9-28-09: You people suck

Charlie is far from impressed with the chilly temps inside the tent when mommy and daddy aren't prompt feeding the stove. Most of the time, she's either hiding in her fleecy hut, or humped down under the covers on the bed.

9-27-09: Sonja See, Sonja Do

After watching mommy and daddy collect wood, and helping them to haul it out of the brush, Sonja decides to pick up some logs of her own:

We have no idea where she picked this log up, or how it got stuck in her chassis, or even how long it had been there before I noticed it.

Quick note, on living in a tent at extreme temperatures...

Ok I woke up this morning, the tent was 37 degrees fahrenheit (2.7C), and restarted the fire... Cold indeed.

I'm currently in Fairbanks for the day, since we need some more stuff including our battery array from ABS Alaska. The drive in was incredible, even at the slightly higher than likely safe speeds I travel at. The hills and mountains are covered in an icing sugar white at the tops, and as you drive along you see "glass" tree's that are covered in ice and look just like glass. Its awesome, one of the many magical things that Alaska has re-opened my eyes to, and it's easy to forget to stop every now and again and take a look at the nature here, and the beauty.

Anyway, Trucks re-oiled for another 3k miles... Off to find other merchandise to make our lives easier and more comfortable.

9-19-09: Autumn in Alaska

One of the sights we get to see everytime we drive into Manley and back:



And the difference a single week can make:

Yep, that's the same range, just from slightly different parts of the road. One week it's all golden delicious with the Birch & Aspens turning, then the next week all the leaves are gone and there is Termination Dust in the hills.

9-19-09: Sunrise on the Way to Fairbanks

Just one of the reasons I love living in Alaska... sunrise over Wickersham Dome on my way into Fairbanks

9-22-09: Bush Bloopers (episode 1)

Sometimes things don't always go as planned:

Meet Burnie - he's supposedly a "maximum temperature oven mitt safe for even campfire cooking". Um, yeah, right -- NOT! I think Burnie has aspirations of becoming a Hand of Glory. After weeks of service above and beyond, and many self-sacrifices (including spontaneous combustion), we've retired Burnie and are now using his littermate, Burnadette, to stoke the fire. Hopefully she'll hold up until we get a better (longer) tool set.

Meet Ms. Flambeau - she's an ash broom that suspiciously looks quite a bit like the coal shovel when it's pitch dark in the tent in the middle of the night. Can I just say that whoever made an ash broom with polyester-nylon bristles is just plain stupid!

Other fun bloopers:

Beware of flying molten sap!

G-man almost overflowed his pee-tainer one frigid morning and ending up soaking the roll of toilet paper trying to do a quick-change into my pee-tainer (in the dark, of course).

Me, fighting with the static-y TP one frigid morning (yes, it's really that dry here folks, even TP gets static cling) and dumping the whole roll into Gungnir's pee-tainer.

G-man realizing a few seconds too late that the log he just put into the firebox is too long. Plickety to the rescue, grabs the burning log, yanks it out, shoves it back in diagonally and slams the door while deftly extinguishing Burnie in the dirty dishwater.

Charlie, excited to see the sun and realizing mommy and daddy have left the tent unzipped, goes high-tailing it out on the deck... only to skid into a 3-point slide when she hits the ice. "I meant to do that" was the look she gave us as she slinked off behind the stove to lick her paws (or her wounded pride, maybe?)

Having creosote buildup crash down from the chimney into the firebox baffle, shooting a huge puff of smoke out the front air intake, then ejecting itself back out the chimney into the air several feet like a bad Mt Redoubt impersonation. Never fear: no humans, animals or tents were harmed -- but we did dismantle the stove pipe and give it a good scrubbing (and controlled burn off) in the balmy 34 degree morning air.

Gungnir getting Sonja stuck in the bog during an afternoon melt-off and flooring it... effectively spraying the entire front of the tent with muddy-mossy flotsam as he dug the back tires about 8 inches into the turf.

Ahhh... life is good :D

9-21-09: First Day of Autumn

And we get our first snow!