So Much Snow

UAA on a snowy Thursday morning.

The day after we got back from Christmas and New Years on the East Coast, we got another foot of snow. Just as we finished digging out, we got another 8". Nothing like a nice welcome home. That was almost two weeks ago and we haven't had any snow since. It's been a nice little break. Anchorage is already over 90" for the season. The city usually only averages around 80". Supposedly, the snow sometimes melts away.

That pile is now taller than Kelly.

 We haven't seen bare ground since the first snow way back in October. The snow piles surrounding our driveway are now pushing 6' tall. Good thing Kelly and I really love the snow. It's also a good thing we don't live in Cordova or Valdez. Any place that is up to 25' already is just not for me.

The aftermath of our latest snow.

It's been nice having some time off from the snow. Unfortunately, the lack of snow has been accompanied by a deep freeze. Over the last week and a half there have only been one or two times when the temperature has been above 0. We've found the quickest way to tell if the temperature is 0 or below is to see if your nose hairs freeze. If they are frozen after a couple breaths, it's below 0.

Sunset turned the snow on the hillside a bright pink.

Between 0 and -10 is somewhat tolerable, at least for walks to and from the car. Anything below -10 numbs your skin as soon as you step outside. My winter beard has done a decent job of keeping my face warm, but at -15, even the beard fails me. I spent 30 minutes outside at -15 and ended up with ice crystals in my beard from exhaling. Any moisture at these temps freezes. It's amazing to see ice crystals on everything, even things you didn't think could freeze. According to the locals, the amount of snow and this prolonged cold is extremely unusual. Lucky us.

Frozen gate and hinges.

Crystals on the pile along our driveway.

Winter Recess

It's been a good long while since my last post. The run up to the end of the year got pretty crazy. Kelly and I celebrated Christmas in Anchorage a week before the real thing. We spent Christmas, New Years, and the first week of January back on the East Coast. It was a marathon trip, but we caught up on the sorely needed family and friend time.

Kelly's mom's coolest decoration.

I've never felt so popular as this trip home. I guess it's true that absence makes the heart grow founder. Everyone wanted to hang out (I suspect with Kelly, but I'll take what I can get). Operating from a base at my sister's house we made almost daily trips to see family and friends. Our visits took us to 8 different states (if you count layovers in Chicago, Illinois and buying beer in Maryland). We caught up with mentors, former coworkers and friends we haven't seen since our wedding - a lifetime ago in May, 2011.

My sister got a sweet Flyers hat for Christmas

 There's nothing quite like Christmas at home. Although there was no snow, and certainly no mountains, it was great to be Levittown. When we got back up to Anchorage, we quickly caught up on the snow we've missed. Stay tuned for an update on our snowy winter.

Gobbla Gobble Tor-Key!

Bork Bork Bork!

Still working on my shucking

This has been a pretty big year for Kelly and I. She got a tenure track job, we got married, we renovated our living room, and then for good measure, we moved to Alaska. None of that really compares though to our first Thanksgiving together. Thanksgivings in Pennsylvania meant bouncing around between families and general craziness. This year though, we had the chance to make our own dinner and start some new traditions. Our first new tradition is watching the Muppets. Wednesday night we saw the new Muppet movie. It was absolutely phenomenal. There was an excellent balance of nostalgia and Muppet style humor. As excited as I was about the Muppets, I was that much more psyched to prepare our first Thanksgiving dinner. We planned a menu starting at lunch that included dilled creme fresh and smoked Alaskan salmon on crackers, steamed clams in white wine sauce, Alaskan Oysters, and fried herbed almonds. Served with Alaska barleywine.

Brining the turkey the night before

Roasted deliciousness

 

Halfway carved/halfway butchered

I should've eaten more.

After lunch, the afternoon flew by doing the rest of the prep. The turkey was joined by beet and sweet potato stacks, stuffing, cranberry-persimmon sauce, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy. We both ate entirely too much. Fantastic! It was a big strange having such a quiet dinner and we both missed being around family, but for Thanksgiving on our own, I think we did an awesome job.

Bubbling Away

Every once in a while Anchorage gets serious about snow removal. That was the pile in the middle of our cul-de-sac

Sorry for the gaps in posts that seem to keep popping up. It's cold and dark almost all the time now (the sun is out for 6hrs everyday, but it's a half-hearted effort). Consequently, we haven't been doing much outside of working and watching tv. Last week, however, we had some of our new friends over for a home brewing session. Kelly and I were the only ones who had brewed before, leaving us to be the experts on the process. A scary proposition if you're familiar with my homebrew "success."

A Dunkel kit ready to go.

Sanitizing - the most boring, but most important step.

We got started once everyone arrived. There's not much that's exciting about the brewing process - it's just standing around watching the water boil. Most of the process involved drinking beer and sharing recommendations for places to eat and drink around Anchorage. We came up with quite a list, I should've written them down.

"I know I know the name of that place..."

Just finished steeping the grain

Once we finished steeping the grains, we added the malts and boiled for an hour. After the boil cooled the wort, pitched the yeast, and racked it to the fermenter. Two days after racking, our yeast really took off. Thanks in part to prior experience, I knew we could have foamy beer shoot out of the air lock on top of the fermenter. I took the precaution of covering it with a trash bag - good thing too. It foamed for almost two days. As long as I add the right amount of sugar when we bottle, we should have a pretty good brew. Stay tuned.

Grains after steeping. One of our friends made a nice loaf of spent grain bread

Swaddled the beer in the remnants of my Beaker costume to keep it warm.

...And What are you Supposed to Be?

It was a very nerdy Halloween

 Our first Halloween in Anchorage was one for the record books. Living in Narberth we never had many trick-or-treaters. Something about living on a poorly lit, dead end street made parents hesitant to come by. Not so in Anchorage. We had nearly 50 kids, which, when you consider it was dark at about 6pm and snowing, was a pretty good turnout. It was tough to tell what most of the kids were supposed to be - everyone was bundled up against the cold.  Even still, it was fun to answer the door in costume. Some of the kids got it, almost all of the parents did.

Maybe a muppet combo next year?

Our First Visitor Part II: This Time, It's Personal

One of two seafood dinners we cooked for my mom - dungeness Crabs

After returning from our day on the glacier and brief nature walk we stopped off at a local market for some halibut. Saturday was my parents 34th anniversary and I thought it'd be a good idea to make a nice dinner for my mom. I suppose I owe my dad a similarly delicious meal. I made the prosciutto wrapped halibut from one of my earlier posts. It was delicious again.

Sunday morning my mom and I got up early to head over to Eddie's Sports bar to watch the Eagles. Thankfully the Eagles won last week and we left the bar in good spirits. The weather, on the other hand, was quite grumpy. It was cold and raining. We hung around the house for the rest of the day until it was time for dinner. We were invited to dinner with the same couple who cooked us our first Alaska Salmon. Dinner this time was a wonderful Russian lamb dish.

My mom with Flattop in the background. It was a little cold.

Kelly had to teach on Monday, so my mom and I set off on our own. I wanted to take her up to Flattop mountain so that we could walk around the Anchorage overlook trail. It's a short little walk that offers a great view of the city. Once again, however, the weather impeded our plans. On our way up the mountain we passed through the clouds and into the sunshine. Unfortunately the city was still under cloud cover. The view was still pretty awesome. We even saw some snow flurries.

You're supposed to be able to see Anchorage on the left side of the picture.

Once Kelly was done working we took a little drive down the Turnagain Arm. We were hoping to see some whales, moose, or other wildlife, but we were denied once again. That's okay though it's a nice drive. We finished up my mom's visit Monday evening with some delicious dungeness crabs. It was a great visit and I'm looking forward to see my family over Christmas. I think we're getting the hang of playing host.

Our First Visitor

At the end of the Lightspeed Trail - Pluto!

My mom came to visit last week. She landed at Uncle Ted's airport on the 18th and set out right away to see the sights. We took her around to the coastal trail in hopes we'd get a glimpse of Denali, sadly my mom brought clouds and rain with her and the mountains were hiding. We then went over to Kincaid Park in hopes of seeing a moose. This time, Kelly and my natural ability to repel wildlife struck. No moose. We did see Pluto though.

Friday my Mom and I did the tourist thing in downtown Anchorage. We did a bit of shopping, drove around the city and had some reindeer sausage. We picked Kelly up after school and had a delicious pizza lunch at the Moose's Tooth.

The view driving up the Glenn highway.

Saturday morning got up early and hit the road, heading north, toward Palmer and then to the Matanuska Glacier. We planned on stopping at Musk Ox farm on the way, but it was closed for the season. We enjoyed a beautiful two hour ride up the Glenn highway to the glacier. 

Scenic overlook. This is as close as a real road gets to the glacier.

The road bends very close to the glacier. Just a short trip off the highway, down a gravel road on the edge of a cliff, is a pay station. After paying, we drove down another 3 mile gravel "road" full of ruts, divots, giant potholes and moose droppings. The drive was well worth it. When we pulled off the road, we were less than a mile from the glacier.

Panorama of the glacier. My mom and Kelly kept moving making it look like there are 4 of them.

Mmmm, glacial mud.

The walk was easy, but muddy. It was really thick, glacier mud. The kind that sucks your shoe right off if you aren't careful, as Kelly almost found out. Thankfully, there were some heavy duty pathways set out to keep us and our footwear together. Once out on the glacier we were careful not to venture too far from the end of the trail. We only had sneakers and were not equipped for walking on ice. That didn't stop a group of guys who came down the trail after us. All of them fell more than once. We hung out on the glacier for a while and then decided to head for home. Thankfully, the steep road we came down was not too much for the Yaris and we made it back to the highway.

We stopped off at the Eagle River Nature Center on the way home, in hopes of spotting some salmon and maybe a bear. We saw a few salmon, but no bears. We even managed to spot a moose on our way there, the only one of my mom's trip. It's just not Alaska without a moose. Too bad we didn't get a picture of one.

Me and my mom hanging out on the Eagle River.

That only covers about half of the trip. More to come. Maybe tomorrow?