Only in Alaska yet again

Did anyone think anything as silly as a volcano eruption could get in the way of young love in Alaska? Not hardly. Not for a couple of friends of mine, anyway. And to think it all happened without the benefit of swans. Of course a lot of flights have been canceled coming into Alaska because of the ash clouds so the birds might be in a holding pattern somewhere to the south.

I don’t know where I’m a gonna go Part Deux

The volcano keeps erupting and finally the ash came this way. Found it on the car when I left work last night and snow along the way home had turned a mild gray. Along one stretch of road close to the mountainside, it looked in the headlights almost like the scene from one of those apocalyptic movies in which you see a desolate gray landscape with only a burned out tree still standing here and there. The trees were all intact but they were definitely gray. Oddly while the ash was heavy there, five miles farther along at the house, there was very little evidence of ash, just a slight burned sulphury odor in the air and maybe a little gray dust.

This has been a time of random thoughts, one about friendships. During the last trip to the East Pole I ran into a couple of friends along the trail. I have known this couple for more than 20 years, yet we have never done anything together except meet while passing on the trail. No coffee, no shared dinners, no games of charades, just an occasional visit as we pass moving about our business in the woods. They have lived there much longer than I have been around. When I first met them they had been trying to live very purely, eschewing things like snowmachines and traveled in winter hauling their supplies using a dog team. I always admired them for that. In recent years they purchased a couple of snowmachines. They even now have an internet connection.

The thing is though we actually have very little contact, when we meet on the trail it is like greeting dear friends I see all the time. There are smiles, handshakes, a true joy that at least I feel in seeing them. We exchange personal news, hash over some of the world’s problems, discuss futures and enjoy each other’s company for that few minutes. Then we head off in our own directions maybe not to see each other for another year or two.

 But that parting is like the warm feeling you enjoy after a pleasant visit with dear friends. A friend in Chicago once said he was glad Rush Street was there. He never went to the clubs but it was nice to know they were there and he could. It is kind of like mountains here. I will never climb any of them but it is nice to know they are there. And, it is like that with these friends, we have never done anything together except meet on the trail, but it is very comforting to know they are there.

This is a very cool time-lapse photo series of one of the Redoubt eruptions.

I don’t know where I’m a gonna go …

After months of threatening rumbles a volcano near here erupted last night and sent an ash cloud 60,000 feet into the air to the north. No ash where I am but it did go over the East Pole so there is probably a dusting on the cabin. It won’t be a problem. But here is one of those only-in-Alaska things. The stores in the area have had a run on panty hose (I really didn’t mean that). Everybody in the area is buying them to cover the air filters on cars and trucks, airplanes and even heavy equipment. Volcanic ash is very fine, and very abrasive. The hose filters it out and prevents it from getting into the engines. I have more to write, but i need some too, Now do I want the mauve? Is that really a color? Or do I want the sexy mesh? Redoubt Volcano

Red-headed terrorists

Turns out NASA and I have something in common. Read down a bit and there is a photo and post about a woodpecker destroying a tree out front by pecking off the bark. Actually the tree was already dead. So, a NASA official on television the other night: It seems they have to keep a stuffed owl on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. It is there to chase woodpeckeers who peck at the fuel tanks on the launch vehicles and actuallly nest in them. I am guessing it is that foam that keeps fallling off. Now we know why.

Little boy blue and the man in the moon

Interesting moon these nights, a crescent approaching the half, low toward the horizon during the drive home. It is one of those crescents that seems to have a face on the surface of the concave curve. It looks kind of like a wedge of cantaloupe with the seeds still there. Only the colors are different. Outer part of the wedge is a brilliant yellow gold, but the inner part where the seeds or the face would be, the color is a muted silver -- making a two-toned moon and probably the inspiration for the poets and songwriters of the world. If I had a longer lens I would be out there with a tripod trying to take a picture but for now just have to preserve the image in my mind -- that two-tone cantaloupe moon low in the western sky visible through the openings between the dark spruce trees in the yard. "We'll get together soon …"

Back to the island (so to speak)

Took advantage of beautiful weather in an attempt to reconnect with Alaska and had great weekend in the process. Last things first, I am pretty sure I saw a wolf last night. Heading out of Anchorage the brush has been cleared back from the highway a couple of hundred feet. In winter this gives a broad expanse of white to see moose coming across it and heading for the highway. As a matter of fact I saw a young one just before the wolf. This was in an area where a wolf pack has been reported. Last winter there were a few attacks on dogs.

He was heading across the white, running low in the slinky way wolves will with his head and tail low and made it all the way to the roadway before I could hit the horn. Smarter than the average moose he immediately turned away and streaked across the white toward the trees where he stopped. There was just enough light to where I could see him, head up, ears alert looking to see what that noise had been. And then I was past him. He was big, too big for most dogs and grayish though coloring was difficult to make out in the dim light and I am counting this as a wolf. Rare, I have seen maybe four in 30 years.

So, Thursday in bright sunshine I began another expotition to the East Pole. Fresh snow on the trail gave me something to read as I stopped occasionally to look at tracks that had been made that morning. Passed two moose who looked up to watch me go by and went on. At the pole, the mountain was out, the sun bright, the temperature in the 20s, it doesn’t get any better than this. I had left a mess last time when I cut and fitted counter top and it had been bothering me ever since. Once I got the fire going and the propane hooked up, that was where I started, that and melting snow for clean water. The day passed quickly and I was into a book by early evening, Stepping outside now and then I saw Northern Lights, the second this winter after the brief look the other night. These were all the way across the sky from northwest to northeast but still dimmer than many I have seen, kind of a pale yellow-green. I slept for 12 hours.

Next day I set out to glue down the counter top. Here is a lesson... any things longer than about five feet, get a friend to help. In maneuvering an 8 foot piece I managed to break the thin strip that runs between the sink and the edge of the counter. Now I will learn how to repair counter top. I wonder when we get to sit back and reflect on what we have learned and pass it on to the next generation. All I do is keep making mistakes and keep learning. Anyway that is the picture… but the stove side, not the broken sink side. Almost getting too fancy for a bush cabin, but the food odors that sink into the wood that was there, in the long run can only draw critters.

By afternoon it had clouded over and the mountain disappeared … the weather forecast was predicting two to five inches of snow. All I did was eat, read and keep the fire going. The snow started shortly after dark, which is after 5 these days -- we are past 10 hours of daylight, heading for 12 at the Equinox around March 20.

Still snowing when I woke up and 2-5 inches had turned into about a foot. But it was cold, light, fluffy snow, so no big problem. Cruised out just fine, with another fresh newspaper to read … fresh tracks. Another moose watched me leave. Then I got to drive 130 miles in a snowstorm, 85 of it towing a snowmachine trailer with my little car. A quick nap at home and then off to work in the still falling snow. And, it was amateur day on the commute. Saturday, lots of people who weren’t used to the highway -- and snow. What could go wrong? In the 30 miles of four lane highway, I counted 24 cars in the ditch and the median. That’s a new record for me. Even after going by a five-car pileup people passed me doing 60. What part of slippery road, limited visibility, traffic and cars in the ditch don’t they get? Darwin had more than a theory. Have to wonder what he would write about the chaos of Saturday traffic in a snowstorm.

After three days in the Bush, I seem to need two weeks of retraining to do my job, but I muddled through and headed home in weather that had turned snowless, cold and clear with a sky full of stars and a crescent moon.

And in that clarity it was then I saw the wolf.