A little smoke to go with those mosquitoes...

This was our valley yesterday:

View from UAF campus

 A sunny day turned gray:

The Sun over UAF Geophysical Institute

and today it's raining.  So far it seems my fantasy is being fulfilled :)

The Summer Plagues of Interior Alaska

The thing about summers in Alaska is that they can seem like an episode from the 10 plagues of Egypt.  Each year there is something to dampen our mood -perhaps we are a little hypersensitive to negative influences over our all-too-short warm season.  But really, nearly every year there has been an offending agent of all things destructive to summer fun:

1. Smoke from forest fires is a recurring theme but varying in intensity year-to-year (not just a little haze my friends either, summer 2004 I could not see my neighbor's house across the street and had to keep the children indoors amidst a daily shower of ash....the entire summer).

2. Then there was the summer of yellow jacket-swarms, during which time each and every member of my family got stung at least twice....there was no walking on the lawn barefoot, no playing outside for most of the summer because we were pelted with "bees" and the fly swatter was our constant companion on walks we took.

3. There was a summer when we were invaded by hordes of long horned beetles in June and July (which is pretty much the entire summer), and these suckers were landing in and on everything with their scary mandibles.  They can bite.

Source: http://naturejournaler.wordpress.com/

4. Rain.  I think it was summer 2009 (perhaps 2008) that we spent either in showers, or overcast nearly every day.

You see there is a theme developing here, and sadly, the verdict is in. 

Summer 2011:  Summer of Mosquitoes.    

I am conditioned to Alaska's mosquito problem.  Alaskan mosquitoes are legendary, and the subject of silly souvenirs such as pocket mosquito traps, t-shirts, mugs and all.  Yet after all these years, I have never seen them this bad in town.  We have exhausted all items in our anti-bloodsucking insect arsenal, and wear repellent for perfume.  Small Fish has close to two dozen bites.  Our mosquito screens on windows and doors sport dozens of blood-thirsty insects just waiting to get in.  As soon as we step out, we are attacked.  They are everywhere inside the house despite our best efforts.

My fantasy is that one summer they all happen at once and cancel each other out: The smoke kills the mosquitoes, the yellow jackets kill the beetles, the rain puts out the smoke, and drowns the beetles (wait: I just killed the beetles twice...oh, well)  Perfect.

On the bright side, at least it's not the summer of boils and lice. 

Oh, the trees, and the mountains and the waterfalls!

Denali (Mt. McKinley) visible behind a thin veil of clouds to the right of the tall spruce tree

Homer trip 2011 has concluded after clocking 1200 miles on our odometer.  We had a blast.  When we left Fairbanks on a blustery day, and the first day of the Moose Mountain forest fire we just drove to Denali National Park to spend the first night - a mere two and a half hour drive.  It was a pleasant experience overall, despite the swarm of mosquitoes we battled and the temperatures dipping into the low 30s (2 C).  The second night we spent by Kenai Lake, a beautiful, turquoise lake on the Kenai Peninsula.

Small Fish at Kenai Lake

Someone had left behind a rather elaborate fort built out of driftwood.  We had fun playing on, in and around it.

We left Kenai Lake behind, and we were on our way to Homer on the Sterling Highway, when we noticed  Small Fish looking out the window, singing her heart out.  She made up her own lyrics evidently inspired by the incredible environs of South-central Alaska:  "And the trees, and the mountains and the waterfalls!" That was pretty much the whole song on loop, but it was so cute that it eventually became the soundtrack of this road trip.  Whatever we saw, or experienced we attached to these lyrics (eagles, oysters etc.) and that is the story behind the title of this post. 

Homer was everything I hoped it would be and then some.  We had our own private beach front  for two days on the Homer Spit, a 4.5 mile piece of land jutting out into the Kachemak Bay.  We watched the tide come in and out, collected sea shells, dug up mussels and steamed them over campfire, fished for salmon, and made s'mores.  The children spent the entire time on the beach, their faces donning permanent smiles framed by sea-wind tousled hair.

Homer Spit: The girls playing in the sand

Fresh Kachemak Bay oysters on Big Fish's plate

A couple of surprising lessons learned: 

1. Big Fish, who normally is an aficionado of creepy-crawly seafood, had a hard time savoring the world-class, fresh Kachemak Bay oysters caught locally, perhaps because J informed her they were served raw.  I am not a fan of sea spiders, bivalves or clams, but I ended up eating half her order in part to encourage her, and in part to experience Homer at its best.

2. Small Moose is scared of barnacles.  He had a blast on the beach on the first day, until Big Moose pointed out all the barnacle covered rocks in low tide.  It was actually a little funny because my poor little guy was truly terrified and refused to partake in anything too far from the campfire.  

From Homer we took the ferry to Seldovia to take a stroll and to eat lunch.  Seldovia is a quaint fishing town with a charming, historic boardwalk, and is only accessible by sea or air. 

With the Time Bandit from Deadliest Catch in Homer

Seldovia street corner

"14 Day Parking Only" -things are a little slower in Seldovia

 On the way back home we stopped in Anchor Point just a few minutes from Homer to play with friendly bald eagles on the beach, and had a great view of volcanoes Mt.Iliamna and Mt.Redoubt.

Big Fish, Big Moose, Big Mountain (Mt.Redoubt) -Anchor Point, AK

Small Moose playing with bald eagles

Big Fish, Small Fish in Anchor Point

As a special treat, Denali (Mt. McKinley) was very much visible and glorious so we stopped for some pictures. 

Morning in Palmer

Small Moose and J at Denali lookout

We came back to Fairbanks and into 90 F (32 C) heat.  It is a little funny to think we were bundled in jackets, hats and mittens at various points on our journey.  Big Moose wants to move to Seldovia and make a living as a ship captain.  I miss Homer already as well. 

Summer Kick-off 2011

The birch trees are gracefully turning vivid green with new leaves:

The sun is still out at 11 pm:

 

We are once again able to marvel at the beauty of our valley without the need for heavy protective gear:

Tomorrow we are heading South to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula for a one-week RV road trip.  

View Larger Map

I am busy cleaning and packing, and feeling a little bit behind.  Small Moose's name day yesterday, and the cake he requested for the occasion set me back many hours -seriously.  This gelatin-laden, 5 layer cake took me 5 hours to achieve, during which time I swore silently that I would never, ever let my kids choose some random cake off the cover of a cook book.  But then, once done, I was ready to do it all over again when I saw the smile on Small Moose's face:

 

 

 So we're off on our trip, ready to see Awesome Alaska (Big Moose is thrilled that we will be driving past 4 volcanoes: Mt. Spurr, Mt. Redoubt, Mt. Iliamna, and Mt. St. Augustine).  We'll be back with lots of pictures.  Until then: Happy Summer to you all!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner!

Thanks to all of you for playing, posting, visiting.  I enjoyed reading your comments.

So that you can experience the suspense of the process with me, here is how it happened:  We had a total of 8 posts.  In order to save time (as it is past midnight here), trees (as in avoiding paper) and the real reason folks: effort (as in even trying to find paper in an office regularly ransacked by children) I decided to use random.org instead of doing a traditional paper ticket draw.  I got a random number between 1-8 to correspond with the number of comments.  And what did I get?  The result is on the right highlighted in blue:

It is the number 7, or post number 7, which means the winner is (drum roll):


~~~~~~~~~~~~Congratulations Sabine!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are the winner of the first official This Alaskan Backyard giveaway, and the recipient of a weird but cool lot of Alaskan souvenirs.

In fact, Sabine you won twice.  As it happened, it occurred to me that some of the posts technically did not qualify for one reason or another, for things like opting out "hey I am just saying 'hi' but not interested in the giveaway" so really there were 4 posts that were actual entries.  So I did a redo just to humor myself.  Just to see if the result were any different on 4 unique numbers.  Well, guess what, this is what I got:

the number 3.  Which is still Sabine, as hers is the 3rd qualifying entry.  So dear Sabine, send me a message on FB with your address and your gift will be on its way :-)