OMG Brand-new behbeh moosage!!

I literally L'ed OL at that one comment: "i seen a girl leaving the bar last night walking like that baby moose" He *does* look like a young lady learning to walk in heels! :~D

Um What?

I'm not super sensitive to racism (I happily moved from CA to AK, where I went from dominant culture to minority) but both of these supposedly heartwarming videos of Fairbanks life are off-putting.





Almost all of the people working, playing, demonstrating local daily life are white. Almost all of the Asian and black people are visitors. And the only AK Natives are there on display: Drumming, dancing, doing artwork in costume... It's like they only exist for the entertainment of white people. White people can go look at them and then check off their "learning cultural heritage" box.


"So where are you from?"

San Francisco.

"I mean, where are you FROM?"

San Francisco.

"I mean, what nationality are you?"

American.

"I mean, where are YOUR PEOPLE from?... Ohhh, lovely! I love the Chinese! The Chinese are so smart and hard-working! And the kids are so cute!"

sigh

Snuggle photo!

Murphy Dome

It's tough hiking nowadays. Most of our trails are either still covered with soft, slushy snow, into which you sink up to your thighs; or, if fully thawed, covered in deep puddles and mud, into which you sink up to your ankles. I thought Murphy Dome might be dry enough. I was mostly right... the highest elevations still had post-holey snow on the trail, but we could bushwhack through the tundra very easily. I wore Muck Boots, and the ladies leapt and bounded all over the tundra in a dance as old as happiness.

Unpassable snow at the top:


Starbuckeroo was soooo happy to see snow:






A tiny tree, the last below treeline:








Starbuck looking wolfie:




As we descended the North side, we again encountered punchy, post-holey snow:


I tottered around it until we hit standing water:


Then said, "no, thanks" and turned around. The ladies ran to lead the way back to the little hill of tors:


We have clear line of sight to the met tower, wind turbine, and long range radar station where we had left the car. We just set a course for it, and off we go:




"Bushwhacking" above treeline is hardly so. And bushwhacking in the Alaskan Interior involves no snakes, scorpions, ticks, or poison oak! You can pretty much go wherever you please:


The ladies take in the scenery while I stop for a tea break:


Tiny Starbuck!


Tiny Cricket!




Frozen, thawed, and fermented blueberries and cranberries were still around from last fall. I enjoyed a few. The dogs looked like they had walked through a murder scene:

Miscellaneous photo dump

Couch shot!


Cricket paws!


Roo paws!


We had to celebrate Chinese Easter a week behind schedule, since we were in Colorado for Chinese Easter. When we got home, it was then two weeks past Proper Easter, and hams were still half price! Yeeeeeah!

We got a whole ham, hosted nine people and five dogs (maintaining a proper Fairbanks human:dog ratio), and still had absurd amounts of ham! We packed ham home with the guests, ate ham omelettes and sandwiches for a week, made a pot of ham and bean soup, and still have two more gallon ziplocs of ham in the freezer.


I think Cricket likes little people!


The ham! Oh god, the ham!


Here are some photos of the Tanana from my drive to Delta Junction a few weeks ago. One of DL's photography magazines said that bad weather makes beautiful photos. I have to agree!

Couch floppage

Office cheese!

Good thing I have cheese in the office fridge for when friends spend a day with me! Starbuckeroo had a gig at the library, letting stressed-out students pet her before final exams. Cricket hung out in the mechanical engineering department office with our office manager. When 'Roo and I got back, there was a grad student on the floor cuddling her! Both dogs gave a share of lovin'!