Icewind's Ramblings

I had a great weekend with my friend Mark Evans in town after his long motorcycle ride from Texas to Alaska.   He made it all the way up past the Arctic Circle and on to Deadhorse in Prudhoe Bay at the top of the world a feat many people will never experience.   Congratulations Mark, driving a vehicle is tough enough but doing it on a motorcycle is a feat in itself! We met up on Wednesday and I took him to see Sarah Palin’s house on the lake and drove up about an hour where we enjoyed lunch in “Beautiful Downtown Talkeetna”. We wandered the streets and airport seeing the crazy sights and listening to all the sounds of a busy tourist season.   We drove back to the cabin he was staying in Wasilla where we enjoyed sitting on the porch of a two room cabin built in 1931.   Totally rustic with a gas lamp and outhouse we sat on the porch for hours talking and getting to know one another after communicating on FB for several years. Sipping from bottles of Jack & Crow...

Thank you by Dido Ice

It’s one of those evenings where I want to write about so many things but just cannot seem to put it on paper tonight. The snow level is coming slowly down the mountainside to the valley floor.   We should have our first measurable snow by morning which is later than most previous years.   Usually I am excited about the coming winter but lately that excitement has not been easy for me.   I think it is because work has been so busy I have not had time to properly get my mind frame adjusted. I started a fire . . . sitting here looking out the window into the darkness of night slowly waiting for the rain droplets to take form and turn into the multifaceted flakes falling past the street light across the street. Will it make the change over before I go to sleep?   It may as I sit here and ponder what to write next. But the with the waiting it seems I just can’t finish anythi Ice

This has been a long two days for my family. My youngest daughter and her son have been preparing to move to California and the day for them to leave was last night.   She sorted and packed and did some more to get their things into four items to check on the flight along with a car seat.   We headed to the airport at midnight and get them and their bags checked in for their 1:30 am flight to Seattle then to Sacramento. I returned home around 1 am only to return to the airport for my own flight out to Kodiak for a day trip to two villages I have projects in.   That meant no real sleep as I hit the sack about 1:30 only to have the dog scramble off the bed at 2:15 am chasing the hamster around who somehow had gotten loose. After jumping out of bed . . . ‘au natural’ and the mad dash through two bathrooms and the living room to retrieve “Hammy” and get him back in the cage I headed back to bed.   If there had been cameras in the house it must have been an awfully f...

Wednesday afternoon heading back to Kodiak - 5/27/10 The pilot taxied out to take off for the flight along the coast to Karluk and as we broke ground and climbed to about 50 feet above ground level (AGL) to the end of the runway as we flew past the lodge we banked sharply to the left and headed out over the bay.  We climbed to about 300 feet and bounced our way around the island toward Karluk.  We flew just off shore along the rock outcroppings and worked our way to the homecoming for a mother and daughter with the family.  As we flew along they kissed each other and glad to be returning home after a few days in Kodiak for a school function.  There had been a music function and many of the kids on the island were brought to Kodiak to participate.  This happens all over the state with school kids flying to sporting events, music outings, and other functions as needed giving some sense of normalcy within the communities. As we flew over the village along the...

Continuing last week’s trip and catching up on posts . . . Wednesday to Larsen Bay 5/27/10 Brian and I were heading out to Larsen Bay this morning to set up another camp for our Larsen Bay project.  The weather was colder and light rain was falling as we waited for the plane to arrive.  We had Paul (one of our surveyors) drive us over to the airport as we watched a plane land and thought it was ours as it taxied in to stop.  It was a Servant plane and Wes the owner was flying in a group of school kids and he told us our plane was right behind him on final approach.  Several minutes later Nick, our pilot taxied in with more children who had been in Kodiak for a school function. Once they unloaded and gathered the cargo of supplies off both planes everyone quickly left as we loaded our gear and some of the surveyor’s items into the plane.  We taxied out for takeoff and climbed out to the southwest over the harbor where several fishing boats were out haul...

It has been busy here with work and travel as the construction season ramps up.  I had written these next couple of posts while I was out in the bush last week but did not have internet in the villages I was in so I’m going to try to catch up now over the next couple of days. Monday 5/26/10 I’m on another trip for work so leaving the office around noon on Monday seemed kinda weird not being there all day long.  Getting the items done and heading off to the airport midday was not something I had done before.  The weather was deteriorating as I arrived for the Alaska Airlines flight down to Kodiak.  I had a late afternoon meeting and would overnight in Kodiak and head out early Tuesday morning once my superintendent arrived from Anchorage . The flight down is short in just under an hour flight time.  There is no time for coffee, snacks or in flight movie.  We quickly climbed out to altitude which was 33,000 feet and leveled off briefly before starting o...

Isn’t that a law firm in Connecticut ? Just kidding but it does bring up something that crosses our minds from time to time about the different things about our careers, lives or family. Everyone clings to that intangible . . . something out there that keeps us going in the hope that things work out for us. Why is that so? Is it we just need the music to keep us going? Something so simple but so hard sometimes to attain for many of us. All I can say is to keep looking and seeking out that elusive end and hopefully you find that one thing you seek. It’s raining here today with no chance of sun but there is always hope for tomorrow. Ice

On Aug. 15 to 17, 1969, (and into the 18 th ) hundreds of thousands of people, me among them, gathered in a lovely natural amphitheater in Bethel (not Woodstock ), New York . It was the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in upstate New York officially billed as “Aquarian Exposition” in White Lake , NY . New York was foreign to me at the time, worlds away from a typical southern boy’s existence growing up in Atlanta during the 60’s civil rights movement and all of the national chaos going on around the country during those times. I was just a funny kid with places to see and things to do in what I now, years later have jokingly called the series of my travels, “Looking for America ”. Gasoline was cheap back then at fifty cents a gallon so three boyhood friends were going to make the trek from Atlanta , Georgia to a farm in New York State . Steve Nash, Stuart Morris and I planned to leave three days before the concert started s...