Amanda's Alaskan Adventure

One girl, one big journey

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Tuesday, March 9th

Snowmachines


Today we did in fact get to go snowmachining! Yay!



This is the string of us at a quick stop. Only two other people from my group went. There was also a family vacationing that made up most of the rest of the group, and two guides and a camera guy.

It took me a little bit to get used to the throttle (they seriously need to make one for people with midget hands - could hardly feel my thumb after a while it was so strained from being in an odd position) and the steering (I managed to get off the trail a bit as we were headed out to the glacier, and it took me a couple of attempts to get back on the trail cuz I would keep getting bounced back out).

To explain this "trail" - we were going to Exit Glacier. During the warmer months, one can drive up there. But during the winter months the road gets blocked off because its not getting cleared, but snowmachines and dogsleds can still use it. So we were on an unplowed road. Well, remember the blizzard I was talking about yesterday? Between that, some snow that fell over the weekend, and snow that fell overnight and was continuing to fall, there was about 3 feet of powder before you got down to anything resembling packed snow. The machines we were using were meant more for groomed trails than powder. Which made them not really want to do anything I told them to do. My neck and back are a tad sore from wrestling the thing. But anywho...

So, we eventually get to the glacier.



The glacier would be the big white thing to the left of the mountain. I'm sure its usually much more impressive (and obvious and blue) but that's what a whole bunch of fresh snow does for ya. Hides everything.

One of the guides went ahead of us here to create a bit of a trail for us to follow near the base of the glacier. (Way easier to follow trail than to break your own trail, especially for a bunch of people who'd never done this before.) When he got back from doing that he was talking w/ the other guide, and saying how the "bowl" was almost flat with snow. So apparently this area at the base of the glacier that we got to goof off in is bowl-shaped. Not that we could tell. That's how much powder there was.

So, at the glacier we were told that we could stick to the trail he made, or go break trail on our own. Which led to most everybody getting stuck at least once, some people many times, and one guy tipped over a whole bunch of times. Fun times had by all. :)

In other news, yesterday's snows caused some avalanches, closing off some of the roads that we're going to need to use tomorrow to get back home temporarily. They're open again now, but I heard the staff saying that there's still risks of avalanches, and so some will be intentionally set off tomorrow. I hope to avoid dealing with that.
[Karma: 0 (+/-)] Amanda on 03.09.10 @ 08:57 PM AKDT [link] [No Comments]


Monday, March 8th

Seward


Made it down to Seward in one piece. Between potty, food, and shopping breaks, ended up taking about 12 hours. Snowed a good chunk of the way down, but roads were still almost bare asphalt until we got almost to Seward.

There was plenty of awesome mountainy views along the way.



As we neared Anchorage the sun came out, and we got some clearer views.



And the views got even better after Anchorage, because we were driving along some coastline (Seward's out on a peninsula) and the sun was setting behind the mountains, reflecting off of water...



Today we were supposed to go snowmachining (that would be snowmobiling for those of you in the lower 48) but we got thwacked by a lovely blizzard - has finally almost stopped snowing. So trails are iffy until proven good, visibility was low, and most of the staff was involved in snow removal. We should be able to make up for it tomorrow though. So they tell us.

In any case, we then visited the Alaska Sea Life Center. Fairly standard educational stuff, with some cool tanks.

Fear the crab!!



They also had a sea lion



and a seal.



The seal was cheesing. Big time. Followed your hand real good, and was just plain awesome to watch. I could almost sit and watch that guy(?) all day.



The sea lion wasn't quite so photogenic. Although much larger. I finally managed to snap this pic



before my camera decided it wanted to skip straight from half battery indicator to dead. I *knew* I should have charged it last night. Luckily I was almost out of there by that point, so it wasn't too sad.

The fact that the snow has visibility of the surroundings hugely reduced also makes me feel less sad about camera dying. But its happily charging now.
[Karma: 0 (+/-)] Amanda on 03.08.10 @ 05:32 PM AKDT [link] [3 Comments]


Saturday, March 6th

Brrr


I just checked out the World Ice Art Championsips. Pictures to follow.

Note to self: wear longer jacket, so butt doesn't freeze.

Other than that, very neat stuff. The level of detail that some of the artists manage to achieve is pretty amazing. You can see pictures of all of the pieces on the website.

Tomorrow I'm going to be taking off for Seward Military Resort on a BOSS (military program geared towards single soldiers) trip. So travel and lodging are free. :)

There should be many more pictures to follow of that. Apparently like most smaller towns, it almost shuts down during the winter, but there should still be plenty of pretty stuff to look at for two days.
[Karma: 0 (+/-)] Amanda on 03.06.10 @ 08:41 PM AKDT [link] [No Comments]


Wednesday, March 3rd

Looong weeks


Been some long weeks. Between the stuff going on on the home front (get better Grandpa!!) and the craziness over here (one of my coworkers was viciously attacked by her bathroom mirror) its been a tad stressful. Though, I think I'm finally going to get a bit of time to unwind. I hope. I don't want to say too much and jinx it.

Anywho, before all that stuff happened I added some more stuff to the pyro piece.



Overall, I think it didn't turn out too bad. Got a little better feel for the burner as I was going along, especially trying to make the more delicate lines on the butterfly. The shading was a severe pain though because the consistency of the wood changed from one side to the other, so on part of it I would have to move the burner really quick to not totally blacken the wood, and then on the other side it would seem like it just would not burn. What I get for using cheap wood I guess. :p

I had also done up one of the bottles. The design kinda wraps around so I took multiple pictures.



This one I used some carbon paper to transfer the design. Then of course I could only see the lines left by the carbon paper in indirect lighting, which made it rather difficult to actually paint. Yes, there's a couple different shades of paint on the design, and that is mostly intentional. I swear. And its also got some silver in it. Cuz sparkles just make everything better. *grin*
[Karma: 0 (+/-)] Amanda on 03.03.10 @ 06:39 PM AKDT [link] [2 Comments]


Saturday, February 13th

Pyro


Playing around some more with woodburning.



I'm thinking I should prolly add some sort of border to the top and bottom... debating whether to add detail to the tails on the fish.

Got some more bottles... trying to decide what I'm going to paint on them. Got base colors done tho - blue and purple (really sucks having to mix paint).

And because of some things that happened my unit's got a no alcohol order, so I'm going to have to not do any more of these or start using non-alcohol bottles - two of the ones I have right now are pasta sauce.. should make nicer vases with the wider mouths and bottoms, so they won't get so tipsy as the smirnoff bottles. I hope.
[Karma: 0 (+/-)] Amanda on 02.13.10 @ 10:43 PM AKDT [link] [3 Comments]


Saturday, February 6th

They got me!


Last Friday, they finally got me. Got the H1N1 vaccine.

Luckily, we got actual shots, not the nasal mist goofiness, so I had no side effects. I don't think I've ever been so happy to get a shot in my life.

This week I got to go through Combat Lifesaver class. For the third time. Its something that you're supposed to re-certify on every year, and I never manage to get anywhere close to that one year mark, so I keep getting sent through the entire class again. Which isn't all that bad because as we find out more about what is coming back from the battlefield, we know more about how we can actually save combat casualties.

And this was definitely the best version of the class that I've been through. The instructors were awesome, been there and done what they're talking about for real, not just teaching it, and they love what they do. And they had great hands-on simulator stuff - on the final day we had to clear a bunch of rooms and treat the casualties in them (dummies), and they did a good job of making it stressful - it was loud, smoky, fake blood everywhere, and you were constantly being rushed so that you wouldn't get yourself killed.

And then we got to clean up afterwords.

Note to self: do not have the color-blind guy cleaning blood off the walls. Unless he has people to point it out to him.

Corollary to note to self: Don't have the color-deficient guys being the ones to point out the fake blood. They can't see it too well either.

And then yesterday I had my first test in my Statistics class. Which I think went fairly well. I probly won't get the grade back for two weeks or so though. :/
[Karma: 0 (+/-)] Amanda on 02.06.10 @ 03:32 PM AKDT [link] [No Comments]


Sunday, January 24th

Wall Art


I got the other two prints in that I ordered, the ones that were already framed, but I didn't have the stuff I needed to hang them until now, so now I can show em' to you.



Like my kitty? *grin* When I saw that I instantly had to get it.

Here's what the frames look like:



They're really light, and even came with their own little level... not that I necessarily managed to get them level. I know I didn't do too well at getting the cubbies level. Oh well.
[Karma: 0 (+/-)] Amanda on 01.24.10 @ 04:52 PM AKDT [link] [1 Comment]