Cool like Fonzie

Things got a little chilly here last week as I headed up into the Brooks Range for a week and the temperature dropped to -50F and stayed there. It was good times though and I don't mind the tooth cracking cold as long as there is a warm cabin to crawl into at days end. I spent my time cutting wood, rebuilding my snowmachine and cutting wood.

And today I finally got my photography website up so check it out and tell me what ya'll think. Stay warm.

Storms a comin'

The first good winter storm of the year is screaming across the Seward Peninsula right now with howling winds, raging seas and a bit of snow for Fairbanks. We're only supposed to get 4-6 inches but I am hoping for 2-3 feet followed by another 2-3 feet. There will be a statewide shutdown and no one can go anywhere unless they have a Skandic Super Wide Track.

Here's a map of the storm, red means "prepare to have your butt kicked by high winds and blizzard conditions." Green means lame.

Please Santa, that's all I want for Christmas...

Halli Hallo und Herzliche Wilkommen aus Fairbanks

Due to the magic of Google Analytics it has come to my attention that this blog is frequented by Germans so I wanted to give a quick shout out to Deutschland.

Gruss Gott! And if you speak German you should watch this. Munich is my favorite city and I think the accent there is the best for storytelling.

In other news I got vaccinations for yellow fever and hepatitis B yesterday and now I can barely lift my arms.

But now I am ready to face South America next month- aside from altitude sickness, intestinal parasites and malaria I am really looking forward to it. The trip starts in Bogota, Colombia and that's all I know at this point. If anyone has suggestions for what to do with 6 weeks in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, aside from drug trafficking, holla back.

Servus!

20 Below in Fairbanks

The thermometer read -21F this morning, luckily the truck was plugged in. When I went downtown it was only -4F so I'm quite confident I have the coldest lot in Fairbanks. Yeah for me. It warmed up to zero later so I took the dog for a walk and made some snow art. Enjoy.

I took some other pics on the walk to document a proposed expansion by Great Northwest Inc. They are a gravel pit and peat extraction company that has been here for years. They now want to expand their excavations up to my back door. Literally. But they need permission since it's all wetlands. The problem is it's their land and they've been there forever so I doubt it can be stopped. Their remediation is applauded because they leave duck ponds where once there was black spruce. The problem is you can walk and ski and travel through black spruce. These "duck ponds" are massive sink holes 20 feet down in the bog so you can't ski or walk in and out of them and they are bordered by dikes 20 feet high. I am contacting the Army Corps of Engineers to see about the public input process but I fear my lovely back yard will soon look like a WWII battlefield.