Happy Easter!

Juneau waterfront

We were invited to an Easter potluck at a fellow student's house today, but it was far, far too nice outside to be indoors.  We headed downtown for a long walk up and down the hills, lunch at the Silverbow bakery (awesome sandwiches!), and we saw our first ever avalanche!

Looking at town (Mt. Juneau in background) from waterfront

The mountains around downtown Juneau are very steep, and very close to town.  Gold Creek, a small creek coming down out of the mountains runs between the north edge of town and the steep side of Mt. Juneau.  You can see Mt. Juneau and the avalanche chutes on the side of the mountain in the picture above.  We were walking on one of the streets overlooking Gold Creek when the avalanche started - it was on Mt. Juneau, but not any threat to us or town.  It was pretty small, but still very loud...at first we thought it was an airplane overhead (like a big commercial one, not the small prop planes).

There's a lot of neat murals on the buildings and retaining walls in the downtown area.  This is one of my favorites.

 We walked past this cute pup relaxing on his patio. 

Spaulding Meadows

This post is a bit late (busy start to the week) but on Sunday we went for a hike at Spaulding Meadows, which is a steep trail near our house.  You pass through two meadows before you get to the end of the trail, which opens up on a seemingly vast area called Spaulding Meadows.  We hiked about 2.5 miles in, not quite making it all the way to the end of the trail.  There's about 1200 feet of elevation gain to get as far as we did, so it was a fun hike (lots of stripping off of layers as we started to heat up while hiking) and great views from the meadows. The sun even peeked out a couple of times!

There was also a LOT of snow up near the end of the trail.  From the hollows around the base of trees near the top, it looked like there was 8-12 feet of beautiful, un-trampled snow up there.  You have to keep to the trail where the snow is packed down, otherwise you sink and it's nearly impossible to walk.

In the second meadow, looking farther up the trail (as opposed to facing the view of the water behind me).

Steve, 'being epic'...his words, not mine.  :)

Still winter here

Tomorrow is the first day of spring, but we're still getting snow.  Seca would like to sit outside all day and play in the snow (or roll in it, eat it, kick it around, etc), if we let her.  We headed up to the glacier for a walk.  Very pretty with all the fresh snow, but very cold up there. Monday morning it was only 54 in the RV when we woke up.  That makes it really hard to get out of bed!

Winter fun and games

Sunday was the High Gravity Games at Eagle Crest ski area.  Steve and I didn't hear about it early enough to participate, but did head up the mountain to watch and take pictures of the fun.  Oh man, just being up on the hill made me want to go skiing!  I think we'll try to get up there next week to ski.  There's a ton of snow out there - more than 10 feet at the top of the mountain and 5-6 feet at the base. 

This was part of a relay race.  One team member starts at the top of the mountain and skis down, hands off the baton to a nordic skier, then to a snowshoe runner who runs a course then hops on a sled for the 'dog sled' portion, where they're pulled by team members through an obstacle course.  These are our friends Molly, Adam, and Dan in the last leg of the race.  They were team axolotl (thus the costumes).

There was some fresh snow on the mountain last night, and someone was making good use of it by hiking up into the backcountry area and making first tracks.

Some high fashion, Alaska style:

Zena the warrior princess meets Alaskan sense of humor.

This adorable little girl was trying to eat the blue snow - which was painted blue to mark the finish line.  Her mom caught her a second after I snapped the picture (and before she ate any).  I wonder if blue snow is better or worse than yellow snow??

Ugh.

Yesterday I dropped my school laptop while trying to open a door and get into class.  Ugh.  I killed the hard drive, but didn't crack the screen.  Hopefully the IT guy can get a new hard drive put in and it won't cost an arm and a leg.  All day yesterday I kept thinking of things I hadn't backup up yet.  There's not a ton of critical things that I lost, but lots of little annoying things.  The good news is that I had a backup at all!

Today is also shaping up to be a totally bizarre-o day.  I volunteered to be a judge for the regional SE Alaska science fair (along with 150 other judges).  There were lots of interesting projects, some really, really good ones that will go on to the international competition (none of the ones I was assigned were in that category, though a couple were very well done).  There were also a few bad ones, where either the design was poorly done or the student clearly didn't care about what they were doing.  That last category was happily rare.  Overall, I'm really glad I volunteered, and it was FUN to talk to the students, who were mostly freshmen and sophmores and really excited about their work.

The bizarre-o part happened on the way in this morning.  It was raining and about 38 degrees outside, perfectly yucky weather.  Steve had to work today, so I was dropping him off at the gym before work.  As we were approaching the gym I saw a...body...in a ditch, out of the corner of my eye.  It was too sudden to pull over safely, and there was a stoplight right ahead, so I stopped there and immediately noticed a police truck in the oncoming lane(perfect timing), waiting on the other side of the light.  I opened my window and started waving like a maniac.  He didn't see me until he was right next to me (I waited at the light), so he pulled around next to me and rolled down the window. I practically shouted "There's a body in the ditch, right there!" and he whipped around.  I dropped off Steve (it was only another couple hundred feet to the gym) and went back to see if I could help.  The look on the officer's face totally freaked me out - because he was running between the person and his truck (grabbing stuff) and looked worried.  He was (finally) able to get a response from the person, but they were soaking wet, probably very cold, and seemed really disoriented.  As I was leaving I passed the ambulance.  Holy. Crap.  That is scary.  I don't know what ultimately happened, or if the person is ok. Man, I hope he/she is ok.

Red curry peanut sauce

I’m clearing up a backlog of posts – things we did this past weekend, along with a recipe I made a couple of weeks ago that I really wanted to share.  So scroll down to see the posts about the weekend and stay here to get a link to The Best Recipe Ever.  

A fellow student has decided to start a monthly dinner group.  She’s hosting the first two, then we’ll see if others in the group step up to host, or if it all falls apart.  I’d love to host one, but since we live in such a tiny space, that’s not an option right now.  Each month, there’s a theme to the meals – February was Thai (in honor of the host’s trip to Thailand last winter).  March’s theme is Irish, and naturally we’re gathering the day before St. Patrick’s day.  

For the Thai dinner, I went in search of a new recipe to try and found this one at Epicurious: Red curry peanut sauce <link here>.  I ended up making it before the night of the dinner since I was so excited to try it, then bringing it again to the dinner as a dipping sauce for my favorite Thai grilled chicken recipe.  It is sooooo good.  It’s a little bit spicy, but not overwhelming.  It’s versatile – drizzle over noodles and fresh veggies for a fast dinner (that’s what’s in the photo), use it for a dipping sauce for spring rolls or chicken satay, spread it on pizza crust and have the start of an awesome Thai style pizza.  Later this week I’m going to use it as a base for a beef curry dish that I’m inventing to use a bunch of veggies I have in the fridge.  Frankly, I wanted to eat it off a spoon.  I made it almost exactly as specified, except that I put the whole can of coconut milk in (since what would I do with a partial can?).  I used Sun Luck brand ‘Authentic Thai Red Curry Paste’ for the red curry paste.  Enjoy!

Radio contest

I forgot to mention - last week I won a restaurant gift certificate and 'Motorfist' t-shirt by correctly answering a radio trivia question! 

The question:
People were asked what they would do if they won the lottery.  The most common answer was "Start a business".  What was the SECOND most common response?

Most peole calling in guess "Pay of bills/house" or "Buy a house".

The real answer: Divorce their spouse!

Isn't that horrible??  I don't know where I had read that, but as soon as they read the question on air, I knew the right answer. 

Oh, and 'Motorfist' is apparently a company that sells snowmobile gear.  It's a pretty rad t-shirt...that I'll only ever wear for field work...

The eagle has landed

Another beautiful day, another walk at the beach.  Today I managed to not fall and hurt myself though.  We drove up to Amalga Harbor since it was low tide and that’s a fun place to poke around when the tide’s out.  The clouds didn’t burn off completely until later in the morning, but that’s ok.  It was cold out though – maybe in the low-mid 30s.  I caught myself wishing for warmer weather to go with the sun.  

While we were wandering around (and wishing we had our kayaks) we saw a bald eagle wade into the water.  It was so strange to see.  It went in pretty far – it looked like it was floating but I don’t think it actually was.   Then it dunked its head under and came up eating something, maybe clams or mussels though I couldn’t tell for sure.  I think this must be a lean time of year for the eagles since there’s no salmon running.  I’ve noticed a lot more around in the past month or so, compared to November-January.  

Walking in sunshine

 

The weather forecast is predicting sunshine for the next four days!  Woo-hoo!   We had busy plans for the day – get the motorcycle out, clean the Irv a bit, make a dish for a friend’s potluck house-warming party/bonfire tonight and get out for a walk to enjoy the sunshine.  

I made smoked salmon chowder for the potluck (recipe here), and it was a smashing success.  Of course it was – there was 6 CUPS of heavy cream in it.  That’s grossly decadent.  I will definitely make it again, but will start to replace out some of the heavy cream with milk/whole milk/half-and-half and see if I can get a recipe I still like but can justify making.  Two changes I did make to the recipe was to add 3 T of tomato paste (I wanted it to be the color of salmon) and swap the white wine for chicken stock.  If we ever move out of Alaska I’m going to be devastated by the last of great smoked salmon and fresh fish.  It’s so easy to find good stuff here (though it’s not cheap!).