Softball Season is Back!

Game 1: 10-11, Loss
Game 2: 12-6, Win!

We had a brisk and breezy evening tonight to kick off the 2010 softball season. I am playing on a team with my current workplace, Casey Peterson & Associates. 37 degrees plus a wind chill brought out the gloves and the hats for the whole team! We played a good pair of games and I think there is great potential for this to be a fabulous season. Go Team!

Driving the Alcan: pre-trip

After three long months copying and binding tax returns at a locally owned tax firm, I was ready for change of scenery and a little adventure! So when my good friend Julie sent out an invitation to drive the Alcan Highway, I jumped on the opportunity. I left Rapid City, SD at 6:00am MST on April 17th and landed in Fairbanks, AK at about 4:40pm AST, with only a short delay in Anchorage to slow me down.

I spent the weekend visiting with friends I had left when Josh and I moved south in August '09. Thanks to all of you for the meals and conversations! Your welcomes made me feel as if I had never left Alaska.

Julie also hosted a bon voyage BBQ at her cabin, with quality time at the bonfire as darkness crept in. Good food, conversation, and beer in the relative warmth of early spring before the mosquitoes have overrun the woods ....

I also have to include a picture of the moose in Rachel & Ben's backyard in North Pole ... wandering through without a care in the world!

After a quick but wonderful Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I headed over to Julie's cabin to prepare for the road journey.

The Job Hunt Continues...

The weather is beautiful outside the walls of the library, but I find myself spending hours inside, poring over job opportunity after job opportunity. All I've landed to date is the job at Mt Rushmore Gold, which quickly faded as soon as the tourist season ended. I've applied at JCPenney and been interviewed for a holiday position, and they should be contacting me this week. However, the job with the USGS that I really hoped for has fallen through. I guess I will just have to keep looking!

In other news, Josh and I have been exploring the local mountain biking trails on "M" hill, and we have been enjoying the near 70 degree temperatures as we do so! Next time I will bring a camera so I can share some pictures - yesterday we watched a skilled biker jump off a rock that was about 10 feet higher than the landing on the most technical trail. It'll be quite some time before I work up the courage to do that!

Good times in Rapid City - but we sure miss our friends in Fairbanks! Life is certainly different here on the "Outside" as Alaskans prefer to label it.

From the ATCO trailers of Prudhoe Bay ...

As anyone who works the North Slope knows and understands, Prudhoe Bay is a place of dust, fog, and plentiful ATCO trailers. The camps are generally nice as long as your roommate lets you sleep, and you are almost guaranteed to gain weight with all the food you eat. Hooray for angel food cake!

Daily you will find us wandering with our GPS poles, dressed in chest waders, safety glasses, and a nice warm hat. On the good days we take the helicopter to the east, on the bad days we take the road to whatever streams we can access. Not bad for a three week field project, eh?

That being said, home again on Saturday, which will be good. Hopefully I can get in a few more good hikes or bike rides before it gets cold again and the leaves are gone.