1st bike ride across town

I went for my first bike ride across town today. I went to the commercial boat docks to go take some pictures with my SLR camera (real pictures - not digital!). I also stopped at the library on the way. Riding a bike here is really hard. There is nothing about the bike that makes it hard. Just guess what is up here but not in Indiana - hills. It is really easy to ride a bike at 15 mph for 8 or 10 miles (no stops) in flat Indiana, but up here, you will probably need to stop once a mile unless you are in really good shape. Some of the hills are steep enough that I had to walk up them (partially because the bike won't shift into first gear, but also because I am not used to the hills!). And I was riding on sidewalks most of the time (some gravel roads, too), so nearly everything was paved. However, even though going up the hills is horrible, going down is a lot of fun - you don't have to pedal. You just have to hit the brakes every 3 seconds so you don't go too fast!

I stopped at the library to get a temporary library card so I could get some books to keep me awake during the long van ride between here and work everyday. Unfortunately, the temporary library card is only good for one book at a time. I guess I will be going to the library at least once a week. However, they do have a lot of books I want to read, so I shouldn't run out this summer.

Since today is nice and sunny with only a few clouds in the sky, I stopped at the docks to take some pictures of the mountains outside of town with my good camera. I took almost a whole roll of film, since the mountains were nice and green (except for the rocks and snow) and the sky was nice and blue. Apparently, everything started turning green for the first time this year about a week before I arrived (June 10 or so). It has been continually getting greener, and the snow on the mountains is melting more. There were also a few sea lions out on the float near the docks, but they were still too far away for my good camera.

In total, the trip was about 10 miles. I was pretty tired after it, but I think I might still go do something else today.

Also, I have enabled "anonymous comments." Therefore, you can leave comments without logging in to blogger, but I get to see them before they show up with the posts. I will check each day to see if there are any anonymous comments and approve them.

Life in Kodiak

It is 9:24 PM right now in Kodiak. Amazingly, it is sunny with very few clouds in a blue sky (usually it is cloudy/foggy and rainy). It is 50 degrees out right now. In the mornings, it is typically around 45 degrees (maybe 50 on a good day), and temperatures will rise to a high of 55 or 60 on average (we almost hit 80 one day!). If it is cloudy, the clouds usually sink during the night to cover the mountains so the ceiling is only a few hundred feet. As the day progresses, the clouds often rise again so that we can almost see the tops of the mountains. It is usually drizzly or raining, so rain gear is a must. It is also very windy most of the time, especially out on Narrow Cape at KLC.

Right now, sunset is around 11:15 PM and sunrise is around 5:00 AM. That is about 18 hours of sunlight! Actually, it really never gets super dark. It is typically still partially light out at 2 AM. This makes for plenty of time to be outside, however, I think I still need my 7 or 8 hours of sleep even though it is light when I get up at 5:15 AM and when I go to bed around 10 or 11 PM.

Kodiak is mainly a blue-collar town. There are not a lot of white-collar jobs here. Even at KLC, our jobs are definitely not sit-at-a-desk jobs. We are often outside working on the range equipment. In Kodiak, the primary industry is fishing so there are many boats in the harbor and there are also canneries that are supposed to be very hard work. Most of the people here are used to being outside and doing hard work such as hunting, fishing, boating, hiking, backpacking, four-wheeling, dirt-biking, snow-mobiling, kayaking, etc.

There are not a whole lot of restaurants to choose from in town either, probably because of the small population. There is a Subway, McDonald's, and Pizza Hut and there used to be a KFC and Burger King. Amazingly there is a Wal-Mart here in Kodiak, which was a apparently a big deal because the town didn't want it because it would put many businesses out of business. There is a not a lot of competition between businesses here, as there is often only one business serving a market area.

There is a local newspaper that publishes an evening paper on weekdays (not weekends). It typically contains about 12 pages, so it does not have a wide range of news. There is cable or satellite TV, broadband internet (very expensive for slow speeds - 384 kbps for like $115 per month), and cell phones so it is not much different from the lower 48 in this respect.

There is a wide range of nationalities that live here in Kodiak. Wikipedia states the percentages as "The racial makeup of the city was 46.40% White, 0.69% Black or African Americans, 29.1% Native American, 31.73% Asian, 0.93% Pacific Islander, 4.36% from other races, and 5.42% from two or more races. 8.54% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodiak%2C_AK)


As for random news for today, we saw a fox out at the range. It was somewhat tame, as one of the former KLC guards was probably feeding it, as was explained to me. Therefore, it was curious about us and actually approached to within 10 feet of us. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me.

Also, originally I had planned to try to walk or bike everywhere in town. Well, I had to walk to the grocery store today to get some food for lunches, which is about 1 mile from where I am living this summer. I am starting to doubt my motivation and determination to maintain this stance. It was really tiring walking back with the groceries (getting there wasn't that bad - it was better than the 2.5 mile one-way walk to the grocery store from the hotel I was in last week!).

Related to food, finding good fruit is rather difficult up here. Bananas, peaches, nectarines, and cherries are not usually very good. And to top it off, it is often really expensive. For example, white grapes were $4.29 a pound (my mom said they are usually like $1-2 per pound at home). So, I guess I will have to rely on the grapes and apples most of the time, and sometimes the strawberries or other fruits as they are on sale or in better condition. I am waiting for the berries to start ripening out in the woods so that I can go berry-picking (raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries are just as expensive if not more expensive than in the lower 48). I will recommend salmonberry syrup, as I had that on my waffles at Curtis's house on Sunday, and it was very good (the berries must be picked by hand and syrup made by hand - it is not in stores).

Well I think that is enough for now. Sorry, no pictures this time. Again, if you have any questions feel free to email me or post them as comments, and I will try to get them answered. You can also send a link to this blog to anybody you think might be interested.

Woody Island

Curtis, one of the other KLC employees, is about my age and also likes to go hiking. He invited me to go out to Woody Island with a bunch of people to spend the night in the cabins used for Camp Woody, and then help get some work done on Saturday.

He shuttled a total of about 15 people out to Woody Island in his 4 person skiff. Woody Island is about 1 mile from Kodiak Island. On Saturday, we all helped clean up by moving brush and branches to burn them, splitting wood, building a new cabin, and running the sawmill. It was a lot of hard work that took about all day Saturday, but the people running the camp were amazed at how much we got done.

A few unique things that they had on the island that I had never seen before. One was a buoy swing, which consists of a rope tied high in a tree with a small rubber buoy tied at the other end. You jump onto the buoy which swings along the side of a hill. I may get a picture of one some other time. Another thing I had never seen was a fishing net hammock. We had to hike to the other end of the island, but it was a small (12' x 12') fishing net tied to some trees about 20 feet above the ground. Apparently, they actually had 5 people up in it at one point, and they also camped there once, too.

Here are a few pictures looking back at Kodiak Island from Woody Island.
















Here is a picture of one of the cabins on Woody Island, and the type of trees that the forests are made of. The ground is really mossy in the forests, and therefore is really nice to hike on because it is so soft.










When we were clearing out the piles of branches, we found some baby bunnies. Here is one of them.










Here is a view from the far side of the island close to the hammock. It was really foggy and windy, but made some good pictures.










Here is the fishing net hammock. It was a little scary because I don't know anything about the strength of rope or knots, but I heard that Curtis is very good at tying knots (he is in the pictures).














Well, I think I have finally caught up. I will try to keep everybody posted as I take new pictures with my digital camera and get out to do new stuff. Amazingly, I haven't taken any pictures with my SLR camera yet :(.

KLC

Here is a lonely buffalo that was walking down the road near KLC (Kodiak Launch Complex).










Many mornings it is very foggy out (and probably raining), so most of the mountains are obscured in the clouds that eventually begin to rise later in the day. Here is a pic of the clouds covering the mountains behind KLC.

Kodiak

Here is another view of Pillar Mountain on a beautiful day, as well as a view from the hotel I stayed in for the first 5 nights in Kodiak. I have not yet climbed Pillar Mountain.











Here is a unique attempt at taking a picture through my 30x binoculars. It worked OK, but it was difficult getting the digital camera aligned right.

Dandelions and Bald Eagles

Dandelions are just as prevalent, if not more prevalent in some areas (mainly in town). Here is a pic of a big patch of them.









Bald eagles are also very common. Here is a young bald eagle that has not turned bald yet.









Here are some other bald eagle pics.

Kodiak Launch Complex

I am working as an intern at the Kodiak Launch Complex, the launch site for Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation (http://www.akaerospace.com/). I am working in a variety of areas to get a wide range of experience including communications, facilities, and range safety and telemetry systems.

The launch site is about 35 miles out of town on Narrow Cape, and takes over an hour to get to because of the winding road and the 7 mile section that is under construction to be paved for the first time (it is currently gravel). The drive is very beautiful and so far we have seen a fox, some whales, some salmon jumping out of the water, cattle being herded down the road, bald eagles, and bison.

The landscape around the launch complex is beautiful, as there is a small island offshore, and mountains are on the other side of the launch complex. There is a bison ranch out at the launch site. Here are a few landscape pictures from the launch site, during an amazingly beautiful day because it was not raining.

Kodiak

Sorry I am so far behind with these posts.

Here is the Kodiak airport that I flew into. It has all of one runway, and the terminal has only one luggage carousel. I think there are only like 4 flights out each day.









Here is the view to the southwest of town from the bridge between Kodiak Island and Near Island. It shows the general skyline that we can see from town (if there are no trees in the way). Near Island is on the left side of the first picture, and Pillar Mountain is in the 4th and 5th pictures.

Views while arriving in Kodiak

In these two pictures, you can see the view of Kodiak (pop. ~6000) while flying into the airport. The hill behind Kodiak is about 800-1000 feet tall (called Pillar Mountain), and taller mountains are behind that.












Upon landing, I took some pics of the mountains surrounding the airport. As you can see, many of them still have patches of snow. Also, I have since learned that many also have trails on them. Barometer Mountain, shown in the last picture, is about 2300 feet tall, and has a trail going up the left ridge.

Flight to Anchorage

Here are six pics of the mountains peeking through the clouds near Cordova, Alaska. As you can see, they are still snow covered. Cordova is east of Anchorage by about 200 miles. I will be working on Kodiak Island, which is about 300 miles SSW of Anchorage. You can take a look at a map here.

The flight from Indy to Cincinnati was on schedule, but the arriving plane in Cincinnati that we were to take to Anchorage was late. The flight was about 7 hours long, but we arrived about a half hour late into Anchorage. Then, because we were not flying Alaska Airlines, they dumped three 757's of luggage onto one carousel, so it took forever to get my 3 bags. I was picked up and taken to a hotel in downtown Anchorage where I stayed the night.

On Sunday, I went to church at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church (WELS) in Anchorage. Pastor Voss flies out to Kodiak about once a month to hold a service there. Then, on Sunday afternoon I flew out to Kodiak.

I hope to show you with pictures (and some text) what I'm doing (seeing) here in Kodiak, Alaska.