Hot date night! No better time to cash in on my birthday dinner at the Park’s fine dining establishment “229″, named after the mile marker it lies at on the Park highway.
I’ll let this multi-course culinary spread speak for itself.
229 Oysters
229 Salad
My rabbit
22's Scallops
Taking advantage of our trusty seasonal discount again, we manage to score a white water raft trip on the Nenana River, which is high and choppy with some decent Class 3’s. 22 and I got to be the pacesetters up front, with our Guide “Country” in the rear barking commands. We weren’t on the river 5 minutes, when we went over a fall that hammered us, soaked us wholly and made us swallow a gallon of river water from screaming and laughing. It was a thrill a minute from then on out during the 3-hr, 13 mile float thru the Nenana River canyon to Healy. Note to self: do this sooner and more frequently. The river is supposed to get really ragin’ around the first week of August. If you’re ever in Denali and in the mood for a float, visit the Denali Outdoor Center and ask for “Country”. You will not be disappointed.
Sunday night we had a very important RISK game competition with the neighbors. They declared a rematch after my global domination spree last week. 22 and I have a plan, an unspoken ally of sorts, guaranteed to win us the world again. We’ll stock the Western World with enough soldiers to infiltrate Russia, eventually Europe and Africa. A fail-proof plan if played correctly and not get too zealous with the battling.
In response to the popular demand for more puppy pictures ~ viola.
I realize the title is misleading for these now full-grown hounds, but that does not stop each one of them from being ir-re-zees-tible.
Almost all of the kennel dogs are present, sans the ones who were out for their evening stroll. Enough to make you go aaaahh…awwwww…ohhhhh for at least a good 2 minutes.
Borg, Minnesota cuz, Q and I head out for 3 days in the field doing sheep counts. We’re home-basing at the same Igloo cabin we occupied a few weeks ago. While we were lacking on actual sheep to observe, we killed it in hiking distances and spotted other interesting flaura and fauna.
Pika
And MORE IMPORTANTLY, I got to see the fifth of the Big 5. Eureka! I told myself I wasn’t going to leave AK without seeing a wolf. Now I can go back to the Lower 48. Thank god – I wasn’t looking forward to an Alaskan winter.
Here’s how it went down. The 4 of us pull over on the park road to eat lunch before we move on to our next sheep destination. We’re munching and gossiping when we see the wolf walking straight toward our Tracker, about 15 meters out. I leap into the back and fumble for my camera as its walking fast. I get it on just as the wolf approaches the front of our car. I get one shot onward, one shot as he walks by (so close I could reach my hand out the window and touch him), and one shot as he’s walking away. What happens next is hilarious. We’re staring at him in amazement… he stops dead in his tracks, crouches, takes a big poo, winks at us and then turns to keep going.
Wolf Poo
I SWEAR he winked at us with a smirk and a shrug that said “well, there you have it.” And there we had it.
Glute free
To celebrate the visitation from our good ole friends Krusty and Serra, ex Denali-ans who have since moved on to Skagway, we BBQ! G’n'C hosted at their beautiful cabin on Stampede Road. C is allergic to Gluten, Wheat and Dairy so it’s a fun challenge to come up with something creative and delicious that she can consume. If you need an EZ and tasty recipe of this nature, here is my recommendation: get over to Freddie’s in the Organic section and pick up the bagged premixed Gluten/Wheat/Dairy Free Peanut Butter cookie mix. Don’t ask me what it really is that gives the illusion of tasting like peanut butter – I don’t know. I added a few modest modifications – almond butter, dark chocolate (at least 60% cacao) and toasted coconut shavings. They came out slightly chewy, slightly crunchy and surprisingly flavorful. A big hit for such a small baking time commitment.
A little later in the week, the party continued with a pot luck at Borg and J-rods because Krusty and Serra *just happen* to bring 36 lbs of fresh Alaskan crab with them. With the will to break a leg and bibs tightly secured, we devoured. Sweet, sweet crab feet meat.
Sorry, no pictures to include with this entry – it’s better that way, trust you me. A funny story nonetheless.
What else does one do on a sweltering 90-degree Sunday in Denali? Grab a few essentials, drive to the Triple Lakes Trailhead and hike down to the Nenana river beach. Towel? Check. Sunscreen? Check. Rum? Check. Tunes? Check. We didn’t get there until 8 pm. PRIME suntanning time. In effort to rid ourselves of the quasi-innocuous farmers tans we’re sporting - we strip down, lather up the important things and plunk down next to the river. In all honesty, the only people we meant to potentially offend were the owners of the 5,000 sq foot way-too-huge-and-glamourous log cabin home situated in the bluff overlooking the river. Surely the park superintendents house, right? Anyone who builds such a fine, enviable establishment is compensating for lack of other things and is sure to have a telescope in their 40×40 ft living room picture window. We’re here for him. Really, what we managed to overlook was that the 6:30 pm raft trips would be passing by during our session. 22 and I were pondering what to make for dinner when we got back when we hear a shocking Japanese squeal. We look up just as a boat of Japanese tourist, mostly seniors, spotted us and starting pointing and giggling. Their tour guide made an attempt to call attention to a non existent bird on the other side of the river, but they didn’t fall for it. In the best frame of hospitality, we sat up in all our nekkid glory and waved. We were ‘bust’ed. One old woman gasped, waved and laughed so hard she half-fell out of the raft and her companions had to heave her back in!
We went back to bathing and two other boats sailed by without as much hoop-la.
So… about 10 pm we pack it in, hike out and drive back to C Camp. On the way, the ONE park police pulls us over for who knows what. It’s Officer O’Conner, who doesn’t recognize 22 until he’s walking up to his window, gun in tow. He peeks in, smiles and starts shooting the shit. When he asks what we were up to today, we tell him hanging out at the beach, nothing crazy, just a relaxing day. And says, “So YOU’RE the two nekkid bathers the planes and rafters are calling in on.”
All in a days work.
Don't try this at home
Even though this place falls no where under the category of ‘real world’, we still live for the weekend. WE LIVE TO RIDE!!
Vroom Vrooom!
We decided we have not taken full advantage of our seasonal employee discount offered by most vendors and it’s high time we do so. Starting by renting scooters from the Harley shop in the Canyon. 22 got the Red Rocket and I got the Camo Cooter Scooter. Advised by B the Manager not to get all agro with the horn, he sent us off for the afternoon. Getting agro with the horn? Pa-LEASE. We were prepared to get downright obnoxious with the horn. Especially at the park mechanics who are on strike claiming unfair wages. Let me see, you get paid an ungodly amount that allows you to work only five months of the year, fixing buses in one of the most beautiful national parks in the world and just about anyone would do your job for muuuuch less. But I digress (in the end, their union agreed to compromise and they went off strike after 2 weeks or so). Any rate, we took the hogs into the Park and rode the 15 miles out to Savage Rock. A splendid ride.
Hog'er Reflection
Did a picnic lunch out there and harassed some tundra chix and sped back to the Canyon, hitting up the Outdoor Center, the lodges and many other things on the way. Nothing but the open road and the wind in our hair. We could make this a lifestyle and will consider turning in the Forerunner and the Outback for some Vespas when we get back to the PDX. Sell-out? I don’t think so.
Talk to me, Goose
Some pauses, highlights, ponderings, statements and exclamations to accompany previous pix of Poly and Stony while I was “on vacation”:
Bullwinkle on Kincaid DG course
Forgetting the tent poles at Chena during the worst mosquito infestation ever witnessed. Annual Mustache Party. White Mountain Bday cake and Bacon cupcakes. Map folding 101. Backcountry into Polychrome and Stony Dome. T Emb is mountain goat-like, covering 3x the amount of ground as us. One morel. Several geodes. Layer after layer of grey, rust, purple and orange hills that X and Y into one another. Mountain saddlebacks with dream-like views. Braided streams of shimmering sunlight. Stomping thru them each 10 times like a 6-year old in slickers on the way to 1st grade. Wildflowers of every species interrupting the next. Blonde grizzlies and fuzzy brown cubbies. Singing about boxed wine to the tune of Jim Croce “If I could have boxed wine, not a bottle….” Wildlife galore.
T Emb puts with Moose in background
Foxy red fox. Sows and cubs. Caribous on ice. Ground Squirrels that posed for us. Majestic sheep on the highest of steeps. Crazy Bullwinkle moose. Cou-pins! Endless rounds of Rumy and Gin. “Heeeey bear” calls. Golden Triangle musings. Phase II of journey – peninsula. Talkeetna (Depart to Denali Base Camp).
Moose Signal
Wondrous view from south side of the range, including Hunter and Foraker (which evidentally erupted the week before, clearing out some valley debris). Roadhouse blueberry cakes and pasties – drool. Wake and Shake – John Deer engine driven ice cream machine. Camping illegally on the fork of the Susitna, Chulitna and Talkeetna rivers. (Talkeetna literally means “where the rivers meet”) A bald eagle diving us at < 20 feet to scavenge from seagulls. Driving past Wasilla as Palin announced her resignation and the town is oblivious. Sunflower seeds with 22’s floor map as the shuck cup. Onward to Seward.
Tbell sinks it into the 15 ft tall basket
Stay at family house on the outskirts of town. How is it the everyone who lives/works here in the summer can magically teleport to Hawaii or some other exotic destination the other 6 months of the year? And how do I get that lifestyle?
Pyrotechnics on Earthquake beach
Kenai Fjords sea cruise to Aialik Glacier. Gray whales that breached for us multiple times. Glaciers that literally pour onto the ocean hundreds of feet high. Feast on all-you-can-eat prime rib, salmon and crab legs (the only time all-you-can-eat is acceptable!) Return to Anchorage for the 4th of July weekend. Played Kincaid Disc Golf course and spyed a moose on Basket #4. Dinner at Moose Tooth Pub in Anchorage with delish cider ale. Busted lighting off knarly Gorilla pyrotechnics on Earthquake beach, 200 feet below the Anchorage airport departure runway. Oops…seems as tho we were interfering with the airwaves. Three hours of sleep before 22 and I put our beloved beary-bears on a plane back to Ptown 
