Sunday, January 27, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Kentucky
We traveled back to Kentucky for 10 days for a late Christmas with Family. I think that it was an overall very nice trip. I got some of the best venison summer sausage that I have ever tasted from my Mother In Law, and an assortment of other fine gifts. We also got to spend lots of time with family, but mostly with our new nephew. He is awesome.
Our flight down to Louisville was nothing out of the ordinary, everything was running pretty much on time. Fairbanks to Seattle, Seattle to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to Louisville. Sort of a long string of flights coming out to about 12 hours in the air. We got a good price on tickets so it seemed ok.
All was well until our return flight.
Firstly, it snowed in Louisville. Snow in the South is a dangerous thing, and even though it was just some light flurries, it was cause for a full scale battle with the snow. De-icing crews were sequestered for our plane because it had about 1/4" of light fuzzy snow on the midsection. This added about 40 minutes to our departure from Louisville. Thankfully we had 1 hour inbetween our flights. Well, that came and went when we were deiced but still had to wait for our place on the runway. We got to Atlanta just in time to see our departing Seattle flight shut its doors. Nice.
Reschedule.
5 hours later, we board another flight to head off to the west coast. Uneventful flight that goes well. We land to find that our Fairbanks connector has left and we are stuck waiting another 5 hours for the next flight. Not really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Its me and Chrissy and we're hanging out at the airport talking and relaxing (sort of)
So, 9 pm rolls around and we board our return flight, nothing out of the ordinary.
We take off, get up to altitude and things shift to autopilot. I start dozing off at this point.
About an hour into the flight, I wake up because I hear yelling behind me, Chrissy and I turn to see an older man of about 65 standing in the aisle with his hands up in the air. We cant tell what is going on yet, so we watch.
He's not saying much, but everyone around him is saying "Joe, just sit down. Just sit down Joe."
Apperantly hes just swung and connected with one of the flight attendants. Very bizarre.
For some reason this guy stood up and wouldn't sit down. When one of the flight attendants came to ask him to sit, he punched him in the eye. After that, the flight attendant comes back with another flight attendant and asks him to sit again. There is nonsensical ramblings from the older gentleman and a refusal to sit. In front of my eyes plays out a scene I wont soon forget, two older men grabbing each others wrists sort of bobbing and weaving around in the aisle. Then the flight attendant says that if he doesn't sit down they are going to have him arrested and turn the plane around. At this point, the excitement of seeing this drama looses all of its fun and I realize that this is going to turn into a real pain in the ass. Zip tie handcuffs are pulled from the front of the plane and with the help of a few burly guys in the surrounding rows the guy is restrained. The flight crew announces that we are 100 miles north of Vancouver and will be turning around to return to Seattle.
Big let down. We were so close to being home.
We get to Seattle and on the way in there is talk over the pa of getting this yahoo off the plane and getting back in the air and up to Fairbanks. No dice. As soon as we hit the ground the talk goes to getting another flight out. The "other flight out" turns out to be at 7 in the morning.
We are put up by the airline in a hotel not far from the airport. Normally I would embrace such a gesture, I mean, the flight crew did what they had to and it really wasn't the airlines fault that any of this happened, but in this case we were only getting about 3 hours sleep before we had to be back at the airport. Not fun.
We didn't get our wake up call and almost missed out on all of the trip home but managed to somehow come to life around 5. Got a taxi back to the airport to find out our tickets we're printed wrong and we had to wait in some more lines.
Tickets corrected, security cleared, plane boarded.
Our direct flight to Fairbanks turned into a stop through Anchorage, de plane and take another flight to Fairbanks.
But... we got some really nice views from that flight into Anchorage. Down below this post are some of the photos that Chrissy got from the plane window. There had been alot of snow that had fallen in the Interior and South Central portions of Alaska while we were gone, so we flew right over so many awesome looking mountains, right when the sun was peeking through over the horizon. Not too bad for such a rough time.
Well, we finally made it back to Fairbanks, caught a cab home and found 10" of fresh snow on the ground. Now that was a serious welcome home present. I always feel like a little kid when I see that much snow at one time.
Our flight down to Louisville was nothing out of the ordinary, everything was running pretty much on time. Fairbanks to Seattle, Seattle to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to Louisville. Sort of a long string of flights coming out to about 12 hours in the air. We got a good price on tickets so it seemed ok.
All was well until our return flight.
Firstly, it snowed in Louisville. Snow in the South is a dangerous thing, and even though it was just some light flurries, it was cause for a full scale battle with the snow. De-icing crews were sequestered for our plane because it had about 1/4" of light fuzzy snow on the midsection. This added about 40 minutes to our departure from Louisville. Thankfully we had 1 hour inbetween our flights. Well, that came and went when we were deiced but still had to wait for our place on the runway. We got to Atlanta just in time to see our departing Seattle flight shut its doors. Nice.
Reschedule.
5 hours later, we board another flight to head off to the west coast. Uneventful flight that goes well. We land to find that our Fairbanks connector has left and we are stuck waiting another 5 hours for the next flight. Not really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Its me and Chrissy and we're hanging out at the airport talking and relaxing (sort of)
So, 9 pm rolls around and we board our return flight, nothing out of the ordinary.
We take off, get up to altitude and things shift to autopilot. I start dozing off at this point.
About an hour into the flight, I wake up because I hear yelling behind me, Chrissy and I turn to see an older man of about 65 standing in the aisle with his hands up in the air. We cant tell what is going on yet, so we watch.
He's not saying much, but everyone around him is saying "Joe, just sit down. Just sit down Joe."
Apperantly hes just swung and connected with one of the flight attendants. Very bizarre.
For some reason this guy stood up and wouldn't sit down. When one of the flight attendants came to ask him to sit, he punched him in the eye. After that, the flight attendant comes back with another flight attendant and asks him to sit again. There is nonsensical ramblings from the older gentleman and a refusal to sit. In front of my eyes plays out a scene I wont soon forget, two older men grabbing each others wrists sort of bobbing and weaving around in the aisle. Then the flight attendant says that if he doesn't sit down they are going to have him arrested and turn the plane around. At this point, the excitement of seeing this drama looses all of its fun and I realize that this is going to turn into a real pain in the ass. Zip tie handcuffs are pulled from the front of the plane and with the help of a few burly guys in the surrounding rows the guy is restrained. The flight crew announces that we are 100 miles north of Vancouver and will be turning around to return to Seattle.
Big let down. We were so close to being home.
We get to Seattle and on the way in there is talk over the pa of getting this yahoo off the plane and getting back in the air and up to Fairbanks. No dice. As soon as we hit the ground the talk goes to getting another flight out. The "other flight out" turns out to be at 7 in the morning.
We are put up by the airline in a hotel not far from the airport. Normally I would embrace such a gesture, I mean, the flight crew did what they had to and it really wasn't the airlines fault that any of this happened, but in this case we were only getting about 3 hours sleep before we had to be back at the airport. Not fun.
We didn't get our wake up call and almost missed out on all of the trip home but managed to somehow come to life around 5. Got a taxi back to the airport to find out our tickets we're printed wrong and we had to wait in some more lines.
Tickets corrected, security cleared, plane boarded.
Our direct flight to Fairbanks turned into a stop through Anchorage, de plane and take another flight to Fairbanks.
But... we got some really nice views from that flight into Anchorage. Down below this post are some of the photos that Chrissy got from the plane window. There had been alot of snow that had fallen in the Interior and South Central portions of Alaska while we were gone, so we flew right over so many awesome looking mountains, right when the sun was peeking through over the horizon. Not too bad for such a rough time.
Well, we finally made it back to Fairbanks, caught a cab home and found 10" of fresh snow on the ground. Now that was a serious welcome home present. I always feel like a little kid when I see that much snow at one time.
Photos from the air
Ice clogs Cook Inlet on the way into Anchorage Airport
This is from way up, ice in Cook Inlet and open water in the Knik Arm
Mountains with fresh snow, I think that these are the Chugach Mountains, but didn't have any reference
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Dog Mushing
We finally got to run real sled dogs, with a real sled. We stayed the night at a friends family home last night out in Salcha, about 40 miles south of Fairbanks. A friends boyfriend has 8 sled dogs that he runs for fun. He brought the dogs along with two sleds out with him. We stayed up late last night talking and catching up, but this morning and afternoon was spent on the sled. Chrissy and I both ran 4 dog teams to start with. I am hooked.
I couldn't believe how much fun it was. I thought that I would have been cold considering how cold it was outside and the wind and thrown snow from the sled ride, but I was sweating from all the adrenaline. After some other friends ran too, we hooked up all 8 dogs on one sled. I ran with the 8 of them and can honestly say that I am ready to be behind as many dogs as I can. The additional power and speed were such a thrill. This team was lead by a dog named Blaze that knows Gee and Haw really well, so it was really awesome running them around. Chrissy's commentary on all this is below and the photos follow that.
Hopefully I can get back on a sled soon, we have alot of projects going on this winter, one of which is doing some volunteer work for the Yukon Quest. Its this 1000 mile dogsled race from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, YT. http://www.yukonquest.com
Another of the projects is getting some chickens quarters together. We are going to raise some laying hens this spring. I just found out that the feed store gets their chicks in sometime in March, so we have a little bit of time.
Time for bed, Im rambling and tired. Work comes early tomorrow since the sleep last night was interrupted every 10 minutes by howling sled dogs.
0 degrees and still
-Justin
I couldn't believe how much fun it was. I thought that I would have been cold considering how cold it was outside and the wind and thrown snow from the sled ride, but I was sweating from all the adrenaline. After some other friends ran too, we hooked up all 8 dogs on one sled. I ran with the 8 of them and can honestly say that I am ready to be behind as many dogs as I can. The additional power and speed were such a thrill. This team was lead by a dog named Blaze that knows Gee and Haw really well, so it was really awesome running them around. Chrissy's commentary on all this is below and the photos follow that.
Hopefully I can get back on a sled soon, we have alot of projects going on this winter, one of which is doing some volunteer work for the Yukon Quest. Its this 1000 mile dogsled race from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, YT. http://www.yukonquest.com
Another of the projects is getting some chickens quarters together. We are going to raise some laying hens this spring. I just found out that the feed store gets their chicks in sometime in March, so we have a little bit of time.
Time for bed, Im rambling and tired. Work comes early tomorrow since the sleep last night was interrupted every 10 minutes by howling sled dogs.
0 degrees and still
-Justin
good times
Last night we drove out to Salcha to visit some friends. Great conversation, loud fireworks, and not much sleep. We stayed the night in Donna's workshop... well sort of slept. Joel's sled dogs spent the greater part of the night howling, but the wood stove was burning hot and there was a sense of adventure in the air. The next morning we had breakfast together and then set out to hook up the dog team. The dogs were ready to go, jumping in circles, and barking with anticipation. Joel gave me the low down and pretty much told me that the number one rule to remember was to never let go of the sled. I guess petrified is the best way to describe how I was feeling at the time, but I had to take a deep breath and face my fear. I was sweating and breathing deeply when the anchor was pulled from the snow and the dogs lunged forward. We coasted along and the leaders seemed to be listening to the commands I was giving. We all had a great time and returned in one piece; dog sled and all. It was an adventure I wont soon forget.
Chrissy
Chrissy
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