Last year, I discovered a flightseeing company out of Delta Junction (about 1/2-2 hours south of Fairbanks) that did flights around the Alaska Range, including Black Rapids Glacier..I'd been wanting to fly over that glacier for years, and I said that on my birthday this year that's one thing I would do. My birthday week was cloudy, so I made a reservation for today, because the heat wave brought clearer weather. Unfortunately, the wind chose today to bring over smoke from fires burning in Canada..that's not nice!! Haha. Me and mom and her friend Sarah (they sew/craft a lot together) drove down anyway and met the pilot at the "airport" (literally a path of gravel through a field haha). He said the smoke might get better in the mountains, so we hopped on and took off. This was Sarah's first time in a small plane! The pilot was glad I had a specific location in mind, apparently other people are like "just take us anywhere" haha. It look a little time getting to the mountains (the smoke was somewhat better there), but once we did..wooow. There is SO much beauty and awesomeness you can't see from the road!! I loved how smooth the snow/ice looked on the mountains, like ice cream! It was VERY hard trying to take pictures though, so bright! Mom actually got a better view of Black Rapids from her side, but she thought she left her phone in the car, so she couldn't take any pictures! Ouch! (She saw it was in her purse when we landed!) That was kind of disappointing, but I still enjoyed the view of the tributary glaciers (I think the pilot said they're just considered the Black Rapids complex or something like that), the pretty meltponds, moraines, etc. We also saw the beginning of the Susitna Glacier. I wished we could have spent more time there, but that would have been insanely expensive, and those little planes only hold not a huge amount of fuel (it's never long enough for me when I'm around glaciers haha). When we were flying back, the pilot pointed to where he worked at his "real" job, and said he was on his lunch break..well that's pretty much the best lunch break ever haha. Unfortunately, not all of my pictures came out (especially with the wing strut thing in the way), but I still got some cool ones

After that we had buffalo burgers at a restaurant that I think is only open in the summer, went to a fabric store, and went to this grocery store that sells food from different countries, like Russia (their donuts looked good, but I was way too full from lunch to eat one lol). We have our road trip "musts": glaciers, food, fabric..works for me!! Haha. The smoke was a little better on the drive back, yay! Sarah thanked us for inviting her and said she had a good time..fun was had by all :D

( pics from the flight!! )

I am home! It's always kinda depressing and surreal coming home after a fun vacation. We did see Denali though, yay! As we were driving by I Googled Ruth Glacier (why not lol. How did my phone get service in the mountains??), and was surprised when I read that the famous explorer Frederick Cook named it after one of his daughters! I'm sure I read that before when reading about Ruth Glacier, but it hadn't meant anything to me. I don't know a lot about Cook because I don't care for him and the whole "who made it to the North Pole first?" controversy between him and Peary..I hadn't known he explored around Denali!

I don't think I'll be able to identify all the glaciers in my pictures, but I'll try. The forest ranger guide told everyone more than once how lucky we were to have such nice weather (it rains a LOT down there), and that we'd get to see absolutely EVERYTHING. Thrilling words!! I probably took too many pics, but it's hard not to :P

( lots of glaciers :P )

I hope I'm not too tired at work tomorrow :P

22. What Was Your Favourite Fairy Tale or Nursery Rhyme? Hmmm..I'm not sure actually. Maybe "Rock a Bye Baby"? (Why on earth is a baby in a treetop though?? And why are we singing about babies falling out of trees?? So messed up LOL)

Yesterday the Northern Lights were supposed to be super active..as it got dark around the Northern Hemisphere, they were seen in Norway, Wisconsin, Utah, etc. It had been cloudy all day here, but amazingly, when the sun went down the clouds cleared off! Mom kept checking the webcam the university has, and when it showed the aurora starting to form at like 9:40 something, we got ready to go to the Goldstream pullout again. Mom and I were waiting for Ryan and Jo, but they decided to take their own car. We could see a faint aurora over the house, but as we were driving, they suddenly EXPLODED and were dancing and turning pink/purple like crazy!! It was so awesome! They were still going when we got to the pullout (it takes maybe 10 minutes to get there). There were a lot of other people there too. After maybe 20-25 minutes the intense dancing quieted down, which seemed really short to me! They were still pretty good, but I just love the dancing they do! After an hour they quieted down more, so we left. Short, but a good show!!


Dance dance!!


I'm not usually excited about the color pink...unless it's in the aurora :P


It's raining aurora!!

( march 23-24 )

Today mom and I drove to Denali today, because why not. :P We found some geocaches, went shopping, had yummy pizza, and drove to the Savage River hiking trail. We saw two caribou, one of which had a huge rack! Both of them crossed the road right in front of our car, which was super cool! We didn't do the whole trail because we thought we had to get back in time to take dad to the airport, but it was still nice listening to the river (we saw one of the caribou again on the way back!). We got ice cream and then drove back to Fairbanks..we weren't going to get any geocaches because we didn't think we'd have time, until dad called us and said the flight was canceled! We laughed at our now unnecessary rushing and then found two more caches haha..we found seven in all, yay! Fun, but tiring :P

( some pics! )

30. Do you mostly do specific chores on specific days each week (e.g. groceries on Saturday, laundry on Wednesday, etc.)? Yeah, I usually do laundry on Saturday, and grocery shopping on Sunday. Other chores wait till I have the spoons to do them lol

Today is my 14 year anniversary of moving to Alaska! Yay! I wonder what my life would have been if I had stayed in Texas..(not as exciting probably! Who would have adopted Abby if I'd never been here??). It's an amazing state :D

Mom is in England with Aunt Cindy, preparing to bring home grandma, and Greyboy was SO happy to have someone to sleep with this weekend (dad closes his door when he sleeps). Abby doesn't like having to share the bed with him though LOL

( april 9-10 )

Earlier mom and I left her house to go to the store and stuff, but she had to go back because she forgot her phone..mom was about to get out when I saw two moose run from the back of the house right in front of the car! I gasped and was like "mom...mom!!" and she looked up and was like "WHOA!" haha. I was too shocked to take a picture right then (mom hates it when my brain freezes up and stutters when I get shocked..she said "this was like when you saw a bear charging the car! B-b-b-bear!" and I said "m-m-m-moose!!" haha), but here are a couple pics from further away after I recovered lol


A mom and calf, probably. This is the first time I've seen moose at the new house! (Dad's seen one before there though.) I'm glad I still get to see them, even if my heart was racing :P (mom was glad she had forgotten her phone haha!)


Yay! <3 A cool end to the long weekend!

( 28. What is your favorite kind of tea? )

Yesterday at breakfast Jo said he and his friends were going to hike at Wickersham Dome (around 27 miles from Fairbanks) later in the day, and invited me to go with them. It was a gorgeous day, it sounded like fun, and somehow I'd never hiked there before, so I said yes! (Mom has hiked there, and did the 14-mile round trip in one day..wow. O_o) As it got closer to leaving, I again got nervous before seeing his friends. I've hung out with them multiple times by now, I shouldn't still get that nervous! They were almost ready to go and I was frantically looking for mom's copy of the Milepost to take with me (it's a very cool book, with lots of information, though mom's is from 2007, so it's a liiittle outdated haha. She kept it because that was the year she drove to Alaska), but kept not finding it, and was worried someone would ask what I was looking for! I did eventually find it in a box. "Mile-POST!!!" I said in victory LOLOL

Eventually we were all ready to go..I rode with Jo and Maeve and the others (and Sid) rode in a separate car. Mom and Ryan video called from Payson a little after we left (though the signal wasn't very good, maybe because of the hills). Jo said "me and Heather and Maeve are on our way to Wickersham Dome to hike!" and mom was like "no way! Cool! Wait..how did you get Heather to go with you?? Was she peer pressured??" (Maeve said I should have said "no, I was queer pressured!" That would have been perfect. :P) I took the phone and told her it was too nice of a day not to lol, and then showed her I brought the Milepost along. It was hard talking though because of the bad signal, and eventually had to give up..we figured we would talk later when the signal was better lol. After we hung up, I told Jo and Maeve I realized I missed the perfect opportunity to say "I took your Milepo-po-post!" and blame the stuttering on the bad signal instead! That would have been so funny. :P Then I started telling them why that word is so hard (Jo had heard the story, but Maeve hadn't. She was curious as to what situations cause me to stutter, and said from being nervous or really tired, and sometimes it comes out of nowhere :P), and just kept talking! I was honestly tired of hiding it, and hadn't talked a lot about it except on the Internet, so it was pretty cathartic! I'm sure they heard/saw my struggle as I tried to say "post" way too many times in that conversation LOL, but I just laughed it off. :P The drive was really pretty though, lots of fall colors and awesome Alaska scenery!

It didn't take too long to get to the trailhead, and I told Rachel "I'm out of shape and I have short legs, I'll be in the back, the first to g-get e-ea-eaten by a bear!" (Yup, still nervous. :P) Jo got his hiking pole out, which reminded me of winter hiking with mom and Bonnie and Ingrid, and took a deep breath and asked "do you know what ..postholing is?" and he said "what?" Nooo I have to say it again?? "Po-postholing," I said again, but still he was like "huh?" NOO YOU'RE KILLING MEEE haha! He got it the third time, but Rachel nearby must have been like "what is wrong with her?" Thankfully that's when we started hiking haha, which was REALLY hard at first because I'm so out of shape and was panting way too much (so embarrassing!). Rachel probably thought I was kidding when I said I was going to be in the back, but nope, that's where I was. :P I felt like a grandma LOL. It was still a really nice hike though, with nice colors and great views of the Alaska Range, and possibly the Brooks Range! I think this was everyone's first time up there, and we were all like "woooow" haha. I think we hiked a mile or so, but I'm not positive. It was tiring, but fun!

We drove behind the other car the way back, and when we got back to town, Sid stuck his head out the window, and we could see Sid was drooling, which he never does unless he's sick (one time he ate a poisonous mushroom and he was leaking from both ends and collapsed and had to go to the vet!). Jo was like "oh no, he is not ok!" When we got home a couple of us watched Sid (who definitely wasn't feeling well, and was wobbly when he walked) while the others made dinner. When Sid started having diarrhea, I got Jo, who called the emergency vet, and was placed on hold for a long time (really??). After we ate he finally got through, and they said to bring him in, so I went with Jo to the vet. She gave him some anti-nausea medicine to stop his drooling (which didn't work) and some charcoal to bind whatever toxins he ingested to it (he might have eaten another mushroom). His fluid was fine, so she sent us home with more medicine (Jo thanked me a couple times for going with him). Sid was SO tired, and he's still very tired this morning, but he did stop drooling, which is good. Poor guy! I hope he recovers quickly, and learns not to eat mushrooms :P

( pics from the hike! )

I can't believe yesterday was the 20th anniversary of 9/11..that makes me feel old. O_o Definitely a sad day :(

11. When was the last time you visited the park? Who did you go with? Hmm..I went geocaching at a park with mom this summer..

12. What language did you take in high school? Spanish and Latin

Yesterday morning Jo had to do something for work, so mom and I took Ryan to see Valdez Glacier Lake and the fish hatchery at Allison Point. The tide was SUPER low! The hatchery breeds salmon and lets them go, and in a year or two they return to spawn..there were lots of fish, but there's a weir preventing them from going any farther (a guy at the hatchery said the fish weren't ready yet, and when they are they open a gate and let the fish in to these tunnel things to spawn. They seemed ready to me, it was hard watching them work so hard to jump over the weir and get nowhere lol). There was a sea lion in the distance catching fish, but not much else was happening, so we went back to the B&B, had lunch, and then went bike riding! We rented the bikes from the same company we rented the kayaks from. The bikes were electric, and you could either peddle or use the throttle. The throttle was fun (especially since I'm out of shape LOL)..the bikes could go 20 MPH, but the highest I got on mine was 16 I think. We biked to Old Town, where Valdez was before getting destroyed by a tsunami after the 1964 earthquake. I'd never been there before, but here wasn't much to see, except for a couple poles in the water and the foundation of the post office. Then we biked on some trails (which had bear scat D:), and stopped at a place a geocache was, but it must have fallen down the pole it was in, because only tape was left on the cover of the pole..darn! We went out to Allison Point again, this time at high tide, and there were a whole group of sea lions getting a very easy dinner haha! It was cool watching them, and watching the seagulls swarm around them when they were trying to eat lol. Then we biked back to the rental place..I think we did at least 11 or so miles! I needed wipers on my glasses lol, since it rained the whole time, but it was still cool..we all need bikes like that haha. Walking seemed very slow after that. :P Then we had dinner, finally found two geocaches (they were done with construction for the day, so we grabbed the opportunity) and played Betrayal at House on the Hill..after the traitors were revealed (mom and I), Ryan and Jo went to Safeway (the traitor(s) always have to be in a different room so everyone else can strategize in secret). I saw the lamps shaking a bit, and then an alarm blared on our phones, and when I looked I saw this:

Mom and I were just like "WTF?!?" We checked online and saw that an 8.2 earthquake had struck near the Aleutians, and a tsunami warning was issued for the coastal areas, even as far as Hawaii! This earthquake was largest earthquake in the United States since the one in 1964!! We were totally freaking out..the B&B owner said the "safe spot" was the high school, so when Ryan and Jo got back we grabbed important stuff and headed there (the tsunami wasn't expected in Valdez for an hour or two, but we didn't want to wait till it was too late!). We hung out there for a couple hours, till we saw them downgrade all the warnings. The earthquake was shallow and occurred underneath a shelf in the ocean, so it didn't displace very much water. The biggest waves were only a foot above normal..wow, talk about luck!! I'm not sure I needed that experience, but it was still interesting lol. I'm glad it happened in the middle of nowhere, with minimal damage!

Today we went on a wildlife/glacier cruise. It was pretty nice out, with some blue sky! Jo was looking at the map they gave us, of the route and various named places, and then was like "hey! That 'unnamed' glacier we flew over after Shoup, that was Anderson Glacier!" You can see Anderson Glacier from Valdez if the weather's good enough (there were clouds covering it this morning). Indeed, when I looked at the map, it's right near Shoup (only higher up), in between Shoup and Columbia! We HAD to have passed over it. That made me SO happy haha, it has a name!! Someone should tell that pilot. :P You can see very little of Shoup now from the boat, sad! All that awesomeness just hiding so close by! We saw lots of wildlife..sea otters, sea lions, bald eagles, puffins, a pod of orcas, a humpback whale, jellyfish, and other various birds. There were a lot of kids on the boat, and they were SO funny..when one saw the orcas, she was like "I see its nose!!" haha. When one saw a dirty iceberg, she said "it looks like chocolate, I wanna eat it!" Oh good, I'm not the only one that thinks some glacier look like chocolate and ice cream mixed together. :P We saw Columbia Glacier, but we didn't get very close because they said there was too much ice..it didn't look THAT bad to me (the other guy would try, but then he has a smaller boat), but then I saw that instead we were going over to this cove with a bunch of other glaciers, which used to be connected to Columbia. I'd never gone over there before, but I imagine it was covered with ice before! The mountainsides were absolutely barren and covered with moraines..so crazy to see such new land!! We got half a mile from the face of Columbia's remnants, and we also saw some kayakers SUPER close to the face of one! That very glacier then calved awesomely (I will never not jump up and down and squee when that happens haha), and we saw the kayakers paddle away like crazy! There was one kid who was just SCREAMING in terror..their tour guide (I imagine they were a tour group) should NOT have let them get that close!! I hope they were ok! It was cool being surrounded by glaciers haha, and I always get weirdly sad after leaving them. I always feel like we don't spend enough time with the glaciers, though I imagine it's longer than I think. Then we just went back to Valdez..you could see Anderson Glacier this time, and I was like "yup, that's the one we flew over!" *points to familiar-looking ridge of ice* When we docked, I saw the Saga, a Deadliest Catch boat..cool! Now we're just relaxing..tomorrow's our last full day here, awww :(

( more cool pics! )

28. Musician you would like to see live if you had the chance? Of Monsters and Men, for one

29. Have you ever met an online friend in real life? Yeah..Dana, Aimee, etc. It's so cool to see them in real life :D

The smoke from the Munson Creek Fire (by Chena Hot Springs) was really bad yesterday, but that didn't stop me, mom, Ryan, Jo and Sid for going on a drive up the Steese Highway, to about mile 57, where we turned off the main road and drove down to Nome Creek. Mom and Ryan found that spot when they first moved here, and wanted to get some rocks there to take home (there are a lot up there from dredging or mining). I hadn't been up the Steese in a long time! In 2004 there was a bad fire up there, and you can still see miles of burned trees, but the vegetation has filled in a lot more now, yay! We had lunch by the creek and loaded up the car with cool rocks haha. Ryan took his metal detector, but only found a bullet and trash. As we drove back to Fairbanks, we could actually see the smoke plume from the fire, and saw that the wind had shifted and it was blowing away from Fairbanks..the hills did look kind of cool draped in smoke though. Sid was exhausted (he's a lazy dog haha) and slept the whole way home. Yay for going on road trips again!

( some pics! )

3. Has anyone ever told you that you're getting too competitive over minor things? Umm..I don't think so??

4. What was the first thing you ever saved up to buy with your own money? Not sure..maybe a CD or something..

5. After high school – straight to college or straight to work? I took a few college classes

6. If I looked in your fridge right now, what would I find? Water, apple juice, jello I think..I definitely need to go grocery shopping haha

Today's trivia: Abraham Lincoln lost eight separate elections before he became president of the U.S.

Today I went kayaking on the Chena River with mom, Jo, Ryan and their friend Daniel (along with everyone else in Fairbanks :P). It was rather warm, but still a nice day to be on the water. It's always interesting seeing the houses and stuff along the river you don't see from the road, and I love seeing and hearing the birds. It took about 2 1/2-3 hours from where we started, and the take-out spot is pretty close to the house, which is cool. Someone had their pugs there, and I tried telling mom that breeders made their face squished on purpose, but said "they-they do that on pur-pur-purpose." Not again!! D: I was really tired, but still..ugh. At least everyone was distracted :P

Here are some pics!


O hai (my legs got sunburned, oops lol)

( the rest )

26. What is your favorite tea brand? I don't like tea