Back Home in Indiana

Well, since the vacation didn't work out, I changed my flight and came back home early. I got back Sunday morning, after a red-eye flight that left Saturday night from Anchorage. So, here are the last of the pictures, and the last of the posts.

While at work the one day, the Coast Guard was training at a helipad on Narrow Cape. It appeared that they were training flying the helicopter with a rescue basket, by picking up and landing a metal or plastic buoy-like object. You can see it hanging below the helicopter.

Here is the helicopter again.

Here is a picture of the city airport in Kodiak. You can see the small float plane sitting just past the railing/fence. It is a long lake down the middle of town that the float planes can land in and take off (the big airport only has runways).

I flew ERA Aviation from Kodiak to Anchorage. They have smaller planes that are not jets, so they have 2 propellers. I chose to sit in a window seat, so I took a bunch of artsy pictures of the propeller.

The propeller again.

And again.

And yet again. I am pretty sure that on our flight into Anchorage, I could see Denali (Mt. McKinley) and Mt. Foraker, even though they were a few hundred miles away.

The next morning in Anchorage, I walked about downtown and took this picture of the mountains surrounding Anchorage.

Here are the final mileages for my summer adventure:

Foot: ~55 miles
Bike: ~101 miles
Car: ~4600 miles (It is 95.6 miles roundtrip to the range. I have driven about 220 of these miles!)
Boat: ~6 miles
Plane: ~6900 miles

TOTAL: ~10662 miles


So, now that I am back, this is the end of the blog. It will remain here, but nothing will change. I definitely want to live in Alaska, but I have to find a place to work, which is difficult with what I want to do. So, farewell and thanks for reading!

PS - If you really want a copy of one of the pictures here, just post a comment on my post telling me which one, and where to send it to. I should be able to send out a 4x6 or two if you really like one of the pictures.

Last Day in Kodiak

Well, today is my last day in Kodiak. I love it here, and I don't want to go home because it is so beautiful and so much fun being able to hike all over the place. I am supposed to fly out tomorrow morning to Anchorage, where I will meet with some of the AADC employees. Then, I will fly home, since my vacation didn't work out. I couldn't get a ride to the place I wanted to go.

And some random info I found out in answer to Jeremy's question about winter activities:

Skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, and sledding are popular up here except that there are no lifts, so you have to climb the hills by your own power. Typically, they will put on snowshoes and climb up to the top, then ski, snowboard, or sled down. However, with the steep hills, and because the snow often gets an ice coating from refreezing, you can also slide down on your butt without a sled. Curtis said that it is a lot of fun, but surprisingly, your butt gets awfully hot during the slide down because of the friction (which most people wouldn't expect!).


Well, here are the final mileage totals before I head home.

Foot: ~53 miles
Bike: ~101 miles
Car: ~4500 miles (It is 95.6 miles roundtrip to the range. I have driven about 220 of these miles!)
Boat: ~6 miles
Plane: ~3450 miles

Friday and Saturday

Well, I didn't drive in to work on Friday because it was cloudy, and wouldn't make the greatest of pictures (and because it is pretty expensive). The plan though, was that we would go fishing after work, with our usual hiking friends. However, I didn't know it was right after work, and didn't have a fishing license or fishing gear. So I went along and just watched them fish. I think they got about 6 salmon out of the water, and they kept two. They were probably about 16" long. We were fishing where the salmon had been jumping on Wednesday night like crazy, but on Friday they weren't jumping anywhere near as much.

On Saturday, we went out to hike to Termination Point. We had been within a few hundred yards before, but never went out to the actual point. Afterwards, 3 of the friends in our group went swimming at White Sands, and I just went wading (the water is COLD - well, at least for somebody who didn't grow up in Alaska and went swimming in the cold ocean all the time).

Here are the eggs from the salmon they caught.

Here is the fog over White Sands beach, below one of the Three Sisters.

Here you can see White Sands beach, and again, one of the Three Sisters.

Again, White Sands beach with the fog.

Watermelon berries that we found along the trail. We also found a bunch of salmonberries, of which a few were ripe enough to eat.

Here we are out at Termination Point. Again, my tripod is of use as we swap out our 4 cameras so everybody gets a picture on their camera.

Here is a tree that a beaver decided to start chewing at. Look at all the wood chips! ...or was it a wood chuck - go ahead - say the tongue twister! No, it was a beaver, as there is a beaver lodge, and we actually walked across the beaver dam that holds the lake in.

Here is the strip of white sand (mixed with black sand) on White Sands beach.

Here are the three that grew up in Kodiak for some period of time, swimming in the cold water. It was so cold that it felt better to stand still than to move around. Moving around just allowed the water to suck more heat out of your body. Apparently it wasn't cold enough to be dangerous, but I never liked even the temperature of the water in most hotel swimming pools :)

Well, here are the new mileage totals:

Foot: ~53 miles
Bike: ~92 miles
Car: ~4100 miles (It is 95.6 miles roundtrip to the range. I have driven about 220 of these miles!)
Boat: ~6 miles
Plane: ~3450 miles



I will be flying out to Anchorage on Friday, and should return home on August 25th, unless my vacation time doesn't work out for some reason, in which I will try to come home earlier.

Driving to Work: Thursday

Well, Thursday was going to be another beautiful day so I drove out to work again so I could take pictures. I left early again to catch the sunrise, and boy am I happy I did. You will be blown away by the pics (even the digitals - I hope the film ones come out even better!). It costs me about $25 a trip out to the range and back using the truck (gas prices are around $3.50 a gallon). I took only about 3 rolls of pics on Thursday amazingly, probably because I was running out of film (I only have about 2.5 rolls left now, but I have ordered more and hopefully it will get here before I leave :{. So, here are the pics from Thursday.

Well, here is the amazing sunrise. Lots of nice oranges, pinks, purples that lasted for over half an hour.

Here is another pic of the sunrise.

And another.

The sunrise over the city of Kodiak.

A large male buffalo. This guy was walking along the fence while we were working in some communication vaults along the road that parallels the fence. He would pass us at a vault, and then we would pass him on the way to our next vault, and then he would pass again, and so on. We saw him about 5 times while working in the vaults, and the one time he passed within 15 feet of us.

Again, the buffalo that kept passing us.

A small part of the herd of buffalo on a distant hill.

Looking at a boat through 30x binoculars. Just a unique perspective when zoomed in that much.

Looking at the rocky beach through the binoculars.

A sockeye salmon in the lake at Pasagshak.

Some interesting rock outrcoppings in the bay.

A little island that looks like a partially submerged cupcake :)

Pictures from the Top of the Tower

Well, I was offered to be taken to the top of the launch tower so I could take pictures from there, as it is a tall tower, above all the trees. So, after work on Wednesday, I strapped on a safety harness, and climbed the 10 or so flights of stairs, and then climbed about 50 feet of ladders (they have safety harness cables so if you let go, it stops you from falling). I finally made it up to the top, tripod, cameras, lenses, and all. I took a panorama with both the digital camera, as well as the film camera.

Here is a full 360 degree panorama from the top of the tower. It took a couple hours to stitch it together manually, but it came out pretty good. You can download the much larger version by clicking on the picture (WARNING - 2.62 MB, 13000 x 3000).

Here is a panorama of some of the land surrounding the tower. You can click on the image to download a larger version (WARNING - 1.18 MB, 5000 x 1000).

Here is a better view of the IPF (top left) and SCAT (lower right), as from the top of the tower. The SCAT rolls on the tracks between the IPF and the tower (LSS).

Here is the island that is a couple miles out from the point of Narrow Cape.

Here are a few of the buffalo as seen from the top of the tower.

Here I am at the top of the tower. The camera is facing inland, looking at the mountains behind the MSF. It was a very sunny day.

Here is one of the ladders I had to climb up to get to the top. You can see the safety cable running down the middle.

Here is the inside of the tower. The tower wall actually rotates on tracks, too, so that a rocket can be housed and protected inside the tower, then rotated out to be launched.

Here is a view of the tower door in front of the mountains. The tower is currently being painted inside and out, to protect it from the elements.

Here you can see how the door on the tower rotates to open the tower.

Here is the tower. Remember, I was all the way on top!

Driving to Work: Wednesday

Well, Mike, the KLC employee whose house I am staying at, had an extra truck that is now up for sale. He offered to let me drive it around, so I decided to drive it out to work so that I could stay late and take pictures. I left early, so I could stop and take pictures of the sunrise.

Here is a picture of Barometer in the "alpenglow" (the warm orange and red hues from a sunrise or sunset). In this case it was sunrise, where I stopped at a scenic lookout.

Here are some of the mountains in Pasagshak, which is about 10 miles from work. There are a number of ocean-front houses nestled in the valley. They have great views of the bay and the mountains. It is very scenic and would be a nice place to live (although quite expensive).

A couple miles from work I saw 2 deer on the side of the road. I stopped to take some pics with my digital (not my SLR because it wasn't ready :(. You can see in this pic the doe and the fawn.

The fawn is still spotted, too!

I went down to Fossil Beach, which is a very popular location out near work on the Narrow Cape. The road to get there is just dirt, so it is full of potholes that are 6-8 inches deep. You have to drive like 2 miles an hour and in 4-wheel drive to make it to the beach and back! There is apparently a section of rocks that are filled with fossils, but I didn't know this when I went down there. I just was taking pictures :) This is a picture of a point next to Fossil Beach.

On the way back from work, I saw to young foxes on the side of the road and stopped to take pictures of them. However, I did not take any with the digital, so you can't see them yet. They were really cute, and I took pictures for probably about half an hour. They were very curious, and walked right up to me and the truck. I think the one was within about 2 feet of me at one point, and were often within 10 feet of me.

When I got back closer to town, near the Coast Guard base, I noticed that the fish (salmon) were jumping like crazy in the bay. It was around 9 PM now, and I stopped to try to get some pictures of the fish in the air above the water. There were so many fish jumping that there were probably about 10 out of the water at any one time, and a fish jumped around every half second. Here you can see two of the salmon out of the water.

Here you can see another 2 salmon out of the water, along with a number of splashes from other salmon.

Then, the school of salmon all decided to go crazy and started swimming at the same time. They stirred up the water and made a bunch of noise. Here is a picture of the stirred up water from the salmon.

Fortunately, we had amazing weather for the drive to and from work. It wouldn't have been any fun in the fog, as I wouldn't have gotten as many pictures. I took 5 rolls of pics on Wednesday. I got back around 11 PM, after hoping for another amazing sunset which didn't happen :(.

Buffalo, Sunsets, and Berries

Well, this is a miscellaneous post.

The buffalo, this time with the little ones :)

The buffalo again.

An amazing sunset last night (Sunday night). There were thin clouds all day on Sunday, and when the sun started to go down it was amazing. I was watching for it, but did not get everything ready until it was too late to go anywhere, so I just took the pictures from our yard here. They still came out amazing, although I wish I had a foreground element (wouldn't have worked with my equipment though - I need grad. neutral density filters so you could see whatever I put in the foreground :)

Another picture of the sunset.

A salmonberry. These are very common here in Kodiak, however, the berries are not very plentiful this year because of a hard winter. I found a few just across the street. They aren't quite as sweet as raspberries, but they look similar.

And, I forgot to mention it, but Barometer was my first successful attempt at reaching the top of a mountain (sorry, Pillar Mountain didn't count because I walked up the road the whole way, and it was only 1200 feet tall :).

New mileage totals:

Foot: ~48 miles
Bike: ~86 miles
Car: ~3700 miles (It is 95.6 miles roundtrip to the range. I have driven about 20 of these miles!)
Boat: ~6 miles
Plane: ~3450 miles