Spring in Alaska is pretty blah. Everything is either slushy or brown and dead from the winter. However, over the past two weeks all of the sudden everything has sprouted and almost over night the city turned green. I know it will get very lush over the course of the summer, but it already looks so much more cheery now than it did at the end of April (notice the photos at the beginning of this post compared to the end). But as always in Alaska, no matter what the season, I try to get out and enjoy what this beautiful state has to offer!
A lot has happened in this past month and a half. First, I celebrated my half birthday on April 16, wahoo! Yes I'm one of those crazy people that really loves celebrating half birthdays. Once you reach a certain age, actually getting a year older isn't as exciting as it once once. However, I love getting to celebrating for a day, so my half birthday gives me a reason to celebrate myself without actually having to increase my age to the next whole number, win-win. Erin made some the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had and cut them all in half. And one of my co workers brought me half a breakfast burrito in the morning. I concluded my wonderful half birthday with a few drinks with some friends after work and hanging my new bike art I bought in Portland. I'd say success for 26.5!
I caught some amazing spring sunsets while the sun was still setting at a decent hour. One night in April, I managed to get a great photo of the sunset around 9:45pm while enjoying some champagne on a patio downtown. It was an excellent view and one that I'll have to saver for awhile since the sun is currently setting around 11:30pm. So it's not really an option to watch during the weekdays anymore.
Not only did I catch some sunsets, but I also witnessed the Blood Moon lunar eclipse. It was pretty neat and convenient because I only had to stay up till a little after 11pm to catch it in the prime instead of waking up in the middle of the night like my Texas friends. I ended up getting a pretty cool photo because my long exposure captured a plane flying below the moon.
I got to escape some of the slushy gross spring weather for a great weekend down in Texas for my cousin Lucas and Iannelli's wedding. It was a long trip with 3 flights and 14 hours one way, but it was a wonderful weekend filled with family, friends, sunshine and warmth! I actually got to layout at the pool for the first time in basically a year (I probably blinded the others there with my pale skin). I had to reach up to the expansive depths of my closet to find some warm weather dresses and swimsuit to pack. It was exciting and a little depressing at the same time that I haven't worn a pair of shorts in almost a year.
My aunt and uncle hosted the rehearsal dinner fiesta at their house and the decorations were so cute and festive. They even had a little donkey to take photos with as you walked in! It was amazing to eat some legit Mexican food again because the Alaskan version of Mexican food is quite terrible. Anyway, after an afternoon at the pool, we went to the beautiful wedding and got to dance the night away! The reception ended with some delish midnight tacos, excellent idea. It was so great to see my family and sad to say goodbye and head back up north, but I was greeted with such amazing weather back in Alaska that it was a nice transition back to reality.
I finally joined the SouthCentral Alaksa A&M Club up here and went to my first event - Aggie Muster. It is one of my favorite Aggie traditions where you remember the Aggies that have passed away this past year. It is incredible that musters are held literally all over the world. It was especially neat to participate in a smaller more intimate ceremony and get to know some of my fellow Aggies in Anchorage. I met one girl who is a teacher and recruited me to come talk to her kids about engineering during their career week. Slightly intimidating but a fun experience to talk to young high school kids about what it means to be an engineer. They were in the middle of a popsicle bridge challenge so lots of them asked for tips once they figured out I was a civil engineer haha.
So the past 3 weeks have literally been the best so far in my time here in Alaska (almost a year now)! It's been in the 60s almost everyday and even crept up into the low 70s a few times. I've had so much fun hanging out outside and enjoying the views before the bugs or pesky mosquitos come out. I even laid out on the back porch with Erin one afternoon to work on my tan! It was a little different staring off into the mountain views rather than the ocean, and it was just warm enough to feel amazing and not be sweating. We topped off our afternoon with some homemade moon drivers (frozen screwdriver with a blue moon) since I'd been craving them from Porch Swing in Houston. They were delish!
I hiked Crow's Pass with Erin, Jason, and Matt in early May. I hiked it once late last summer and I think it's my favorite hike so far because of the incredible views. We thought the trail would be great since it's been so warm, but it was definitely too early in the summer because there were some parts of the trail where we were up to our knees in snow! It was probably one of the most bizarre feelings to be super warm hiking uphill in 65 degree weather, but be surrounded by snow. It was beautiful none the less. On the way back to Anchorage post hike, we stopped at the Double Musky in Gridwood to see what all the hype is about. It has good "home style" cooking and Paula Dean's article on the wall recommended the jumbalaya. The menu advertised it as hot hot hot, which at first I didn't believe because I don't think Alaskans actually know what spicy means. But it turned out to be one of the best jumbalaya's I've ever had!
That night I experienced my first sizable earthquake in a conscious state (the two other ones I've felt were while I was in a semi dazed sleep, so doesn't really count). It was really interesting because I could almost hear it before I felt the ground start shaking quite a bit, enough for my brush to fall off the counter! It was a magnitude 4.7 and only 60 miles away from Anchorage; so definitely a sizeable one. I have the Red Cross Earthquake app on my phone to alert me of all 4.0 or greater earthquakes within 200 miles of Anchorage. It was cool to get the alert pretty much immediately after the earthquake occurred so I could see how big it was! I told my mom to install it as well so she'll know when I'm buried in rubble (kidding mom). It's a bit scary that Alaska has so many earthquakes, and Anchorage has had the second largest earthquake ever recorded. I like to feel the little ones, but hopefully I never have to experience a catastrophic one.
I spent my first Cinco de Mayo in Alaska this year. Obviously I'm obsessed with Mexican food so I was happy to have some friends to celebrate with here. We made fish tacos with some halibut caught last year and delish salsa, queso, bean dip, and guacamole. I also made a sopapilla cheesecake!
I checked a pretty major Alaska bucket list item off two weekends ago with my first trip to Denali National Park and my first weekend camping adventure. I'm not going to lie, I was very nervous camping for the first time for a whole weekend in a super remote area where it got down to the low 30s at night. So first things first, I went to REI for some gear. Luckily, a friend volunteered to let me share a cozy two man tent, but I don't have any camping gear of my own. The nicest lady at REI helped me out for basically an hour when I told her I was from Texas, had never been camping, and was going to Denali in 3 days. She let me try out multiple sleeping bags and sleeping pads in the store to find the perfect one for me. I felt slightly ridiculous, but let's be real I needed to get some legit stuff if I wanted to survive. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily made to "rough it." I 'm usually not one to fill out comment cards or surveys for my service, but I was so glad the REI saleslady spent so much time with me, that I sought out one of the store comment cards to write her up a glowing review.
I left REI with the perfect inflatable sleeping pad with lots of cushion and a sleeping bag rated to 6 degrees! She told me to add 10 degrees for the comfort rating and another 10 since I'm female. So really it's rated to 26 degrees I guess; but it kept me just warm enough to sleep marvelously! I also bought a thermal mat that looks kind of like the shield you put in your front windshield to keep the heat out of your car in the summer. It is supposed to do the opposite and keep the freezing ground temperatures from traveling through my inflatable cushion and right on into my sleeping bag. I couldn't be happier with my purchases, especially since I heard rumblings of some of the other campers being quite chilly at night.
The plan was to bike into Denali and do some hiking, everyone at their own pace. I was with a group of about 20 coworkers, so easy enough to find someone who wanted to do the same level of activity. I was a little nervous of the gravel road we were biking on so I upgraded the tires on my hybrid bike to something with a bit more tread. I learned how to switch out the tires pretty easily at REI and can even use the same tube as my regular tires which is a plus!
First off, the drive to Denali is about 4-5 hours north of Anchorage. It's a beautiful drive once you start getting views of Mt Mckinley (known as Denali), which is the second tallest mountain in the world. It was so incredible seeing the mountain on such a clear day. After pitching the tent and setting up my luxurious warm sleep station, we sat around the campfire for awhile until about midnight. It got dusky, but definitely not dark since we were so far north. The sun set below the horizon line, however it was always light enough to read a book, so bizarre! Good thing I brought my sleep mask haha.
After a good nights sleep and a delish salmon spread bagel to start off the day, we packed up our bikes on the car and road 30 miles into the park, which you can only do in the spring. Once the car could go no further, we started our awesome bike ride into the park. We saw a lot of wildlife - caribou, moose, porcupines, and a bear! Yes I saw my first ever bear while we were biking. Luckily I was with about 5 people so I wasn't super terrified, and of course my bear spray was within super easy reach, but it is a little scary to think it could have charged at us in probably a matter of seconds. It was grazing and stretching against a tree, definitely the coolest thing I saw in Denali!
After a 5 mile leaisurly bike ride, we stopped for lunch and began a hike up Cathedral Mountain. It provided some amazing views of the park all around. I even saw another bear chasing a moose from about halfway up, National Geographic style. Don't worry, the moose escaped! I can't believe how lucky we got with the weather, it was a cool 50 degrees during the day which was perfect for hiking and biking.
Jodie and I wanted to bike a little bit more through the park so we decided to bike as far as we could back to camp (~30 miles) and have someone pick us up along the way. At one point I turned to Jodie and said, "Can you believe we are just biking through Denali?! How many people can actually say they did this!" We made it about halfway back and were starting to really struggle up some hills when we were rescued by Alex in the car to give us a lift back to camp, thank goodness! That night, Jodie and I made chicken and steak kabobs for everyone after a long day of activities. Then we drank and made some smores around the fire before heading to bed for another cozy night two in my amazing sleeping bag :) Before bed I got to talk to my brother Andrew briefly since he graduated from Texas A&M that day - 3rd Aggie alum now of my siblings! Congrats brother, I'm very proud of you :) And it was pretty awesome that I got a bit of cell phone coverage in the middle of a National Park.
To wrap up our Denali weekend, a small group of us did another hike on Sunday called Sugarloaf (I think). I was pretty beat and sore from the day before so I only it made it about halfway to a nice grassy area. Jodie stayed back with me as we ate lunch and sunbathed while the boys continued to summit the peak. Afterwords, we had another beautiful drive bike to Anchorage with more clear views of Denali. We also saw some pretty large roadkill when a car hit a caribou and then a moose scampered across the road up ahead of us.
This past weekend was another great one weather wise and I took advantage with a 42 mile bike ride along the Bird to Gird trail that runs between the water and the mountains near the scenic railway. It was such an amazing ride and I saw 2 bald eagles! Biking in the Texas countryside was relaxing for me, but biking here is just stunning, and the views never get old. It's interesting that the tide is so huge up here. When I started the ride the water level was pretty high, but then towards the end a couple hours later, the tide had receded significantly and the mud flats were clearly visible. It is very dangerous to walk along the beaches here because the mud flats are essentially like quicksand. So when the tide quickly and drastically changes, you can get caught in the flats and drown as the tide comes back in.
My rollerblades have been buried in the garage since I moved here. That is until Sunday when I broke them out for the first time and did a couple miles along the Coastal Trail with Jodie. We are both scared to go downhill so that was a bit of a problem when we started in Kincaid Park with a massive downhill. We ended up walking in the grass the whole way down and after getting lots of looks, I decided I should probably research proper braking techniques while rollerblading cause I'm clearly not doing it right.
I also planted an little herb garden on my front porch now that the weather is so spectacular. Summer is a great growing season here since there is so much sunlight! 4:45am - 11:30pm currently, and still another month till the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. I'm really excited for my basil, mint, cilantro, and dill.
Summer is basically here and I can't wait to share all the fun with my upcoming visitors! First up is Becca in less than a month :) it's going to be so great to experience Alaska with all my loved ones from back home!
A lot has happened in this past month and a half. First, I celebrated my half birthday on April 16, wahoo! Yes I'm one of those crazy people that really loves celebrating half birthdays. Once you reach a certain age, actually getting a year older isn't as exciting as it once once. However, I love getting to celebrating for a day, so my half birthday gives me a reason to celebrate myself without actually having to increase my age to the next whole number, win-win. Erin made some the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had and cut them all in half. And one of my co workers brought me half a breakfast burrito in the morning. I concluded my wonderful half birthday with a few drinks with some friends after work and hanging my new bike art I bought in Portland. I'd say success for 26.5!
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| Half Birthday cookies |
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| Found the perfect spot to hang my bike art from Portland |
I caught some amazing spring sunsets while the sun was still setting at a decent hour. One night in April, I managed to get a great photo of the sunset around 9:45pm while enjoying some champagne on a patio downtown. It was an excellent view and one that I'll have to saver for awhile since the sun is currently setting around 11:30pm. So it's not really an option to watch during the weekdays anymore.
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| Beautiful sunset |
Not only did I catch some sunsets, but I also witnessed the Blood Moon lunar eclipse. It was pretty neat and convenient because I only had to stay up till a little after 11pm to catch it in the prime instead of waking up in the middle of the night like my Texas friends. I ended up getting a pretty cool photo because my long exposure captured a plane flying below the moon.
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| Blood Moon |
I got to escape some of the slushy gross spring weather for a great weekend down in Texas for my cousin Lucas and Iannelli's wedding. It was a long trip with 3 flights and 14 hours one way, but it was a wonderful weekend filled with family, friends, sunshine and warmth! I actually got to layout at the pool for the first time in basically a year (I probably blinded the others there with my pale skin). I had to reach up to the expansive depths of my closet to find some warm weather dresses and swimsuit to pack. It was exciting and a little depressing at the same time that I haven't worn a pair of shorts in almost a year.
My aunt and uncle hosted the rehearsal dinner fiesta at their house and the decorations were so cute and festive. They even had a little donkey to take photos with as you walked in! It was amazing to eat some legit Mexican food again because the Alaskan version of Mexican food is quite terrible. Anyway, after an afternoon at the pool, we went to the beautiful wedding and got to dance the night away! The reception ended with some delish midnight tacos, excellent idea. It was so great to see my family and sad to say goodbye and head back up north, but I was greeted with such amazing weather back in Alaska that it was a nice transition back to reality.
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| Andrew and I posing with the donkey at rehearsal dinner |
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| Got to see preggo cousin Emily and baby Maggie |
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| 87s reunited |
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| Christmas card preview |
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| Mom and I at the wedding reception |
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| Daddy dearest |
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| My roomie for the weekend |
I finally joined the SouthCentral Alaksa A&M Club up here and went to my first event - Aggie Muster. It is one of my favorite Aggie traditions where you remember the Aggies that have passed away this past year. It is incredible that musters are held literally all over the world. It was especially neat to participate in a smaller more intimate ceremony and get to know some of my fellow Aggies in Anchorage. I met one girl who is a teacher and recruited me to come talk to her kids about engineering during their career week. Slightly intimidating but a fun experience to talk to young high school kids about what it means to be an engineer. They were in the middle of a popsicle bridge challenge so lots of them asked for tips once they figured out I was a civil engineer haha.
So the past 3 weeks have literally been the best so far in my time here in Alaska (almost a year now)! It's been in the 60s almost everyday and even crept up into the low 70s a few times. I've had so much fun hanging out outside and enjoying the views before the bugs or pesky mosquitos come out. I even laid out on the back porch with Erin one afternoon to work on my tan! It was a little different staring off into the mountain views rather than the ocean, and it was just warm enough to feel amazing and not be sweating. We topped off our afternoon with some homemade moon drivers (frozen screwdriver with a blue moon) since I'd been craving them from Porch Swing in Houston. They were delish!
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| Homemade Moon Drivers |
I hiked Crow's Pass with Erin, Jason, and Matt in early May. I hiked it once late last summer and I think it's my favorite hike so far because of the incredible views. We thought the trail would be great since it's been so warm, but it was definitely too early in the summer because there were some parts of the trail where we were up to our knees in snow! It was probably one of the most bizarre feelings to be super warm hiking uphill in 65 degree weather, but be surrounded by snow. It was beautiful none the less. On the way back to Anchorage post hike, we stopped at the Double Musky in Gridwood to see what all the hype is about. It has good "home style" cooking and Paula Dean's article on the wall recommended the jumbalaya. The menu advertised it as hot hot hot, which at first I didn't believe because I don't think Alaskans actually know what spicy means. But it turned out to be one of the best jumbalaya's I've ever had!
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| Crow's Pass |
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| 65 and snowy |
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| Spring time brown, but the green buds were appearing |
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| Hiking through snow sometimes up to our knees |
That night I experienced my first sizable earthquake in a conscious state (the two other ones I've felt were while I was in a semi dazed sleep, so doesn't really count). It was really interesting because I could almost hear it before I felt the ground start shaking quite a bit, enough for my brush to fall off the counter! It was a magnitude 4.7 and only 60 miles away from Anchorage; so definitely a sizeable one. I have the Red Cross Earthquake app on my phone to alert me of all 4.0 or greater earthquakes within 200 miles of Anchorage. It was cool to get the alert pretty much immediately after the earthquake occurred so I could see how big it was! I told my mom to install it as well so she'll know when I'm buried in rubble (kidding mom). It's a bit scary that Alaska has so many earthquakes, and Anchorage has had the second largest earthquake ever recorded. I like to feel the little ones, but hopefully I never have to experience a catastrophic one.
I spent my first Cinco de Mayo in Alaska this year. Obviously I'm obsessed with Mexican food so I was happy to have some friends to celebrate with here. We made fish tacos with some halibut caught last year and delish salsa, queso, bean dip, and guacamole. I also made a sopapilla cheesecake!
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| Yummy salsa for fish tacos |
I checked a pretty major Alaska bucket list item off two weekends ago with my first trip to Denali National Park and my first weekend camping adventure. I'm not going to lie, I was very nervous camping for the first time for a whole weekend in a super remote area where it got down to the low 30s at night. So first things first, I went to REI for some gear. Luckily, a friend volunteered to let me share a cozy two man tent, but I don't have any camping gear of my own. The nicest lady at REI helped me out for basically an hour when I told her I was from Texas, had never been camping, and was going to Denali in 3 days. She let me try out multiple sleeping bags and sleeping pads in the store to find the perfect one for me. I felt slightly ridiculous, but let's be real I needed to get some legit stuff if I wanted to survive. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily made to "rough it." I 'm usually not one to fill out comment cards or surveys for my service, but I was so glad the REI saleslady spent so much time with me, that I sought out one of the store comment cards to write her up a glowing review.
I left REI with the perfect inflatable sleeping pad with lots of cushion and a sleeping bag rated to 6 degrees! She told me to add 10 degrees for the comfort rating and another 10 since I'm female. So really it's rated to 26 degrees I guess; but it kept me just warm enough to sleep marvelously! I also bought a thermal mat that looks kind of like the shield you put in your front windshield to keep the heat out of your car in the summer. It is supposed to do the opposite and keep the freezing ground temperatures from traveling through my inflatable cushion and right on into my sleeping bag. I couldn't be happier with my purchases, especially since I heard rumblings of some of the other campers being quite chilly at night.
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| Amazing sleeping bag and 2 sleep pads |
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| What my friend Evan sent me right before my trip... |
The plan was to bike into Denali and do some hiking, everyone at their own pace. I was with a group of about 20 coworkers, so easy enough to find someone who wanted to do the same level of activity. I was a little nervous of the gravel road we were biking on so I upgraded the tires on my hybrid bike to something with a bit more tread. I learned how to switch out the tires pretty easily at REI and can even use the same tube as my regular tires which is a plus!
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| New tires! |
First off, the drive to Denali is about 4-5 hours north of Anchorage. It's a beautiful drive once you start getting views of Mt Mckinley (known as Denali), which is the second tallest mountain in the world. It was so incredible seeing the mountain on such a clear day. After pitching the tent and setting up my luxurious warm sleep station, we sat around the campfire for awhile until about midnight. It got dusky, but definitely not dark since we were so far north. The sun set below the horizon line, however it was always light enough to read a book, so bizarre! Good thing I brought my sleep mask haha.
After a good nights sleep and a delish salmon spread bagel to start off the day, we packed up our bikes on the car and road 30 miles into the park, which you can only do in the spring. Once the car could go no further, we started our awesome bike ride into the park. We saw a lot of wildlife - caribou, moose, porcupines, and a bear! Yes I saw my first ever bear while we were biking. Luckily I was with about 5 people so I wasn't super terrified, and of course my bear spray was within super easy reach, but it is a little scary to think it could have charged at us in probably a matter of seconds. It was grazing and stretching against a tree, definitely the coolest thing I saw in Denali!
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| Delish salmon spread and bagel breakfast |
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| Nbd, just biking through Denali National Park |
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| Our tourism magazine cover |
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| My first Alaska bear sighting |
After a 5 mile leaisurly bike ride, we stopped for lunch and began a hike up Cathedral Mountain. It provided some amazing views of the park all around. I even saw another bear chasing a moose from about halfway up, National Geographic style. Don't worry, the moose escaped! I can't believe how lucky we got with the weather, it was a cool 50 degrees during the day which was perfect for hiking and biking.
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| I spy a moose |
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| Who was getting chased by this bear in the road |
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| Most of the ground was very spongy on the hike |
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| Trekking up Cathedral Mountain |
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| Working up a sweat with only two layers on |
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| Higher and higher |
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| Views from as high as I climbed |
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| Got colder as we got higher... now up to 4 layers! |
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| Heading back to our bikes that we hid in the brush |
Jodie and I wanted to bike a little bit more through the park so we decided to bike as far as we could back to camp (~30 miles) and have someone pick us up along the way. At one point I turned to Jodie and said, "Can you believe we are just biking through Denali?! How many people can actually say they did this!" We made it about halfway back and were starting to really struggle up some hills when we were rescued by Alex in the car to give us a lift back to camp, thank goodness! That night, Jodie and I made chicken and steak kabobs for everyone after a long day of activities. Then we drank and made some smores around the fire before heading to bed for another cozy night two in my amazing sleeping bag :) Before bed I got to talk to my brother Andrew briefly since he graduated from Texas A&M that day - 3rd Aggie alum now of my siblings! Congrats brother, I'm very proud of you :) And it was pretty awesome that I got a bit of cell phone coverage in the middle of a National Park.
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| Plants were a little lifeless, but views were still amazing |
To wrap up our Denali weekend, a small group of us did another hike on Sunday called Sugarloaf (I think). I was pretty beat and sore from the day before so I only it made it about halfway to a nice grassy area. Jodie stayed back with me as we ate lunch and sunbathed while the boys continued to summit the peak. Afterwords, we had another beautiful drive bike to Anchorage with more clear views of Denali. We also saw some pretty large roadkill when a car hit a caribou and then a moose scampered across the road up ahead of us.
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| Day 2 of hiking |
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| Cool rocky terrain |
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| Marble / granite looking rocks everywhere, should have packed it up to make a countertop! |
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| My summit about halfway up |
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| Another beautiful day |
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| Soaking up the sun while the boys kept going to the top |
This past weekend was another great one weather wise and I took advantage with a 42 mile bike ride along the Bird to Gird trail that runs between the water and the mountains near the scenic railway. It was such an amazing ride and I saw 2 bald eagles! Biking in the Texas countryside was relaxing for me, but biking here is just stunning, and the views never get old. It's interesting that the tide is so huge up here. When I started the ride the water level was pretty high, but then towards the end a couple hours later, the tide had receded significantly and the mud flats were clearly visible. It is very dangerous to walk along the beaches here because the mud flats are essentially like quicksand. So when the tide quickly and drastically changes, you can get caught in the flats and drown as the tide comes back in.
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| Beautiful bike ride |
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| Mountains, greenery, and ocean |
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| Bluebonnets in Alaska |
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| What a day! |
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| Everything is so green suddenly |
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| Can't get over these views |
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| Bald eagle |
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| Mud flats when the tide goes out |
My rollerblades have been buried in the garage since I moved here. That is until Sunday when I broke them out for the first time and did a couple miles along the Coastal Trail with Jodie. We are both scared to go downhill so that was a bit of a problem when we started in Kincaid Park with a massive downhill. We ended up walking in the grass the whole way down and after getting lots of looks, I decided I should probably research proper braking techniques while rollerblading cause I'm clearly not doing it right.
I also planted an little herb garden on my front porch now that the weather is so spectacular. Summer is a great growing season here since there is so much sunlight! 4:45am - 11:30pm currently, and still another month till the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. I'm really excited for my basil, mint, cilantro, and dill.
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| My colorful herb garden |
Summer is basically here and I can't wait to share all the fun with my upcoming visitors! First up is Becca in less than a month :) it's going to be so great to experience Alaska with all my loved ones from back home!
