Tyson's Daily Thoughts

Happy 2011!!!

2011-01-01T20:51:00.002-09:00

Here is to hoping that 2011 will bring better luck and fortune than some of what 2010had to offer!

All in all 2010 wasn't too bad but I'm holding out hope that 2011 will be exceedingly better. I have made a small amount of progress on the barn in the last few months, like an indoor stall, an oil heater, a man door (don't have to use the 10x10 garage door to get in and out anymore), and a nice start to a home gym on the second floor. I hope to have pictures in the next few weeks.

Happy New Years!

Tyson

November until now (Part 7)

2010-05-06T22:42:00.000-08:00

When I got in on Thursday, Sandi and Thane were still in Wasilla so I met up with them and we went out for dinner. Sandi said her Yukon heater wasn’t working very well again (three months before it did the same thin and I thought it had a bad thermostat but it ended up being low on coolant) so I checked the coolant level and it was really low. I wasn’t sure what the problem was but I knew it wasn’t good. After I got back to work on Tuesday I called my import mechanic hoping to find the best place to take it to because our GM dealer is terrible to deal with. Luckily the import guys had a mechanic that works on the Vortec engine so I made her an appointment thinking she had a leaking head gasket or worse. They told me it probably wasn’t that bad because these engines are notorious for having leaking manifold gaskets and would probably be an easy fix. I told them I hoped so because my luck with all things mechanical were pretty poor recently. They called the day after Sandi dropped it off and said that it was worse than feared, and even worse than a leaking head gasket. Apparently two of the valve rocker arms broke and there was metal all in the engine and it was cheaper to replace the engine with one they had found that had 50k miles on it than to buy replacement parts for the existing engine. I was just thrilled., an engine and transmission all in one month. The only major component I had left that hadn’t failed was a rear end. Luckily when I paid the bill for the transmission I took it in the rear end so I don’t have to worry about that any more. All I could figure was that I’d better try to stay at work for about eight weeks to get caught up on all of our mechanical catastrophes.

On the bright side I did get a few days of riding in good snow before I headed back to get the truck. Amazingly when I called on Tuesday to see what the status of the truck was they said that they got it done on Sunday like they’d estimated and was sitting in their yard ready for me to pick it up. I wasn’t sure how long it would take them to finish when I booked my ticket so I booked a flex ticket so I could change it without an additional fee if necessary. When I called Alaska Airlines to change my ticket the agent told me that there was an additional $230 fee. I told her I booked a flex ticket so I shouldn’t have to pay a change fee. She said that only my northbound flight was flex and I’d have to pay. I’d say I was hemorrhaging money at this point but I was only hemorrhaging my visa number. The outpouring of actual cash was going to have to wait until I actually had some cash to pour out.

I flew home from work on Monday; I was originally planning to come home on Sunday to spend Thane’s whole spring break week with him but those plans were pretty well shot due to everything going wrong as of late. I did get all day Tuesday at home to go for a two hour ride in almost two feet of fresh snow and hang out with Sandi and Thane until they dropped me at the airport that night for my second flight to Kelowna. Wouldn’t you know that every time I left for either work or to go on this trip we got fresh snow. I wasn’t upset about getting to ride on Tuesday but was really wishing I had the rest of the week to play in then new snow. I’m not sure where but somewhere in there I finished my Stephen King novel and swore I’d never download another one.

I guess since I’d paid $1500 for a ticket to Kelowna Alaska Airlines took pity on me and gave me a first class seat to Seattle. I was happy about that, I like having room to stretch out and sleep especially on a redeye flight. This flight left Anchorage at 12 am instead of the 2:30 flight I had last time. It figured that the guy I sat next to wanted to talk and did, all the way. I got almost no sleep the whole flight so when I got to Seattle I went and found a little piece of floor to sleep on. I prefer the 2:30 flight to the 12:00 because when you get to Seattle before 5 am almost everything is closed. I got a few hours of sleep on the floor then made my Kelowna flight without any issues. When I went through Customs the officer asked me why I was in Canada and I told him I was picking up my truck which broke down on my way through. He said “they still haven’t got that thing done yet?” It was the same Customs Officer I’d had before; I told him that I had been assured it was ready this time. I once again jumped a shuttle to the Greyhound station and then waited for my 2:30 bus to Merritt.

I arrived Merritt a few minutes before 5pm and called the mechanic shop for a ride from the bus station. They sent a driver and had actually washed my truck before I got there. By the time I got all the paperwork taken care of and the trailer hooked up it was a little after 6:00 so all I had to do was top off the fuel tank and start driving. The rest of the trip was long but mostly uneventful with the exception of me cutting the corner too short turning into my friends driveway in Fort St John British Columbia. The trailer caught a snow bank and went off the side of the driveway which in turn broke the drain pipe to the grey water tank and popped out most of the rivets on the running board on the drivers side of the trailer. This just meant a little added maintenance when I got home. I took a long layover to visit as I hadn’t seen Saunderson’s in a few years, and hadn’t been to their farm since Sandi and I drove our ’97 F350 up from Washington in 1999. I left their house at about 6:30 the next morning and pushed fourteen hours to Whitehorse where I grabbed dinner, slept five hours and then made a fifteen hour push for home. I’d left Merritt on Wednesday evening and was home Saturday evening, a day earlier than I thought. Who could complain about that?

I still had a little over a week off so I spent a day skiing in Girdwood and two nights at Clay’s cabin at Honolulu creek riding snowmachines and the rest of it with Sandi and Thane. Then I went back to work for two weeks of recuperation before coming home to do two days of trailer maintenance before driving Sandi and her horse back to Washington…

November until now (Part 6)

2010-05-01T21:24:00.004-08:00

I flew out of Anchorage at 2:30am on the return leg of the ticket Dale set me up with. I arrived Seattle at 5:30 and had plenty of time to have a coffee at Starbucks and some fruit for breakfast while visiting with a friend that was on the same flight into Seattle. The flight to Kelowna was at 9:00 and a little less than two hours flight time. I arrived Kelowna and when I went through Customs the officer asked me what the purpose of my trip was so I told him I was just planning to visit his country for a few days. He wanted a little more information so I gave him the Readers Digest condensed version and said I was headed back to Merritt. He seemed ok with this answer and let me through. When I flew out on Thursday I asked the rental car companies if they offered a one way rental and they all said no so my only real option was Greyhound. I didn't really want to have to fork over another $25 to a cabbie since the Greyhound ticket was only $28 and I got lucky and found a shuttle into Kelowna for $12. The bus was pretty full with people headed home after a weekend of skiing and enjoying Kelowna. Luckily Merritt was the first stop so I had less than a two hour ride. The Greyhound station in Merritt is about 2.5 miles from where I had the trailer parked and there wasn't a local bus to downtown for an hour so I decided to walk. By this time it was pushing 5:00pm so I called the shop to check on my truck and they said they were still working on the transmission and to check back Tuesday afternoon. Not overjoyed I pondered what to do the next day as I walked into town. I got back to the trailer park opened up the trailer and turned up the thermostat on the propane heater that I had come to really like. I relaxed a little, did a little Internet surfing and just as I was thinking about going to sleep early the heater kicked off because I had run out of propane. I went out and tried switching to the other bottle but it was empty as well. There was a guy standing by his trailer across the way drinking a Budweiser so I asked him if he knew the nearest place to get propane and I quickly determined he was French Canadian as I could barely understand him. He wasn't sure if anyone would be open this late was about all I understood. I went back inside and turned on my GPS and looked under services and determined that the nearest gas station with propane was 2.5 miles away. I wasn't really excited about walking 2.5 miles with a propane bottle to find the station closed so I climbed into my sleeping bag fully clothed and went to sleep. I don't know how many times I woke up but I know I was pretty cold for several hours.

The next morning I walked to the coffee shop and had my morning latte and muffin. I called the shop and they weren't too optimistic about anything happening very soon. I decided to try the rental car guy back and he said he had one minivan available but he hadn't had time to wash it yet. He seemed surprised when I said that I didn't care if it was dirty but I really didn't care because all I wanted to do was drive to the gas station to fill my propane tanks and not have to carry them. He met me at the coffee shop and drove me to his office to do the paperwork. Essentially it cost me $168.00 to rent it for twenty four hours. After I filled my propane bottles, I headed over to the shop to check on the progress of the transmission rebuild but they didn't seem to be making much headway for some reason. I went over to the shop where my truck was and talked to the owner about having an additional transmission cooler added when they put the transmission back in to help avoid this situation in the future. I also was able to get my towel, camera and a few other things I hadn't seen since the night I broke down. After that I figured I might as well drive the two hours up to Sicamous to see if my SkiDoo dealer friend was open. Kind of ironic that for something to do I ended up going on a five hour drive.

I'd never actually been into Kamloops so I got to drive through the city, which looked to be a pretty nice place although I didn't stop. The next town was Salmon Arm which is on a series of lakes in what they call the Shuswap and is a very beautiful area. I got to Sicamous around 3:00pm and the dealership was actually closed because they went to the annual SkiDoo meeting in Florida. I'd called several times before leaving Merritt but just got their normal answering machine stating their hours. I wasn't too upset because I at least got to see the area, but I was surprised that they didn't have any snow on the ground. From Sicamous I drove south through Vernon into Kelowna, and headed over the pass back to Merritt. I decided that night I'd go out for dinner, a beer and see if I could watch some of the Olympics. I was really glad that my heater was working when I woke up on Wenesday and there was about two inches of fresh snow on the ground. I drove over to my new favorite coffee shop and had my morning latte and muffin and wasted a few hours doing nothing.
Again I went to the shop and they were still working on the transmission but for some reason weren't done with it. They said it was looking more like the end of the day at this point. I took the minivan back to the rental place and decided to get my things packed and ready so I could start driving early on Thursday morning. I spent a lot of time at the coffee shop. Wednesday evening around 4;30 I walked back over to the shop and there sat my truck, it was a very good feeling to see it sitting there. The mechanic appeared to still be checking some things out and I wasn't getting a warm fuzzy feeling after talking to him. Apparently the truck has an auxiliary pto that is not used but had a gear ring that was damaged when I burned up my transmission. When they priced a replacement drum it was $750 and two days shipping as it was only available out of Ohio. They decided that since there wasn't anything on the auxiliary pto they could remove the damaged gear ring and reinstall the drum. After they put the transmission back in, the trucks computer kept giving two different check engine light codes that ended up being from the sensor that detects the speed of the ring gear that they removed. None of them thought it would be an issue and were trying to save me a little time and money but they didn't think it would have an adverse affect since there wasn't actually anything connected to the pto. At this point it was almost 5:00 on Wednesday night so when they called three different Ford dealerships to talk to a Ford transmission tech they were told everyone went home early to watch the women's USA vs Canada hockey game. Who'd have thought, hockey in Canada would be an excuse to go home early. We decided that we would call them on Thursday morning and see if we could take the truck to a Ford dealership and just have the pto speed sensor programmed out. Until morning there was nothing we could do. That night I went out for dinner and beer again and watched a little Olympic hockey. I had a few too many beers which contributed to me sleeping a little later on Thursday than I would have but I didn't really care as the dealerships didn't open until 9:00 anyway. After my now routine stop at the coffee shop for my latte and muffin I walked back to the shop where they were still waiting to hear back from two different dealerships. When they did finally get the call the news was less than good. Both Ford dealerships said that the transmission had to come back out and they had to replace the old drum with a new one with a new pto drive gear. The mechanic estimated that if we got the new drum ordered it would be two days minimum to get it and probably until Sunday to get the transmission rebuilt and back in. This was with guys working Saturday and Sunday which they normally didn't do. Even if I got the truck on Sunday I had to be back at work Tuesday afternoon so I wouldn't have enough time to make the drive. This meant I had to fly back home so I could make it to work on Tuesday. It also meant that I wasted five vacation days doing nothing. I wasn't happy about any of it and I was even less happy when I booked a ticket for that afternoon out of Kelowna that cost $1200. We hauled my trailer out of the rv park and moved it back into their yard where it would be locked in a fenced yard at night. Then it was back to the Greyhound station for the ride back to Kelowna. At the bus station I couldn't find a shuttle so my only option was a cab but I remembered what the community bus driver said about haggling and just asked the cabbie if he'd take me to the airport for $20. He said yes so I was wishing I'd have said $15 but it was still better than the $25 I paid the first time.

I flew back to Seattle and caught an evening flight home where I picked up my Dad's suburban at the airport in Anchorage and headed home.

One of the many beautiful lakes near Sicamous BC

November until now (Part 5)

2010-04-27T21:23:00.004-08:00

I can't say that I'd ever thought I'd be so happy to see a short greasy tow truck driver with only four teeth. He showed up at about 3:30am and hooked up to the truck and towed the truck and trailer the mile or so to the top of the pass and pulled out at the brake check pull out. There he loaded the truck on the flatbed of the tow truck and at first didn't think we could tow the trailer at the same time which had me a little stressed out. After I showed him the type of hitch I had, he found an adapter with the right size ball and we were able to haul both truck and trailer in one trip going really slow. The towing service I called has shop where they do both engine and transmission work. The driver called the mechanic at home a little before 6am to see if he could come in a little early. We dropped the trailer in their yard and went and had a cup of coffee at a Tim Horton's donut shop. I was too sick to my stomach to actually eat anything so I just had coffee. The mechanic showed up at the shop at about 6:30 and we tried to figure out a path forward. This was now Wednesday morning, I had originally hoped to be home by Friday or Saturday and was being told that the earliest they could fix it was by Monday. They said there wasn't much option of finding an already built transmission anywhere sooner than that. At this point I didn't really seem have too many options. Their shop was full so they sent the truck over to another shop to have the transmission pulled out and brought back so they could rebuild it. It was going to take a few days to get parts and they thought by the end of Monday I'd be ready to go. I gathered my things out of the truck and put them in the trailer (which was still in their parking lot) and tried to go to sleep. By now I had been up almost twenty four hours but still had a hard time falling asleep. I slept for maybe an hour then got up to figure out what I was going to do for the next five days in Merritt British Columbia. I was supposed to be at work the following Wednesday but it was looking like I'd have to take vacation to make this work. If I could have seen into the future about a week I'd have done things a little different than I did.

When I went back inside the shop they had the idea of towing the trailer over to an RV park about three blocks from downtown. Mind you downtown isn't much in Merritt but it was a better option than staying in their parking lot. Once I got to the RV park I started looking at what my options for the next five days were. There was a guy in town that had a car rental place but when I called him he said he only had about three cars and none were available at the moment. Merritt is located about two hours west of Kelowna which is a nice destination resort type town (which would have been a great place to be stuck) and Kamloops which is about an hour north. The SkiDoo dealer I worked with on getting my snowmachine set up with all my mods was about an hour and a half east of Kamloops but without a car, getting over there was out of the question.

My friend Dale Berg lives in Edmonton so I called him to see about flying up there for a few days and he told me he'd check into tickets and call me back. I told him that the only way I thought things could get much worse was if a big dome came down over Merritt and I couldn't get out. I figured that while I was waiting for Dale to call back I'd walk to the grocery store and stock up on some food and other essentials. Three grocery bags of mostly general staples like bread, cereal and peanut butter, plus one quart pyrex dish for the microwave cost me $140. This was going to be an expensive week.
After I got back from the store, Dale called and said that he checked into flights from both Kamloops and Kelowna to Edmonton and it was over $400 round trip. He said he looked at prices from Kelowna to Seattle and then Edmonton and it was the same for a mileage ticket as from Kelowna to Anchorage so he just booked me a ticket to Anchorage for the next day using his frequent flier miles. I didn't know what to say, I was so appreciative I felt like I was going to cry. Then he said that he'd found a community bus that went from Merritt to Kelowna once a week (which happened to be on Thursday) for only $5 and he'd booked me on it. This meant I could fly home on Thursday for the weekend and then fly back on Monday to pick up the truck. I was ecstatic, and very thankful for Dale Berg and the internet. All I wanted now was to take a shower and go to sleep. The RV park had a bathroom with showers so I dug out some clean clothes but realized I'd left my towel in the truck. I was feeling too good to let this get me down so my hooded sweatshirt would have to make do as a towel.
After a long shower I climbed into my sleeping bag and since the RV park had wireless I had to post a big thanks to Dale on my FaceBook page before going to sleep.

The bus to Kelowna left the library at 8:30 the next morning and I wasn't going to miss it so I woke up at about 6:30 the next morning. I threw my essentials in my backpack and headed for the coffee shop across the street from the library. After a latte and blueberry muffin I paid my $5 and got on the bus. It was only about an eight seater and had all local people going to Kelowna for the day for things like doctors appointments, hospital visits and such. I debated on listening to more "Under the Dome" but decided I was in too good of a mood to start back into the story. I only had about seven hours left and had listened to too much not to finish it but this wasn't the time. I put on some mellow music and relaxed for the trip. When we got to Kelowna the driver dropped the first people off at a doctors office, then one at the hospital, at the next stop I moved up front and told him I needed the nearest stop to the airport. He said to sit down and wait until the last stop. He was a little short so I thought he was upset or something. After he'd let off the last person besides me he explained that he had set stops and wasn't supposed to deviate from them. He couldn't take me to the airport because it was too far out but he said he'd take me to the Greyhound station where I could get a cab. He said to not to pay the cabbie the full fare and to haggle because they always will drop the price. On the way to the bus station we started talking and it turns out that his dad was in the military and when he was a kid he lived for four years in Brunswick Maine. When Sandi was growing up her folks owned a Baskin Robin's in Brunswick and lived in the nearby town of Bowdoinham. It is really a small world sometimes. After he dropped me off I caught a cab but I wasn't in much of a mood to haggle so I just told him I wanted to go to the airport. After about a ten minute ride we arrived at the airport and my fare was $25. I was amazed I could get a two hour bus ride for $5 and had to pay $25 to get the last ten minutes. Guess I should have haggled. My flight from Kelowna to Seattle was going pretty smooth so I decided I'd resume "Under the Dome" but after about fifteen minutes into it we hit a pretty decent patch of turbulence and I decided Stephen King was going to have to wait until I was back on the ground. The fact that there had already been two plane crashes in the story didn't help much. I caught my flight out of Seattle after a short layover which included a nice dinner and a couple of beers. Sandi and Thane met me at the airport in Anchorage that night and we headed for home.

I honestly don't remember anything that happened on Friday except that I picked Thane up from school and on the way home we were listening to NPR and a story came on about Tiger Woods' cheating incident. After it was over Thane said to me (he's only 7 mind you) "Tiger Woods cheated at golf?". I told him "not exactly" and then pondered how I was going to explain this since his next question was "well what did he cheat at then?". I took a deep breath and explained that when a man is single it is ok to have girlfriends but when a man is married, it is not ok to have girlfriends. Then I told him that Tiger was in trouble for cheating because he was married and he also had girlfriends and this wasn't ok. Thane said he understood.

My youngest sister Jana was racing the Irondog and it started on Saturday. The Irondog is a 2000 mile snowmachine race from Big Lake to Nome and then back to Fairbanks. A pretty grueling race in itself, and Jana and her partner Tammy Spain were the only women racing in the Pro class. Sandi had to work Saturday morning but the rest of my family were going to see the start of the race so Thane and I joined them for the ride to Big Lake. I rode with my older sister Rachelle and Thane rode with my parents until we got to the lake where there was an ice road out to the starting line across the lake. We parked Rachelle's car at a parking lot onshore and got in with my parents for the trip across the lake. It was really warm put and the ice was cracking and there was overflow all over. I was very uncomfortable being on the ice with so many other vehicles. Dad found a place to park and as soon as we got out the ice cracked so loud that Rachelle and I thought we were going through the ice for sure but we didn't. We made our way through the crowds and standing water to find a spot to watch at the end of the starting chute. We were far enough down that you couldn't really see or hear anything at the starting line so really all we were doing was sitting there waiting for team 20 to speed by us on their way out to the trail. My niece Sydney had made a bunch of colored signs that she, and Thane, and Jana's three kids held up to cheer Tammy and Jana on as she went by.
The Irondog is the snowmachine race that Todd Palin has won several times and usually Sarah is there to do some announcing and get the race started. I have a strong dislike for Sarah Palin and all of the guys at work give me a hard time about it. Dale actually got me a HUGE wall poster of just her face for Christmas and I find all sorts of Sarah Palin stuff in my office that the guys leave for me. I've never put any of my political thoughts on my blog because that isn't what I want it to be about. I only mention my dislike for Sarah Palin because on our ride back across the lake Rachelle, Thane and I were in the back seat of my parents suburban and Rachelle asked me "So did you see your girlfriend out there?". I hadn't even finished saying no and that I wasn't hoping to see her either when Thane looked at me and remembering our conversation about Tiger Woods said "Dad, you have a girlfriend? Mom is NOT going to like this!". It took a few minutes to talk my way out of that one.

Sunday was much like Friday, I really don't recall doing much of anything except dreading the redeye flight I had that night to get back to Merritt by Monday evening.

November until now (Part 4)

2010-04-26T22:33:00.003-08:00

My destination was a farm outside of Ellensberg Washington to pick up a ton and a half of hay. I thought it would be pretty silly to haul an empty trailer all the way to Alaska. I got into Ellensberg a little after 2pm and picked up 33 one hundred pound bales of hay and then headed into town for an early sit down dinner. Until this point I had a really specific plan for where I was going to be and when but I hadn't made anything firm for after I picked up the hay. I was planning on a stop over at a friends in Fort Saint John on my way through central BC but that was still a sixteen to eighteen hour drive from Ellensberg. I took my time and relaxed awhile over dinner, ordered a to go milkshake and then headed north for the border.

The further I drove the more intense things were getting "under the dome". Towns people pitted against one another, people were dying , mobs were rioting for no clear reason. After listening to this story for the last two thousand miles I was pretty into it. I drove by the junction to turn to go to Wenatchee around dark stopping about fifteen minutes later at a small Shell station to get fuel before I got to the border. For some reason I thought I was a lot closer to the border than I really was, I still had three hours to go until I there. I pulled into the station but there weren't any diesel pumps out front so I pulled around back where there was a single diesel pump but it was older and didn't have a credit card swipe option. When I went inside there were about six people in line so I waited until they had all paid and then left my credit card with the clerk and told him I was on the diesel pump and went back out to the pump. I had been very meticulous with each fuel stop making sure to log all of the mileage, figure out my economy, and add fuel additive during each fill up. I put in my additive and then lifted the slide on the pump to turn it on but nothing happened. I turned it off and tried it again but still nothing. I started to go back in when I noticed the clerk looking at me through the glass door. He pushed it open and in a tone you might talk to someone who you think might be about to steal something from you said "Can I HELP you". I said "I hope so I just gave you my credit card" and then his look changed back to relaxed and he said "Oh yea, sorry it has been a weird night" and then went back inside. When I finished fueling up I went back inside grabbed two Red Bull's out of the cooler and went up to pay. At this point I was the only person in the store. As he was ringing me up he said that before he had come outside he had gotten a call from his wife and said that she had gotten a weird text on her phone that said to be safe and make sure to stick close to a friend, so he told her to call the cops right away. I must have had a pretty perplexed look on my face because he said "Well with all that has been happening around here you can't be too cautious". I explained that I was just driving through and hadn't listened to any local news so I was completely in the dark. He told me that just the night before in Wenatchee they had found the body of a young woman that had been missing for a few days on the river bank near town. I recall that he said that her body was naked and that she had a bag over her head and that another girl was now missing also. Apparently the FBI was involved and there were cops everywhere. I guess he was a little worried when his wife called because he didn't know who had sent her the text message. Considering the story I was listening to had one of the main evil characters hanging out in a closet several times a day with two naked girls that he had killed days earlier, my head was starting to spin. Out of the four times I had gotten out of the truck that day this was the second time that my story seemed to somehow follow me outside of the truck. After I paid I got in my truck, locked the doors and was ready to get back on the road without wasting another second. Turning back onto highway 97 I actually cut it a little close and ran the trailer tires in the ditch on the way out. I didn't really care at this point I just wanted to put as much distance between this whole interaction and myself as possible.

I was starting to get pretty tired at this point and was wanting to get some sleep within the next few hours. I thought maybe if I made it to the border there would be a place I could park and sleep. About an hour from the border I passed a guy walking north with a backpack. All I could think about was that I sure wasn't stopping anytime soon now because the guy I just passed may bave been the same guy that had left that girl on the riverbank in Wenatchee. I drove another two hours and finally reached the border and was glad I fueled up where I did because everything in northern Washington seemed to be closed up tight on this Tuesday night. Usually when you get to the border you don't stop and there aren't border guards from the country that you are leaving, only the one you are entering. When I approached the US side of the border there were five US customs officers standing in the middle of the road. I rolled down my window and slowed to a stop and was asked to please turn off my engine. They wanted to know where I was headed, why, what I was carrying, etc. All of the usual questions you get from a Customs Officer but generally not at the country that you are leaving. After I explained everything one of them asked me for the keys to the trailer. I handed him my key ring but the trailed has four different keys for different types of locks which vary depending on the door and lock type. I asked if they wanted me to open it up but was told to remain inside the vehicle. While four Customs Officers looked over the truck and trailer I explained the purpose of my whole trip to the fifth one. After a few minutes I was asked to get out and open up the trailer because they weren't sure which keys went to which locks. At this point I was hoping that they weren't going to want to pull all of the bales of hay out to see that I didn't have anything inside the back of the trailer other than hay. When they opened the door to the midtack I was hoping they didn't want to look inside the toolbox that came with the truck that I had to take out for the trailer and was now residing beneath Sandi's trunk and boxes of stuff from her Mom's garage. Luckily they seemed to believe me and then wanted to look inside the living quarters. I unlocked the door and went in to turn on a light for them but was told to please step outside. They looked through everything and were apparently satisfied with what they found (or didn't find) and told me I could go. The Canadian Customs was a breeze compared to what I had gone through on the American side. I gave her my passport, told her my destination, how much money I had and how long I planned to be in Canada. She seemed satisfied and told me I could go.

I was hoping to find a place to park to get a little sleep but all I found was a restroom with a not so big place to park. I hadn't given it much thought before but I kind of realized that all the American Customs guys must have been there because of the girl that was murdered in Wenatchee and looking for someone trying to get out of the country. Again this was all too weird combined with the audio book I was listening to. Since there was nowhere to park I started driving north hoping to find a pullout. I drove north into Pentiction, BC and after trying to turn into an over crowded Chevron I managed to get out and cross the street to a large parking lot in front of a sports arena. I really wanted to sleep here as there were lots of lights in the parking lot and plenty of room to turn the truck around. From the looks of the movable barricades it looked to me like they closed up the parking lot though. At this point I should have just said screw it and gone to sleep but for some stupid reason I wasn't smart enough to do that. I pulled out of the arena parking lot and somehow ended up in a roundabout, got off of 97 and ended up downtown and not knowing how to get back to the highway. It isn't easy with a long trailer to just take any corner or turn down any street. I finally managed to find my way back on 97 and headed out of town. A few miles out of town I passed another person walking north on the side of the road, alone and now at almost midnight. Like before I decided there was no way I was stopping now without putting as many miles as possible between me and this guy walking. Paranoid? Quite. Strange events and fatigue combined with Stephen King tend to have bad effects on one's mental state. I drove for about half an hour or more until I found a pullout where I stopped and tried to go to sleep. I unrolled my sleeping bag in the back seat, laid down and tried to fall asleep. Between thoughts about the guy who was walking beside the road showing up and peering in my window, and all of the other voices in my head I laid there for about forty five minutes and was still awake.

What do I do when I can't sleep? I drive. So I decided I'd go a little further. I got to the junction for 97 and 97C and took 97C west, and I guess I just didn't study a map hard enough to realize I should have just kept going due north on 97 instead of going west on 97C. Once when I drove from Alaska to Washington I went through Merritt and just figured that would be the way I'd go. What I didn't realize was that 97C from Peachland to Merritt is a high mountain pass with a few really long up hill climbs. I stopped at a chain up pull out and again tried to sleep but still couldn't. I laid there for about thirty minutes and then decided to just push on to Merritt. As I climbed higher into the pass the worse the weather got and and the steeper the pass became. After I started the truck the last time I stopped I forgot to turn off my overdrive and as I was climbing the hill my overdrive light started flashing. I wasn't sure what this meant and tried pushing the button to turn it off but the light continued to flash. I was almost to the top of the hill and decided I'd stop at the top and figure out what the problem was. I hadn't finished this thought when my truck slowed to a stop and started smoking so bad I thought it was on fire. Luckily I was on a divided highway and I was in the right lane, but I was on a hill on a curve. I put my flashers on and dug out my owners manual to try and find out what a flashing overdrive light meant. According to the manual it it a transmission malfunction. To me a malfunction is if say you can't shift into gear, when smoke and oil are puking out of it and your truck won't move that is more of a catastrophe than a malfunction to me. By now it was 1:30 am so I called Sandi and woke her up and asked her to Google me a towing company in Merritt. While I waited for the tow truck I was being passed by logging trucks doing about 40 mph and I was really worried about getting rear ended by a sleepy logging truck driver so I walked a safety reflector way behind the truck and sat it in the middle of the lane. To make matters worse when I tried to set the emergency brake it wouldn't hold so I had to keep my foot on it. My stomach got a knot in it every time I saw another logging truck round the corner in the mirror so it turned out to be a very unpleasant wait for the tow truck. Sleep was the last thing on my mind.

November until now (Part 3)

2010-04-19T22:39:00.008-08:00

As I was leaving Arkansas I started listening to the audio book "Under the Dome" by Stephen King. I downloaded this book because a friend of mine couldn't put it down when she was reading it so I figured it would be good road trip material. Little did I know that later on I was going to wish I'd have downloaded something a little less Stephen King'ish, like maybe The Little Mermaid or something.

The scenery that I enjoyed in Arkansas soon turned into flat farmland as soon as I got into Missouri. I drove north to Kansas City turned left and drove ten hours straight west (only turning to get off the freeway for fuel and a Subway sandwich) then turned north and drove two and a half more hours past Denver and into Cheyenne. I arrived at my favorite Mother-In-Law's house at about 10:30 Saturday night and was quite ready for a shower and a little sleep. I have a problem with falling asleep right away after driving long distances because I'm usually too wound up and need to relax a little so my brain can stop before I fall asleep. I was watching Olympic figure skating when I got a text from my friend Dale Berg. He told me that our ConocoPhillips Alaska President Jim Bowles had died that day in an avalanche while snowmachining in the Chugach Mountains south of Anchorage. I didn't personally know him but have been in a few meetings with him and do know he was a genuinely good guy. It's such a shame to lose a guy with such a positive outlook and impact on our company, the city of Anchorage, and the state of Alaska. I think what bothered me most is that he died doing something I do every chance I get, riding in the mountains. He had all the same safety gear that I carry but ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. To hear or read about people you don't know dying in avalanches one thing but to have someone that has a direct impact on your life die doing the same exact thing you do really makes you think about things. I think I fell asleep sometime after 3am.

The next morning I had coffee with Jane (my favorite Mother-In-Law) and then went over to see Sandi's Grandpa Jim's new living arrangements. Since we were there in January he moved from his house of thirty plus years into an apartment in a senior living complex. It isn't assisted living so he still has his independence but has his meals prepared for him and gets to eat and socialize with other people. It is a new building and is a very nice setup. It has a sidewalk all the way around the grounds so he can walk his dog everyday and still not have to get too far from home. I went over there and we had breakfast and then afterwards we went to church and listened to the Valentines Day sermon. Afterwards we went back to his place and watched some more of the Olympics before having lunch. After lunch I got out my list of things I needed for the rest of my trip and we went out to do a little shopping. We were in Lowes for about half an hour or so getting things like a hydraulic jack, tow straps, shovel, etc. and I think Jim had enough of wandering through crowded box stores. I'd already driven almost twenty hours but still hadn't had time to organize the truck yet so I dropped Jim off at home and went back to Jane's to try and get my things organized. A few hours later (and a touch more organized) I went back over to Jim's for dinner and to visit for a few more hours before I had to go and get some sleep. After dinner we watched some more of the Olympics and visited. I left Jim's a little earlier than I wanted but I was planning to leave Cheyenne at 3:30 am and still had things I needed to do.

Jane moved into her new house right about the time Sandi and I met in '96, and since that time she has had a pile of boxes, a 100+ year old wooden trunk, and a medium sized scale in her garage that belong to Sandi. I can't say too much because I still have a bunch of stuff at my parents and they live just over the hill! I got the boxes loaded in the truck and with the help of Jane's friend Larry Brinlee (famous photographer) we got the trunk loaded without a scratch and wrapped in a tarp. I might have been able to do it myself but the leather straps for handles disintegrated years ago. After the truck was loaded I ate pizza with Larry and Jane and we watched some figure skating. My alarm went off at about 3:15am and I think I pulled out of the driveway at about 3:35 or so. I'd topped off the fuel the night before so Stephen King and I headed straight out of town and due west for Boise.

The weeks prior to leaving for the trip I had planned to get into Boise around noon on Monday so I was trying to stick with it. Since it was dark out still I got to try my new driving lights for the first time and once I adjusted them down so they pointed at the road and not up in the trees they worked great. I ran into a little snow on the road in the western corner of the state by Evanston but it turned into rain once I dropped down into Utah. I was so caught up in my audio book that bad roads were nothing compared to what was happening to all of those poor people trapped under the dome. I arrived the trailer sales in Boise at about 2:00 pm Monday afternoon (two hours later than I'd planned) where I looked the trailer over, gave them the check , and had a new brake controller put in the truck. Before I made a final offer on the trailer my friend Tatum who I work with stopped in and looked at the trailer for me and said it was ok so I wasn't walking into it blindly. I had planned to pick up the trailer and stay the night at Tatum and her husband Brian's new house north of Boise. Luckily I asked her if I could get the trailer up their driveway and she said no because of the mud . I left the trailer at the dealers until morning and met Tatum and Brian at a nice little restaurant close to their place for dinner. We headed to their house after dinner and after the first of about ten switchbacks I was really glad that I left the trailer at the dealer. After getting the tour of their beautiful new custom house I saw the guest room and thought maybe I should stay a week or so at least. Their guest room and bathroom was nicer than most four star hotels out there. Had I known what was in store for me over the next few days I'd have stayed longer for sure.

On Tuesday morning I left Brian and Tatum's at about 8:30 am then picked up the trailer and Stephen King and I headed for Washington. By the time I made it to Boise I had been listening to "Under the Dome" for over twenty two hours since leaving Arkansas. There are about thirty two and a half hours total of audio book so I was pretty into the story at this point. I stopped at a rest stop about two hours north of Boise to use the restroom and make sure the trailer was all OK but just before I stopped the audio book was describing some issues the main character had been having dealing with PTSD after a tour in Iraq. When I went into the restroom there were speakers inside tuned to a public radio station and while I was in there I heard a commercial about helping people deal with PTSD after getting out of the military. As I was washing my hands I had to look around and make sure there were actually speakers and I wasn't just hearing voices in my head. It was all a little erie when I thought about it but I just wrote it off to being a weird coincidence. So after a brief stretch of the legs, Stephen and I were on the road again.

It didn't look nearly this long in the pictures...

My four star hotel in Boise

Their view from the back deck!

November until now (Part 2)

2010-04-19T19:50:00.009-08:00

After months of planning I was ready to spend January, February, and March putting as many miles on my snowmachine as possible. I scheduled a week of vacation in March just to have extra time to spend at Clay's cabin at Honolulu Creek as well as riding around the house. After waiting until the end of January without so much as a foot of new snow at our house I decided that maybe February was as good of a time as any to drive the truck up. We found a horse trailer in Boise that we liked and were able to talk the dealer into a price we could afford so I figured why not just go get it instead of sitting around the house waiting for snow.

Since the truck was in Dallas and the trailer was in Boise it was just a simple matter of picking up the truck and heading north. I did have one stop that was a touch out of the way but was one of the major reasons I decided to pick the truck up in Dallas. My friend Bill Meredith is from Rogers Arkansas and was diagnosed with cancer in 2005. I've known Bill since I was about 20 when I first started working in Instrumentation at Prudhoe Bay and he had worked with my Dad since the early '80's. Bill had been working with us at Alpine before he was diagnosed cancer and the last time I'd seen him was when he came by the hospital to see my Dad after his aneurysm in 2005. That ended up being the last trip Bill made to Alaska. I called him on a regular basis and kept promising to come see him but was never able to make getting to northwest Arkansas work out logistically on any of my trips. He had a rough spell in December and I decided that I'd better make good on my promise of coming to see him. Heading east into Arkansas is NOT the fastest way to get from Dallas to Alaska but it was well worth the detour.

When I flew home from work in February I had a ticket to Dallas and since it hadn't even thought of snowing at home I was OK with spending 9 days on the road. So after a trip to Costco to get some Zone Bars, beef jerky, and two cases of 5 hour energy (that's over 200 hours of energy by my calculation)I was set to hit the road. I planned to fly into Dallas on a Thursday because Robin King, another one of the guys I work with lives 45 minutes west of where I bought my truck and my plan was to pick up the truck and then spend the night at his place before heading to Arkansas. On the flight into Dallas I sat in the row behind two other guys I know from work and as we descended into Dallas FT Worth Airport we all realized where all the snow I'd been hoping for ended up. The day we landed Dallas recorded over 14 inches of snowfall at the airport. The flight in looked as though we were landing in the Arctic because it was all flat and really white. I had called the Truck Dealer from Seattle and told him I'd be in around noon and he said he would try to pick me up but he had four inches of snow on the ground at his place and wasn't sure if he'd be able to make it. He said I may have to get a hotel for the night but I told him my backup plan was to catch a ride north with Robin from the airport if he didn't make it.

When we got off the plane Robin was on the phone with his wife who told him they had eight inches of snow at home and he was on his own. My backup plan was out the window. Luckily for both of us, it ended up that the Dealer had made it down and Robin caught a ride with us. After we did the paperwork and got squared away with the truck we headed to Robin's place where we could hardly find his driveway under the snow. After dinner Robin stayed up until almost midnight helping me install a set of Lightforce driving lights on the truck. These turned out to be a must have and I owe a thanks to my friend Eric Maxwell for convincing me that they were necessary.

My plans for Friday through Monday were rock solid (in my mind anyhow) and I didn't want to stray from them or the whole trip could run long (little did I know then), so when I was told I might have to get a hotel in Dallas I was pretty stressed that I could be a day behind before I even started. Luckily everything worked out and I was on the road to Arkansas Friday morning as planned although it was a few hours later than I hoped because Robin's guest bed was all too comfortable so I slept in a bit.

Most of the snow had melted off of the road by the time I headed out of Texas and into Oklahoma. Bill has been telling me for years how pretty it is in Arkansas with the Ozark Mountains and lakes. I wasn't convinced that I was near mountains of any type as I was driving across southeastern Oklahoma but as I turned north after I got close to Fort Smith Arkansas the scenery changed drastically. It was a really pretty drive the rest of the way into Rogers, making the last of my six hour drive go rather quickly.

When I saw Bill it didn't seem like it had been over four years since I'd last seen him since we talked so frequently. He looked much better than I had imagined he would after such a long fight with cancer. I finally met Bill's wife Libby after years of talking to her on the phone and that evening we visited, ate takeout from Outback, and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Bill and I talked at length about work, life, and his fight with cancer. When he was first diagnosed I think the doctors gave him something like a year to live and had no known treatment for his type of cancer, but he kept the most positive attitude possible and took each day as it came. His humor and wit had not diminished at all after all he had been through. The next morning we had coffee and Libby fixed us some breakfast before I had to leave for my next twelve hour leg to Cheyenne. Having the opportunity to visit with Bill made the whole trip. He passed away six days after I left.

There is a driveway out there somewhere.

Welcome to Texas!

And to think I had been craving this for months at home. Life sometimes just doesn't seem fair.

Robin and Allison were nice enough to let me leave the truck in the barn after we finished with the installation of the lights.

Bill and I on Saturday morning before I left Arkansas.

November until now (Part 1)

2010-04-18T19:07:00.008-08:00

Nothingness might be my feeling of progress on all of my projects but it does not adequately describe what I have been up to since last fall. I may not have had any time or motivation for working on any of my many tasks that are always looming over my head but I seem to have found plenty of places to go and in retrospect have been traveling a lot more than I expected lately.

Last November we spent five days in San Diego so Thane could go to Lego Land, Sea World, and the Wild Animal Park. We started out with the Wild Animal Park the first day, which turned out to be a nice 80 degrees and a great day in the park. The next day we went to Sea World and of course since we got wet on the Atlantis ride the temperature was much cooler than the day before. We watched the Shamu exhibition and Sandi’s favorite Pets Rule Exhibition where all of the trained animals (including dogs, cats, pigs, ducks, and other birds) do a really funny routine, which is amazing considering most of them are adopted strays.

Then after three long awaited days, Thane got his two days at Lego Land. It is really impressive what people can do with unlimited time and unlimited Lego bricks! The re-creations of some of the cities, bridges, and other famous world structures are amazing. Thane got to drive a Lego car on the track and get his Lego Land drivers license and Sandi had to endure far more roller coaster rides than she wanted. After two days of wandering around Lego Land and playing in the hotel pool until late every night we were all ready to get home.

I had to work over Christmas so Sandi and Thane went to Wyoming for a few weeks to visit Sandi’s favorite sister. Around the end of November Sandi’s Grandpa Jim got a little sick and spent about five days in the hospital due to dehydration and lack of eating, which they attributed to mild depression. Since his depression was partially due to lack of company I decided that we should spend a week with him after I got home. We extended Sandi and Thane’s tickets out a week and I booked a ticket to Denver for December 31st.
I flew home from work on the evening of the 29th and got up at 6:00 am to go riding with Clay and Larry at Honolulu Creek before my red-eye flight late Wednesday night. We drove the two hours north and ended up riding for about six hours which consisted more of hacking our way through alder patches than actually riding. I was pretty disappointed that I had just bought a new snowmachine and we didn’t have hardly any snow by the end of December. At least at that point I didn’t know that we wouldn’t get any real amount of snow at home all winter or I might have had a fight with depression myself. After our six hour ride we drove the two hours home where I took a quick shower, packed my bags and then drove two more hours to Anchorage to grab dinner and then catch my flight to Denver.

Our week in Wyoming was nice and quiet. New Years especially; I was in bed by 10:30 on New Years Eve but I guess that’s what happens when you party with a guy who‘s 91. I wasn't complaining however. Sandi’s Dad came over from Maine so Thane got to spend time with both of Sandi’s parents over the holidays. Which was great.

Sandi has for sometime been wanting to take her horse to the Northwest to spend the summer taking riding clinics and eventing, so over the course of our week in Wyoming we decided that this would be a good summer to do it. We started browsing the Internet looking for a horse trailer that had a living quarters big enough for the three of us and would handle all of our gear. Sandi has a friend she met at a clinic in 2009 in Oregon that has a farm on San Juan Island in Washington where we can keep a horse trailer and all of our gear while they do their horse stuff, so we decided this would be where we would base our summer plans out of.

After getting home and heading back to work I started looking for a truck to pull a larger horse trailer as well as a trailer to go with it. I’ve never really bought anything off of Ebay but ended up finding a truck that I liked and making an offer. The problem with living in Alaska is that to buy a truck and especially a horse trailer you usually end up paying premium for them. So I figured I could find a truck anywhere and have it shipped to Washington for cheaper than I could buy it at home and then find a horse trailer in the Northwest later. One limitation was that the only type of truck I was looking for was a Ford F350 with a 7.3 liter Powerstroke diesel engine. Since Ford only made these until 2003 it was a little bit of a challenge finding one in good shape with low miles. I figured with the cost of a new truck these days I could get both a used truck and trailer for the price of a new truck alone. The truck I ended up buying off of Ebay (was located just north of Dallas) is a 2001 F350 crewcab dually and had only 79,000 miles on it. It has an 88 gallon auxiliary fuel tank (which is good to have when driving through Yukon Territory) an auto start and was in really good condition.

By the end of January I had successfully purchased a truck that was waiting to ship to Washington, we were browsing for horse trailers and I was patiently waiting for some snow so I could go play.

Family outing...

A couple of cave creatures

Thane and a momma deer

Feeding nectar to the birds

Thane practicing for a career in zoology

Our young Jedi warrior dueling it out with Darth Vader

Thane's drivers test

Shark food

Getting splashed on the log ride

Thane the camel jockey

Boy these Bionicles are big!

Skippidy doo da...

New York City

One mean dragon

One scary mummy

Riding in the early setting sunlight at Honolulu Creek

The snow dust looks like a fog in the sunshine

Our version of crop circles

My friend Steve Hanson at his remote cabin

Clay on his 2010 Arctic Cat M8 after we got out of the alders

Nothingness....

2010-03-28T19:41:00.005-08:00

Nothingness. This word describes quite well what I feel I have accomplished since my last post as well as my desire to update my blog.

One of the downfalls of my blog has been the fact that Facebook has made uploading photos and video much easier than on Blogger. I can upload twenty pictures and add comments to my Facebook page in the same amount of time I add five pictures to my blog. So my blog has fallen victim to Facebook as well as my lack of motivation.

With the exception of framing in one wall inside of the barn for a horse stall, I haven't done anything at all on any of my outstanding projects. It seems as though I haven't done much of anything since last fall, but in reality I have had a lot of things going on. In November we took Thane to San Diego to go to Lego Land as well as the Wild Animal Park and Sea World. We had planned to go in March of last year but due to the timing of our local volcano we had to postpone it until November. I have to say that it was nice to relax in some warm weather in November.

Sandi and Thane spent two weeks over Christmas in Lander Wyoming and them I flew down on New Years Eve and met them in Denver so we could spend a week in Cheyenne with her Mom and Grandpa.

I bought a new snowmachine for this season and have been praying for snow (and lots of it) since the end of October. What I have gotten is the least amount of snow we've had in years! I think I rode about 1600 miles last year compared to 600 miles this season. That is one of the reasons I haven't posted any pictures of riding this year. So due to the lack of snow and even greater lack of motivation to do any carpentry in the cold, I decided to embark on a different sort of adventure.

In addition to yesterdays post...

2009-10-27T21:01:00.006-08:00

Brad requested a few pictures of the south side of the barn so I thought I'd throw them on here. I don't have any after the sheeting was installed but here are a few right before. Also I haven't cut out any of the window openings yet, as I'm waiting until I can afford the windows to put in them. I thought I did well with my selection of the windows in our house until I listened to a talk from Jack Hebert of the Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks and was informed that vinyl sliders are the most inefficient windows on the market. As luck would have it almost every window in my house is a vinyl slider! So I don't want to make the same mistake with the windows on the barn but with the cost of good windows I don't see any getting installed any time soon. I thought about taking the vinyl sliders out of the house and putting them in the barn and buying new triple pane casement windows for the house but I think one more added project would leave me in a white jacket with my arms buckled to my chest...

Spraying the South side.

This side seems much steeper than the north side since there is a twenty foot drop instead of a 5/12 pitch roof below you.

Finishing up the BCI installation. The plan is to have large windows in the upstairs section of the dormer.

I'm really happy with the two foot eve that we chose. It gives it a really nice look.

Global warming or indian summer?

2009-10-26T10:58:00.003-08:00

I'm not sure what to call or even think about the weather we have been having this fall. On Saturday it was almost 50 degrees here. Saturday was October the 24th, and the grass is still green (except where I dug it up). The weather has certainly been kind to me with all of my projects.

As always I have a ton of things to do before it snows and the ground freezes. My primary goal before winter was to get the roof of the barn insulated and sheeted. My secondary goal was to dig a 350 foot long trench for my power cable from the meter to the barn.

The insulation I was planning on using on the roof of the barn was a polyurethane sprayed between the BCI rafters we installed on top of the tongue and groove. The BCI's aren't structural, they are simply to create a cavity to hold insulation and support the sheathing for the metal roofing to screw to. I was a little stressed at our timeline of getting all the BCI's and soffit material on because the guy that was going to spray my polyurethane insulation needed the roof to be dry and the ambient temperature to be above 45 degrees. Being able to guarantee either of these things much less both of them at the end of September in Alaska is not very good. We had been getting a fair bit of rain that week and the temperature was between 40 and 45 degrees. At kind of the last minute I talked to some guys that did spray in insulation in my friend Brian's house and they could spray in temperatures as low as freezing and the roof could have moisture on it, but not raining. The added benefit was that the foam they use is a soy based product making it "Greener" than standard polyurethane. They also say that compared to polyurethane the soy based foam will not lose R-value as it gets older.

So on the 25th of September two trucks showed up ready to start spraying insulation. The day was marginal as it wasn't sure if it wanted to rain or not and the crew had to sit out two short minor downpours but was patient enough to wait for the rain to stop. They got the whole roof sprayed that day and we covered everything with plastic to keep the water off. Over the next week I had a crew of guys help me get all of the plywood sheeting on. I thought I'd give it a try on my own but after a day and a half and only getting ten sheets on (out of 120) I thought it would be smart to get help. It took six of us two days to get the roof finished up and ready for metal. I was hoping for metal before it snows this year but I am resigned to the fact that it will have to wait until next summer. My other goal was to get the power cable from the meter in before the ground froze. I have a remote ranch panel type meter that I located close to the barn last fall and the power company wanted $6k to hook up power to it. I decided it would be much cheaper to dig the trench and lay the cable myself and locate my meter next to my house meter which the power company only charges $300 to hook up. I got the trench almost complete when a hydraulic hose on the backhoe blew out, putting a stop to my little digging operation.

Luckily as always my dad was home to help me out. He got a replacement hose and finished the trench after I went back to work. I had hoped to have the cable in and trench covered over before I went back to work but that wasn't going to happen even before the hydraulic hose failure. Due to the 350' from the meter to the barn I couldn't use the standard 4/0 size service cable because it would have too much voltage loss, so I had to go one size bigger. Now one might think that wouldn't be too much of an issue, however since it was something I was in a hurry for no one had any in stock. Go figure. I tried every electrical supplier I could find and everyone was out, so I had to special order it. Luckily in the two weeks I was gone the ground didn't freeze and it didn't snow. Now I have my cable in and can spend the winter working on wiring. The only outstanding thing I have left that I wanted to finish before it snows is getting my windows in on the cupola. I ordered them in September and expect them to be done any time but haven't heard anything yet. Once these windows are in I have a couple of gaps to fill around the garage doors and then the barn should hold some heat this winter.

Ready for insulation.

Spraying the north side of the roof.

Hopefully this will be enough to keep the barn warm.

It was definitely a soupy kind of day.

North side of the roof with the sheathing on. I was very happy when the last
sheet of plywood was nailed down...

I may not be good, but I'm slow!

2009-08-12T19:59:00.012-08:00

And that statement can go for both updating my blog as well as finishing up on my barn. My problem with the blog in the summer is that I usually stay so busy that it is hard to take time to sit down and write. The rest of the year it is easy to take an hour here or there but our long summer days make it hard.

I did do quite a bit of playing this summer; I haven't kayaked since early July but my sister TJ and I took my Dynamic Duo tandem whitewater kayak down all three canyons of Six Mile Creek at a pretty high level. We not only survived the trip but once the fear subsided we actually had fun.

Thane and I made another trip dip netting for Red Salmon again a few weeks ago. It was a much better story this trip compared to the first. Our trip to the Copper River was a three day trip and took about 10 hours to drive round trip and we caught seven fish. Our trip to fish creek took about an hour and a half to drive and between Brian and I we caught 30 fish in about three hours. That is a successful fishing trip in my book! What wasn't fun was filleting fish until dark once I got home. Although I put a batch straight into a brine and smoked it the next day and it turned out quite good. I'd share it but I've been subsisting off of it all week.

The first of August I helped Sandi with her 3rd Annual Lazy Mountain Horse Trials. She started a first of it's kind horse event in Alaska that includes dressage, stadium jumping, and cross country jumping (3 events) all in the first Saturday in August. This was the first year I've been home for it, so it was great to finally see it since I helped build a lot of the cross country jumps for the course over the last few years.

By the time the end of June rolled around and I hadn't worked on any of my priority projects I figured it was time to get on it. Now as always I'm feeling crunched for time as fall and winter are rapidly approaching. In July I finally completed the rafters for the cupola (call it a clerestory if you want) and flew it up in one piece onto the roof. I started working on the cupola last summer but it stalled due to other projects. I was a little nervous that the joinery may not fit due to the twisting of a few of the timbers over the winter but luckily everything fit together and our raising was successful. Sandi's Grandfather Jim was here when we cut the original barn frame and came back in September 07 just for the raising of the barn so I thought it was only right that we should put up this last piece up while he was here to see (and supervise) it. Jim had his 91st birthday with us on June 28th and was eager to help on everything. I had to hold him back from trying to carry the bigger timbers but he helped move rafters as well as with the whole assembly. It was great having him visit again this year, I only hope I'm as fit at 65 as he is at 91 .

After we got the cupola in place I had to finish putting all of my SIP's (structurally insulated panels) on the frame and get started on the roof. Finishing the panels took a lot more time than I had expected especially since I had to order a few extra panels to enclose the cupola with and get them installed. Now we are working on getting the BCI's on the roof and the soffit material in place so I can run all of my wiring and install my sprinkler system before having all of the cavities filled with 8" of soy based foam. My goal is to have metal installed by the time it snows and depending on the weather that could range from the first week of October to the middle of December. Since I'm awaiting a new snowmachine I'd rather it snow before the end of October but not until I get the metal on. I'll post again after I get the foam sprayed, but in the mean time here are some summer pictures.

My parents enjoying a fire in the pavilion.

The pavilion after the addition of a key component; the hammock.

Thane got a climbing harness and 30 meter climbing rope for his birthday so we were repelling on the 22 foot high barn wall.

Our livestock guardian dog "Tumbler" beside the pavilion.

Checking Thane's setup before letting him repel from the rafters in the barn.

A family self portrait.

My summer wheels and kayak collection.

Thane and I above Willow Creek Canyon during a hike.

Sandi's Grandfather the Great Jim Farris, supervising the building of the cupola frame.

Sandi tasked with sanding even more timbers with Jim collecting the finished ones. There is no free ride at our house; old or young, come stay for a week and we'll put you to work.

Jim supervising the assembly of the cupola frame. Notice how much the 24' 8x8 on the right twisted over the winter. This made assembly a little tricky, luckily I had lots of clamps. There were several times when I ran into problems that I wondered if this little addition to the frame was worth all the effort that it was taking.

The assembled cupola ready for installation.

Sandi, Jim, and Tumbler waiting for the crane to arrive.

Before we could fly in the cupola we had to remove the two ridge purlins that were in the original frame.

Here we go, no turning back now. I was sure hoping my mortises in the rafters were in the right spot.

It fit into place faster than I could have ever wished. We had to pull on one leg with a come along just to line up the tenons on the back side and then a few hits with a big hammer and it was in.

The view from below.

Trying to swing a giant hammer and not fall off of the roof at the same time.

After the stress was over I decided that the extra effort was certainly worth it. The addition of the cupola changed the whole dynamic of the barn.

Starting to install the BCI's on the roof .

I took this while installing the SIP's on the end of the cupola, I thought it was a really cool view through the rafters.

Tumbler guarding my roof lumber package from harm. He slept up there all day.

All of my upstairs and lower West wall panels were raised from the inside of the building with come alongs and ropes, utilizing as many pulleys for mechanical advantage as possible.

Here is another view of pulling a panel into place from inside. I put up almost all of them by myself and only managed to drop one out of the second story to the ground below. After a slight amount of telling it what I thought of it, I climbed down and rigged it and hoisted it back up and into place.

All the SIP's installed and BCI's moving right along.

Most of the north side complete with BCI's. Luckily I have great quality help locally.

A view of the house and yard from the cupola. The pavilion is behind the spruce tree on the left.

TJ and I on Six Mile Creek in the Duo.

Dipnetting for the elusive Copper River Red Salmon

2009-06-09T00:38:00.003-08:00

Well, last weekend was a lot of things; sunny, warm, exciting, a new experience, and more than anything it was labor intensive!
Sandi went to San Juan Island, Washington for the week leaving Thane and I to our own devices so we decided what the heck, lets go get some fish for the freezer. Some people may not be familiar with what dipnetting is so let me clarify; in Alaska if you are a resident you can get a dipnet permit for both the Copper and Kenai River and obtain up to 30 Red Salmon (Sokeye) from each river. A dip net is a large net (up to five feet in diameter) on the end of a long pole that is "dipped" into the river to catch fish. When you are "meat" fishing this is the way to go since gill netting is pretty much out of the question for personal use. I personally am not one to spend hours with a rod and reel trying to catch one fish. I commercial fished when I was growing up and I feel like the shortest amount of time spent to catch the most fish is the best way.

Anyhow; my friend Brian Berg was headed to Chitna with his family to catch some reds, so I figured what the heck. Thane and I headed up there on Friday morning to join in the fun. If nothing else we were ill prepared and ill equipped. I guess that is what happens when you kayak the night before a big trip and don't get home until after 1 am and plan to head out first thing the next morning. Since I don't really fish, I don't own chest waders, or any of that kind of stuff so I just took my kayaking gear figuring it would be good enough. After my first and only dipnetting trip on the Kenai a few years ago which consisted of standing on a boat with a net in one hand and a beer in the other and limiting out in a few hours, I figured how hard could dipnetting from shore be? It didn't take but a minute to recall that while on the Kenai I remember watching the guys dipnetting from shore and thinking to myself "boy would that suck" and let me tell you, it does!
I have never in my life worked so hard for seven fish. I fished all afternoon on Friday, all morning and evening Saturday, and all morning Sunday. I could barely lift my arms after we were done. As far as my kayaking gear went, my drysuit and rescue life jacket were bomber but my soft soled booties weren't the best. By Sunday morning my feet felt like someone hammered them for two days with a ballpeen hammer from all rocks in the river. The first night I only caught one fish. Saturday I caught two in the morning and two in the evening, and on Sunday morning I caught two also. When the fish are in thick you can get easily two fish in one pass but last weekend the water was a lot higher than normal and we just missed the first big run. Aside from smelling horrible and being really sore and tired, I had fun and plan to go back again next year. And after all, seven fish in the freezer are better than none!

Now if I could just get motivated to finish my barn......

Thane and I with both Brian and my Sunday morning catch.

Thane and Sydney Berg and Sunday's catch. Six Reds and one King Salmon.

Thane and Sydney in Brian's new Mud Ox.

Kayaking with my new helmet cam!

2009-05-13T23:20:00.003-08:00

I have been pretty busy since my last post but haven't made time to put anything on here. I have done a little work on the barn but we are having a literal heat wave and have had 60 to 70 degree weather for the last two weeks. All of our rivers are running about two weeks ahead of schedule so my priority has been on whitewater kayaking. I bought a new helmet cam and have been videoing every run. I'll post a few tonight and try to get some more in the next few days along with some barn photos.

Enjoy .

Playing on Willow Creek

Little Susitna River May 12th

Little Su again...

First Canyon of Six Mile Creek.

We had to hike around the hardest section due to a log being stuck across the whole canyon, so this is the lower section of the first canyon. Notice my lines could have been better.

This is the first half of the Second Canyon. Compared to the Willow and Little Su, Six Mile has a lot higher volume of water and the canyons are very deep with lots of big boils.

The last of the white pictures with blue background...

2009-04-21T20:21:00.013-08:00

Well I think I managed to hang onto winter as long as I could but I guess it is time to let it go. That is exactly why I ordered a new kayak! Time to start recycling all of this frozen water I've been playing on all winter.

My last time at home I managed one more trip with the guys to the cabin at Honolulu Creek as well as a few day trips from home. The guys at the Polaris shop managed to get my machine running despite several known manufacturing problems and it ran good the whole time I was at home. I can't say it didn't take a good beating but it did run well. Spring riding is probably the hardest time to keep from inflicting damage to both machine and rider as the snow is mostly good but has soft pockets and rocks, trees, and stumps sticking out. Oh well, I guess everything has it's price and that is why my Dragon just became my fall/spring rock sled! I have proven it can take a beating thus lowering it's resale value enough to just (and I hate to have to do it) keep it.

On my second Friday home I ran across a moose that had been killed by wolves about an hour from home, so I brought home some pictures. My wife being a large animal veterinarian who also teaches an Anatomy and Physiology class at the college thought I should go get it for her. I asked why a picture wasn't sufficient. So anyway, being the obedient husband that I am off I went....
Saturday morning I headed out to once again find my moose. Unlike Friday it wasn't sunny and nice, it was cloudy and wanting to snow. The best place to ride this time of year is about 20 miles up the road from where we live. This gets you deeper into the mountains and at a much higher elevation. On Saturday as I was working my through the swamps and trails to get up the pass to better snow I kind of crashed at a high rate of speed. As I was screaming across one of the swamps I hit a small bump that landed my left ski in a patch of rotten snow starting a chain of events that I still haven't completely pieced back together. Like most accidents it happened so fast I wasn't sure what exactly was happening, I just remember wondering how many more times I was going to cartwheel through air. After all motion ceased and I got enough of the snow that was packed in my helmet cleaned out to see, I jumped up and looked around to see if anyone might have seen me. I guess it was just out of habit because the reality of there actually being anyone around to see me eat it was less than zero. After surveying the crash site I determined a few things really quick. The first of which was that I could still walk, and the second of which was that my snowmachine was on it's side and facing the opposite direction that I was going. After looking my snowmachine over all looked ok and then I noticed that the rear tunnel behind the seat and the bumper were bent downward a fair amount causing the need for a bit of future body and fender work (the kind that involves a really big hammer). It looked to me like my machine went end over end at least once but couldn't determine for sure.

After I got going again it didn't take too long to get to the place where the moose was awaiting my arrival. Once I got there and did a little excavating I determined that the moose wasn't facing the same direction that his antlers indicated. I had to chip a little ice to get him out but luckily the animals that had been there before me did most of the work and his head was basically ready to be strapped right on the back of my snowmachine. The interesting part was the ride home down the valley in rotten snow with a giant rack on the back of my machine. I only clipped one tree. At great risk of looking a bit like a redneck I did this favor for my favorite wife.

I was pretty sure that after Saturday's crash that I was done for the season so I spent Sunday cleaning up my snowmachine to park for the summer. I did however get curious about how hard it was going to be to take the bend out of my tunnel so I got my big timberframing sledgehammer and worked the dents right out. I may have missed my calling in the auto body industry....
I was planning on putting things back together enough to store it for the summer on Monday and then spend the rest of the day doing a little spring cleaning around the yard. At 8:00 AM Bill called and wanted to know if I wanted to go riding. It took all of about twenty minutes to put my machine back together, gas up, and strap on an extra two gallons of gas (turns out that wasn't near enough). It took about thirty five minutes to get up the pass to meet Bill who came from the Palmer side. I was extra cautious and rode slow through the swamps as the snow was even more rotten than on Saturday. I have to say that once we got to the top of the first pass the snow was great and combined with the sunshine it made for an epic day. I did incur a little rock damage that limited my ability to turn right, but not enough to make me miss out on this great day of riding. It was actually running out of gas that did that! Luckily with my two extra gallons and the two gallons that Bill was kind enough to loan me I made it about a third of a mile from home before running out.
All said I put 1230 miles on my Dragon from December 23rd to April 20th and another 205 miles on my friend Lukes SkiDoo XP because my Dragon was in the shop for three weeks. I think I'd have been over 1500 miles if I'd have had my machine all of March which is a huge increase over the 800 miles from 2007 and less than 600 miles last year.

I got to ride a lot this winter at the expense of putting off any and all projects for the winter. The downside to that is that now I have a ton of work to do this summer. Stay tuned for hopefully future progress on our barn and landscaping in the next few months.....

Ash from Mt Redoubt layered in the snow.

Headed for the cabin; what more is required aside from gas and beer?

Riding into Honolulu Creek valley head with Denali in the background.

Stuck Fest 2009! Three out of four of us in this photo were stuck (Clay was over the far creek bank). We went down Little Honolulu Creek and all went from good to bad in a hurry. Boy did I do a lot of shoveling...

Our evening fire at the Cabin.

This was the best stuck picture of the weekend. While trying to get up this ravine which is steeper than it appears I got stuck after I encountered a large clump of alders at a high rate of speed. Clay thought he could make it to the top on the left of me however he met the other clump of alder and ended up keeping me company. In this picture I have rolled my sled upside down to try and get it out of the hole it was in. Before I could get it all the way over we had to roll Clay's sled over to get it pointed downhill. The funny part was that when we rolled his back on it's track it took off down the hill before he could get on. He did manage to do a superman leap and catch the bumper and drag halfway down the hill before letting go (at a high rate of speed) to watch his sled narrowly miss a big birch tree at the bottom. It was quite funny. Although I must say that had he not have helped me roll mine all the way over I'd have probably ended up in the same boat.

Looking across the valley at where we had ridden the previous day.

Spring riding up the pass from our house. Things were starting to really break up.

Wow, look an antler....

Is it frozen? Ummm, no it appears to still be attached to a head...

Right behind the gas can is where the tunnel bent. The bumper was bent down a bit too.

Ok, come on Mr Moose lets go...

A touch of digging and chipping of ice and out he came.

My redneck picture of the year...

Bill Hall headed up this hill.

Looking down a valley; Denali is barely visible in the background.

Bill and I taking a break.

My Dragon from the top of this saddle. We left here and rode right up the ridge on the right and stopped at the top for an even better view.

The view from this side was spectacular!

Looking back up the ridge.

Looking at it from the bottom.

My favorite parting shot; Mt Redoubt is steaming in the distance (right of center).

Ashfall and Air Travel...

2009-03-29T21:06:00.009-08:00

When you depend on air travel as much as most Alaskans do, a volcano can really interrupt your travel plans as well as your daily life. Although I only have to fly a few times a month it is still a pain wondering if I'm going to make it to work or have to make the four hour round trip to the airport to try again tomorrow. Or after my two week shift I have to wonder how many days it will take to get home.

Sandi flew to Seattle yesterday and made it by the skin of her teeth. As they were boarding the airplane the gate agent came onto the ramp and told everyone that the volcano just went off and if anyone wanted to make it to Seattle then they better hurry up and get seated. She said that people were yelling at each other to hurry up and sit down. The volcano erupted at 1:50 and her flight made it out a little before 2:30. Sometime around 3:00 they shut the airport down completely until 3:00 this afternoon. One of my friends has been trying to get out of here since Friday and I think he made it into Anchorage around 5:30 tonight.

My niece Sydney had her 15th birthday yesterday and was really bummed that the bowling alley and all of the theaters and malls closed because of yesterdays three eruptions. I told her she should be happy because not everyone has a volcano erupt to celebrate their birthday.

In 1989-90 Redoubt erupted 20 times over a six month period. Since last week when Redoubt started erupting again it has erupted something like 17 times! This could make for an interesting summer. My only hope is that after our cold summer last year that we aren't stuck under a dark ash cloud all of this coming summer.

For anyone interested here is the link to the Alaska Volcano Observatory site. It is a great site despite what Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal thinks.
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/

I haven't posted in the last week because I forgot my laptop at home the morning I headed to work and haven't had much time. My last time home I got a lot of good riding in with minimal work required on things around the house (a rare thing), and we had a ton of sunshine. The last weekend I was off we went back up to Clay's Honolulu Creek cabin for two nights of fun and adventure.

On Friday Ryan, Clay and I rode as far as we could up Honolulu Creek until the canyon got too narrow and the water got deeper than any of us cared to sink a sled into. Also, since I am still waiting for my machine's to get the motor rebuilt I had to borrow a machine from a buddy so I surely didn't want to sink it in the creek.

Clay taking some video. The red rocks reminded me of Colorado, this was a magnificent spot.

Ryan coming up the canyon.

Clay taking a break and a little video in the canyon.

Taking a break after digging me out. Yep, I got stuck again...

Clay heading up a hill on the trail on our Saturday ride.

Our friend Stubby (his real name is James Shannon Sullivan but we have been calling him Stubby for so long I wouldn't feel right calling him anything else) who is disabled went to the cabin with us and after much prodding Clay got him to come out on a ride with us. Stubby rode on front with Clay like Thane does when he goes with me and was so happy that he went. It was a little extra work for Clay but it was worth it to see Stubby so happy. We rode down the Chulitna and up the Ohio Creek valley. It is a beautiful canyon and worth seeing.

Ryan as we were making our way through a patch of alder.

Clay on top of a stepped ridge with Denali in the clouds in the background.

Denali is hiding in the clouds but it is center left. This was yet another amazingly beautiful day.

We ran across this cabin and it looked worthy of checking out. We all had to check it out as it is such a great thing to find this far out in the middle of what seems to be nowhere. After Clay read the sign above the door, it turns out that it's a mining claim and belongs to a guy I know from Talkeetna.

Riding up the Ohio Creek Valley.

The Ski Doo XP that Luke let me use.

Ryan after helping me get out.

Proof yet again that it doesn't matter what I am riding I can get stuck on the downhill as well as the uphill.

There wasn't a lot of room for error.

Negotiating the last Canyon on Ohio Creek.

A break before we turned around.

Heading up the valley. This is where we turned around as it was getting late and this was also the park boundary. Hard to believe that the valley on the left runs up to a glacier that comes right off Denali.

Clay and Ryan coming through the last canyon we encountered on Ohio Creek.

A shot of the cabin and where we melted out the summer fire pit.

Ryan buried his machine coming over this beaver dam. I think he was trying to show me up on being the best at getting buried.

Thank goodness for warranties...

2009-03-16T20:48:00.016-08:00

If it's new and it's mechanical and I've bought it this year then chances are pretty good that it has failed. 2009 isn't looking so good for me when it comes to anything mechanical...

Last week my brand new snowmachine burnt up a piston with just 600 miles on it and about 45 miles from home. I have a great dealer so they had me going a day and a half later and due to some unresolved issues that Polaris is having on their 800 motors I got another 200 miles on it and had the same thing happen riding in the same valley and exactly seven days later. I know my dealer will fix it asap but the pistons are on backorder from the factory and we have a three day ride planned for Thursday through Saturday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

My other major mechanical failure was the compressor on my heat pump for my geo system. I was gone and Sandi smelled something electrical and noticed that the unit wasn't starting like it should so she shut it off until I got home (luckily we have the oil fired furnace for backup). So last week I worked with my mechanical contractor and we put in the new compressor and our Geothermal system is back up and running after about four weeks of down time.

Luckily both of these issues are covered by the manufacturers warranty. I haven't really been a big fan of extended warranties but after the last two months I think they might be worth it.

Today as I was doing laundry my washer door lock mechanism broke so I had to tear apart the washer to see what needed to be replaced. Unfortunately this one is out of warranty but isn't too hard to fix. I am however afraid to touch anything without fear of it breaking. Yesterday after Thane and I got back from a short snowmachine ride I was taking off my new snowpants and the zipper on the leg broke. And last night I took the snowblower off of the tractor and put the bucket back on. I thought I should grease all the joints on the bucket arms and the first one I did the zirc (grease) fitting broke off when I took the grease gun off. See what I mean, it's like everything I touch is falling apart.

Oh well, maybe I've got it all out of my system by now. Let's hope!

Anyway I thought I'd post some more pictures of the last few rides I took. Again the snow was fantastic and the sun was big and bright. Since the time change we have light from 7am to 930 pm so plenty of daylight already. To get to the last valley we ride in we have to cross three steep mountain passes and it's about an hours ride from the house. After a couple of feet of fresh snow any of the valleys are great to ride in but it has been about two weeks since we've had fresh snow and most of it has been ridden on by all of the people that come out from town. The nice thing is that most people don't carry enough gas to get to where we go so we always get the last valley to ourselves.

On Friday I rode with Colton Conner and his friend Nate and we were the first ones into the head of Peters Creek valley and had the whole place to ourselves without a single track on it. The snow wasn't quite as good as it was the week before with Clay and Larry but it was hard to complain about as it was still untracked and powder on top.

Saturday it was just Clay and I and we went all the way to the last valley as Peters Creek had seen a lot more riders than just Nate, Colton, and I on Friday. I had a few issues with my machine on the way in but it ran good the whole time we were back there so I was happy. It didn't start making those not so good noises until on the way home.

What a way to start a Friday morning!

First tracks down the second pass. I really like this picture.

Colton on our way up the valley.

My favorite thing to do is carve turns while going downhill. The only problem is that the more tired you get the harder it is to do. Well at this point my precious Dragon went left and I pretty much kept going straight. The divot on the left of the picture is where I took a header.

Our three tracks were the first ones on the fresh snow on Friday.

Nate on our way home.

Hard to see but the two dark specs on the top of the knoll are Colton and Nate.

Clay on our way in on Saturday.

This was right as we got to this high mountain lake. I took two passes at the hill in the background, one low and one higher. I want to break over the top of that one and into the next valley but the snow gets really thin on top and you really have to watch for rocks.

Clay playing on a high mountain lake.

Five guys followed our tracks over the last pass and this guy tried to climb this face and as you can see he didn't quite make it. He was camped out up there trying to get unstuck without his sled rolling all the way to the bottom of the hill. It took him probably thirty to forty minutes to get out. We did see another guy do exactally that on our way out. He climbed to the top turned out, jumped off and watched his sled roll about 200 times to the bottom. Fun to watch as long as it isn't your sled.

Looking down into the last valley we ride into. The valley in the center right is where Ryan and I caused the avalanche in February. Clay and I stayed out of that one due to Avy danger.

So, if you notice my track coming down this face you might say to yourself "why didn't he go a little more to the right" well that is exactally what I was saying as I came careening down into that dark spot in the center left of the picture. I have to say this is the first time ever that I just bailed off and watched my sled continue on it's own.

A little better close up of my tracks and where I bailed off (right above the shaded spot) I was pretty sure the machine was going to endo and I didn't really want to be on it. So I bailed, sled endo'd, then I climbed down to it, rolled it back over and off we went. Thank goodness for deep snow.

I never get tired of just sitting and looking at these peaks...

I had to jump off at this point so my sled would crest this hill. Otherwise I'd be in almost as bad of shape as the guy that was stuck in the middle of the hill above the lake.

The trench getting up there. This hill is a little steeper than it looks.

I'm so good at getting stuck that I have even mastered it on the downhill.

Note that there is plenty of snow up there.

I knew this was going to be a good picture...

Clay on our way our of the valley. Notice Denali (Mt McKinley) is the peak furthest in the distance center left. I love looking at that mountain!

Clay and my Dragon on a quest for untracked powder.

Clay jumping a snow drift.

Saturday afternoon powder turns. These machines carve just like a pair of skis or a snowboard. the only bad thing is at about 500 pounds it hurts a lot more than skis when it lands on you.

Thane on our way to find the group on Sunday. We didn't go with them earlier because I knew my sled was sick but I figured it would live to make a trip out and back later in the day.

Thane, my sister Jana (behind Thane) and Bernie about 25 minutes from the house. Thane and I went to try and catch up to these guys only to find Bernie (who has the exact same sled as me) on the way out because Bernie had lost compression in one cylinder. Mine was on it's way out but as long as I kept it out of the 5500 to 7000 rpm range it was fairly happy.

A pan up and down the last valley we ride in.

Clay after he fell off his sled and it went down the hill without him.

A view of the landscape, my finger covered part of the lens though...

What started out as such a perfect day...

2009-03-08T20:48:00.007-08:00

My two favorite months of the year are March and June. Last year I was in Africa for the whole month of March so I decided to take four extra days off of work to try and make up for missing last year. Getting home half a week early, I figured I'd have lots of nice sunny days to go riding. Our first day out started out to be what could have been my best day of riding all year. My friends Clay and Larry (whom I have been getting into trouble with since the first grade) showed up about 11am Saturday morning and we headed up the pass to the valley Ryan and I were in last week. I don't think we could have asked for a more beautiful day to be outside. We worked our way up to Dogsled Pass and dropped over into a valley with tons of fresh snow. This valley was really nice but sees a little more people than the valley we were headed for so I wanted to keep moving. With all of the fresh snow, the trail that Ryan and I rode out on the week before was gone leaving us to break trail. It was the first time I have had to break trail over any of these passes and didn't realize how steep a few of these passes actually are. It makes a lot of difference when you don't have a hard packed trail under you. After we made it to the top of the pass at the top of Purchase Creek we stopped for a few minutes and I took a few pictures. My first picture of the day was from almost the same spot as my last picture of the day posted on February 24th (this one was actually taken from the rock outcropping on the right in that photo).

We made it into the valley we had set out for but about an hour after getting there my machine started running really bad. I could have cried! The snow was perfect and so far my machine had been running awesome all day. I'm not sure what happened but it became very ill and I knew it was time to start heading for home. The shortest way home was the way we came in but my machine wouldn't build enough rpm's to make it up either of the passes. The only option was to head down the creek and out the trail at the bottom. It took a little time since I couldn't go too fast but the ride down the valley was pretty nice. We saw the same herd of moose that Ryan and I had ridden by on our last ride. I usually go way around any moose I see because I hate to make them run through the snow. I figure they have enough to worry about without me riding on their heels, or I guess hooves would be more appropriate. Saturday however, I didn't have enough power to ride up the hill on the side of the valley to avoid them and found myself riding about 25 feet from a herd of about ten moose galloping through the snow down the valley. The Budweiser Clydesdale's haven't got anything on these guys. It was such a cool scene. I really wanted to stop and get my camera and video it but wasn't too excited about stopping in the middle of all of these guys. We saw more moose on the way down the valley than Ryan and I saw two weeks before. It was really impressive. After awhile I made it to the trail and beat my kidneys out riding the trail the rest of the way home. After getting home I took my machine to the Polaris shop and they confirmed that I had no compression in one of my cylinders. This is the same exact thing that happened to Clay on our way up the Yetna. So now I have to wait until Wednesday for my motor to be rebuilt. Thank goodness for warranties! Bummer to miss out on a few days of good riding but I guess I'll live. Maybe I'll take Thane to Alyeska for a day of skiing...

Clay taking in the view. This is the same pass that I took the final shot of the day from on my Feb 24th post.

Larry enjoying a break in the action...

Look how deep that trench is!

I don't recommend parking directly behind the guy who's stuck...

Looking back up the valley. We were the first tracks of the day and had the whole valley to ourselves.

I got stuck on the way up this hill and had to dig a huge pit to get myself out

Clay stopped to give me a hand

Looking back up the way we came. An amazing sight. I can't help thinking that this sun is the same one that was beating down on me last March as I was sandboarding in the Sahara Desert.

My lone tracks across the valley. The bowl across the valley is where my machine decided to get sick. It was unfortunate timing as the snow was perfect and all the slopes were untracked...

Hmmm. I didn't quite make this little ravine. It didn't look that big but I guess I should have gone around since I was running on only one cylinder at this point. Time to start digging...

Arrghhh...

2009-02-28T20:02:00.003-09:00

So here I am stuck at work and now we get two feet of snow at home! Well maybe we'll get another three feet or so before I get back to make up for missing this latest dumping. Sandi isn't too excited about it but hey, this is my favorite month of the year and I spent all of last March in Algeria. I would like a huge dumping of snow so I can make up for lost time from last year.

On another note Ryan sent me the pictures that he took on our ride last week and I thought a few were worth posting.

Stopping for a little water on the way up Peters Creek Valley

I burnt up a belt on the way up the valley so I had to change it before things got ugly.

Finally! Someone took a picture of me actually moving. Usually nobody else has their camera with them.

So much for the moving part...

In reality I just got stuck on the near side creek bank and it was easier to just roll my machine all the way over than it would have been to dig it out. Ryan had to get a picture of it upside down though.

My tracks right before I got stuck. What a storybook photo though.

Well until next weeks adventures...

Why I love Alaska....

2009-02-24T08:23:00.008-09:00

I know I've been whining about warm weather, rain, and the lack of snow in my last few posts, we seem to have made it through all of that and things are starting to brighten up. My first week home was pretty quiet, Sandi went to Oregon for a few days so it was just Thane and I. We finally got some snow at the end of the week and made riding snowmachines possible again.

On Tuesday night Chris Johnson and Dale Berg stayed over a night on their way home from work so a bunch of us could go skiing for a day. Our coworker Eryn Boone just bought a beautiful new house in Girdwood and was brave enough to let Chris, Dale, Ryan and myself stay there for a night. We had a great time and couldn't have picked a better day to be on the mountain. The sun was out and the snow was soft and the skiing was perfect. We actually met up with a whole bunch of people from work and I think at one time there were twelve of us in our group. It was one of those days you'd love to have more of.

Saturday morning, Clay his friend Justin, and I were going to ride snowmachines to the other side of the valley and up into a group of mountains called the Yenlo Hills. They are only 2400 feet high which is not a lot for around here but we were excited with the promise of fresh snow and an untracked area to ride. Clay's machine started running a little rough about 40 miles into the ride and after riding 60 miles up the Yetna river we stopped at a lodge and discovered that he didn't have any compression in one cylinder. Luckily he was able to ride all the way home on the one cylinder and we didn't have to tow him. Unfortunately for him, he could only go 30mph and had to watch as Justin and I played in all the fresh powder all the way home. That I think was as painful for him as having to have his engine rebuilt (it is under warranty). The farther west we went the deeper the snow got so we were all bummed to have to come home so early.

On Sunday, Thane and I rode a 50 mile loop up Hatcher Pass and over another pass called Dogsled Pass and back down another creek valley. Having spent a good part of my life running sled dogs I can say that I would not want to ever have to take a dog team down the back side of that pass. It is a STEEP downhill; if I'm looking at the topo correctly it looks like it drops almost 650 feet elevation in about 1500 feet of distance. Thane wasn't too excited about the ride (slide) down and decided he didn't want to go back up the way we came down. The nice part was that the creek bottom didn't have any tracks on it so we just played our way down to the trail about halfway down the valley. I'm not really fond of trails because they'll beat the life out of you if you ride faster than about 5mph. None of our trails are groomed so they aren't much fun and we generally avoid them as much as possible. It was a slow ride out but we had a good time and I think Thane had a good ride. When we got home Sandi asked Thane what his favorite part of the ride was and he said "all of it".

Ryan came up Monday morning and we had a really great ride. We rode to where I generally go on the other side of the creek when I have someone to ride with. I hadn't been up there yet this year since I haven't had anyone to ride with up here. Once we got across the creek we found that there hadn't been too many people out and we found some good snow to play in. We worked our way up the creek valley just to the north of the one Thane and I rode down the day before. It could have used a little more snow in places to cover a little more of the brush but once we got to the top of the valley there was plenty of snow.
The moose were happy there isn't anymore snow than there is. We saw one group of fourteen moose and another group of five about a hundred yards up the valley from them. Moose generally don't travel in herds like elk so it was kind of wild to see so many together.
Once we got to the head of Peters Creek we played around in the big valley at the top for awhile before heading up and over to yet another valley to the north. Getting up the next saddle was a little sketchy as there wasn't much snow at the top of the saddle so as I was riding up I hit a few rocks and lost forward momentum about 20 feet from the top and couldn't get going again. I wasn't looking forward to going down this hill backwards and was afraid if I tried to turn my snowmachine around that it could end up rolling all the way to the bottom. Luckily Ryan made it to the top and was able to help pull me the rest of the way up the hill alleviating my fears of having to head back down.

At this point we were sitting at the exact place we were two years ago when we debated heading down the north side but decided not to venture any further into the unknown. Later that same day we were sitting on a knoll across from this saddle when we saw a guy by himself come up and over the saddle out of the valley on the other side. We talked to him for awhile and ended up riding the remainder of that day with him. It turned out that his name is Bill Hall and he was a 63 year old retiree who has a lot of time to ride and not a lot of people to ride with (sounds like me a lot of the time), so he just goes by himself. He told us about the valley on the other side and the trail down so later that winter I went with TJ, Jeff, and Clay (blog post http://tysonsdaily.blogspot.com/2007/03/talkeetna-mountains-31707.html) and we had a great ride.

There didn't appear to be a trail down the north side of this valley and I wasn't sure how easy it would be to get out but we decided to go for it. Once we got on the other side we realized that the snow was much better and was deep enough that we were getting stuck on some of the downhill slopes. We worked our way down this valley and then up the same valley I'd been up in 2007. The snow was excellent, however once we got into the last valley all of the southern exposed peaks showed either evidence of having already avalanched or having high potential of avalanche. Being that the snow pack isn't as deep as it normally would be this time of the year the avalanches all were small slab type slides that didn't go very far. Although I'm sometimes prone to doing some dumb things from time to time, I am smart enough to know I do not want to be in an avalanche. Ryan and I decided to stay off of all the steep slopes and just play on the hills in the middle of the valley. I had cut across the face of one of the hills and was about to try and climb right up the middle of it when I noticed that Ryan was stuck on the far right side of the hill. As I was sitting there debating the best route to get to Ryan to give him a hand the whole face of the hill I was about to climb up gave way. I wasn't quick enough to get any video as I was watching to make sure the place Ryan was didn't slide but I did get a few pictures. I think all of the slopes that had gotten lots of sun over the last few days (especially in this valley where there was more snow in the valleys to the south) were really set up to slide. I don't think this slide got moving fast enough to completely bury anyone but I can say that I'm glad I wasn't in the middle of it. Although it looked small when I rode up to the bottom of it the pile was as high as my windshield. This slide was enough of a warning for us that even the not so steep slopes were ready to slide and we probably shouldn't play on the ones that had a lot of sun exposure. It was getting late in the day anyway so we determined it was a good time to work our way back to the valley at the head of Peters Creek. When we got to the top of the saddle we took a nice break in the sunshine and relaxed for awhile. While we were sitting there we saw two other snowmachines sitting on the knoll across from the saddle. We didn't talk to them until a little later but it ended up that one of the guys was Bill Hall who we had run into in this exact place two years ago and we were just talking about earlier in the day. It's funny how things work out sometimes. We played a few more minutes before climbing out of the next two valleys (up Dogsled Pass which Thane wanted no part of the day before) and heading for home. We had racked up 81 miles according to my odometer by the time we got home.

All in all I have to say it has been a great week!

Chris at the end of the day at Alyeska

Sunset over Turnagain Arm

The World Famous Mr. Dale Berg

Chris at the top of the Tram

Eryn, Jerry, and Chism waiting on us slow snowboarders at the top of the lift.

Fresh tracks on the Yetna River; I love that sunshine...

The lodge at Fish Lake Creek on the Yetna River

I had to take a picture of this tree, it is the wildest birch tree I have ever seen.

Clay, Justin, and I on the way up the Yetna River

A quick morning ride I took up the pass.

Thane on our loop ride on Sunday

Thane wanted to check out all of the old mining buildings up Craigie Creek

The view on the trip with Thane; still loving that sunshine.

Thane showing off his balance and being quite silly

Ryan and I getting started and liking a little fresh snow. It just looks like his machine is on fire...

Ryan on our way up Peters Creek Valley

A whole herd of moose

Ryan at the head of Peters Creek, the snow got better the further we went...

Ryan enjoying the fluff...

The valley was wide open...

The top of the saddle looking south

The top of the saddle looking north. Notice that we were the first tracks into this valley...

Letting things cool off before heading into the next valley...

I got a little stuck in this creek bottom; did I mention that I love that sunshine...

Our little avalanche that I was really happy not to have been in the middle of. The dark spot on the top right is Ryan.

That is some heavy snow

Ryan, happy he wasn't in the middle of it either...

On our way out of the last valley on our way home...

Hard to beat this scenery...

My last picture of the day. I thought is was a perfect parting shot.

In search of snow...

2009-01-27T11:18:00.010-09:00

Well, we had to drive two hours north to my friend Clay's cabin to find good snow to play in but it was definitely worth it. I like living up Hatcher Pass because I don't have to haul my snowmachine anywhere to ride, I usually just walk outside and go. Since we had 45 degree weather and four days of rain all we have is a lot of ice with about 2" of new snow on top of it. Not much fun to ride in. Clay and I drove up to the cabin Saturday morning and spent the day riding on the east side of the Parks Highway. We rode over the mountains closest to the highway and into a big valley that is the head of about three or four rivers. The area was huge and the riding would have been great except it got cloudy and the light got really flat. Riding in flat light is about the same as riding in complete blackness. You are on a canvass of complete white and you can't tell if you are going up or down and can't tell if you are about to ride over a ledge or into a cornice. It causes a feeling of vertigo. On the way out we ended up having to cross a huge (about a mile across) patch of alders. If you haven't ever experienced being in the middle of an alder thicket I'd have to compare it to maybe being in a field of corn or a bamboo forest. Maybe not quite that extreme but close. Going into it I saw what I thought was a nice line through it but once inside I lost that line and Clay decided he didn't care for my trail finding abilities. Once out of the alders we played our way back to the cabin and called it a night. Sunday morning didn't start out looking too promising as my head and stomach were none too happy with how much I drank the night before. Had it not been for the fact that we drove two hours to get there I'd have gone home and gone to bed. Every time Clay said "You don't look so good Ty" I'd just get up off the ground and hope I didn't really look as bad as he made it sound. However I knew I did. Since I didn't want to be the one to ruin a good trip I toughed it out and about two hours into it I started to feel almost human. It only took getting stuck once to really start sweating everything out of my system. After my head stopped spinning I was really glad I went. We spent Sunday on the West side of the Parks Highway playing in the foothills of Denali. The snow was really good and the day was great. We found a bunch of ravines to play in and every ravine seemed to have a beaver pond in it. Beaver ponds are great to play in because the dams and lodges make great jumps. We may have disrupted sleep for a bunch of beavers but I'm sure they will survive. Hopefully we will get a ton of snow in the next few weeks but if we don't I expect Clay and I will be making another trip to the cabin in the near future.

Since Clay didn't have a camera most of these pictures are of him...

The Cabin

Clay making his way through the trees

Clay playing under the power line

On the way up the mountains on the east side of the highway

Trying to find paths between the alder thickets

Crown Royal in a Mason Jar; it was much more appealing Saturday night

Playing in the foothills of Denali

Looking up the Ohio Creek Valley

The sun tried to find it's way through the clouds

Clay as we debate which direction we should head

The only picture I have of my sled is when I got stuck. I didn't quite make this incline, but the digging out did help cure my hangover...

The terrain is endless, with a little more snow to hide the alders this would be heavenly

Dozer, Clay's retarded yellow lab

Waking of the beaver

Trying to find a way to the creek bottom

The river banks were a little too steep to get down so we'll have to try a little harder next time...

Is it just me?

2009-01-22T23:41:00.004-09:00

I was just reading my own blog from January of 2008 and this time last year I was praying for a little sun in the Sahara Desert and now I am praying for a little snow in Alaska in January. Is it me am I cursed? What the heck is going on; I go to the desert and I can't get sun, it just rained the whole time. Now I'm at home and it rained all last week and we can't get any snow; what is going on???

I went for a ride today and all of our swamps are completely devoid of any snow. I was literally riding across muskeg (tundra) and brush because the swamps have no snow and the lakes and roads are glare ice. About fifteen miles up the road there is about two inches of new (soft) snow but that is it. I did manage to get two pictures while I was riding today; one is of my new snowmachine and the other is looking back down the valley.

UGHHHHH.....

2009-01-16T17:28:00.002-09:00

If any normal place in the world had an eighty degree temperature increase in four days, I think people would die of heat stroke. Here in Alaska, we just warm up to five degrees less than our average summer temperature.

Last week it was about -20F here at the house but ten miles down the hill in Willow it got down to -45 degrees. Today it was 45 degrees above in Willow and pouring rain. We lost almost all of our snow here due to wind and rain. A pipe froze and broke the day before I came home from work so I had Sandi turn off the water. I picked up the fittings to fix the pipe on the way from the airport hoping to have the water and heating system back in service Wednesday night. Unfortunately when I told Sandi to turn off the water I forgot to tell her to turn off the radiant heating system controller. This small oversight on my part led to a burnt up (not so cheap) circulation pump. Live and learn I guess. Luckily it was forty degrees for the three days that the radiant heating system was down otherwise things could have gotten ugly in a hurry.

We spent today trying to chip up our glare ice driveway, pump the water out of the barn, and cut up the spruce tree that blew down across the fence in the horse corral. I took my snowmachine out to survey the loss of snow and it may as well have been a jet ski. I'd have been better off wearing a dry suit instead of the down jacket that I was wearing. All of the lakes around here have slush and standing water on top of the ice and there are huge puddles everywhere. I was thinking a snorkel might have been a good idea.

Hopefully the temperature will drop a little and all of this precipitation will turn to snow instead of the rain we are currently getting.

Pray for snow!

Happy New Year....

2009-01-08T19:35:00.005-09:00

Well, I suppose I should get motivated and write my first post of the year.

Things have been pretty quiet and I haven't worked on any projects since November. The week before Christmas I went to Minden, NV for some technical training for work. Minden is only about a forty minute drive from Lake Tahoe so I spent two days up there checking things out.

Having never been to that part of Nevada or California, I thought it was really pretty. They got about a foot of snow at Tahoe right before I went so I took my snowboard just in case Heavenly was open when I got there. The one day I got to ride, the gondola was closed due to high winds and only two runs were open (also due to high wind), and the lift ticket was still$60. After a little quick math in my head I figured I would save money as well as get a little exercise by spending the afternoon at Heavenly as opposed to sitting in the casino. Based on how much I lost the night before in a short amount of time I think I made the right decision.

Usually I like to go with someone I work with when I go to training. That way I have someone I know to work with in the class and do stuff with in the evenings. I was a little reluctant going by myself not ever having been there before. Things worked out great though (as they usually do) and one of the guys in the class (Aaron) works for Atlantic LNG in Trinidad (the island right next to Tobago) which happens to be a LNG plant that a bunch of guys I work with helped start up. So we hung out together most of the time. The oil and gas world is really quite small.

It was the first time Aaron had ever seen snow so we drove up to Lake Tahoe several times so he could take pictures and play in the snow. It's funny to think that here was a guy that hadn't seen snow until he was 29 and I can't remember a year of my life without it. Although I can't imagine life in a climate that never gets colder than probably 60 to 70 degrees either.

I flew home on December 20th and just barely made it through Seattle before they shut the airport down for three days. Which I was quite happy about.

I decided to trade my 600 RMK (snowmachine) for this years 800 RMK. I've never really wanted an 800 but now that I have it I'd have a hard time going back. I picked it up the night I got home from Nevada and got sick the next day. I laid on the couch for a whole day and watched the snow fall on it. I ended up sick for three days and got over it just in time for a little fondue on Christmas eve. In eight days at home I only got to put 60 miles on my new sled before having to head back to work. It worked out ok though, we all had a nice quiet Christmas. For Christmas Dinner my Mom, TJ (and Aubrey), Rachelle, Sydney came over and Sandi's Mom was up from Wyoming. After my 28lb turkey for Thanksgiving I decided to start a new tradition for Christmas Dinner. I cooked blue cheese stuffed filet mignon and king crab with asparagus. And after recovering from overeating, I think it is a worthwhile tradition to continue.

The last week and a half have been really really cold and even if I were at home I wouldn't be riding so it isn't so bad being at work. It is supposed to start snowing again the first of next week so hopefully I'll get home to a couple of feet of new snow to play in. I have some pictures of Tahoe I'll post also but I forgot my camera at home.

I'll keep you posted.

Procrastination...

2008-12-02T10:31:00.009-09:00

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. ~Robert Benchley

It isn't that I haven't spent plenty of time at the computer in the last three months that I haven't added a new post, and it isn't because I have been consumed entirely by my gargantuan projects; it is more a combination of things and the biggest of which is procrastination.

After the completion of the geothermal installation I did spend the next time home trying to turn my nuclear landscape back into something that looked nice. Sandi went to Oregon for a week for a horse clinic so I rented a dozer and Gordy came up for a couple of days and we pushed a bunch of dirt and stumps. I did have a bit of a problem being too hard on equipment as I put a stump through the oil cooler on my Dad's loader which put it out of commission and then I tipped our (Sandi's) tractor over trying to move dirt. All in the same day mind you. In the end we got most of what I wanted to get landscaped completed. I still have some work to do next summer but we do have a fairly sizable new pasture (fairway) that now needs to be seeded. It has been really nice to have the open area as I think we actually doubled our usable acreage with this project.

In October and early November with the help of Ted and his loader, I was able to get the two long walls on the barn and the bottom half of one of the gable ends. My big pile of SIP's has disappeared from the ground in front of the barn and the few that are left are now residing inside the barn. I had to get enough done so that the garage door installers could come hang our garage doors. So now we have two garage doors and one whole open wall. It does stop the wind and snow from blowing through which is nice. I was really hoping to get all of the walls up before Christmas but it has been pretty cold and the daylight is from 9am to about 4pm and usually by the time I get motivated half the day is wasted. This last time home my motivation has decreased in direct proportion to our amount of sunlight. It is really low as is the sun in the sky. Luckily that all changes soon and we will be gaining sunlight soon.

I'm getting a new snowmachine in December so I don't anticipate being a real ball of fire as long as we have good snow.

For Thanksgiving we went to my parents house for dinner and my contribution was the 28lb turkey. I even cooked it! It took me all night to cook but it was ready by 2pm on Thanksgiving day.
Aside from that I'd say things have been pretty quiet around the house. The geothermal has been working really well; the oil fired boiler does seem to kick on to assist the heat pump when the temperature drops really quickly outside but otherwise we have been heating with the geothermal since September.

We got Thane's snowmachine going last week and he and I have kind of turned Sandi's new horse pasture into our new snowcross track. He's a riot to watch and since his machine tops out at probably 15mph (if he's luckily) he's pretty safe. I've taught him how to lean on side hills and how to get unstuck when he gets himself stuck. I have to laugh because when he gets stuck, he throws the exact kind of tantrum that I do when I get stuck. I didn't teach him that part, I guess it's just genetic.

It looks like sunset but it is actually just a November afternoon in Alaska. A view of our new pasture/snowcross course.

My pile of SIP's that finally disappeared.

A view of the sinkhole side of the yard.

Another view (overcast and wintry) of the fairway...

Our two man SIP installation operation; Step 1- get panel in the air

Step 2- get panel on the sill plate

Step 3- lift, tilt, slide, OK don't move until I get it attached to a post....
Did I mention that the brakes weren't working on the loader? Just part of the fun of the project.

South view from the second floor of the barn

Same view with Mt Illiamna to the left of Mt Susitna.

We may not have all the walls (or even a complete roof for that matter) but we do have garage doors!

Note the roof opening for the not-yet-complete cupola.

But the doors are nice!

The West wall; I like to think of it as a big window to nature! Not too good of an R value though.

The South wall with all of it's panels...

The fairway with a little sunshine on it.

Thane got his Yellow belt in Karate last month.

Our livestock guardian dog thinks winter is cold and has decided that sleeping in the hay feeder is warmer than sleeping on the ground. Smart dog....

Pictures to go with yesterday's post

2008-09-11T19:28:00.011-08:00

I apologize that my post from yesterday was four pages long but it was because I sat down three times and started writing and never got to post any of them. Last night I compiled them all and put them into one really long post. I guess if a picture is worth a thousand words then these pictures should justify yesterday's text.

Here are some pictures of a couple of my latest projects:

Here is the trailer with 9000 feet of 1" pipe and 500 feet of 1.25" pipe ready and eager to be placed into a trench.

This was the first trench for the header into the house. Since my septic system pipe runs under this trench I was very careful and ended up hand digging a lot of it just to be on the safe side.

This is trench one which went down the left side of the drive, looking from the house. Note the greenery on the other side of the drive and refer back to it after seeing pictures from trench three and four.

Trench one on the way down the side of the drive.

Placing the piping into trench one.

My number one helper at the controls. After a few hours training he had it down and could fully operate the excavator as long as he was in my lap so his feet could reach the pedals.

Here he is up close...

Looking at the house from the end of trench one.

This is the start of trench two and three looking from the house end of the trench.

This is looking back up at the house from where trench two splits off of trench three.

Looking down trench two which went down the left side of the drive.

The barn in the background of trench two.

Looking from the house out at trench three. Refer back to the third picture to see the loss of vegetation.

Trench four with trench three on the right. Trench three hadn't been back filled as we were trying to save time by saving the final back fill for after all the trenches had been dug.

Looking at the house while digging trench four about 75' from the end of the trench.

Same location looking towards the end of trench four.

Navigating the mountain between trench three and four while trying to back fill.

We had to dig trench four right in front of our shed, I accidentally swung the boom around too fast and broke the awning away from the shed. I was thrilled as this created yet one more project.

This is me placing piping into trench four. The pipe is not real easy to work with as it retains a fair amount of memory from being coiled in a roll for so long.

From the deck looking at trenches five and six, trench three and four went on the right of the shed. The dog kennel used to be on the right side of the shed but had to move to a temporary location.

From the deck you could barely see the excavator on the hill in the background while digging trench five and six.

This was one of the trees that I really wanted to save while digging trenches five and six.

Working on trench six, Gordy was operating while I laid piping.

Looking back up trench six toward the house. There are two passes on the bottom ready to be covered with 18 to 20 inches of dirt so the two upper passes can be put in the trench.

This is Gordy working his way back up onto the pile to back fill the end of trench six.

Looking back at the barn from the end of trench six. Note the devastation and loss of vegetation. I have to plant some trees next year so we will have a little oxygen output left in the neighborhood

This gives a really good visual of how the pipe lays in the bottom of each trench.

Brian and Andrea's back porch timbers. I am really happy with how the tapered posts turned out.

This is Sydney sitting on the back porch after the trusses were put on the roof. Their back porch is going to be nice and tall.

The front porch with the set of test rafters on top to get an idea of how it will look.

The tapered posts on the front have braces (big challenge) and I think it turned out really good. Note the embellishments that Brian added to the garage, this is going to be a great looking house. They have already had a developer stop by to ask about the porch because he wants to incorporate details like theirs into his houses. Kind of cool.

Going brown to go green...

2008-09-10T18:49:00.003-08:00

Over the last month I’ve thought a lot about what to title this post and here are a few things that came to mind:
My nuclear nightmare…
Our nuclear neighborhood…
Trench warfare…
Go Big or Go Home…
This is even more stupid than my last big stupid project…

The list goes on.

I only had eight days off work in August and spent every minute of it working on our latest project of installing a ground source geothermal heat pump system that will heat our house and barn. Out of all the projects I’ve done, I worked harder on this one in such a short timeframe than on any other project that I have attempted. Ground source geothermal (geo-exchange) requires that the system flow water through a ground loop either through horizontal trenches or drilling vertical wells. Since the cost of drilling in Alaska this summer is $38 per foot we opted to use the trench method. I spent seven and a half days prepping and digging trenches and laying 1” plastic pipe into each trench. Based on the instructions I got from my system designer, I needed six trenches 375’ long each and I wanted to go 12’ deep just for a safety margin. In Colorado they dig 6’ and my friend in Washington went 10’ on his system so I figured 12’ was probably a safe depth for our soil conditions. The killer is that each trench has 1500’ of pipe in it and that adds up to 9000’ of 1” pipe that had to be unrolled (500’ rolls) and placed into each trench. I have never worked so hard for so many consecutive days in my life; not even when I used to commercial fish (I wasn’t on a crab boat though). I got home Wednesday evening and the rental company dropped off the excavator Thursday afternoon. I rented it for a week thinking I’d only need it for three days or so but actually ended up putting 78.5 hours on it in 7.5 days. It was the first time I had a week off of work that I didn’t get a single day to sleep in.
I spent all afternoon on Thursday clearing trees and getting used to operating the excavator. I selectively cleared the trees that I thought needed to be moved for the trenches and cleared all of the slash. My friend Gordy stopped by Thursday night to see what I had going. I had talked to him a few weeks back about the excavator because he operates one almost every day for a construction company and I always try to seek professional advice when I can (I am now in search of a good therapist).

A few things Gordy told me (that I didn’t want to believe) were that it would take me two days per trench, that for every foot in depth I needed to go about two feet wide, and I’d have to take down a lot more trees.
How could this be? First, I only have seven days to get this done and second I didn’t have to dig up that much material when I dug my water line across the yard at 10’ deep.

I hate it when Gordy’s right! After the first day I was only half done with the first trench and because I didn’t dig it wide enough it kept collapsing. Sandi had to work so I was on my own to dig and lay in the piping. The soil is mostly dry sand; I can’t seem to get away from sand lately. Digging in dry sand is like digging in flour, each scoop is only replaced by more sand. I worked on the first trench all day Friday and Saturday and Gordy came on Sunday to help me with the second trench and I realized that he could dig two to three times faster than I could! How did he make that excavator dig so fast? By 6pm he was done with the second trench. One thing that slowed things down when I was digging by myself was that I had to keep stopping to pull in the pipe before the trench collapsed ahead of it. When there is someone to do the ground work the time is significantly reduced. Sunday was the only day Gordy had off work but he did come up in the evenings after twelve hours at his regular job to dig for two to three hours for me. I had to do some bartering to make it worth his while but he made the difference between finishing and having to rent the excavator again three weeks later. At $750 just for round trip delivery of the excavator I was trying everything possible to get done before Friday night.
Monday I started trench three still wondering if I’d get done by Friday night and luckily Gordy showed up and finished trench three Monday evening. Trench four started first thing Tuesday morning at my normal start time of 7am which wasn’t too easy since I had been working until 10:30 or 11pm every night. I can work 18+ hour days at work but at home it is hard to drag myself out of bed so early. Gordy didn’t make it out Tuesday so I was on my own but I had gotten much better at digging and actually finished the trench in one day. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were all more of the same; dig all day and drag fifteen hundred feet of one inch plastic pipe into each trench. The last two trenches were by far the hardest to dig of all of them because I had to dig down into a sink hole and back up the other side due to the contour of our property. Gordy came out both Thursday and Friday and we finished the last trench at about 11:30pm Friday night. We finished our rough backfilling by midnight and I spent until 1:45am cleaning the excavator up for pick up. I finally made it to bed a little before 2:00 am to get up at 5:30 and head for the airport for two and a half weeks of work (actually a little relaxation after the last eight days). Unfortunately I overslept by about a half an hour, so I had to rush all the way until the last minute when I was the third from the last person to board the plane.

After eighteen days of rest and relaxation I headed back home for a little more work. We had a plant turnaround so I really didn’t do too much relaxing but there was much less personal stress.

My first week home from work included trying to get everything ready for setting up my Water Furnace geothermal unit and helping my friends Brian and Andrea cut timber frame porches for their new house.
When I raised my first timber frame, Brian showed up every day and was the only one who showed up the third day and helped me set rafters in the snow. He also helped me wire most of my house, so even though I was up to my ears in my own projects I felt that I had an obligation to help them on their new house. We worked on their back porch Thursday through Saturday and got everything cut and raised. They are going for a Craftsman style look so the posts are all tapered. We used 12x12 posts and tapered them down to 8x8’s to fit into the rest of the timbers. It was the first time I’ve ever cut tapered posts and they turned out really cool. Once Brian figured out what needed to be done he did ninety percent of the work on the front porch. I did the layout on the tapered posts and cut the tenons and all of the mortises and Brian did most of the rest.

Brian and two of the guys working for him had most of the front porch raised by the time I showed up on Wednesday. We spent most of the day working on the braces and layout for the rafters and by the end of Thursday Brian had all of the rafters cut and sitting on top of the frame. Luckily for me he did most of the work on the front so I could spend a little time getting ready for our geothermal installation. After I left Brian’s I had to go to Anchorage to pick up 110 gallons of Ethanol for freeze protecting our ground loop water and get a few more items for the installation.

On the way home from Anchorage I had an appointment to help my friends Brad and Kay Underwood with Milestone Concrete (http://www.milestoneconcrete.com/) pour a huge concrete countertop for the front office of a new Veterinary Clinic in Eagle River. I felt a little obligated to help since I referred the job to them in the first place and they normally pour cast pieces and this was their first poured in place piece. These guys know their stuff when it comes to mixing concrete. They had a bunch of additives I had never heard of and some I would never think would be used in concrete. I am also quite envious of their 12 cubic foot electric cement mixer as it only took two batches to complete the counter and both batches were perfect. The whole pour went great and I can’t wait to see the finished counter. It is nice to know that when I finish my barn and start working concrete again that I’ll have these guys as a resource.

On Friday we went back to Anchorage to see Nancy Dobson's (www.nancydobson.com)Textile Art Display at the Snow City Cafe. We have emailed and commented on each others blog for a while but it was really great to finally meet her and see all of her AMAZING work. All of her works will be on display at Snow City Cafe until the end of September and I strongly recommend stopping by to see them. The food there is excellent so you can peruse the art while waiting for an order of the best eggs benedict in Alaska.

Saturday morning I finally got to take three hours to go kayaking with TJ. She has been begging me for the last two months to go but I haven't had the time. I think I need to reassess my priorities when I can't take three hours to go paddle and decompress. I forget what a stress reliver it is. I decided to finally run the little waterfall at the bottom of the canyon in my playboat. I ran it in July in a bigger boat but I hadn't mustered up the nerve to try it in my little boat. Since the creek was so low I figured why not. I have swam out of it enough in the past that if I screwed up I wasn't too concerned about drowning but if I did, I guess I'd get out of a ton of projects... I made it and we had a good time. Even with the creek really low it is just nice to get out and be on the water. Especially this time of the year.

Finally back to my geothermal…

We met Al Wallace at the Western Timber Framers Conference that we attended in April. Al has a company that designs whole systems that are energy efficient alternative type systems. I know a few people in Alaska that have installed geothermal and are using it successfully but there aren’t that many. Since Al had experience installing these systems in cold regions of Colorado we decided to have him design and install our system. Plus he gave us all of the materials at his cost as a discount for being a member of the Timber Framers Guild. http:/www.tfguild.org

Al and his daughter Kristen arrived on Saturday afternoon and we promptly started working on getting setup. Kristen is 13 and about to take her test for black belt in Karate so Thane thought she was awesome and hung out with her as much as he could.
All of the piping was in the trenches and I already had the Waterfurnace in the laundry room (thanks to Gordy) and ready to be connected. We added another hot water tank for an additional fifty gallons of hot water in the system and once we figured out how we were going to tie it all into the existing system we got started. Sunday we started connecting all the pipe ends that needed to be hooked up and making a flow header. Each trench has three pieces of 500’ pipe in them that needed to be connected to make one 1500’ pipe run in each trench. During the installation of the piping in August I had one roll that had been punctured in two places by a forklift and required being repaired. The connections are all made using couplings that are made of the same plastic as the pipe and are connected using a special hot iron to melt the plastic and then press the pipe into the fittings.

Unfortunately the distributer only sent us one bag of 1” couplings and two bags of 1 ¼” which we only needed one bag of fittings for. This meant that we needed to come up with four extra 1” couplings before we could fill the system with water. This all happened on Sunday so I had to try to come up with fittings first thing Monday morning. Al’s flight back to Denver was Tuesday evening at 11 pm and I left first thing Wednesday morning for work so we didn’t have a lot of time to get things connected. I headed to Anchorage (80 miles each way) first thing Monday morning hoping that the distributer that I picked the pipe up from would have the fittings that I needed. As things would have it he did not and he proceeded to tell me that the fittings I was describing did not exist. I explained to him that I had just used over twenty of them the day before and I was quite sure that they did in fact exist. I was able to find another supplier that said on the phone he had the fittings that I needed so I headed across town very excited that we might be able to finish our installation in time. After getting to the second distributer I found that the fittings that they stocked were not the same style and wouldn’t work for our application. We had to call the Colorado distributer and have him overnight six fittings from Kentucky hoping they would make it in time. UPS is NOT Fed EX; Fed Ex has a driver that shows up at my door with packages between six and eight in the morning where UPS contracts a courier service to deliver all of it’s packages that are considered rural. The courier doesn’t deliver to my door either; they drop all of my packages off at a gas station twelve miles from my house. Normally their drop off time is between 2:30 and 3:30 pm each day assuming that they have enough packages to warrant a trip. This happens even though I pay the full UPS overnight delivery fee. I also found out that the courier’s contract with UPS states that the courier has up to five days to deliver packages from the time that they get them. I called the 1-800 UPS number and tried to get the Anchorage UPS Hub phone number and was told that they couldn’t give that out so I explained to the UPS agent my situation and gave her my tracking number and asked if the package could be held at the terminal. I was told that UPS has to attempt delivery at least one time before you can pick the package up at the UPS Hub. Knowing that this could be a few days I explained my situation again and was told there was nothing that UPS could do. I told them that obviously the only thing I could do was make sure to use Fed Ex next time. I was able to find out the name and number of the courier (UPS will not give you this information) and talked to the courier and they were more than happy to let me meet them outside of Wasilla for a pickup.

Around 2:00 I met the courier and had the fittings in hand and headed for home. I got home at about 2:45 and started we finished hooking up our last four connections and pressure tested the loop. Once the loop pressure stabilized we bled off the pressure and connected the loop to the header. Our next step was to pressure test the whole ground loop and it takes a fair bit of time to pressure up 500 gallons worth of piping and the clock wasn’t slowing down any. After the system pressure stabilized and we were convinced that we didn’t have any holes in any of the pipes we were ready to fill the system. First we had to put 90 gallons of Ethanol in the system and then fill the rest with water and circulate the water into a trashcan to get all of the air out of the system and mix the water and Ethanol to get the right specific gravity. We started adding water to the system at 4:00 pm and finished getting the air out of the system at 6:45. With Al needing to leave at 7:00 to make it to the airport by 9:00 we were feeling the pressure finish up. Luckily we didn’t run into any other problems and were able to start the system. Al entered all of the parameters that were required but I didn’t get the first hand instruction on the controls I was hoping for. Since I am able to read a instruction manual (however not without trying unsuccessfully three times as described in the Men’s Code of Ethics) I did figure out what I needed to navigate through the controls. My next step after the water in the system came up to temperature was to turn up the thermostats in the house to the temperature that I want them to stay at. This has been a life long goal of mine so I was really happy to wake up to warm floors this morning.

Finally, Geothermal heat! Now let’s see how it works over the winter. The nice thing is since we won’t have the barn connected to the loop this winter so we will get a whole winter to see how the unit works with just the house on the loop. This will give me a good idea of how things will be after we add another 3400 square feet of barn space to keep warm.

After I was satisfied with the system I got my Dad’s loader and started the tedious job of covering the exposed piping. I didn’t get all of it but I did get the header covered and all of the easily accessible piping. This however is not to be confused with the monumental task of making our property look less like a war zone and more like a small farm. That is on my list for next time home, along with running water and power to the barn as well as putting all of the wall panels and cupola on the barn. All of this is an easy task after this geothermal installation.

After running the loader out of fuel at 11:30 I had had enough fun for one trip home and decided it was time to get ready for bed so I could come back to work and get some rest.

Summer Pictures....

2008-07-28T21:43:00.021-08:00

Since I haven't posted any pictures in awhile here are a bunch from our summer.They aren't in any particular order because it is pretty hard to organize pictures when uploading them to blogger. All of the pictures are either our spring/summer at home, which included Thane's sixth birthday party, winning the first annual Willow 4th of July Pet Costume Contest, a trip to Homer, and our our trip to Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, for my Dad's family reunion and Sandi's Grandfather's 90th birthday. Although they aren't in order, each has an explanation.

We spent two days in Gunnison with Sandi's friend Becky Barkman. Becky has horses and sled dogs. She spends the winters giving sled dog tours and the summers playing with horses. The small structure in the background is a straw bale guest cottage that we stayed in. It is a very cool structure.

Becky and Sandi talking about horses I'm sure...

Thane on the way from Durango to Silverton.

When we were in Silverton Thane wanted to go to the mining museum. Here he is sitting at a really old school desk.

The door to the Silverton Jail. The Sheriff and his family lived downstairs and the prisoners were kept upstairs. I bet his family didn't sleep too easy.

Thane in front of an ore bucket.

While we were wandering around Silverton we stopped at a shop called Weathertop Wovens. The shop is owned and run by Gary Davis and his wife Linda. We must have spent at least half an hour in their shop while Gary taught us how they weave all of their own fabric . The shirt he is wearing was just woven and made the day before! It is pretty amazing to watch someone take a bunch of spools of cotton and turn them into a whole sheet of fabric. While Gary was teaching us how they make their fabric, Linda was sewing a beautiful purple shawl. Their products are amazing and all of their fabric colors are made from color combinations they find in nature.

This was our day trip to White Sands National Park. We took sleds and all had fun sledding down the dunes. We had a competition to see who could make it the farthest. I ended up beating Sydney for the title but only by a few inches.

Thane in the pool in Las Cruces. His swimming has improved tons since he got his goggles.

After his swim he decided to work on his tan.

Sandi wasn't there for our first trip to White sands so a bunch of us went for a night trip. There was a lightning storm in the distance both to the north and south. It was amazing. My mom is in a wheelchair and couldn't see the sunset and lightning sitting by the car between two dunes so I carried her to the top of the dune to take in the view. Luckily it was a lot smaller than the ones I was climbing in Algeria or I might have had a stroke.

Sandi and Thane at the peak of Molas Pass between Durango and Silverton.

This is the Miracle Staircase in the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe. It is an amazing feat of carpentry that made a spiral staircase that is completely unsupported. Thane didn't want to leave, he was really impressed with the whole chapel. This chapel was the first Gothic style building west of the Mississippi River. It reminded me a lot of the churches I saw in Italy.

My cousin Rob is a police officer for the Las Cruces PD and was a hit with all of the kids at the family reunion. He let them all turn on the lights and sirens on his patrol car. All of the kids were much more impressed than the neighbors.

My Aunt Shirley, Dad, Aunt Jean, Uncle Buddy, and Aunt Kay with the Organ mountains in the background.

The view from the top of one of the dunes at White Sands.

Sandi, Thane and Barley (our Australian Shepard) in Homer before we went on our trip.

Homer is set in one of the most beautiful locations in Alaska.

A public checker board in Santa Fe.

The front door of the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe.

The alter in Loretto Chapel, very European.

In early June we had a cow moose get into Sandi's arena. I tried to get Sandi to saddle her up but the moose was a little wound up since she had a calf with her. She ended up jumping the fence rail to get out.

All of my parents grandchildren in one place.

This is Aubrey, my sister TJ's little girl. Thane loves to read to her and she really likes it.

We got Thane a bike in May and this picture was when he was first learning. Now he is riding all over and always on the go.

Along with his bike Thane is working on becoming a good horseman. I bet it won't be too long until he is jumping on both a horse and bike.

I was sitting with all three of my aunts and Thane came in and sat down. I was explaining to him that my Dad has three sisters just like I do, and just like him I have three aunts that are all sisters. Then I realized that all three of my sisters were in the room also, so we decided to take a picture. Here is Thane with me and all three of my sisters and my Dad and all three of his sisters. Rachelle is behind my Aunt Shirley, TJ is behind my Aunt Jean, and Jana is behind my Aunt Kay and my Dad is hiding in back.

The top of the dune at White Sands. I was very happy at this point that it wasn't any higher.

Sandi, myself, Mom, TJ, and my cousin Becky on top of the dune.

Me and my parents. It looks more like snow than sand.

I was wondering if we were going to make it back down without me passing out.

On the 4th of July we went to the local parade which is pretty small by most standards. Afterwards we went to the community center for kids games and hamburgers. While we were there I saw this reporter and her camera man from the local NBC News in Anchorage and I was harassing them about not having too much to cover since they were in Willow for the 4th of July. It turns out that they had come out to cover a pet costume contest. I decided why not go home and grab an alpaca and throw something on him just to make a showing. On the way home I came up with the perfect costume. I think I can honestly say that Sue our white alpaca is probably the only alpaca on the planet that has ever worn a rescue life vest, spray skirt and kayak helmet. It turns out that we won the whole contest! I felt a little bad since some of the people put a lot of effort into their animals costumes but it was too funny not to do.

Sue in the camper van on the way to the contest. He wasn't too excited about the whole experience.

Thane with Sue's ribbon.

Sue before the judging; he got over his fear of the camera pretty fast and was signing autographs right after the awards.

Thane's pony Red.

He likes the attention and doesn't mind a little modeling.

Little Miss Aubrey likes to model too! Ever seen a Valdez Heli Ski Guides hat look that cute on anyone else?

A little swimwear modeling.

Thane in a gallery in Santa Fe.

Sandi (on the right) and her cousin Paige.

Baby Hayden

Sandi's sister Stefani and her husband were the only ones that didn't make Jims 90th birthday because Hayden arrived a short time before the celebration and he wasn't up for the drive to Cheyenne.

After Thane's birthday he had two of his friends spend the night and the next day we went to Talkeetna for Moose Dropping Festival. This is what happens when you combine boys with cotton candy and rain.

Grandpa Jim at the park.

Thane and Rachelle in Santa Fe.

Thane and a couple of sleepy Santa Fe bears.

Thane unwrapping his loot at his 6th birthday party.

The presents just kept stacking up. Luckily the weather cooperated with us and the day turned out pretty nice.

This is Tumbler, he is our new livestock guardian dog. He is a four month old Maremma. I think he is going to be pretty big.

Tumbler lives with the horses and alpacas and has a doggie door into the little barn.

Thane did a little rock climbing at Moose Dropping.

Right before I came back to work TJ and Aubry, Thane and I, and a couple of friends hiked down to the creek. This is the first time in years that I have been down there without a kayak. I'd rather paddle down the creek than hike back up the hill. This is the last waterfall at the bottom of a class V box canyon that starts about a mile upstream.

TJ and Aubrey.

Thane and I.

This is my favorite spot on the creek.

We went to the Denver Zoo the day we flew home from Colorado. We made it about an hour and a half before they closed so the elephants were heading in for dinner when we made it to see them.

Eklutna Lake the night we flew home. This is at 1 am in early July, note Denali and Foraker in the distance.

Thane was a trooper at 2am as we rode the shuttle to the parking lot.

This was a wasp I saw eating a catipillar. I tried to get a close up but I am alergic to bee stings so I figured it wasn't worth risking death no matter how cool it looked.

An 11pm sunset on one of the last non-rainy days this summer.

Tim and Hayden. Thane says that Hayden looks just like Tim without the glasses and beard.

Thane and his Great Grandpa Jim. I really like that they get to spend time together every summer.

A peacock that took an interest in me at the Denver Zoo.

I'm pretty sure this was the elusive two humped rasta camel.

The peacocks liked Thane too.

In Casper Wyoming we stopped at a gas station next to a restraunt that had all of these dinosaurs out front. Thane loved them.

NEVER put your head in the mouth of a T Rex!

Baby boy and baby tricerratops.

Hanging out with a stegasoraus.

TJ and Aubrey on our hike to the creek.

I have been pretty slow updating the blog lately due to lack of motivation...

2008-07-21T22:36:00.002-08:00

In the last eight weeks or so since my last post I have been busy with traveling and projects and haven't felt much like writing. My mom has been hounding me for a new post for awhile now, so here it is.

I had six weeks off of work in June and July, and boy did it go fast! The first two weeks we worked on getting the barn ready for the SIP (stress skin panels) walls and picked them up from Anchorage last week but they are just in a pile in the yard. I'm also adding a cupola to the top of the barn, so I have been working to finish cutting it because it has two 24' 8x8's in it I have to use a crane to put it on top of the barn. Since I have to have a crane to install my SIP's I wanted to be ready with the cupola at the same time. The way that life seems to work though, I haven't been able to focus only on the things I want to work on. We continued with one of our fencing projects which took three days, went camping and halibut fishing in Homer, and we also took a two week trip to New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. I did manage to get a few days of kayaking in though.

My dad's family had a family reunion in Las Cruces and out of about 118 family members I think there were about 114 of us there. I haven't seen some of them in twenty plus years so it was really nice to spend a few days catching up. The 100+ F weather was also very nice since we have had a summer that has only broke into the 70's three times all year. We made a couple trips to White Sands National Park while we were there. The dunes weren't nearly as big as the ones I was climbing in Algeria but the sand was really pretty and we took sleds so the kids all got to go sledding in the sand.
After the reunion we headed north to make Sandi's Grandpa Jim's 90th birthday in Cheyene Wyoming the next week. We drove through Durango, Silverton, Uray, Montrose, Gunnison (spent two days), Crested Butte, Salida, and then back north to Cheyenne. I've been to Durango and Silverton when I was younger but have never been to the Gunnison area. I really enjoyed the drive but the 10,000 ft altitude almost did me in. We didn't curtail our driving when we got to Wyoming either; after Jim's birthday party we drove the five plus hours up to Lander to see Tim, Stefani, and their brand new baby. Unfortunately due to our short schedule we only stayed one night before heading back to Cheyenne. After two weeks we managed to put 3500 miles on the rental car.

On the day we flew out of Denver we met with the Geothermal Consultant that we met in April at the Timberframers Conference. I wanted to discuss all of our options for trying to lower our heating costs and see what we could get done before winter. I am now questioning my desire to get something implemented before winter. Not because I don't think it will work, but because my last two weeks at home were swamped with the additional planning to get ready for the geothermal as well as working on all of my ongoing projects. I also don't think I'll have a free day until at least the first part of October.

I am now the proud owner of 9000' of tubing for the geo system but I now have to dig trenches to put it in. That means I'll be spending almost a week digging trenches and laying tubing in August to get ready for a September installation of the Water Furnace ( www.waterfurnace.com )and the rest of the system.

So that in a nutshell is why I haven't posted in a while. I hope to post pictures of the whole geothermal installation process as well as the cupola and SIP installation. I'll try to post some pictures from the last few weeks as well.

A new quest...

2008-05-22T20:22:00.002-08:00

I haven't posted in a while because I have been pretty busy trying to get ready for all of my summer projects. My summer projects (if any are viable) are increasing exponentially because I am trying to find and implement several alternative energy sources for our house and barn. With heating oil at $4/gal last winter it was kind of costly to heat our house and by this winter it will be somewhere around $5.50 if it continues on it's current upward trend. My problem is that my major project for the summer is a roof and walls for the barn so we can have a heated barn and shop for the winter. I'm not looking at keeping it at 70 degrees but even keeping a 3400 square foot building at 50 degrees all winter would be expensive.

Right now I'm researching geothermal heating, solar hot water heating, passive solar heating, wind generators and a couple of other things as well. I figured it would take the better part of the summer to just complete my roof and walls on the barn but if I add any of these other projects I am going to have to eliminate my love for sleeping in for the rest of the year. I'm not 100% sure on any of these technologies but if I tried three or four and each was a little successful I'd be better off than I am right now. I just have to figure out which technologies to try first. I have found a few people who are using a couple of the technologies successfully but all in all I haven't found a lot of info about our area as of yet. All of the options are a little overwhelming, I'm not exactly sure where to start. None of the alternatives are cheap but they can't be much worse than the total cost of fuel oil in a year. I'm also planning to invest in a Toyota Prius really really soon.

I guess we'll see how things pan out in about six months!

A better visual...

2008-05-03T21:16:00.002-08:00

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...

2008-05-01T19:40:00.018-08:00

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...

2008-04-14T23:12:00.005-08:00

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???

2008-04-04T14:18:00.008-08:00

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…

2008-03-31T17:41:00.006-08:00

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…

2008-03-28T20:35:00.003-08:00

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...

2008-03-14T05:34:00.004-08:00

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...

2008-03-11T11:54:00.007-08:00

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...

2008-03-08T22:44:00.011-09:00

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...

2008-03-07T11:04:00.009-09:00

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

2008-03-05T04:42:00.011-09:00

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.....

2008-02-28T22:08:00.005-09:00

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.....

2008-02-25T21:45:00.005-09:00

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 real hard you will see it upside down under the big spruce tree.

I'm not sure how he managed it but it looked awesome!

Lucky boy, not so much as a scratch!

Here is how I spent a fair bit of my time.....

Start shoveling...again!

This is deep snow, step off and it is waist deep. Get stuck and start digging!

What could be more fun or better exercise......