Icewind's Ramblings

"When a baby is born, it takes a deep breath in. When we die, we breathe out that final time . . . What's in between is what we call life." Ice

It’s been a mixed bag of odd happenings here over the last few days. One of my client’s, a plumbing contractor here in Anchorage , had a very unfortunate accident here yesterday. One of his plumbers was working on a project soldering a pipe and his torch accidentally started a fire. The fire was in a condo complex downtown and pretty much totaled one of the buildings as the fire spread up an elevator shaft to the roof. Between the fire and water damage it was a total loss and 42 units (families) were at a total loss. (There is a video in the ADN link that shows it also.) There were no injuries and everyone was evacuated from the building. The fire started around 3:15 pm and was whipped by 25 to 40 knot winds which kept the firefighters busy trying to keep the fire contained to the one building with the hot embers being blown away from the fire site. The three alarm fire was finally brought under control around 10 pm last night with the Red Cross and Salvatio...

We have just passed Memorial Day here in the USA also called Remembrance Day for those who have lost their lives in wars and conflicts over the years . . . We have lost a number of people from Alaska recently . . . it sometimes seems like more than our fair share . . . we remain steadfast in our support of the men and women who’s sacrifice is what made this country so great. I want to laugh but it is sometimes hard . . . seeing the many services at our local base here and the stories of their families in the newspaper . . . it reminds me of my time long ago before we finally changed course in Vietnam . I am reminded of a story several year’s ago . . . *This is the actual radio conversation of a US Naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. Radio conversation released by the chief of naval operation 10-10-95. Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision. Americans: Rec...

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire. Lucky for me my recent trip had no major problems. It has been crazy and busy here since I returned . . . My daughter had a baby . . . My brother in law flew in as he has moved to Alaska from Utah and his tenure with Delta is continuing . . . I remodeled a bathroom . . . Played my first round of golf of the season . . . perfect weather and the course was in great shape this close from coming off a hard winter . . . My other daughter arrived with her new baby for a couple of weeks . . . There is much crying and sounds that have not been heard around my house in a long time . . . Lucky for everyone the ‘baby smells’ have not arrived yet . . . Life is good . . . at the end of the road. Ice

I wanted to show my little project that came to fruition on Mother’s Day. It had been several weeks coming as I had wanted to start before I left on my trip but was not able to. I had started buying all of the parts and pieces before I left but ran into a couple of small problems when I found a base vanity cabinet on sale but made the mistake of not buying it that day as I did not have a way to get it home with me. I should have paid for it and came back to pick it up. During the trip there were multiple stops to look for another base cabinet on sale but we never found one. So when I returned home the search started over again and I decided it was not going to be easy to find another one on sale. Here are a couple of before pictures of the sinks . . . I was able to get everything ready on Friday night and staged so I could start after I returned from breakfast Saturday morning. I wanted to get the demo portion of the job done fairly quickly and hoped ...

This is the last day if all goes well so we awoke early to hit the road for the couple hour drive to Beaver Creek and the lodge there so we could eat breakfast. It was nippy outside in the early morning light. Haines Junction is located in a valley with mountains on the west side of town. Just over the mountains are the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean . We were on the two lane road by 4:30 am and were heading towards Kluane Lake . Notice it is already a ‘normal’ daylight outside. It was not long before we finally hit the section of road that has made the Alaskan Highway famous. We hit the gravel roadway about 10 miles from Kluane Lake . They were replacing the drainage culverts that drained all of the snowmelt from the mountains into the lake. There were many of them every 1000 feet or so. The road looked like it had actually been paved since our trips five years ago but they were torn up again now. Man was it torn up now. The best ‘spe...

Watson Lake to Haines Junction . . . Watson Lake has a couple of neat things to see . . . one is the world famous Sign Post Forest where thousands of people have left signs as they traveled the Alaska Highway. It started when the road was being built and continues today. It’s amazing to see how many signs are placed there. When we were here in the winter most were covered in snow as the drifts where ten feet high in many places so you could not see many of them . . . only the top few signs. With the snow melted it takes on a whole different meaning to see all of these left by the travelers of the world. Soon we are in the high country again, tired but continuing on . . . More beautiful scenery . . . Our approach to the Teslin Bridge and Teslin Lake . . . We continue our drive into the afternoon we pass a long and beautiful Teslin Lake still frozen and late...

Fort Nelson to Watson Lake . . . It seems like every 10 minutes or so we drive around this curve or crest this hill and we run into another pack of Caribou or Moose standing in the middle of the road. Then you come upon a really nice one . . . Then not to be outdone a couple more miles down the road a nice small herd . . . There were about 10-12 more down in the riverbed area. We stopped briefly to watch them look at us and slowly continue on their way. Another tourist sign . . . it is a hoax to keep everyone amused, especially in winter . . . The head butt . . . Our first encounter with the mountain sheep along the highway was comical. We topped a hill and came upon several sheep in the roadway and one . . . well just say he was quite headstrong and would not move . . . He stood his ground . . . Then about a minute later we stopped as another sheep was showing his ass . . . ...