A tale of a frozen family

I know I’ve posted before about how irritated I was, with her being super mom and all.   Hiding a pregnancy on a teensy tiny frame until the 7th month,  flying home from Texas AFTER her water broke, to ensure she didn’t have her baby anywhere other than Alaska (baby #5) and still running the state.   I really loathed her! LOL

Well, it appears she’s got herself in a bit of a pickle.    A few weeks ago, she fired our states “top cop”, the head over the entire Alaska State Troopers.   She appointed a no name police chief from a very small town in Alaska.   Everyone was in shock.

Well…. it turns out, that her ex BIL is a State Trooper.   It also turns out that her ex BIL and his wife (her sister) had a VERY nasty divorce.   It appears that our governor and her family filed dozens of reports against this officer, to the extent that the judge warned them to knock it off.    It also turns out that the governors husband approached our “top cop” to ask that his ex BIL be fired.    He refused to do such a thing.    So the rumor that is out right now is that he was fired because he refused to fire her ex BIL.     Our senate today voted 12 to zero to spend up to 100k on an internal investigation to see if our governor abused her power in office.    Between this and half of our political representatives going to prison in the last year or so…… AND our longest standing senator, Ted Stevens… was just indicted today on 7 charges!  Politics in Alaska are getting INTERESTING!

In addition to THAT drama, the new top cop evidently lied about a little “sexual harassment” complaint that was filed against him.  Well, lie isn’t a fair term.   Exclusion of the truth is a better term.   I mean seriously…. when my DH was hired as law enforcement, his background check was so extensive that they knew if he failed a test in the 5th grade.  HOW ON EARTH does one get appointed for the highest position in law enforcement in this state and have THAT hidden in his file????     When the media hounded him and our governor repeatedly about this finding, he resigned from his position after two weeks.    So now we have no one leading our law enforcement and lord knows what will happen with that poor department now!   Did I mention I’m so glad my hubby doesn’t work for them anymore?

So anyway…. there is a quick little politically drama and gossip for anyone who cares

So I was suppose to *ahem* get my butt back here and finish my Seward blog, in addition to about a million other blogs that I had in my mind to do.   Then this thing called life keeps getting in the way.   The really annoying thing, is that I can’t narrow down any one thing in life that has kept me at bay from the blog. 

At any rate…. if there is anyone left, subscribed to this pathetic little neglected blog… here goes

Seward, Alaska… the continuation.   A little Seward tidbit/history:

Seward is situated on Resurrection Bay on the southeast coast of the Kenai Peninsula, 125 highway miles south of Anchorage. It lies at the foot of Mount Marathon, and is the gateway to the Kenai Fjords National Park. It lies at approximately 60° 07′ N Latitude, 149° 26′ W Longitude (Sec. 10, T001S, R001W, Seward Meridian). The community is located in the Seward Recording District. The area encompasses 15 sq. miles of land and 7 sq. miles of water.

Resurrection Bay was named in 1792 by Russian fur trader and explorer Alexander Baranof. While sailing from Kodiak to Yakutat, he found unexpected shelter in this bay for a storm. He named the Bay Resurrection because it was the Russian Sunday of the Resurrection. The City of Seward was named for U.S. Secretary of State William Seward, 1861-69, who negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia during the Lincoln administration. In the 1890s, Capt. Frank Lowell arrived with his family. In 1903, John and Frank Ballaine and a group of settlers arrived to begin construction of a railroad. Seward became an incorporated City in 1912. The Alaska Railroad was constructed between 1915 and 1923, and Seward developed as the ocean terminus and supply center. By 1960, Seward was the largest community on the Peninsula. Tsunamis generated after the 1964 earthquake destroyed the railroad terminal and killed several residents. As an ice-free harbor, Seward has become an important supply center for Interior Alaska.   The information source is found here .

Sooooo…. the weather over the weekend was some what dismal, but amazingly, as we set sail on our bay cruise, the clouds broke and the sun shone.  It was beautiful.   I have to giggle a bit though, because as we were getting ready to sail, a young woman announced to the whole ship that she had prayed that we would have nice weather that day (that wasn’t the funny part) and that she was thankful to god for giving us such beautiful weather (again, not the funny part).   She DID however, neglect to pray to God to keep her from barfing all over the back of the boat.  I would have taken a picture, but I feel that would have been in bad taste *giggle*.   Okay… so silly school girl mentality aside.   Here is a photo montage of our day.

This is how the weather started this morning:

And although quite dismal, it’s still got some breathtaking beauty.   I adore this waterfall……

I really wish we had that kind of beauty in the burbs that we live.  I can’t complain though…. the beauty we have within a few hours drive is well worth the lackluster surrounds we have.    NOW.. remember how I said the weather cleared that day.  This is literally 2 hours later!  You have to love ocean towns and ocean weather fronts.

 Hello little sea otter….. aren’t they CUTE!

Oh… and can you say BOAT ENVY????   I don’t even want to know how expensive this little “blow boat” is.   Interestingly enough, the boat is from South Africa.   Nothing like be a tad bit from home huh?

Boat envy aside, it was a beautiful day and the seas were somewhat calm (well, except for that poor girl *giggle*)  Here is the boat we set sail on.

So much pretty scenery.  That is the one thing that you will just never run out of in South East Alaska.

One thing I don’t truly understand about this area of the state is the agriculture.  I’m a little dumbfounded as to how vegitation will grow on rocks…. with no dirt, surrounded by extreme weather and salt water, but it really does happen.   We have flowers that grow on rocks…..

And we have trees that grow on rocks….

and then we have ADORABLE  seals that are cute as can be…. and oh my holy heavens do these things STINK!  We got close enough on the boat to truly catch a wiff.   OY VEY!

And lets not forget big papa… the Stellar Sea Lion (he’s the very large mass at the bottom of the rocks)

 We were fortunate to see an amazing waterfall with a rainbow.  It truly was beautiful and I wish I could have captured it better on camera.

Then we can’t forget our glaciers.   We have thousands of them.  Here is one of the smaller ones that we passed as we were cruising back into the bay.

 Did I mention we have some pretty kick butt fishing????   Can you say HOLY HALIBUT????

Fish & Chips anyone?

So there you have it.  A little recap of a great weekend in a great little town in Alaska!   

Every 4th of July, in Seward, they have the annual Mount Marathon race.    What is the Mount Marathon race you ask?   It’s a race that is 3.1 miles in length.  It starts in downtown Seward and involves climbing to the top of a mountain and running back down.   The vertical ascent in many areas is 65 degrees.  

I’ve witnessed this race twice now.   It’s broken into several classes (Juniors, Men’s, Women’s, etc.) and it’s amazing to see how torn up and muddy these folks are when they reach the finish line.   The trek up the mountain is so high, that they are in the snow at the top and many times are sliding down that snow on the way down.   Sliding down snow while wearing running shorts is never a good combination and thus the reason you see so many people bleeding on their return.

Here is a link to a full history of the race.    And here are pictures that we took.

The race start.

Remember the mountain I said they had to climb???  Well, here it is.  All the way to the top!

The beginning of the men’s race.

More men…..

 In addition to the race, they have their 4th of July parade as well.   Parades in Seward, just aren’t like the parades you are used to if you are from an area with a population greater than a thousand, but they are cute nonetheless!  

Take this float for example.   This is an actual couple, actually getting married, on this float.

and no parade is complete without a trolley car…

Or a whale!

Or best yet…. the senior citizen rock band!  (and they ROCKED!!!)

All in all… it was a good day!    I have more pictures from the rest of the trip, but I’ll save those for another day… as they are all about the absolute beauty of south east Alaska!!!!  (and I promise… they are PERTY!!)

I am trying very hard to be positive today, but I woke up to a BLIZZARD!  a BLIZZARD at the end of April…. are you kidding me?????

I’m also sore from head to toe.  Every part of my body hurts, I’m tired and I just want to sleep

I wrote a while back about our governor announcing her pregnancy, in her SEVENTH month and no one was aware of her pregnancy (and she’s a TINY woman!).  I cried and whined about how she takes the bar on motherhood to a whole other level and that she needed to act just a little bit normal to make the rest of us not feel like monumental failures.

Well… our governor had her son, a month early this last week and it’s stirred up quite the controversy among folks in the state (and outside the state for that matter).

This is an excerpt from www.adn.com  “Gov. Sarah Palin gave birth to her fifth child at 6:30 this morning at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, her spokeswoman said today.

The boy’s name is Trig Paxson Van Palin. He’s 6 pounds, 2 ounces.

“The governor’s labor began while she was in Texas, and I do know that she got on a plane and landed in Anchorage late last night,” said Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow.”

It turns out that Trig was born with Down Syndrome. Something that she was made aware of in early testing. Another quote from the Palin’s: “Trig is beautiful and already adored by us. We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives.

“We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed.”

Now the controversy that has been flying around is the fact that her water broke during a summit in Texas and that she stayed to give a 1/2 hour long speech, then left and boarded an Alaska Airlines flight back to Alaska (a good 6 plus hours depending on your connections). The arguments stem from “that was incredibly risky and irresponsible, ESPECIALLY since they knew he was a DS baby, who are born with more complications” to “it’s her body, her choice”. There have been some pretty nasty comments flying around about the whole thing.

I’m of the camp that I don’t think it was the wisest decision. I can’t imagine a doctor on this planet would encourage their patient to board a plane for a long flight after their membranes have broken. Alaska Airlines would have never let her board had they known her membranes had ruptured.  A whole other argument has arisen that she openly lied by omission to the airlines, and what does that do for her credibility??

I am glad that the little man made it into this world without serious complications. He definitely has someone looking over him.

I’ve talked briefly in the past about our governor. How she was rated the “hottest governor in the US”, she recently did a photo-shoot for Vogue. You can read all about that here.

On top of her general gorgeousness… and don’t get me wrong… she still holds a very close spot in my heart since the day she stopped me in the grocery store and told me she LOVED my Chanel glasses :), but it’s getting REALLY hard to like her.

You see… she just announced to the public that she’s expecting her FIFTH child. Now… one would say “dang her…. she looks really freaking good for already having had four children”. She’s got to be no more than a size 2 on a bloated day. Then one would have to say “dang… you go girl… I can’t imagine birthing my 5th child at 44″. Who am I kidding… I had Em at 37 and most days it’s a struggle to keep up with a 4 year old… and I’m not running our state!. But THEN… she had to drop the news that made me just…. well… HATE HER. The woman is SEVEN MONTHS PREGNANT and nobody in the capital was onto her. When she actually proclaimed her pregnancy, most of the capital dropped their jaws and said “she doesn’t even LOOK pregnant”. There have been a million articles about her pregnancy announcement. Here is just one of them. How does a woman with a frame so small HIDE a pregnancy for SEVEN months? I looked like I was ready to birth any day at 20 weeks. I seriously hate her! It’s just not fair! *insert serious temper tantrum here*

The Aurora Borealis are natural colored light displays, which are usually observed in the night sky, particularly in the polar zone. Some scientists call them “polar auroras” (or “aurorae polares”). In northern latitudes, it is known as the aurora borealis, named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. It often appears as a greenish glow (or sometimes a faint red), as if the sun were rising from an unusual direction. The aurora borealis is also called the northern polar lights, as it is only visible in the North sky from the Northern Hemisphere. The aurora borealis most often occurs from September to October and from March to April.

Auroras are produced by the collision of charged particles from Earth’s magnetosphere, mostly electrons but also protons and heavier particles, with atoms and molecules of Earth’s upper atmosphere (at altitudes above 80 km). The particles have energies of 1 to 100 keV. Most originate from the Sun and arrive at the vicinity of Earth in the relatively low-energy solar wind. When the trapped magnetic field of the solar wind is favourably oriented (principally southwards) it reconnects with Earth’s magnetic field, and solar particles enter the magnetosphere and are swept to the magnetotail. Further magnetic reconnection accelerates the particles towards Earth.

The collisions in the atmosphere electronically excite atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere. The excitation energy can be lost by light emission or collisions. Most aurorae are green and red emission from atomic oxygen. Molecular nitrogen and nitrogen ions produce some low level red and very high blue/violet aurorae.

Typically the aurora appears either as a diffuse glow or as “curtains” that approximately extend in the east-west direction. At some times, they form “quiet arcs”; at others (”active aurora”), they evolve and change constantly. Each curtain consists of many parallel rays, each lined up with the local direction of the magnetic field lines, suggesting that aurora is shaped by Earth’s magnetic field. Indeed, satellites show electrons to be guided by magnetic field lines, spiraling around them while moving towards Earth.

The curtains often show folds called “striations”, which are curtain-like. When the field line guiding a bright auroral patch leads to a point directly above the observer, the aurora may appear as a “corona” of diverging rays, an effect of perspective.

Although it was first mentioned by Ancient Greek explorer/geographer Pytheas, Hiorter and Celsius first described in 1741 evidence for magnetic control, namely, large magnetic fluctuations occurred whenever the aurora was observed overhead. This indicates (it was later realized) that large electric currents were associated with the aurora, flowing in the region where auroral light originated. Kristian Birkeland (1908)[1] deduced that the currents flowed in the east-west directions along the auroral arc, and such currents, flowing from the dayside towards (approximately) midnight were later named “auroral electrojets” (see also Birkeland currents).

Still more evidence for a magnetic connection are the statistics of auroral observations. Elias Loomis (1860) and later in more detail Hermann Fritz (1881)[2] established that the aurora appeared mainly in the “auroral zone”, a ring-shaped region with a radius of approximately 2500 km around Earth’s magnetic pole, not its geographic pole. It was hardly ever seen near that pole itself. The instantaneous distribution of auroras (”auroral oval”, Yasha/Jakob Feldstein 1963[3]) is slightly different, centered about 3-5 degrees nightward of the magnetic pole, so that auroral arcs reach furthest towards the equator around midnight. The aurora can be seen best at this time.

WHEW! So…. there is the science behind the Aurora Borealis. (Thank you google!) I’ve also included a bunch of pictures that I found on Google, of the Aurora . Photographing the northern lights is a difficult task at best. You’ve got to be a pretty accomplished photographer and have your cameras set right if you ever hope to get a decent picture. I can’t tell you how many rolls of film hubby and I went through before we realized we just weren’t cut out for it. There is a gentleman here who gives a good lesson on what it takes to capture some pictures. We tried them… we failed That is why I love google so!

Here is a picture taken from outerspace (compliments of NASA). Is this not amazing?

At any rate. The human perspective of the Aurora is this….. it’s beautiful. It’s breath taking. It’s something that you can’t experience the feeling of, with anything else. I remember when we lived in Fairbanks (who gets the lights a lot more than where we are now) laying in the back of my pick up and just watching them for as long as I could physically stand the cold. I swear that you can hear them. All of that was topped by the time I flew THROUGH them…. AMAZING! ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. It was a TON of turbulence, but utterly AMAZING.

OK. Time for another weekly installment of “Only in Alaska will you see…..”

This week is Fur Rondy. Our events started on the 22nd and will run through the 2nd of March.

What is Fur Rondy? It’s the Fur Rendezvous, also known as “Fur Rondy,” Anchorage’s February festival. It’s filled with events like the weight pull. In this event, the dogs demonstrate their strength by hauling weighted sleds several yards. The weights can total 1,000 pounds or more.

Alaska’s fur trade isn’t what it was a generation or two ago, but Fur Rondy provided parade watchers with an opportunity to see folks who “shur nuff” looked like old-time trappers.

There are also parades, ice sculpting competitions, a carnival (a favorite of Em’s!), Cribbage tournaments, native music, horse drawn carriage rides (keep in mind this is all happening right in the middle of downtown Anchorage! Our biggest city in the state… FOR A WEEK!). We have crab races… The Crustacean 500. We have car races on ice and the newest edition of Rondy insanity… The running of the reindeer!
Here is a photo taken by Anchorage Daily News

And check out this link for a complete slideshow!

If you want to read up on the details of this new (and VERY popular event) you can check it out here:

Soooo… are ya’ll convinced that we are just the craziest batch of folks in the northern hemisphere or what??? What can I say… I dig it here. What.. what does that say about me? hmmmmm… no comment!

The one thing about Alaska, is that I can say over and over and over “Only in Alaska will you find/see/do….”

The Iron Dog race is one of those things. 

The Iron Dog is the longest snow machine race in the world.   It goes from Wasilla, Alaska to Nome, Alaska and Ends in Fairbanks, Alaska.  A total of 1,971 miles.  (here is a link to the course map:  http://www.irondog.org/archives/Course%20Map.pdf )   This years winning purse is: $165,775! No wonder it’s such a popular event!

Each team consists of two snow machines and two riders.   They ride in pairs for safety.  The course goes through some pretty tough terrain, and it’s always good to have a partner with you, should something go wrong. They face amazing weather obstacles in addition to the terrain. All in all, it’s a ROUGH ROUGH race. Most racers virtually throw their snow machines away after this race. And they leave with BRAND NEW snow machines. Did I mention it’s a tough race? Hard on racers, hard on machines.

This years race started on Sunday, February 10 and finished on Saturday, February 16. There as a total of 40 teams. 23 of those teams were rookie teams, 5 of those team are out of state teams. The racers leave the starting line in 2 minute intervals and their times are tracked till the finish. The team with the shortest time is the winner. Their starting position is decided by draw before the race day.

This years winners were team #14, Quam and McKenna (their bio is here:  http://www.irondog.org/racers/bios/2008/14.htm )

Even our lovely Governor, Sara Palin’s husband gets involved. He’s won this event several times. He had a bit of a crash this year that evidently required some medical care, but ended up finishing 4th. Not bad for the “First dude of the frontier” (their bio: http://www.irondog.org/racers/bios/2008/22.htm )

Here is a link to the numerous photos that were taken from all the different areas of the course this year. It gives you some great perspective to just how “out in the middle of nowhere” these teams are! http://www.irondog.org/gallery/2008/index.htm

So there you have it.  Only in Alaska will be race just about anything (just wait till I get to some of our summer race events… you’ll roll over in laughter) but we’ll race just about anywhere… for ANYTHING :)  You just gotta love us crazy Alaskans!

Okay, so last week we only touched the surface of Prudhoe Bay.   We talked about the camps, life inside them, working hours, etc.   Now… lets talk about life outside the camp.

In addition to the many “fields” or “operating areas” in Prudhoe Bay, we also have the “city” of Deadhorse.  Deadhorse is an area that is not owned by oil companies and is open to the public.  That is where the airport is, which is where the Charter crew change plane flies into, in addition to Alaska Airlines (and I think a couple smaller airlines as well) fly into.   It’s not exactly “large and in charge”, but it’s an airport nonetheless, and they never lost my luggage!

There is also the Prudhoe Bay general store.  This is where I drove on Thanksgiving Day 2002, with my co-worker Todd, to get a pregnancy test!

There is full story of the store here: http://www.colvilleinc.com/store.html

Another part of Prudhoe Bay is the wildlife.  TONS and TONS of wildlife.  For all of the environmentalists that say the oil production is destroying the lives of the wildlife, I have to disagree.  They seem completely content co-mingling, and appear to have no problems keeping up their production numbers!

Here are the cute little caribou grazing in the field.

We have TONS of bears…. who LOVE to get into trouble.  This bear is on the THIRD floor!

This is Toby… Toby is a little too comfortable with camp life.

The soccer mom of Prudhoe Bay?

Didn’t these little ones know that perms went out in the 80s?????

And last but not least… the Polar Bear.   If you ever see a Polar Bear, make sure you head in the other direction.  Polar Bears are the only species, besides humans that hunt for FUN.  They look pretty, but they are mean and nasty buggers.

Another topic of discussion is oil production from Prudhoe Bay.  Since this is the stuff I deal with every day, blogging about it is like asking me to shove bamboo under my fingernails.   To spare me the pain, I’ll include a little “production facts” fresh from the big boys offices for your enjoyment (which subsequently gives you the pleasure of being able to pass right over that link, in the event oil production is as exciting to you as shoving bamboo under your fingernails!) http://www.dec.state.ak.us/SPAR/PERP/response/sum_fy06/060302301/factsheets/060302301_factsheet_PB.pdf

 So, there you have it.  This concludes Prudhoe Bay 101.  Are you ready to jump onto the crew change and start your first hitch?