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The Daily Doings of Steph

This has been a remarkable winter for birds in Anchorage. A Dusky Thrush was blown in from Asia and has spent the winter hanging out with a large flock of Robins in an Anchorage Neighborhood. The Dusky Thrush is the kind of bird that bird watchers go mad for. It’s an accidental in North America - usually only seen in the Aleutian Chain (if at all). To have this bird on one’s North American Life List is a very big deal. Serious birders have been flying up from all over the US to nab a sighting. I saw it on a bitterly cold late afternoon on New Year’s Eve. Pretty darn nifty.

Another bird, not an accidental, but damn neat, is the Great Gray Owl. It’s a northern owl, found in Alaska and Canada with very occasional sightings in the lower 48. The Great Gray is North America’s (and perhaps the World’s) longest owl. It is Harry Potteresque: the Weasley’s old exhausted owl, Errol is a Great Gray. This winter we have four of them hanging out in Kincaid Park - one of the United States’ great cross country skiing facilities. Which of course means, to see the bird, one must ski to the bird.

How awesome is that??!!!

Yesterday, our friend Dave, a lifelong uber birder, and I took advantage of a slight warming on the temperature front, 1 degree above zero (whoo hoo!) and headed out onto the Sisson Loop in search of a Great Gray. The day was gloriously beautiful, achingly blue skies, hoar frost laden trees, and brilliantly white ski trails. Alaska at its best. The Sisson Loop is about 7K and we skied almost the entire loop before we spied our big fluffy quarry. He was sitting in a tree, not shy at all, busy listening for the sound of little rodent feet under the snow. He was a magnificent sight. A very special treat. We had such a great ski and the Owl sighting was the icing on the cake.

A perfect Alaska day!

The Great Gray! I shot this with a 104mm lens. I don’t have a bigger lens. Besides, carrying a large lens while skiing would suck.
But nevertheless, I’m quite pleased with this shot.

Here’s Dave out on the trail

The Slat Rat having a glorious time on “slats”

Apres ski. My nose was bleeding because I forgot my “NoseKone.” A year after surgery, the ol’ schnozz is still very sensitive to cold.

Read: Owling and Skiing »

Alaska in the winter is very special - particularly this year when we’re in the midst of an absolutely epic winter. We’ve broken the all time record for accumulated snowfall up to this date. Week after week of snow. And when it’s not snowing, it’s 10 to 20 below zero. Except for in December when we had five hurricane force Chinooks (100 mph to 120 mph winds) in three weeks.

Tyge, Echo, and I have been taking full advantage of the winter. We go sledding three to four times a week. We’ll go when it’s cold (today was ten below). We’ll go when it’s snowy. We’ll go when it’s dark (with headlamps and blinky dog collars). The only time we don’t go is during Chinooks.

We’re very fortunate - we have an awesome hill in the woods about a half mile from the house. Very few people know about the hill, so Tyge and Echo get to romp and zoom along off lead. They absolutely love it! Plus they end up all pooped out (literally). And as we all know, a tired dog is a good dog.

Here’s a video and a few pics from today’s outing:

The video. This is handheld by the sledder (me).

After the run - face full of snow. The white thing on my nose is a “NoseKone.” Climbers use them to protect their noses from the sun.
I use it because my nose is still very sensitive to cold even though it’s been a year since my nose surgery.

One of the things we have to be very careful about are moose. This bull blocked our entrance into the trail for twenty minutes.
There were actually two antlered bulls and one cow. I couldn’t get a good shot because I was holding the dogs trying to stay
out of the way. At one point, the bull was ten feet away from us. Fortunately we were able to keep a parked truck between
ourselves and the moose.

Tygey closeup

Echo in the deep snow

Snowy woods in the sun

Read: Sledding on a Cold but Brilliant Day »

For years, Peter’s son, Seth has tried to lure Peter to Las Vegas. Finally, the perfect confluence of events occurred: Peter’s 65th birthday and the Las Vegas RocknRoll Half Marathon - a Vegas birthday weekend and a race!

Alix, Seth, Maia, Peter and I all flew in on Friday. It was quite the weekend: fine food (Bouchon), shopping, shows, Blackjack (I won $60), and great fun with Seth, Maia, and Alix. The weekend’s exclamation point was the half marathon which started at 5:30 PM on Sunday and the majority of the course was on The Strip. At night. Definitely a checkmark in the Life List column.

Peter’s List from the Weekend:

• Long taxi lines everywhere. Starting at the airport. Welcome to Las Vegas.
• The Vegas human milieu is beyond description
• Everything is on a grand scale - which is not necessarily a good thing
• A minimum of a 15 minute walk is required to get anywhere - even within the hotel
• 45,000 people for a race is a bit much [read “nightmare”] on the logistical front
• Cirque de Soleil’s KA was better than expected [Huh? It’s Cirque de Soleil, of course it will be fabulous]
• Jersey Boys was great
• Slot machines are stupid
• Lots of cowboys [it was National Final Rodeo weekend]

My Race List:

• Three Elvises (Elvi?)
• One Evil Knieval
• One wedding
• Two other bride and groom couples
• One solo bride
• The Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz
• Two kilts
• One orthodox Jew running with a talis
• Lots of tutus
• No cowboys [Alix and I think the intersection of the Cowboy set and the Running set would be single digits at most]
• Freezing sleet at the end of the race
• Kicked myself for not arranging for a limo at the end of the race. Instead, it took us two hours of hiking, conniving and battling the 45,000 strong crowd to make it back to the hotel. Not really what one is up to doing at 11:00 PM after running a half marathon.

All in all a great weekend. Now if we just had a week to recover….

Here’s a pre-race shot of Alix, Peter, and I.

At Bouchon

A Room with a View of the Strip

Read: Vegas Baby! »

As an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego), a trip to Legoland is more than a visit; it’s a pilgrimage. A second Legoland opened up in the US in October, Legoland Florida. Perfect timing for our November Florida excursion.

Legoland Florida is pretty darn nifty. It’s certainly not on the scale of Disney World, but it’s big enough and over time, as the grounds grown in, it will become really special.

We had a ton of fun. The Monday after Thanksgiving was the perfect day to go - not a lot of people, so no lines and no obnoxious crowds. Lots of fabulous builds to ooh and ahhh over - as you can see below.

All in all, great fun!!!

The Slat Rat entering hallowed ground:

Here’s a big guy!

Roar!!!

Darth and Peter:

The Golden Gate Bridge. This picture really does not do the build justice.

Lombard Street in San Francisco. I ran by the real street 6 weeks ago!

Even the potties are fun!

A fellow birdwatcher:

This guy reminded me of one of my favorite kids books of all time, The Shy Stegasaurus of Cricket Creek.

Finally, I really like this little pig:

Read: Legoland = Nirvana! »

I’m on my annual trip to Kansas - I serve on the Science Advisory Committee of Southwestern College. In addition to my alumni duties, I always use this trip to visit our old family haunts - Grenola, our Ranch, various cemeteries and graves, etc.

I say this during every visit, but this part of Kansas is a small slice of heaven. Gorgeous Flint Hills and rolling tall grass prairies with limestone outcroppings. What can I say - it’s in my DNA.

I combined a geocaching marathon with a drive out to Grenola to visit the ranch. Basically - other than two caches I couldn’t find - it was a perfect day!

Entrance to the Grand Summit Cattle Pen.

The view towards our old ranch from Grand Summit. At 1505 feet, Grand Summit is the tallest point between Colorado and the Ozarks.

Cattle Pens

The barbed wire goes on forever.

Hay rolls

A great mural in Grenola

In the mid to late 1800’s Grenola was the biggest cattle transfer point in the US. Who knew???

Read: Home on the Range »

September is the month to observe what would normally be odd moose behavior the other 11 months of the year. It’s rutting season. All the bulls are on edge, the cows have the harried look of the constantly wooed and pursued, and the calves are just plain baffled. They also tend to congregate in lots of small groups.

This week we played host to small herd of five moose: two cows, two calves, and one bull. At first it was kind of neat. But as the days wore on, our yard began to resemble a feedlot - the lawn was pock marked with gigantic moose hoof divots and big piles of moose droppings were scattered hither and yon. The yard also began to smell - a very strong odor of moose musk. Which I’ve never smelled before. Not something you’ll find on the perfume counter at Nordstrom. Although, I have a feeling teenage boys might feel the urge to dab on a bit of eau de bull moose.

The logistics of getting in and out of the house were also tricky - especially with Tyge and Echo when it was dark. Leashes, flashlights, and perimeter scans were de rigueur. On Tuesday, I was late to my root canal appointment because our driveway was blocked by the bull.

Here are some pictures. Not the best shots ever. But it gives one a bit of an idea of the herd:

Our handsome bull.

Can you find the three moose in this picture:

The calf is checking out the bull who lying down. And on the right, the cow’s nose is visible.

The cow headed up the lawn;

Read: Our Very Own Herd »

Today we played host to a very nice neighborhood family: a cow moose and her two calves. They’ve been in and around the neighborhood for most of the summer. But today was the first day that they actually spent time with us. They arrived this morning at 8:00 AM as I peddled off to work. They were still here, resting in the backyard when I arrived back home at 1:30 PM. I got some pretty nifty pictures of the very nice family grouping.

Closeup of Mom and the two kids:

Family in the backyard:

Streeeeeeeetch:

Read: Autumn Guests »

Somehow it seems fitting to have spent this day hiking in the mountains. Tyge, Echo, and I reveled in the glorious Arctic Valley Fall. We climbed up to Clementine’s Geocache which was placed 6 years ago this month. After visiting the cache, we continued up to the Saddle, further up to Rendezvous Peak, and then hiked another mile high up along the ridge line. Because we had an early start, we had almost the entire climb to ourselves. It wasn’t until we turned around to head back that we saw our first fellow hiker.

We could not have asked for a better day. Other than if the Ski Boy had been with us. He’s in Florida visiting Muby and Chuck.

And here are the pictures from an incomparable day:

On the ridge line on our way back. Thanks to our fellow hiker for the great picture.

Tyge and Echo snuffling for Whistle Pigs under the ski lift at the hike’s outset. The sun still hadn’t peeked above the mountain.

A mountain stream and glorious fall color.

The noble Tyge.

Echo at Clemmie’s cache.

I love this picture. On the way up Rendezvous Peak. And Echo still has massive poodle legs from her Amanita adventure.

Brilliant white lichen and deep red leaves.

Zooming around (early in the hike).

Tygey at Clemmie’s Cache.

Brilliant red leaves.

Read: A Glorious Fall Hike »

Our house remodel project was inspected this afternoon by a very noble neighborhood official - a large immature bald eagle. When the dogs and I drove up, I didn’t even notice him. But then I looked up and there he was. He was so still, I briefly wondered if our builders had installed a stuffed eagle on the roof. But then he turned his head and I went, “Whoa!”

Government Hill’s Brown’s Point has been home to a Bald Eagle pair for many years. It’s nice to see that the youngsters are remaining in the neighborhood.

Below are several nifty eagle pictures. And then several up to the minute remodel pictures.

My initial view of our avian houseguest:

View of our bird from Harvard. And also, a nifty shot of the house.

Eagle butt closeup! Check out the talon!

Not quite parquet. A few new replacement boards were inserted into the original floor from 1915.

View into the kitchen:

The upstairs master bedroom:

The original floor:

Read: A Noble Avian Building Inspector »

Wow - this evening in South Anchorage, we were treated to a magnificent double rainbow. I was lucky enough to have my camera with me!

Read: Spectacular Double Rainbow »