is aluminium tubing and even has four wheel disk brakes.

The directors of the event three hours later on the same cart. Good thing Thane test drove it for them.

The last jump of the stadium jumping.

The second to last jump, these horses are so amazing.

Thane checking out the finish line during the awards ceremony.

Thane demonstrating how big this duck really is.

The next picture shows how big that log really is.

That is a big log, I don't care how tall your horse is!

The broken bridge jump. This was one of the harder jumps on the course.

A beautiful bridge on a backroad outside of Lexington.

I was very impressed by these fences, miles and miles of fences.

So much for signs of Spring...

After four to six inches of fresh snow I think Spring has been put on hold for a bit longer. Not that I mind as much as some of the normal people that like to go outside in temperatures that aren't below freezing. Don't get me wrong, green grass and leaves on the trees would be great but getting in a few more rides before all of the snow is gone isn't bad either. All of that wet concrete (snow) that I wrote about last week froze and now is a super hard base with between six inches and a foot of soft snow on top of it. The good part is that you can go anywhere, but the bad part is that it is really hard under that top layer. My sister TJ usually takes Joyce (an elderly lady about five miles up the road) her mail once or twice a week, but since it snowed a bit and she has a really steep driveway I told TJ I'd just run it up there on my snowmachine. I was wanting to go for a ride anyway. The bummer was that I only had five gallons of gas and my machine was totally empty, that only gave me about a quarter of a tank. It isn't that far and five gallons is plenty to go ten to twenty miles on, right? On the east side of Hatcher Pass Road from our driveway is the trail that goes to the Capital Site (where they wanted to relocate the state capitol in the '80's) and it is a mix of swamps and dense trees. I grew up playing out there and still get disoriented between some of the big swamps. Getting to Joyce's is easy and takes only about ten minutes or so and entails crossing about four lakes and two or three big swamps. I made it to her house right away and then headed off in search of powder to play in on Saturday and Sunday. There is a winter trail that goes from Houston to Hatcher Pass and has been used since the gold mining era. It is in between the swamps that we usually ride in and the base of Bald Mountain that lies between the city of Wasilla and Hatcher Pass. I have only run across it a couple of times but have studied it on Google Earth a bit. Mind you I'm not smart enough to get a gps before I set off out there, I just go get lost and hope to find my way home again. Normally this isn't such a bad thing because the tank on my machine holds almost twelve gallons and I usually carry a minimum of two and a half gallons on the back.
Starting to sound like one of those tv shows that talk about a quick outing that turned into tragedy because the victim was unprepared for the elements? That was exactly what I was thinking about fifteen minutes after I decided to try and find my way from the winter trail back to our normal trails through the swamps and trees. Not because I thought I was lost but because I was quite sure I was going to run out of gas at any second. The other two things that made it bad was that I was supposed to pick up Thane after school at three thirty and I had an exam that I have been preparing for at seven thirty the next morning. I really did start to panic, mostly at the thought of post holing out of the woods on my trail I made on the way in. It would have taken me at a minimum about four hours to get back to the road and I wasn't looking forward to that. So as much as I hated to do it I got back on my trail that I came in on and rode at a speed which I determined probably conserved the most gas back to Joyce's house. I asked her if I could borrow about a half a gallon of gas to get me back home. She said "typical snowmachiner" but gave me some gas nonetheless. I made it back home in about six minutes, flying down the road, but still was going to be late to get Thane. I called Sandi to let her know I was going to be late and I was really winded and untying my boot at the same time. While I was talking to her I got a cramp in my side and could barely breathe and before I could tell her I wasn't dying, my cell phone battery died. It took me awhile to find the charger and by the time I got a hold of her she had called my sister in a panic telling her to come check on me. It turned out to be quite the day; Sandi was able to pick up Thane from school and I managed to make my Exam on Friday morning, and even passed it! So all in all everything turned out ok and best of all I wasn't the subject of one of those tv shows.

I was supposed to go riding with Clay on both Saturday and Sunday (thus the search for powder on Thursday) but Thane was really sick and Sandi had to work so instead I stayed home with a sick boy cleaning up.... well, let's just say it was coming from both ends all day. Poor little guy had no energy and was wiped out all day. Sandi didn't have to work on Sunday so I turned over my tub and tile cleaner and paper towels to her and went up the pass to ride with Clay. Saturday had been blue sky and about 38 degrees all day, so of course Sunday couldn't be that nice. The day started out really nice but as it progressed a storm blew in and it got cloudy really quick. When we were on top of the mountain above treeline the light was really flat and you couldn't see any variations in the snow that hadn't been tracked already. It is a weird feeling to come down a long steep hill and not know if it is going to be a smooth ride down or you are going to plunge over a huge cornice at any second. Once you get a few tracks in it you then have some depth perception but before you can run smack into the side of a ravine and not tell it was there. After we played on top and the weather started to turn bad we headed back into the trees and worked our way home through the trees, avoiding the bumpy trails as much as possible.

I hate to think that was my last ride this year but since we are leaving to go to the States for a trip pretty soon, so it might very well be. I suppose if I can finish cleaning the kitchen tomorrow and do a little laundry, I could go get lost in the swamps again tomorrow for a bit.

The start of our day, this is one of the swamps across the road.

Clay playing in a ravine, notice how all of the white would look the same without a few tracks in it.

The first valley we dropped into.

The weather as it was blowing in, it was looking kind of ominous.

Clay stepped off of his machine to take a picture; it didn't look like the snow was chest deep but it was.

These big white fields of snow aren't what Sandi and her horse are dreaming of; but I love them.

Me, playing in the ravine.

Putting in a few more tracks to help the depth perception.

Note that I do have a spare can of gas this trip.

And I did have to use every drop to make it home. This was a mining cabin that we came across on our way off the mountain.

This is what the weather had turned into as we were about to head down and cross the creek, about four miles from home.

So much for Spring.

Signs of Spring???

I made it home last week and was hoping to come home to a few more signs of Spring. After seeing that Minneapolis was still frozen and white, on my way home, I wasn't getting my hopes up for a lot of warmth here. It was in the forties however, making for rotten snow and slushy driveways. Most places have Spring; in Alaska we have Breakup, and they call it that for a reason. The ground is still frozen so the water from the melting snow and ice doesn't absorb into the ground right away. This causes the ground to be a mixture of mud, slush, and ice. In addition to this mixture, it started snowing here yesterday and we now have about four inches of great powder on top of a lot of really rotten knee-to-waist deep snow. I took my snowmachine out the other day and it was like riding in wet concrete. The snow was so dense I was getting stuck going down hill! It was pretty hard to maneuver in, but was still great fun.

Sandi said that last week she was talking to a friend of my parents that said his best memory of me when I was a kid was that me and my friends' favorite thing to do was go out and get our snowmachines stuck. She told him that not much has changed. So following tradition I spent a bit of time digging out of the concrete the other day. Getting stuck has never been one of my favorite things; it is just a consequence of playing in deep snow.

Last night we sat around our first fire in the outdoor fireplace since New Years. It was really nice to sit there with snow falling and a nice fire roaring while we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.
With the time change it is light until nine thirty now and getting lighter later every night. Summer will be here soon enough!
I took a few pictures on my ride the other day that I think turned out pretty good...

Doesn't this look like a sign of Spring?

The sun was trying to burn through the clouds and I couldn't pass up getting a picture of it through this tree. Sandi thought it might look better in black and white and as always she was correct.

I couldn't determine which one of these I liked better so I posted them both.

Low hanging clouds and rotten snow.

Stuck in the concrete-like snow, a favorite pastime.

Family reunion half a world away…

The first week that I was in Algeria this last trip, I got an email from my dad. He said that my cousin Becky was taking her daughter to London as a gift before she graduates high school and that they’d be there the last part of March. I didn’t really know how long I’d be in Algeria or what day I’d make it through London but I sent Becky an email and crossed my fingers that our schedules would allow us to see each other. Fortunately things worked out and I got to spend a day with them both in London. I haven’t seen either of them in almost twelve years. Sara was just an adorable five years old the last time I visited Becky in Eugene and now she has grown up and become an intellectual young woman. She’s still adorable but that isn’t something that a 17 year old girl wants to hear.
I’m having a hard time grasping how fast time is flying by. Becky’s kids are almost all grown up and mine is starting first grade this fall. Crazy!
After I met up with them we set out with no specific plans. We hopped on the tube (London’s subway system) and headed off to see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. When Becky called me at noon I was in a meeting at the company office about twenty minutes from the hotel they were staying at. I told her I’d meet them at 2:00 across from Victoria Station, so I had to walk about three blocks and take two trains to get to where we were meeting. I got really lucky and timed it perfectly; I made it at 2:00 on the dot. I’ve had really good luck navigating around London via the tube over the last few months and have gotten pretty familiar with a few sections of the city. So I felt a little dumb that only a moment after I made a comment that I was impressed with myself for being able to find my way around London, the first train we got on was going the wrong way. Can’t win them all I guess.
After we walked around Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, we walked along the Thames River and crossed over to ride on the London Eye http://www.londoneye.com/ and see the Salvador Dali art gallery http://www.london-se1.co.uk/places/dali-universe. I have to thank Becky and Sara for seeing both of them; if I hadn’t been with them I probably wouldn’t have experienced either one. I really liked the gallery; Dali was a strange guy and had some pretty wild and strange pieces but I really liked a few of his sculptures. The London Eye was really cool also, I didn’t realize the enormity of Greater London until we were at the top (443 feet at the top) and you couldn’t see where the city stopped. Yesterday I was comparing my London pictures to Sydney’s (my niece) who was there the first week of March and we both had taken a picture from the London Eye that were almost identical. Pretty weird…
After the gallery we walked back across the Thames and down to Embankment where we met up with Hans for dinner at an excellent Italian restaurant that Hans and I ate at in January. Again I was kind of proud of myself for being able to find it quite easily. I have to say that although I have really enjoyed touring around London I could never live amongst seven million people. I’d go nuts; there is no such thing as personal space. Plus you have to pay to use the bathroom in most of the public places. Where I grew up we just found the nearest tree, over there that would get you a city tour I wasn’t quite up for.
I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with both Becky and Sara. It made me once again realize that as life is happening so fast we rarely get time to spend with the people we care about; sometimes even when they aren’t really that far away. Sometimes it’s because we don’t take the time but I think more often we really don’t have the time. Life is so busy all the time it’s really hard to make the time for spending with everyone that is really important in your life. When you finally do see them again, you realize how much you missed having them in your life. I don’t think that there’s any way around it; unless of course you are independently wealthy and can travel all the time. If by chance you are, feel free to send me a plane ticket and I’ll go with you!

I guess we could all use to look at our priorities and make a list of what is most important. I’ve learned from experience how important it is that if you think about calling someone to actually call them. If you think sending them an email, send it; and more importantly visit them if you can. You will never regret making the call, sending the note, or making the trip; but I can promise you that you could regret not doing it.

With that said I have a few calls to make…

Big Ben from street level.

Becky and I next to a statue of the Burghers of Calais (I haven't got a clue who these guys were) in front of one of the Parliament buildings.

A Salvador Dali sculpture in front of the gallery.

The London Eye from ground level.

Becky and I in the Eye.

This is the picture that is almost identical to one that Sydney took. Hers just had less people on the ground.

Sara, Becky, and I after a fabulous Italian Dinner.

How a bush can ruin a perfectly good tan…

I haven’t put any pictures on for awhile, I figured after all of the ones I’ve posted that they all might start looking the same. One of the reasons is during during my last week in Algeria, I over flexed my sandboard and caused a hairline crack across the bottom of it. You wouldn’t think it would make much of a difference but it really slowed the board down and made me a lot less inclined to make four to seven treks up the dune with my camera each day. The crack was just in front of my right foot and the weight at that point combined with the friction of the sand really slowed things down (it definitely isn’t snow). I figured out that if I sat on the board in front of the crack there wasn’t as much friction and the board would still go really fast. As I learned in January however; when you sit on the board, you have no control and stopping isn’t very easy. So in the end you are at the mercy of the board and the gravitational pull of the bushes. Mind you there are only four bushes on this giant dune but I didn’t have any problem finding them, well one of them anyway. There is a reason that even the camels don’t eat these bushes and that reason is thorns, lots of thorns. On my very last trip down the dune, I was going really fast when I got into the middle of all of the tracks coming up the dune. All of the tracks made like mini speed bumps and caused things to get out of control really fast. All I could see through the spray of sand (from digging my heels in trying to slow down) was the only bush on that side of the dune rapidly approaching. In whitewater kayaking I try to live by the saying “don’t look where you don’t want to go” because if you stare at a rock or a log you are going to hit it. While careening down the dune at mach 2 this thought never occurred to me. As I approached the bush that I couldn’t seem to divert my eyes from, I dug my heels in as hard as I could and unfortunately the result wasn’t what I was hoping for. I don’t really know how the laws of physics allowed me to go from sitting on my rear to skidding on my forehead in less than a millisecond but it happened. I still don’t know how I managed to take the brunt of the impact of the bush with my left arm and leg instead of my face, but I got lucky. It would have been much less pleasant removing thorns from my forehead than it was my extremities. After I skidded to a stop (still face down in the sand) all I could hear was Collin at the top of the dune laughing hysterically. He said it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. It actually reminded my of another friend who also couldn't stop laughing hysterically after watching me take my kayak down a black diamond ski slope; but that was about ten years ago and is a whole different story. You would think that with age I’d stop doing stupid stuff, but how boring would life be if I did that.
I guess if nothing else, my last trip down the dune was my most memorable. The next morning I tossed my sandboard on the plane and headed out of the desert, and my nice tan all covered by a thousand little scabs (half of it anyway).

I have to say that my experience in Algeria was great and the people are wonderful. My only regret is that I was unable to see any part of the country other than the Sahara. Although the desert takes up most of the country, the northern part on the Mediterranean is beautiful and green. One of these days I’d like to get the chance to visit Algiers which is on the coast and I’d also really like to see Constantine which is in the mountains and is a very old city.
Maybe one day, but for now it is off to London for a day and then back home to see if Sandi and Thane remember who I am.

My last Saharan sunset

I really liked the way these clouds got more colorful the lower the sun got.

My last trip to the top of the dune, moments prior to my painful collision with a bush with a bad attitude.

The scene of the accident

These bushes are rooted deep and even my impact didn't uproot it. Notice how far I skidded before coming to a stop and how far down the bush is scattered.

On a different subject...

I was really glad to see Lance Mackey win the Iditarod again this year. I grew up racing sprint dogs and I'm not really into distance mushing but I admire the effort these people put into racing.
My dad ran the Iditarod in 1986 and received the "Red Lantern" ( http://www.iditarod.com/learn/traditions.html ) which is more of an accomplishment than I think I could achieve. Twenty days behind a dog team is more than I ever desired, I preferred running for about thirty minutes behind fourteen to twenty dogs and then go somewhere that had a hot shower. A strong dislike of sleeping in the cold and lack of hot showers is probably why I'm not a distance dog musher or a mountaineer.
There are several other mushers that I know better than Lance, but the reason I was glad to see Lance win again is because of a conversation I had with him in early January 2007. Both last year and again this year Sandi volunteered to be a race veterinarian for the Cantwell Classic, a 200 mile mid-distance race across the Denali Highway . This year I didn't go with her due to being in Algeria but last year I went and we camped out at a checkpoint that was the first and last checkpoint (due to turning around at the halfway point) and checked the teams as they came through. I sat in a the warmup tent ( http://tysonsdaily.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html ) and talked to Lance for quite awhile, we talked about sprint racing versus distance and all of the work involved in both. Lance said he was thinking that maybe he should try something different than distance racing. Between all of the work and frostbite he said that he thought something like the Wyoming Stage Stop would be fun to do and would be a nice change from distance racing. I didn't think much of it at the time but reflecting back on it, it was a really cool conversation. Later that month he won the Yukon Quest and then the Iditarod in March and this year he had a repeat of both. A task never achieved by anyone previously, much less two years in a row. I just think it is really nice to see people who work really hard at something be successful.

A few more sunset photos...

Today I hiked the dune four times at lunch and three times after work. Tonight the sunset was really amazing, the Lead Electrician went up with me and took a few pictures of me coming back up the dune. The weather is perfect.

The changing sand...

Every day the sand is different, some days it is completely smooth without even a ripple and some days it looks like a washboard. Today the weather was great and was my best day of riding so far. I hope the weather maintains about the same until I leave, it is perfect. Although most of the locals are still wearing their coats all day, it is like a hot summer day to me.

I think I've got the wax situation finally figured out. Today I made five trips up the dune and Saturday I made seven treks up the dune, four at lunch and three more in the evening. This dune is like the ultimate natural StairMaster; with each step you gain between a quarter and a half step of forward movement, if you are lucky. If I keep this up I might be able to get back into decent shape.
I harp on Hans everyday to get him to go with me but he says that he moved from Switzerland to Houston to get away from having to climb any more mountains. This is Bob's first trip to site and he went with me Saturday evening, I told him about the easier route but he followed me right up the middle. I think he was a little tired at the top but I'm impressed he made it up as fast as he did.

Saturday was the first time since my first trip last year that I have been on top of the dune for sunset. It is really quite amazing to watch the shadows on the dunes as the sun sets.

You get a little vertigo while climbing because if you look at the ripples long enough they look like black spray paint.

The sun getting ready to set.

Bob on his way up the dune.

Bob at the top.

Still windy but warming up...

I'd expect the Sahara to be warmer this time of the year. It is really windy and still a bit cool except around noon but at least the sand is soft. Well semi-soft anyhow; there was one slope on a northern exposure that I fell on today that was still rock hard from the last rain that brought a tear to my eye and a bruise to my arse. After I finished my sobbing I took my sandboard to a southern slope that was nice and soft and in the sunshine. I think I'm going to require a dental mirror and pick to to remove all of the grains of sand from each of my bodily crevices.

This is actually a nice relaxing way to spend my lunch hour every day. Plus I don't eat near as much.

Here is a video of the wind at the top of the dune.

This was in the middle of a sandstorm, boy was it windy up there

The little black dot at the top of the tracks is a beetle that I was following. I thought his tracks in the sand looked really cool.

My tracks in the sand

A couple of days in the UK

I spent Saturday (my 34th birthday) and Sunday in the UK on my way back to Algeria. On Saturday Hans and I took a train to Brighton which is south of London on the Coast.
(I am a little hesitant to refer to it as either England or Britain because I had a guy I was talking to in the hotel bar get mad at me because I referred to him as British rather than English, he got even more upset when I asked him the difference. I still don't get it but I'm not going to worry too much about it.)
After wandering around Brighton for a few hours and checking out the rocky coast, we headed back to the hotel and then took the train into London for dinner. Wether it is in the restaurants or just standing in a pub, I have met a lot of really great people and had lots of excellent conversations on all of my London trips.
We stay at a hotel in Gatwick airport which is about a thirty minute train ride from Victoria Station in London. On Sunday morning we headed back into London and wandered around some more. We walked a few blocks from Victoria station and came upon a beautiful building with a tall tower. I said to Hans "wow look at that church", he said he thought it was a museum or school but really didn't think it was a church। When we walked up to the front entrance and saw the sign for Westminster Catheredral I couldn't stop laughing and had something to rib Hans about the rest of the day.
I have to say that on my first trip I was very impressed with the Tower of London and all of the old architecture, but after walking into Westminster Catheredral I was even more impressed. The outside wasn't as impressive as the Duomo in Florence, but the inside of Westminster is amazingly beautiful with all of the marble, wood, and tile work. I have seen it on tv but had no idea of the enormity of it until standing in front of the altar. It is very impressive.

After that we had dinner at a nice Spanish restaurant and headed back to the hotel. Check in for our flight to Algeria starts at 3:30am for a 6:30am flight, so it was a short night.

Outside of the Brighton train station

A kind of market street in Brighton

An art gallery in Brighton

The English coast

A very ambitious man Kaiser Wilhelm

I have to agree with Plato on this one

I really liked this building all lit up

Is this a school or museum??

Oh, it is a church...

Above the altar

The main altar

I think this is the baptism pool but not sure. There are about three to four side chapels and rooms like this on each side of the main catherdal seating area. Each side chapel is for a different church, i.e. church of Scotland, church of Ireland, etc..

Each side chapel has beautiful tile murals and writings on the walls and ceiling

The day was overcast so the pictures are a little dark but it shows how busy the streets are. This was in Covent Garden (part of London)

Another street picture

Tuesday was another stellar day.....

Well, we have had a couple of really nice days this last week. Ryan and I went riding again on Tuesday and it was another spectacular day.

On my last post Margo commented that she was happy that I still had all of my limbs even if all of the trees didn't. After contemplating that comment for the better part of the day, all I can say is that trees that have their lower branches trimmed (pruned) are healthier, happier, and look better than trees that don't. I also determined that we could probably submit a bill to the forest service for pruning so many trees for them! I'm working on the cost structure right now. I think the cost is going to have to be directly proportional to the cost of gas and replacement snowmachine parts.

Apart from playing on my snowmachine in the last week off, Sandi and I replaced the lighting in the kitchen. We originally had one pendant with three lights and we put in two tracks with five lights each. The difference is amazing! It was a little nerve racking hole sawing a four inch hole in our tongue and groove pine ceiling, but once I bit the bullet and did it, the fixtures were the easy part. The part I hate is getting ready to install something that I just bought from Lowes or Home Depot and it is missing a couple of critical parts. We had to make an extra trip to get all of the parts but got it done, and it was worth it. I also broke down and called a couple of guys I know who are superb cabinet makers and asked them what it would take for them to finish my cabinet doors in the kitchen. The cabinet doors are one of the things that I have been most looking forward to building, but with all of the projects on my plate I decided to stop holding out and after four years, finish the kitchen. Hopefully they will be able to install everything when we are at the Western Timberframers Conference this spring. It would be nice to come home to a brand new kitchen.

Now, I guess the fun is over and I'm headed for London on my way for one more trip to Algeria. I've packed my shorts and sandboard and am set to go! Hopefully I;ll get some good London pictures to post on the way.

Nice soft snow

Ryan coming through the trees

Me on a pruning run...

Just a beautiful day to be outside

If you look close you can see the buildings of Anchorage on the other side of the Inlet

Um, Ryan, theres a ravine there........

Mount Susitna (Sleeping Lady) on the right, across the valley

A procupine who was eagerly awaiting us to leave

The pruning grounds.....

Spruce needles are kind of prickly.......

One of my favorite times of the year.....

March and June are hands down my two favorite months of the year in Alaska. I know it isn't March yet but it is pretty darn close. Today was a beautiful sunny blue sky day with tons of really good snow. We are up to 10+ hours of daylight and gaining 5 minutes everyday. Right now the sun isn't setting until after 7pm, a wonderful thing.

Today we spent most of the daylight hours playing on snowmachines in the woods not too far from home. I love that in ten minutes worth of riding you can be so remote it would take a day to get there in the summer. The sun was bright, the snow was deep, and the trees....

well, lets just say they sometimes don't move out of the way fast enough.
On days like today you become one with nature, the word tree hugger takes on a whole new meaning. With the snow just barely covering some of the alder thickets I find that when you are flying across the top of them and your ski dives under one measly little alder, you stop like a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier. The only difference is that the pilot is strapped into his fighter, I on the other hand continue at the previous forward speed until coming to rest somewhere in a pile somewhere near the machine. Tell me that doesn't sound like fun. With all of the avalanche activity around and a few deaths this year at least we don't have to worry because we don't go above treeline. Our biggest concern is getting impaled by a tree branch or something like that. People think riding a snowmachine consists of sitting on it and steering, that is a pure misconception and at the end of the day you are so tired you feel like a noodle.



Here are a couple of pictures..

I wish I had the event on video because it was so funny. Ryan where is your sled??

If you look