Last Trip to the Last Frontier

Well, this is the final chapter of my adventures in Alaska - at least until Jessica and I make it up there on our own sometime. I am moving on to another program at work, and we aren't launching until mid-2010. From what I understand, most of the activity will be in Chandler, so no traveling for me for a while - at least not for work.

I was at Fort Greely from 5/11 to 5/29 this time, and the weather allowed me to get around a bit and see some parts of the state that I hadn't previously seen.

My past experience of driving around Alaska has shown me that moose are the dominant large mammals around the state - or at least the ones that you see the most on the roads. This trip was different... I easily saw more than twice as many caribou as any other animal (I think my moose count was around 8 or 9). This one was hanging out on the asphalt before I started waiting for it to pose for me.


Had I been in any other part of the country, I'm sure flowers would have been blooming everywhere. Temperatures around the state ranged from the mid-30s to the mid-50s for the most part, so spring was pretty much just beginning. The only flowers that I could get a decent picture of were these Pasque Flowers, or Pulsatilla patens, for the botanists among you. They were on a hiking trail in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.


There are some pretty useful and informative signs in the great state of Alaska. Not all of them state blatantly obvious information... although some do...


I had never seen a porcupine in the wild prior to this trip. It seems that all animals have some ability or feature that helps protect them from predators. I found, as I was taking pictures of this guy, that the porcupine was not blessed with speed to get away from attacking animals. I startled him and he started to "run" away. As he ran, I walked next to him and snapped pictures. I just followed him around for a while as I'm sure he got more and more frustrated with me.


The "Big 5" of animals to see in Alaska are moose, caribou, bears, wolves, and Dall sheep. I finally got to see some sheep this time around (I still haven't seen wolves or bears in Alaska - gives me something to look for next time, I guess). These sheep were up on a hillside in Denali National Park.


This is Horseshoe Lake in Denali National Park. It was the destination of a very nice, short hike near the entrance of the park.


As always, I have a lot more photos to show if anyone is interested. I saw (and photographed) trumpeter swans, beavers, ptarmigans, bald eagles, more caribou, more porcupines, mount McKinley, ground squirrels, ducks, and Santa Claus (North Pole, Alaska is between Fairbanks and Fort Greely). Enjoy!

Happy Birthday to Me

I just wanted to thank everyone for sending me "a little birthday love," as my brother put it. It touches my heart that you all remember me, since I am so bad when it comes to sending out birthday wishes! And to all of you out there wondering...I'm thirty-one! I can't believe it. I don't mind getting older, but one of these days I'm going to wake up and Trent will be sixteen. That will be too crazy!

Assistant Photographer

I recently had the opportunity to assist a real photographer on a photo shoot. He is a friend of ours from church and he was taking photos of a jazz pianist for Desert Living Magazine. It was a very interesting experience which I hope to be able to have again. I basically gave my input on set up, posing, and lighting, held the reflector, and helped with various equipment. Ok...so I was more of a hindrance than a help with the equipment. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not very mechanically minded (that's why I have my assistant, Kris, handle all that kind of stuff). Here is the link to see the final product. It's on page 46.

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/city/dl0508/

California

Shortly after arriving home from our Utah trip, I went to California with Trent and my mom to visit family. Emily's daughter, Erin, was having her first birthday so we were going for the party and tacking on a Disneyland trip as well.

Just a few days before, I had found out that Joe, Jane, and my sister Christine (from New York) were going to be at my dad's house, so we stopped by San Diego first. It was really good to visit with everyone, but I wish it could've been for more than just one afternoon. I hadn't seen Christine since my dad's wedding (she looked great - BTW). I was so glad that she could finally meet Trent.

We had a great time at Disneyland with Emily, Shawn, Erin, and Laura, although Trent was afraid of all the rides for some reason. I think it was the darkness and the loud noises. We tried two of his favorites from last time - Peter Pan and Buzz Lightyear - but he wasn't enjoying it so we just stayed off the rest of the rides. I got to go on Space Mountain and Indiana Jones with Emily and Shawn while the grannies stayed with the kidlets, so that was fun. I think Trent had a good time once we stopped trying to take him on rides. We took him in the Innoventions building. He was a little nervous at first because it was kinda dark in there, but he found a clear, plexiglass fountain that was lit up with different colors and had a bench running all the way around it. He loved touching the running water and running around on the bench, playing peek-a-boo behing the water. Then he found a virtual soccer game projected on the floor. He mostly just watched, laughing and squealing, as other kids played it, but he did run through their games a few times and "kicked" the ball. He even made a goal!

We wanted to continue our tradition of taking a picture of him by the pink door of the White Rabbit's house, and we got Erin in there too. Neither of them were very interested in posing for the picture.

The next day we took the kids to the beach since neither of them had ever been there before. They loved it! Trent has an affinity for sand, so he got really excited when he saw it stretched out endlessly before him. He was a little wary of the waves at first. But once he got over the cold temperature, he was loving it. When the waves went back out he even tried running after them, and of course, we had to run and grab him before the next wave came in.

And if there was climbing to be had, he was all over that!

Here's that cute one year old.

Again, not interested in posing together.

The party was held at Emily's uncle's beautiful house (next door to the inventor of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).It was way cool, with a jellyfish theme. Ok, so most kids love dogs or horses - she loves jellyfish. Well, she did like her uncle's dog too.


Happy Birthday, cutie!

Road Trip - Temple Photos

Road Trip - Temple Photos Commentary

For the rest of our trip we spent our time photographing all the temples in Utah (except Vernal), with one final stop in Las Vegas. With the exception of St. George and Vegas, it was very cold and we got caught out in the snow several times. But over all, we were fortunate to have pretty good picture taking conditions. FYI - Kris took about 99% of the temple photos...with my input, of course. I'm so bossy like that.

We had tried to plan our trip for early spring so all the flowers and trees would be in full bloom, but with all the cold weather, the flora thought it was still winter. We did get a few flowers, but the trees were pretty much bare. We'll probably try to go back next spring.

We spent the last night of our trip in Vegas, and since Kris had never been there before, we did a self-guided walking tour of the strip. We are both big fans of the Ocean's 11 movies, so a highlight for us was the Bellagio. We walked around on the casino floors and got some nocciola (hazelnut) gelato, which was awesome. We hung out on a balcony over looking the pool area...it was beautiful. It must be nice to actually be able to stay at a place like that. Topping off the experience was the fountain show out in front of the hotel. We liked it so much, we stayed for the next one.

On our way out of Vegas we made a brief stop at Hoover Dam. The drive home seemed very long, and it was great to get back home to the Trent.

Road Trip - Natural Bridges and Arches

The next leg of our journey brought us to Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah. Neither of us had ever been there before so we were looking forward to seeing something new. The park basically consists of a canyon where water has eroded holes in the sandstone, creating three rare natural bridges. We enjoyed the small visitors center where we were able to learn all about the geological forces that shaped the area. Even though it was still extremely cold and windy, we decided to take a six mile hike down the canyon, passing under two of the bridges along the way. It was a really nice hike along the river and the temperature was actually pleasant since the canyon blocked the wind.


This is Sipapu bridge. In this picture, I think it looks like the shoulders and neck of a giant dinosaur.

The trail down the canyon here was the steepest in the park and we had to go down a couple of wooden ladders. I thought this was a pretty extrodinary feat until I saw the pictures of the hike that Kathi Griffith's family took this week. Those ladders kicked our ladder's butt's!



We also took pictures of interesting things we saw along the way.




The second bridge was called Kachina Bridge and it was much more massive. It is considered the youngest of the three because of the thickness of it's span. While we were there we encountered a professor and his class. He told us all about the pictographs on the side of the canyon there. They were pretty faint and located high up on the wall of the canyon, so we might have missed them if he hadn't been there to point them out. He asked us if we noticed anything unusul about the drawings. After examining them for a moment, we noticed what seemed to be the picture of a dinosaur. He went on to explain that such primitive drawings have been found in many places throughout the world, and that he doubted the current theory that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted. I don't know about that...


Next we made our way to Moab and Arches National Park. There we hiked to Delicate Arch, made famous on Utah's license plate. I had never done that hike before and I really liked it, but I was definitely glad we didn't have Trent with us. A lot of the trail was bare slickrock sloping shaply down into the canyons. The Arch was awesome - a lot larger than I had envisioned. There were about a dozen photographers there to photograph it that evening, along with a couple who got engaged. The guy got down on one knee under the arch at sunset and proposed. Everyone cheered and clapped when she said yes. It was so cute!


The next morning we drove to Double Arch and the Windows.



Next on the agenda - temple pictures!