Friday Theme, 6 Month Check In

July In July, the day before my birthday (8th) we decided to go hiking Granite Tors. Granite Tors is one of the really accessible hikes from Fairbanks, well by that I mean only about 1hr drive from Fairbanks. The hike itself is a loop and you can do it in a day or camp at the top of the tors. The loop itself is 15 miles. Elevation wise you start at around 700 feet and continue up to around 3100 feet when you hit the top. We did the loop backwards, which mean we had a lovely 4 miles gaining 2400 feet. Out of which 1000 feet was gained in 1 mile. It was steep to say the least.

This picture above is showing the start of the hike, before we started to climb. It is a really nice hike, but bear spray is a must. I know a lot of people do not bring their bear spray on hikes like this, cause they think it is not necessary.....and then we get the stories like the woman with her two nephews? can't remember, two kids anyway, and they ran into a bear hiking Granite Tors. She did everything you can do wrong. If you are going to hike in bear country you have to know what to do, in case you do run into a bear.

This is a picture showing part of the steep climb. We were really lucky cause the weather was so nice.

The view itself is pretty amazing, and you have all these tors to climb around on.

August

My family arrived here in August, and we went to Denali, Palmer and the State Fair, Homer and back up to Fairbanks again. August is such a wonderful time of the year, the colors are Amazing!

We also have a lot of wildfires up here in August, well actually starting in May and ongoing. But this picture was taken in August.

September

In September the temperatures begin to drop and before you know it, winter is around the corner, well almost. Still amazing colors, but also rainy weather.

But you know what they say in Sweden, there is no bad weather, just bad clothes.

We got lots of beets from our garden this summer, so we canned all our beets, they were so good!

I also took my parents to the watershed. But my mom refused to leave the car since one of my friends saw two grizzlys running back and forth on the road when she was there a couple of days earlier.

I showed my dad and mom how to operate the ATV, fun times :)

After that we had lunch at the famous Chatnika lodge.

October

Snow and darkness, but beautiful sunsets.

Before the snow we also had the Forest Festival, but I already mentioned that in a previous post, but that called for some nice pictures. At this point it was mainly a long wait for the snow to start falling for real, so we could bring out the skis.

November

Finally snow. It had been snowing for a couple of days and we decided to drive up murphy dome and hike in the snow. Do I need to emphasize any stronger how much I love snow, and playing in the snow? Me and my traditional handstand. We also have excellent ski trails on campus, which means we can easily get a nice ski in during lunch break. Olive seem to like the snow too, most of the time anyway.

Tycho on the other hand usually doesn't wander off outside, he likes to stick around in front of the wood stove.

December

December arrived and we went to San Francisco for a conference. And I took some pictures from the plane of Alaska.

As of now, we are already past the shortest day of the year, and we are gaining around 6 minutes every day.

With all the snow we have gotten so far, I am sure we will have lots of spring adventures in the snow. Happy Friday!

When the simple life becomes hard

-So, what do you mean by dry cabin?

-Well, you know, we don't have any running water, an outhouse and yeah that's about it

-So, you are allowed to drink alcohol then?

You see, the term dry, can very well mean dry, as in no alcohol. On the North Slope (and elsewhere in Alaska) there are villages that are dry. You can't get alcohol there. The whole dry cabin deal has nothing to do with this at all. The town of Fairbanks happens to be underlained by discontinuous permafrost

What does this mean? Soil, that remains continuously frozen for at least two consecutive years. This in turn makes it very unstable to build on, let alone, have a well or pipes that can transport water to you. This means, that if you don't live on campus, or downtown you probably live in a cabin. Not necessarily a dry cabin, cause a lot of cabins/houses has a large water tank (think a couple of 100 gallons). Anyhow, we have a dry cabin. a 35 Gallon water "tank" if you want to call it that. We have an outhouse, a chicken pen (that is not being used) a greenhouse, a terrace, a balcony, 2 floors, a woodstove, a foot pump for the sink AND a door to the outhouse. The previous cabin I lived in only had a curtain...

So what am I blabbering about? Well you know when life feels rough and you are stressed, living this simple life can very fast become hard. Who did the dishes last night, who emptied the bucket last (you know, with no pipes the water from the sink has to go somewhere). Oh, we are out of water....well then, I guess we can't do the dishes. No clean clothes, oh yeah, when was the last time I had a shower now again. These things that we usually take for granted when we do have running water becomes so much more complicated when you are running out of time, and it is -40 outside.

But we do try to make the best of the situation in the wintertime, keep the light sources to a maximum, even in the outhouse..

Waking up in the middle of the night, - Crap, the fire went out and it's now freezing cold (ok, think 55, maybe not that cold indoors, but you get the feeling..) Or when you hit rock bottom and it's below 50 and the propane freezes...which mean oh, we can't use the stove. Great. Or, oh I forgot to plug in the car last night...well good thing I have a bike. But it also gives you opportunities, such as making your dinner on the wood stove, warming up in front of the wood stove with a glass of wine and so on.

Alaska can grow on you, but they say, either you love it or you hate it. Either you move here, move away but always come back, OR you move to never ever return. I have no clue which one of these I am at this point. I love Alaska, but sometimes life is just hard up here.

But, days like that you go and climb some ice on campus, (cause yeah we do have that opportunity now), you go to the gym, to the climbing wall, hang out with friends knitting, or some other extraordinary thing. You talk about ordinary dry cabin things like, - Jeeze I needed to pee this morning and it was -40 outside, or - We ran out of propane right before dinner. Even siri knows what 30 below mean:

Alaska is so much more than living the simple life; you get the opportunity to experience a really tough lifestyle. Life is not always easy or straightforward up here. But we like it, and that is why we are still here I guess. But I do admit....a couple of years in, it doesn't become easier.

And if you need a winter wonderland, you know where to go! There is always snow here in the wintertime, but it comes with a price...the dark and the cold.

Alaska is so beautiful, calm and Awesome! All in one. And a lot of people would maybe disagree..but it is what it is. You can judge for yourself.

Almost always a blue sky in the wintertime here...

Have a warm Thursday night!

Friday theme, Belief, Hope and Love

Todays friday theme is belief hope and love, and is something that I hope everyone has. They say that hope is the last thing that leaves your body before you completely loose it, with hope you can at least think that it will get better in the future.I am not that religious but I believe in a bunch of other things in the world, such as climate change. I always hope that things are going to work out in the end, which it usually does. All you have to do is believe in yourself, right? But sometimes, when im standing there in the middle of nowhere, I wonder where we are headed in this world, or at least where I am headed... I am a thinker, and that means I spend a lot of time overanalyzing things, and worrying about things, thats why sometimes people can catch me pondering about life. Speaking about love, it's the love I have for my family and friends, who I don't see that much any longer, but I miss them a lot. Luckily I have W. And then, Olive of course, she is such a sweet kitty and Tycho of course, little sweet Tycho, that doesn't have any ears...

I will finish up with a song I think suits the theme for this Friday,

Keep your head up!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enOVkxd_n7c]