good times down town

During the Iditirod there is a festival down town. This is one of my favorite events, the out house races. This paticular outhouse represents a first impression I started to notice when we had just arrived. There are little to no building codes in much of Alaska. It turns out that a plastic tarp and house wrap work well enough for many, many Alaskans as permenant exterior protection from the weather.

Feb-Mar 09

I know what you are thinking, how did he get something with a track that long stuck. Carb frost, the carburator was sticking so the machine jumped between stages of wide open and idleing. I just needed a little shove and I was on my way. We rented this 800 ski doo and a 600. It was a day full of trouble. We didn't know there was a little valve that would defrost the carb on this machine. Greg Harr and I had purchased a late model, low mile machine. This being it's maiden voyage for us, we opened it up on a open field and siezed the engine. After towing it back, we headed out again. I was now doubled up on Aaron Butikofers antique trail machine. This thing had metal skiis and nubbs for tread on his track. Ironically, it was the only machine that never had a problem. The 600 we rented I ended up losing controll of doing a hill climb,(actually on the decent) and wrapped it around a tree. I was spared any major injury by being deflected, as I went over the handle bars, by my guardian angel. Lessons learned: Always bring at least one ex-college football player and a couple of extra buddies with you in case you need to peel your machine off a tree.

Our new hobbie Feb. 2009

There is over 5o miles of lit trails through Anchorage, so we have decided to take up Cross country skiing. My intitial impression, not much fun, but good exersize. The trees get beautiful after a few weeks at -20. That is frost on everything, it builds up just like in a deep freeze. It was about -17 this night. My face was exposed only for the photo.

we cut down our tree this year. Here is the After and Before.

largest beaver dam in the world

Out of all the beaver dam's this is the biggest one in my world. I not sure what he was trying to catch, all the fish were on the other side of it trying to get in.