Icewind's Ramblings

I awoke this morning to the sound of thunder . . . It was the early morning departure of several F-22 Raptors heading out in the cold clear darkness of an Alaskan morning. As I looked skyward I could the Big Dipper and the North Star directly overhead. The Raptors headed straight up into the night sky as if to fly over the large ladle in the sky. The cold penetrated my unshaven face and my Hawaiian shirt felt out of place without a jacket. The sound quickly faded in the coldness and I hurried back inside after taking the dog outside for his first morning romp. I left the house to meet up with the Saturday morning breakfast club, a group of friends I have spent my Saturday mornings with for over five years now. The only time it has varied is if one or some of us are not in town. As I turned south towards my breakfast meeting I could see the faint glow of first light silhouetting the mountains to the east. The clear sky and faint breeze made it feel colder th...

I needed this one after a long grueling week. This came along to brighten my day. Enjoy! It’s getting colder outside this week and the radio said that Fairbanks today was minus -15˚F this evening while I was driving home from work. It’s only October what’s up with that? Have a great weekend! Ice

Money will buy a fine dog . . . But only kindness will make him wag his tail. I miss my dog Levi who went on ahead back in March and part of me misses those little things when you come home from a hard day at work and I do not find him waiting. There are so many things . . . our time together on Saturdays when we would head out to breakfast regardless of how hard it was snowing or the times seeing Moose in our yard or almost anywhere in town during the winter. He was a great friend who still impacts my thoughts and I as recently found a couple of pictures I didn’t realize I had taken bring back so many fond memories. Ice

There are certain images of Alaska that are embedded deeply within the American consciousness . . . images of sentinel pine trees frozen in time; of glaciers blanketing the peripherals with giant walls of white; of huskies hopping through a snow drift, the tips of their fur crystallized and glistening. But when it comes to the authentic Alaska , these icons are merely the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Here is part 2 of Alaskan Vocabulary to get you in tune with some of the topics in my blog and to enhance your experience if you travel to our great land in the north. Iditarod : Known as the "The Last Great Race on Earth". From Anchorage, in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast, each team of 12 to 16 dogs and their musher cover over 1150 miles in 10 to 17 days. Ice fog : Is what occurs when water vapor meets bitter cold air that can't hold any more water in 10 seconds or less. Water cooled that fast forms tiny ice particles. Collectiv...

Somewhere at the jumping off point at the north end of the earth . . . the edge of what's known. Where I'm going is another plane ride away on Kodiak Island , where there are 3,000 brown bears and around 10,000 humans. I had flown into Kodiak Island a couple of years ago and had written down some thoughts and filed them away. It’s funny sometimes how you come across a few things here and there that are bits and pieces of times past. Do you do this also? Put a few things on paper and put them away so that later on when you find them it will trigger a memory or event. It is nice sometimes as the surprises they bring can almost put you in the mind frame as if you had returned there . . . if only for a brief moment. Here in Anchorage I'm four time zones from Peachtree Street where I used to hang out, 1,500 miles away from Seattle , as far north as Helsinki , and farther west than Honolulu . It’s true, look it up on a map as it is a great trivia ques...