If you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression..

Last night I saw the Northern Lights for the first time this season! I got a blanket and laid on the grass and just watched the aurora dancing above me. <3 <3 There were thousands of stars and some random satellites and I even saw a shooting star! The lights just stayed white/light green, but their dancing is always beautiful. It was a great night and I am SO lucky to live here <3

( here's a couple surveys from tina's lj! )

Last night mom and Bonnie and I went to a program called Dark Winter Nights..it's where regular people tell a story of something that happened to them in Alaska (they broadcast it on the radio too). My favorite story was told by a guy who used to drive the buses in Denali. He was having a great time engaging the tourists and getting them to sing and they were seeing cool animals..but there was one person he kept looking at, a 10 year old boy with just a blank stare on his face..this group of people kept trying to engage him and encourage him but nothing happened. When they stopped for a break his mom came up and said his dad shot himself right in front of the kid a year ago and he hadn't said a word since..they were with a prayer group and they thought a trip to the wilderness would help the kid. The tour guide got a drum out and started singing and he was drumming with the kid's hand in his..and then he just started mouthing the words and beating the drum harder and harder till he destroyed the drum and fell to the ground. He said the kid's first words were "I'm thirsty" LOL. After that the kid kept asking questions and him mom was just sobbing. Wow. He said that now the guy is training to be on a talk show radio I think

Another powerful one was this guy who helped build the new Black Rapids Lodge (I think he served us lunch when we stopped there once). He and his friend and dog were caught in an avalanche while backcountry skiing..he was able to dig himself out, but it took two hours and he knew his friend and dog were dead. A couple months later he went back and dug them out..the dog was curled up by his friend and had a paw on his shoulder..OMG. So sad, but the dog provided comfort till the very end. I loved how people kept saying that even though Alaska can be a hard place to live, everyone bands together and helps each other. Alaska is our home, with amazing experiences (like one person said they saw amazing Northern Lights at a hot springs) and nice like-minded people :D

There was also a cute reindeer you could take pictures with!

I pretty much turn into a five year old when I'm around animals LOL ("it's so cuteee!!!")

JUST LOOK AT ITS CUTE FACEEE haha

We also found three geocaches, so it was a successful day :D

( List one thing that you're allergic to )

Mom and I went geocaching with Bonnie today and along the way we saw three moose! We turned around so we could take pics and then...


...they crossed the road in front of us! I really like this pic..a mom and her calves close together. So cute hehe. I love seeing moose..it's been a long time since I've had a moose sighting that awesome!

( day 12: what If you could travel back in time, where would you go? )

Wow, I need to go flying with them! I've never done a flightseeing tour out of Anchorage before. That panoramic view of Colony Glacier was super pretty and epic. *drools* I would LOVE to do the Prince William Sound Glacier Tour..OMG that sounds SO epic :D


( Favorite Power Ranger the movie scene )

Today's trivia: Emus are picky eaters preferring the parts of plants that have concentrated nutrients such as seeds, fruits, flowers and young shoots. The rich foods they favor become abundant after a rainfall. Once the food in a specific area has been exhausted, emus often travel hundreds of miles following rain patterns across the arid Australian land. These nomadic birds have an uncanny ability to orient their movements toward areas where the rain will fall. They seem to be attuned to subtle weather cues, such as the sight of distant cloud formations and the sound of distant thunder, to lead them toward areas where rainfall will produce the rich foods they seek

32 Photos of Alaska Will Blow Your Mind and Make You Insanely Jealous

OMG this article is amazing..especially #3. There's nothing like standing next to a glacier in the fresh Alaska air <3 (I knew that was Columbia Glacier before reading the caption haha). It's such an honor to live here!

( Day 8- What Animal’s Diet would you like to be on? )

Last night I randomly decided to check Facebook and I saw a status that said someone saw the Northern Lights..they were out on a webcam I checked, so I went outside. They were kinda faint, but getting brighter (they were out super early..it wasn't even 7 PM yet!). So we all went out to watch. They were super awesome, and also super weird!! They kinda looked like a bird stretched across the sky, with its feathers raining down on us. Then sometimes it looked like they were trying to tie a knot in the middle..weirdd haha. They also turned red!! I'd never seen a red aurora before! Must have been a powerful geomagnetic storm. I saw a shooting star too! So awesome. :D After they faded I checked outside again but it had gotten cloudy. Wow..lucky weather window! I'm glad I checked Facebook too :P

( some pics! not mine though )

Yesterday we drove to Denali..the weather was so gorgeous! When we got on the ridge we could see McKinley in the distance..yayy! (Also Hayes, Hess and Deborah on the opposite side of the range..epic!) When we got there we got our bus tickets and boarded. I don't know what was up with our driver, but she didn't want to spend a lot of time at anything..annoying. Finally I have seen the mountain from the park!! The driver kept saying how lucky we were haha..only 30% of visitors see the mountain in the summer. The bad thing about such a nice sunny day is you don't see as much wildlife. We saw a whole bunch of caribou for some reason. We didn't see ANY moose though..wow, that's unheard of haha! There were also a couple bears in the distance eating a carcass, and mom saw another through binoculars eating a caribou. McKinley looked so epic though..I know I've flown around it and stuff, but seeing it from the park that close is just different. It just looks so HUGE..wow. It was nice seeing where the mountain should be when usually it's cloudy. I love how pretty everything looked in the sun. By the time we got to Eielson Visitor Center clouds had gathered around the mountain and you couldn't see it very well..boo! We stayed awhile there and went hiking around this little trail. There was another that went to the top of this 1,000 foot mountain..it looked very tiring. :P We took another bus back to the entrance..our driver didn't talk at all except to say how long we'd be at a rest stop and stuff..weird. After we got back we went to a couple shops (I got 30% Club pins and shirt..yayy!), had dinner (there was a drink on the menu called Sex on the Nenana..love it haha!!) and drove home. I'm glad I finally got to see Denali on a nice day!

( pics! )

Today I have been living in Alaska FIVE years!! That's amazing..that went fast haha. After all those years it's still a novelty. I've changed so much. It's been awesome :D

Waking up to sun and blue sky: NICE. Yesterday we set a record of 2.6 inches of snow. Now don't snow anymore! Haha

( Day 10: A song from your favorite movie’s film score. )

Would you rather in one sitting, eat 10 pounds of cheese or a bucket of peanut butter? CHEEEESE

Today's trivia: The fishbowl was invented by Countess Dubarry, Mistress of King Louis XV

I'm back from Talkeetna! On Friday mom went to Laurie's house to load up the car with her stuff, Laurie came to mom's house to have breakfast, then we left. It was an uneventful drive down. Besides McKinley (which was cloudy then), I find the Parks Highway rather boring. I've driven the Richardson too many times haha..it's way more exciting. :P We got to Laurie's house, unpacked the car, hung out a little, then had dinner. We met up with another air traffic controller, his wife, a girl who played basketball with the controller, and another lady that I'm not sure what the connection was. I was rather annoyed..I was tired, hungry and it was really loud. Once I had some wine and food I was better though haha. There were cool mountaineering mementos on the walls (Talkeetna is the jump off for mountaineers flying to McKinley. I'd love to go in the summer when all the mountaineers are there!). Talkeetna is rather quaint. After dinner, we went back to Laurie's house, had more wine (we bought a bottle..Red Rock Merlot) and played Trivial Pursuit haha. Funn. After the game we went to bed

Yesterday I got up and when it was light enough started checking the webcams to see what the weather was at McKinley. It was clear over Talkeetna but I could see a thin layer of fog/clouds (depending on where the camera was) at McKinley. I was confident it would break up though. I checked later and..I was right! The clouds were breaking up and I could see the top of McKinley! I have good weather skillz I swear haha. ;) After breakfast we went over to K2 Aviation and they said once the pilot got the plane ready we could go flightseeing! Yaaay haha. While he was doing that we went over and checked out the flight service station where Laurie's gonna work (the guy from the night before was working then too). After talking with him we went back to K2 and went flightseeing! We opted for the Denali Grand Tour. :D (Don't worry, I saved up for this haha) One of the best feelings everr is taking off in a plane and seeing everything around you. THE FLIGHT WAS SO AMAZING!! Denali, Foraker, Hunter, etc were so clear and pretty!! Even the pilots were amazed. I could see in the distance it was cloudy over Anchorage and I heard it was snowing in Fairbanks. WOW haha. A good weather hole, just for me. ;) We got SUPER close to Foraker and other mountains..so amazing to see the detail!! Seeing all sides of McKinley was pretty awesome too. All the glaciers were awesome too..so cool seeing icefalls, crevasses, moraines. *drools* The mountains looked like ice cream haha. I took over 100 pics up there!! It was just amazing. <3 Laurie met up with us after we landed and had lunch and dessert at two different places haha. Ouch..I ate horribly yesterday. :P That just happens when you travel though. We also checked out the Talkeetna River (which had an AMAZING view of McKinley and co.), went to a gift shop, went back to Laurie's house and showed her our pics, then left to go back home. It was like 4:15 when we left! Oops haha. There was a nice mountain sunset though. The WORST part of the drive is after Nenana you just wind and wind through hills and you're so close to home BUT THE HILLS NEVER ENDDD haha. But we made it back to mom's house, unpacked the car and went to bed haha. Pics tomorrow or whenever I get them all uploaded :P

( 72. Mischief Managed )

We talked about this plane crash in class today. Knowing what we know about glaciers we had to figure out how we would have got it out of the ice. They had to drill hundreds of feet into the ice, make a cavern and take the plane apart to get it out. Wow. I wish the video was more detailed, but here's an article: http://www.damninteresting.com/exhuming-the-glacier-girl/

Today was finally a day where the whole Alaska Range was clear..I'll never tire of that view <3

( 50. Breaking the Rules )

Would you rather have to put to sleep five puppies you just got or a dog you've had for a year? uwefhgyuegwfyv these kind of questions are too upsetting for me

Today's trivia: Rats are lactose intolerant