Weather has been miserable here for a long time. Showing, cold, windy, and generally nasty. After snowing the night before, I woke to a glorious deep blue sky with no clouds. I wanted to take a driving trip to the Kenai before Spring came. This was my opportunity since is became nasty the next day and for the foreseeable future. I shot a ton of shots between Anchorage and Moose Pass. The low sun made the shadows interesting and colored much of the landscape with blue tones. This is the most beautiful section of the Kenai (in my opinion). Check it out.
On the road out of Anchorage.
Turnagain Arm trying to melt.
Love a good avalanche.
Snow machine bowl. Four snowmachiners were killed two weeks ago from an avalanche on the mountain to the left.
Up on the left for the killer alavanche.
Portage Glacier Lake.
Took the gondola to the top of the Alyeska Resort. People were skiing down the face of this mountain.
From the top looking across the valley.
There is the resort.
Turnagain Arm from the ski mountain.
These skiers are nuts.
That one skier was yelling “shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.”
I told everyone I grew a beard because my friend and colleague Dave had this cute little gay beard and I wanted one too. Okay, he’s not, but his beard is.
In the early 1920’s, settlers had come to Alaska following a gold strike. They traveled by boat to the coastal towns of Seward and Knik and from there, by land into the gold fields. The trail they used is today known as The Iditarod Trail, one of the National Historic Trails as so designated by the Congress of the United States. In the winter, their only means of travel was by dog team.
The Iditarod Trail soon became the major “thoroughfare” through Alaska. Mail was carried across this trail, people used the trail to get from place to place and supplies were transported via the Iditarod Trail. Priests, ministers and judges traveled between villages via dog team.
All too soon the gold mining began to slack off. People began to go back to where they had come from and suddenly there was less travel on the Iditarod Trail. The use of the airplane in the late 1920’s signaled the beginning of the end for the dog team as a standard mode of transportation, and of course with the airplane carrying the mail, there was less need for land travel. The final blow to the use of the dog team came with the appearance of snowmobiles in Alaska.
The Iditarod is run each year to commemorate the emergency delivery in 1925 of diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, Alaska. Nome in 1925 had changed from a booming, boisterous turn-of-the-century gold-rush camp into a small, quite town of about 1,500 people. It was fifteen years since the end of the gold-rush, but Nome remained an important settlement on the Seward Peninsula.
(stolen from the web)
The race originally began in Anchorage, but when freeways and urban life got in the way, the official start was moved to Wasilla, AK. After more urban sprawl, the official race start was moved to Willow, AK. The Anchorage portion of the race is ceremonial with each musher carrying a paying passenger on their sled for about a 10 mile ride. The mushers pack and and drive to Willow for the official start of the race.
They will let any vehicle cruise around here during the winter. If I was a betting person and it was between an ice patch and this bike, I’m betting on the patch.
This guy and some of his Holy Ghost Riders crew are always out stumbling around on the streets preaching for Jesus at every Anchorage event. I finally caught one of them on camera for who they really are.
Antithesis of the Hell’s Angels?
Baptism through beer?
Jesus bless APD (Anchorage Police Department???)
Slipping his placard behind the trash cans.
Fuck this Jesus shit, I need a drink and into the bar he went.
Every year during the Fur Rondy event in Anchorage has a three-day sprint dog sled race. It’s a 20 mile course that runs through the city. You can catch the dogs running at many good viewing spots. The course actually runs through my university’s property as it makes a full circle back to the downtown finish line. Mushers compete the three races for lowest overall time. The dogs are bred to run and that’s all they want to do. They get so excited in preparation for the race that it’s fun to watch them. These dogs are not pets. They all live outside in the Alaskan winter and if they get loose, will run away. Not because of mean treatment by the mushers (these mushers love their dogs and give them a lot of attention) but because all they want to do is run. Check out the video to see excited dogs.
Young moose are every where this winter. This two-year-old has been hanging around the university since he was born. He’s one of these babies I photographed two years ago. His mom finally kicked him out of the nest along with his other sibling so he is figuring it all out. This photo was taken from my office at the university. I was working on the computer when junior moose decided to stop by my window and initially scare the crap out of me. I got out my camera and took these shots and them opened the window and tried to talk to him, but apparently he didn’t speak English.
Somehow ended in in Phoenix, AZ for an entire day. The flight was late out of Houston and I missed my connection to Anchorage. Go figure, a direct flight from Phoenix to Anchorage. Who would have thunk it. Anyway, if I’m going to be stranded in a strange city for a day, I’m going exploring. Got a map and a metro pass and off I went.
Stopped off at the Heard Museum of Native Culture in Phoenix. I’ve always enjoyed my visits to this wonderful museum. Since my last visit several years ago, they have renovated much of the facility and expanded their offerings. Here are a few photos of their collection.
What guy can resist the Hall of Flame Fire Museum in Phoenix. This is the largest collection of vintage fire engines and equipment in the country. When you are exploring Phoenix by yourself, you gotta do all of the guy things you can.
Had to laugh while riding the metro. Overheard a conversation between this college boy and a young girl sitting next to me. They were cattily discussing their college professors. She asked what was the deal with this one professor, and he answered “Yea, he’s about fifty or sixty and dyes his hair, and no one’s buying that.” He then gave her a thumbs down on this professor. No discussion on the quality of his teaching or what this college boy learned in the class. He then went on to praise another professor, Dr. Bill, who was really cool and you could call him by his first name. This college boy needed to be in one of my classes. I’d show him a thing or two about thumbs up or thumbs down.
The Hohokam peoples occupied a wide area of south-central Arizona from roughly Flagstaff south to the Mexican border. They are thought to have originally migrated north out of Mexico around 300 BC to become the most skillful irrigation farmers the Southwest ever knew. The ingenious Hohokam developed an elaborate irrigation network using only stone instruments and organized labor. Before modern development obliterated this system, their predecessors commonly referred to them as the Canal Builders.
The Hohokam were creative artisans who became famous for their intricate work with shells obtained from the Gulf of California and the Pacific coast. They created a coiled pottery finished with a paddle and painted with red designs. They retained a great deal of Mesoamerican influence as can be seen in their use of ball courts and decorative feathers.
They also became entrepreneurs in a thriving trade with their neighbors, the Anasazi and the Mogollon. Their fate is unclear, but they seem to have disappeared from the archeological record between the first half of the 15th century and the time when the Spanish first came upon their descendents, Pima-speaking Indians still using the ancient irrigation techniques. Some of their original irrigation canals are still being used in the Phoenix area today!
(I stole all of this from the web)
What’s left of the original walls.
Foundation and remaining walls.
Living room.
Pool table room.
Right in the middle of Phoenix.
Reproduction of the village. Note freeway sign in the distance.
Caught a little bit or Mardi Gras this year. Unfortunately I was there on the first weekend when there were only a couple weenie parades. I still got to jump for beads and caught a few tokens. Here are a few photos of some of the floats and royalty. Maybe next year I will be there on Fat Tuesday. I miss the Krewe of Elvis.
Krewe du Vieux is the adults only parade that precedes Mardi Gras. It is made up of many smaller social krewes that spend all year deciding on their theme and building their floats and costumes. When I lived in New Orleans I participated in six parades. It is a fun and crazy time that usually ends in drunken debauchery. The throws some of the krewes toss from the parade have included in the past condoms, miniature penises, dildoes, etc. You get the picture. This year’s floats included the Governor of Louisiana (paper mache likeness) fucking the state bird, a takeoff on Continental Airlines – Cuntinental Airlines, and other bodily orifices and fluids. It’s great fun with a great party afterwards.
Click here to download a copy of the hilarious newspaper for the parade.
The party after the Krew du Vieux parade is always the best. This year’s Parade Grand Master was Dr. John. Here are a few shots from the party and three videos of Sunpie, John Cleary, and Dr. John. Unfortunately the sound system was loud and the sound on the video is very distorted. Turn down your speakers before you play them. If you can’t deal with the bad sound, just watch the energy on stage.
I received a bottle of Absinthe from a student as a Christmas gift. Not knowing any thing about the stuff Janine and I went to the Absinthe Museum in the French Quarter. We got the whole scoop and purchased some of the equipment to do the deed. For our education, the museum person directed us to the premier Absinthe bar in the French Quarter – Pravda. We told the bar person we wanted to try two different flavors and she didn’t hear us correctly and brought four instead. She said it was our fault so we didn’t get funky with her. So here we are with four Absinthe and the Krewe du Vieux party to go to. We took care of this and the green fairy hit us about the time Dr. John came on the stage.
Saw this truck in New Orleans apparently delivering wine. I don’t care how cute the branding and marketing are for a product, I don’t drink any wine that tastes like ass!!!
Is that a kangaroo’s back side and is this shit from Australia?
I didn’t know there was a Sonoma County in Australia.
Walking around you can quickly spot New Orleans work ethic. Let’s see, how many workers does it take to change a light bulb. Apparently in New Orleans it requires seven workers. One to change the bulb and six to check the work.
So when I went to Baton Rouge, Janine’s daughter came along and brought her dog Toki. I previously saved four-pound Toki’s life when it got attacked by an eighty-pound swamp dog at Janine’s brother’s house neat Baton Rouge. The large dog thought Toki was a swamp rat and proceeded to do what swamp dogs do with rats. I happened to be right there and went after the swamper. Toki lay on the ground screaming with puncture wounds to his belly. After that incident, Toki and I became best friends. So when he came to visit, he enjoyed a comfortable time laying in my lap.
Is that a kangaroo’s back side and is this shit from Australia?
I didn’t know there was a Sonoma County in Australia.
