Ah, Fall in Kodiak!

So, someone tell me, if it's fall, how come the stuff falling from the sky is NOT red and yellow and brown leaves, but WHITE snow!?!??! Either someone is playing a cruel joke on us, or winter really does come a little earlier than I'm used to around here! ACK!

Just to prove my point, here are a couple of pictures:

So this first one is the view from inside the fairgrounds, where I went last Saturday with our friends Beth and Zach and their new baby girl, Donavyn. We were there to get pumpkins - you know, a fall thing - but, instead we looked at snow on the mountains and got a little sad about the fact that all the pumpkins were already gone! Apparently the 4H brought in roughly 10,000 lbs of pumpkins, but they were ALL gone within the first hour, with the big ones disappearing in the first 20 minutes. So, no pumpkins for us.... just snow.

This second picture is also from the fairgrounds, but it shows the amount of snow a little better. Sadly, this looks like a small amount of snow compared to what's on the mountains now. Pretty much everything is covered, down to about, I don't know, a few hundred feet or so. We got "snain" (snow/rain mix) most of the day yesterday, and a good part of the day today, too. But, at the higher elevations, it's clearly all snow. I tossed the camera in the car today to try to snap a few pictures, but it was dark on my way into work, and then snaining on my way home, so I didn't stop. Hopefully, tomorrow it'll clear up a bit and I'll get some good shots of a LOT of coverage on the local mountains. I have to say, everyone told us this was normal, but I was NOT ready to see snow this early. I'm hoping that we'll at least get a couple more weeks before anything sticks at the lower elevations... but I'm not holding my breath on that! UGH.

Anyway, we did have a gorgeous day on Sunday, so we got out for a walk at Fort Abercrombie, one of our favorite short hikes. I think we're at the point in the year when we're going to have to take full advantage of any nice days that come along. The walk TODAY at Abercrombie, in the cold rain, proved that point. I think having a dog in Kodiak is punishment for bad deeds in a former life - that's the only explanation for the walk I had to go on today. It's a dilemma - the dog has to get a walk, and he's miserable and crazy without it, but I'm miserable walking in the rain. Fred better appreciate it!!!

Here we are on the good day (Sunday), enjoying the view from the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean at Abercrombie.

Cold, snow and snain aside, I have to say that I'm very settled here in Kodiak. Even on a windy, stormy day, the views are breathtaking (though I like the sunny days better!), our house is WONDERFUL, my social life is busy, my job is great, and I just feel content here. I can't wait til everyone can start coming to visit us - we expect a revolving door of guests next summer, and we'll welcome you all! I just want to share this home with everyone - it sounds so cheesy, but it's just so neat to be living here and I want everyone to get to experience it!!

I think that's it for now. Jason's out in the garage brewing up his first batch of Kodiak beer, so I need to get the place cleaned up and ready for bed. I've turned into Mom and it drives me crazy to leave a mess to wake up to in the morning. I guess it was just a matter of time. Sigh.

Miss and love you all!!
Becca

Stephen King Novel?

Well last friday much to my frustration I showed up to work and was told to go home and pack a bag, I was going to be going to Cold Bay, AK again. I have been down there 5 times now and can pretty much teach most the people at the Air Station about it (most people only go once a year, I've been 5 times in 3 months) Lucky Me!! Little did I know that it would be one of the weirdest deployments I have been on.

We flew down to Cold Bay on a C130 and got there around 8pm friday night. After unloading all of our necessities (clothes, food, fishing gear, ect.) we settled in to what we were hoping was going to be a nice quite weekend waiting for the "big call".

Sidenote: We have lodging at the "Trooper house" in Cold Bay. We don't stay at the only lodge there anymore, we stay at the Alaska State trooper house where we have to cook our own meals, and get to drive around their truck. Quite entertaining since there is only 58 full time residents there.

Back to the trip, Saturday was quite nice, we organized the hanger for the upcoming deployments out here, and then relaxed and went fishing. We didn't end up catching the much sought silver salmon, but caught a ton of dolly varden. They're kind of like trout but fight more like a salmon. The rest of the crew managed to entertain themselves as you can see in the picture above. Sunday we ended up sitting around, thought we saw a plane crash (the winds were howling, 50kts) and mostly wasted the day away. About the time we were going to head out fishing again the phone rang. We were tasked with picking up an 80 year old lady that was very sick from a remote village. The kicker was that the village was 500 miles further down the Aluetian chain, and we had to take her 100 miles past there.

I remind you back to the 50kt winds, yeah they were coming from the direction that we needed to go. It was painfully slow going. We made a stop in Dutch Harbor (from the Deadliest Catch fame) and then went to Atka where we picked her up. The village was so small that the only lights visible in the village were from the runway. We picked her up with no problem and made it to Adak around midnight where we transfered her to guardian flight bound for Anchoarage.

Well Adak, that's where the title of this post comes from. Adak really shouldn't even be a town. It's an old navy base that the navy vacated back in 1996 and turned it over to the Native corp. The base used to house 6000 people, it's now home to 120 full time residents. They live in the old housing, and have turned over the highschool as the town center to include the post office, clinic, school, town offices, general store. Very weird. There's all this infrustructure and only 120 people. The houses all sit idle, and the story is that some of the houses look like the previous residents just up and left, coffee cups still on the kitchen tables. Many are beat up and the windows are broken, and the yards are drastically overgrown. It looks like the apocolyps happened and there is only a handfull of people left. It was very creepy, we kept waiting for the zombies to come out of the old houses.

We ended up having to stay until dinner time the next day as our helo was broke and parts had to be flown in. While we waited we explored the base, and pretended to run the Alaska Airlines counter. I think when the flights run, they actually have the flight crew do the booking and screening and then leave. Even they don't want to stay here.

Monday night we finally made back to Cold Bay and the trooper house. We were actually happy to be back there. To make the week even weirder, we rode out a 6.6 earthquake just prior to leaving where the house shook so much we thought it may fall down.

Luckily on our way home we got to see a pod(herd, group, whatever it's called) of walrus on the beach, and collected over 400 glass balls off the beach (usually you only find a couple at once). So after thinking that we were going to be forever lost in Adak, or found in Stephen King's newest novel we made it home and are very happy to be back. Hope everyone enjoys the pictures and stay tuned for more updates.

Jason

A house, in pictures

Ok, so my Mom's been asking me for pictures of 3 rooms of our house for some mysterious Christmas present, and Jay's Mom's been asking for pictures because she wants to see all the changes, so, since I'm sitting in a hotel room in Anchorage, I figured I'd take the time to make both of them happy. So, Mom, Maryanne, here's the house. Hopefully, I can upload all the pictures I want to, because I HAVE to do before and after! Here goes nothin'!

Living room

Kitchen

Upstairs Bath

Master Bedroom and Master Bath

We have two spare bedrooms and another half bath off the kitchen. I took pictures of the spare bedrooms, but they're nothing great to look at, so I'm going to skip those. I'd love to show off our half bath, but I forgot to take pictures of it!

Anyway, this is the house! We have one more bedroom to paint and all the white that we're getting rid of will finally be gone! Only our bathroom and the laundry room are staying white... VERY exciting since EVERY room but one of the spare bedrooms was white when we moved in! We're pretty proud of the place, and how fast we managed to get unpacked and put together. With the exception of a couple of boxes and a few empty walls, you can hardly tell we've only had our household goods for two and a half months! Not bad!

So I've probably used up all my bandwith with this post, so news of other goings-on will have to wait for another day. We just recently had our first visitors, so I'll have more to share on that soon!

Miss everyone - can't wait for people to see the place in person!!!!!!!

Becca

Regain my Manhood!

Well tonight I have finally matched the feat of my lovely bride. As you have seen in the previous post Becca was able to hook into two silvers (coho salmon) on her very first trip out fishing. Besides being quite impressive, they we're quite tasty. Since then though, I have not been able to match her or even to catch a single silver. The only thing that either of us has caught since that good trip of hers is stinky pinks (they look like they should be dead already when they are swimming) and believe me, she has been letting me know that I haven't caught a single silver, let alone match her.

Tonight I have redeemed my manhood. After dropping her off at the dock to travel out to the retreat that she was going on this weekend I went out to the river to see what I could do. Well, I finally caught a silver, and of what a doozy it was. I caught a wapping monster that was 29 inches long and 12.5 pounds. It was a monster and a ton of fun to catch. I can't wait to get out there and catch another one. They should start their run here this week, and hopefully we'll be able to put a few fillets in the freezer. Luckily the monster I caught made for over 5.5 pounds of fresh salmon for the freezer. =)

Well all is well here. Just thought I would put a quick post up to show you the fun we have up here. I know, Matt, and Alex will probably be drooling and I wouldn't be surprised if they were on the next flight up here. Hope all is well with everyone, and hope to see some of you soon.

Jason

I have been assimilated!

It is official... I have given up my city ways and become an outdoors-woman. Ok, that might be stretching it a bit, but not really that much! Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I went fishing. And, I caught fish. And, I threw fish back after removing hooks from their mouths. And, I gutted one of the fish I caught, cutting it open and scraping all the innards out with my fingernails (which are just now getting clean). And, I LOVED it! So, after yesterday's excursion, I spent a lot of money getting myself outfitted with the right equipment for fishing, since I was sorely lacking all of it on my first excursion. Here's the rest of the story....

After a busy week at work that started first thing Sunday morning with a surprise cutter visit on a jetlag hangover (I spent last week in New Orleans for a conference), we decided a morale day was in order by Friday. So I headed out fishing with a handful of the guys from work, after they promised me they'd teach me what to do. Oh, I almost forgot - I purchased the minimal equipment I would need for this expedition on Wednesday, including about 5 lures, a rod/reel, and a license. Not entirely sure that I would enjoy the activity, I decided my pink and green plaid Wellies would suffice in terms of footwear for my first outing (you can see them in the background of one of the pictures!). So we headed out to one of the local rivers in search of the elusive "silvers," otherwise known as really-the-only-salmon-that's-yummy-besides-Kings, or Coho.

The silvers have just started running here, so most of the salmon in the rivers are the Pinks, which aren't very good to eat, and have started to look pretty gnarly. For those who don't know, salmon come up in the rivers to spawn after living in the open ocean for a few years. Once they come up the rivers, they start to change in characteristics, and eventually just decompose and die. Given they're on their way out, some of them can start to be pretty nasty! So, the trick is to go fishing when they first start running, so you get the nice fresh ones. The bigger trick is to only get the silvers because they're the ones that taste the best.

Back to the story: Once we got out to the river, and one of the guys fixed up my stuff by respooling my reel with better line, we headed out to his "secret spot." Of course, the spot required crossing the river twice, which wasn't an issue for the two guys I was with, but definitely was an issue for my too-short pink Wellies. So the Great Outdoors-woman had to succumb to a piggy-back ride across the deep spots. Very dignified. Very. Once I got over that, and got to work pretending to know how to fish, the fun really started! Right away, we started hitting the pinks, strictly catch-and-release though, given their mostly nasty appearance. Then the fun really got going, though, as I (yes, me) caught the first silver of the day! He was a small guy, but I kept him anyway, since we weren't sure we'd see any others. We didn't need to worry too much, though, since we ended up with 5 silvers between the 3 of us (we were allowed 6 total by the regs), with none of them as small as my first guy. Unfortunately, I left the camera at home, so I don't have a good shot of the whole fish, but here's the fruit of my labor after filleting!
(Don't mind the shadow... that's my head). The one on the left is my first one - it was probably only about 3 or 4 pounds, giving about a pound and a half of meat. The other one was quite a bit bigger, though I'm not sure how big. But, I got just over 3 and a half pounds of meat from that one!

So, of course, last night, I had to go out and buy the appropriate gear (ie, things to make it so I don't have to be piggy-backed across a river), and then test it out as soon as possible. Jason and I headed out today to try our luck, but didn't have much. We hooked into a bunch of Pinks again, but sent them all back into the river to die a peaceful death. Unfortunately, we didn't see a single Silver anywhere, but we'll probably try again later in the week. I'm definitely "hooked" on fishing... I really had a great time, and, surprisingly, got a pretty good workout, too! In fact, my whole body is aching tonight, which I'm blaming on the couple of fish I snagged in the tail (much harder to reel in), and hauling myself around in really heavy waders.

Oh, wait! I didn't tell you what the "proper gear" was! That's right, I'm now the proud owner of my very own hip waders and wading boots. I sloshed through the river on my own today, and spent some quality time standing in the river fishing. I'm here to tell you - the water is cold. But it was just cool to be able to do that. So, to end things here, I'll just share two more pictures with you - Jason in his fishing gear, and me in mine. If someone had told me 2 or 3 years ago that I'd own my own fishing gear and hip waders, I think I would've fallen over laughing. Yet, here I am, enjoying some of the best Kodiak has to offer. Yes, I've been assimilated!

More from Man Camp

Another day at man camp. After I posted yesterday we ended up getting launched on a case down near Seward, AK. After a quick search we were cleared to do some sight seeing. What a beautiful day to do that. We flew up the valley from Seward to Portage and then through to Whittier. This is the major/only way to drive from Anchorage down to these areas of Alaska. We had driven this route when we drove to Homer on the way up here. It was amazing see this route from the air, especially since it was actually sunny yesterday, unlike the day we drove it.

These pictures of the glaicers and the valleys are amazing in the picutres, but these don't even do them justice. Seeing them in person is unbelieveable. The best part is that there are people paying mucho $ to do what we get to do. I definitly can't complain.

While we were flying, we even ran into a moose that was trying to cool himself off. Unlike those in the lower 48 that are trying to cool from the 90+ temps, this moose was trying to cool off from the high 60s. The picture doesn't give the best view, but I thought I would include it anyways.

Well today we are probably going to go hiking. Hopefully we'll see a bear that I can actually get a picture of. I almost got a picture of a black bear swimming yesterday, but by the time we got the car stopped he was out of the water and on his way. I'll also try to get some more pictures of where we are staying.

Hope everyone is doing well. Stay tuned for more pictures and adventures from man camp.

Jason

Posting from Man Camp

Hello to everyone. It's been a while since I have last posted, but I'm currently in Cordova, Alaska on a two week deployment and have some time to while I'm standing duty so I figured that I would update everyone on what's been going on. Since Becca last posted from Anchorage we've been pretty busy around here. Once she returned from Juneau we ended up finishing the fence around the house. Fred now has a huge backyard to roam around, unfortunately he doesn't get to watch the neighbors like he did our front, but he has more room then he has ever had for his "kingdom". We'll see how he adapts to his new yard.

I ended up finishing the fence the night before I left for Cordova. For those that don't know, Cordova is one of the places we deploy to during the summer months so that we can respond better to the commercial and recreational fishing fleet. Cordova is on the mainland south west of Anchorage, but it's not connected by any roads from the interior. The only way in is by the ferry or the airlines. So we're basically on an island for all intensive purposes. Needless to say, there is less stuff here then in Kodiak. There is a small town with a few restaurants, and a grocery store (very expensive). What they do have is amazing scenery, hiking, fishing and hunting.

When we come here it's like going away for man camp. The C130 (large transport plane) brings us over it's packed with bikes, guns, fishing gear, hiking gear, and what not. You can pretty much do whatever you want around here. There is a shooting range just around the corner, we've been out shooting Matt's (other pilot) rifles and pistol, unfortunately I didn't get my guns early enough to pack them up and bring them. They will be brough the next time I come. Other then hunting, which we haven't been doing, we have been doing a to of fishing. Currently the pink salmon are running, and hopefully the silvers (coho) will start running later this week. I have caught and filetted 5 already and bring my first Alaska salmon home. I think it will only be a matter of time before I hear from Jay, Matt, or Alex.

Along with fishing we have been hiking, and cannoeing. You can't beat the activities you can do around here. While doing all this we've been spotting all sorts of wildlife. The bears are like stray dogs over here, both black and brown bears. They are everywhere. There are also moose, sheep, deer, wolf, eagles, and much more.

Besides doing all this stuff, we've also been flying around here. It's amazing, we've flown all around Prince William sound (where the Exxon Valdez sunk) the pipeline, Bagley icefield, and many other glaciers. It's hard to beleive that we get payed to do this. Others are paying big money to see a fraction of what we get to see.

Well I've got to get going, hope everyone is doing well, and can't wait to hear from all of you.

Jason