No, already checked. It's an old address.
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No, already checked. It's an old address.
You should be able to call the car company and find out how to retrieve the key codes. I seem to remember that was a Ford(?) so call Ford's customer service line. They should be able to help you. Good luck.
Well it's getting close to the start of the Yukon Quest which starts next Sat. Feb. 1. http://yukonquest.com/ This year we will have the smallest starting line up ever with only 18 mushers beginning the 1000 mile race. Years ago the purse was up to $140,000 and now is only $119,000 divided up between the top 15 finishers. So this year, basically, all those who finish the race will be in the money. Traditionally a third do not finish. The vet checks were done this weekend as well as the food drops (all the mushers drop bags were sent to each of the checkpoints). My checkpoint, Mile 101 was plowed out and the satellite dishes for the internet were installed. I normally go up Sat. morning but my "co-assistant manager lol" was going to try and drive up Friday night so I might go up then as well. It's better to go up Friday because normally we have a kind of crew party before the race. The mushers will start pulling in around 4 am Sunday. But before they get there, we will have race judges, vets, and handlers coming in. Once everyone starts showing up, it'll be a straight 36 hours of work. So we want to have our partying done on Friday night in order to get some sleep on Sat.
Don't remember if I posted about this but finally got it written up and thought I would share it here since there are only two pictures. As someone who moved many, many times growing up and then continued that pattern all my adult life until I got here, this is momentous to me. I've never lived anywhere this long, by far, and have no itchy feet to leave, ever. Maybe I finally grew up. Maybe it's wanting to give my children the stability that I never had. Maybe it is just that Alaska got in my blood as it's been known to do.
Alaska, The Madness
Bloggity Stories of the North Country
JANUARY 26, 2014
10 Years in Alaska
On Christmas Eve 2003, I arrived here with my then 2 year old daughter and my 5 year old son. I had the help of my parents and one of my aunts was our landing spot upon arrival. I was in a rear wheel drive Cutlass Supreme. It’s large trunk and all floor boards were filled with my most precious worldly possessions and the minimum requirements of setting up a bare house hold. The drive was days and days of slippery, sliding, white knuckle driving. But I knew the moment I crossed the state line that I had found my home. I took this picture right near the border. It is the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. "At 13.2 million acres which is bigger than the country of Switzerland, Wrangell-St. Elias stretches from one of the tallest peaks in North America, Mount St. Elias (18,008) to the ocean."
I have hung this photo in every place I have lived in for the last 10 years. It will always remind me of the first time I FELT Alaska. It was powerful. I stopped in the middle of the road to take this picture. There were no cars coming, no rush, no kids fussing in the back seat. It filled me with both peace and longing.
http://cloud9doula.files.wordpress.c...pg?w=711&h=533
This was also taken on our way up, Haines Junction I believe. I loved the look of the sky; mysterious, mystical, meaningful. It was just the barest of hints of the mystery and magic yet to come. The magic of the promise that IS Alaska.
http://cloud9doula.files.wordpress.c...pg?w=711&h=534
People tell me I am so lucky to live in Alaska. I say to them that luck has very little to do with it. Priorities, a tight budget, and working my *** off has got me here to where I want to be. Of course, a little luck, or as I call it, My Alaska Karma, has helped here and there.
beautiful pictures!!
Awesome views with a lot of meaning.
Here's the update of the avalanche. The water is moving, slowly. That's a good thing as if it all went at once it would take the road with it.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014...aska-town?lite
Fantastic Pic'.......... ThanksQuote:
Originally Posted by 1stimestar
Here is a good video of the avalanche and the lake formed by the river.
http://youtu.be/I4YNelnCOZ4
Cool vid. I'll bet that pile of snow takes a wee bit to melt off this spring.
Yea they are going to get in there with bulldozers and such but are waiting for the water to go down some so it doesn't wash them away when they get close to breaking through. I don't really understand that clearly as there is a small creek's worth of water coming from underneath and one drain pipe emptying the "lake" that was formed. But meanwhile, there is still a full river feeding the lake from the other side. How will those two smallish drainages not only keep up but get ahead? I guess that's why they are dropping explosives from helicopters today.
WOOT WOOT! I leave tomorrow for the checkpoint. Yes a day early so we can get a little crew party in AND get some sleep before the 36 hours straight of mushers, handlers, trail breakers, media, vets, judges, and friends come traipsing through. The most fun I have ever had working my hiney off. Here's a post from my checkpoint manager.
http://yukonquest.com/Quote:
We have estimated, considered, debated, argued and planned. Yet we know from experience, that you can throw any plan made in advance of the race could easily be thrown out the window 18 hours after the the dogs start to devour the trail... as they love to do.
Friday evening the remote Checkpoint 'Mile 101' will go into 'full race mode'.
Three trail breakers will arrive. Kerry Barnes, our Mile 101 trail manager, will hopefully be able to check conditions Friday afternoon on Eagle summit before dark.
Mike Reitz, the alaskan YQ trail coordinator and another experienced trail breaker will arrive after dark to backtrack Saturday to Rosebud summit towards Two Rivers. They will try to eliminate any possible problems concerning trail markings.
The '101 com shack' will open up Friday night with never seen before two (!) phone lines and faster than ever remote internet thanks to state of the art modems from Hughes Net (!!!) while the crew will lay out the designated dog lot area, install lighting, split wood for the stoves, start up generators, lay cables, place straw bales, sort the food drop bags, and.... well, you get the drift.
Georgeanne and Kelly will take over the cook shack again .... and feed the mushers. In theory, the cook shack is only available to mushers, officials and selected media in that order, but... it has become a great meeting place everybody visits.
With over 14 years of Mile 101 experience between the two ladies and thanks to the support of Ivory Jack's Bar and Restaurant in Fairbanks they have fed many handlers, mushers, media people and visitors. - However, Georgeanne and Kelly are also in charge of kicking people out of the only publicly accessible cabin at Mile 101. This includes media, handlers, visitors ... and checkpoint crew... including the checkpoint manager.
So, ... if you get kicked out of the cook shack, don't go looking for a higher force to get you back in there. There is none, and to make this absolutely clear: No, this is not a joke.
------------
The first communication from the location at Mile 101 should start on January 31st around 7 pm AKST.
If you have any real questions, we'll try to answer online. Please remember, that this is not an official YQ site !!!
We'll keep you posted !
The main event is the 1000 mile race but there is also our Yukon Quest 300 which starts a few hours after the main race so those 300 mushers will also be coming through my checkpoint.
I'll be able to check in while there, yay.
So you're a bouncer, too? Outstanding!
Good luck. :)
Have fun and stay safe!
Looking forward to following the race again.
Lol heck yea. It gets pretty crowded in there and some people feel a bit entitled to just camp out in there. We have to have room for the mushers! I also like to have room for the mushers' handlers while they are in there but media gets feeling pretty ballsy and spreads out all over. It's just a small little shack. We are the most primitive checkpoint so we are dealing with hauling and heating water, propane burners, wood stove, generators, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by pete lynch
http://cloud9doula.files.wordpress.c...pg?w=711&h=534
http://cloud9doula.files.wordpress.c...543.jpg?w=1089
http://cloud9doula.files.wordpress.c...501.jpg?w=1089
Oh someone put up an excellent web cam of the start line. Watch the start at 11:00 am AKST.
http://fairbanksalaska.com/secondave/
You guys must not have paid the sun bill. It's like 11:00 a.m. and still dark. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Wouldn't it better if there was snow in the streets?
They normally have the start on the river but it was melting due to our crazy warm January, and too dangerous to have that many people on the river. So they trucked in snow for the street. I'm back by the way.
Oh, no. I see another Alaskan reality show in the making. Snow Truckers.
Oh brother.
Ok. No 101 pictures yet as I'm still working on the story but here are some northern lights I took tonight.
https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/...56466118_n.jpg
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https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.n...42909297_n.jpg
Amazing, as always.
We were supposed to be able to see some northern lights at our southern location here a while back.............All cloudy, Dang
Thanks for yours.....fantastic.
Oh dang it! The end of the Quest is approaching and the two front runners have been duking it out for the last several hundred miles. Allen Moore won the race last year but Brent Sass is the local favorite. He has yet to win the race because the one previous time he was in position to win it, he stopped and helped another musher who was in dire trouble. So this year it looked really good for Brent to win. Last night he probably fell asleep because at this point in the race, the front runners are seriously sleep deprived. Brent fell off his runners and knocked himself silly. He was almost to the last checkpoint before the finish line where there is an 8 hour mandatory layover. They said his dogs still looked really good too. Blarg! Allen's a really nice guy but we all love Brent so much and he deserves to win one of these days!
The rest of the story can be read here.Quote:
BRAEBURN, Yukon – Brent Sassʼs race is over.
The 34-year-old musher from Eureka, Alaska, who was running second to Allen Moore in the 2014 Yukon Quest, suffered a head injury after falling off his sled en route to Braeburn Saturday night.
The musher is in stable condition at the Braeburn checkpoint and will be airlifted to Whitehorse General Hospital today.
http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_...Jw584.facebook
And that will put my second fav in third place. Matt Hall, the son of the friends I go visit every year outside of Eagle. He'll make Rookie of the Year if he doesn't fall off his sled...
http://www.yukonquest.com/race-centr...rent-standings
Allen stayed back past his earliest departure time from Braeburn to show support for Brent and see him off to Whitehorse. As a true testament to how close this race has been, Allen said "it feels weird not to race out of here". Off he went on the last leg of the race!
Allen Moore wins for the second year in a row.
http://youtu.be/gZvH0_ZE-dY
My little buddy Matt is looking at 3rd place which will get him Rookie of the Year. He's only 22.
Very cool (no pun intended).
Yep, I KNEW he fell asleep on the runners. Here's a message from Brent.
Quote:
Hi friends, it's Josh Horst writing today. I joined Brent's handlers in Dawson and I'm here now with Brent at his hotel room talking about the race. He wants to share with you some thoughts about the race, but it's easier for me to type on this iPad, so I'll narrate for you.... What a race we were in! We know so many of you were glued to your tracker updates and cheering loudly from all around the world. We hear you!
First, thank you to the 14 Wild & Free athletes who started the race and the 13 who were still charging for the win 8 days and nearly 900 miles later. Brent is so proud of those guys! Next, the humans who get the Wild & Free team onto and down the trail. Wild & Free's fans, family, and friends have been so great. The Yukon Quest organization did a great job, and thanks particularly to race judge Scott Smith for running the team into Braeburn and the vets who looked them over when they arrived. "It takes a village" is a saying Brent often uses, and it's so true. Thank you all.
It's easy to write about how amazing those dogs were doing, but it's emotional writing about the race at this point. We were in it like never before and racing with Allen Moore like that was incredible. Brent kept saying all along how happy he was to have 13 happy healthy dogs and they were feeding off of his excitement. He had a creative and ambitious race plan and was sticking close to it. He had some wild things happen all along the race trail - large sections of glare ice, open water, cold weather, trail re-routes, fending off bull moose with his ski pole, but the dog team stayed strong and we didn't get thrown off our plan.
The run out of Carmacks was a big one for his strategy and overall for the race. It was also the run where the race ended for us this year. Here's how Brent has explained that run to me;
I believe I had a good plan and the team ran well with Allen after taking a couple hours on straw outside of Carmacks to prep for racing to Braeburn. Allen came by after our rest and the team was eager to chase him down. We ran through the night, across lakes, through forest sections, and back across more lakes at about -30 temps. In the early morning hours while crossing the last major lake, we had fallen back from Allen's team, but still felt like we'd be only minutes behind at Braeburn.
In a moment, the race stopped. I was fatigued and nodded off, falling backwards off my sled and hit my head on the lake ice. When I got up, the team was just up the trail probably wondering why I was laying on the trail behind them. I got up to the team and straightened them out, but I was clearly not all there and was suffering from concussion symptoms. I drove the team up off the lake ice to get to a warmer spot and stopped to regroup. I fired up the cooker and fed the dogs a warm meal while trying to figure out if I was ok. I just wasn't. My thoughts were cloudy and it was hard to string together a plan although I could still function well enough to feed the dogs. When I decided to go, I was so slow prepping the team and once we were ready and moving, I was not confident in my ability to drive the team and take good care of the dogs. The dogs knew I wasn't all there, they sensed my confusion and didn't seem to know what to do either. I was worried I could get them hurt by keeping going, so I stopped again and did all I could for the dogs, collected wood for a fire and crawled into my sleeping bag to hunker down for a while. As I drifted in and out, I woke at one point to realize I had my arm and bare hand outside the sleeping bag and just laying on the frozen ground. I knew then that I could seriously harm myself and my dogs if I didn't get help.
I held the spot tracker in my hand for an hour. I've always believed I'd never push the button to call for help. I questioned my decision, my condition, but in the end I knew I just couldn't safely drive that team into Braeburn despite only being 12 miles away. I pressed the button and waited. Soon the Canadian Ranger trail breakers arrived and we made a plan to get me and the dogs to the checkpoint. I was quickly looked after at the checkpoint and was then transported to the hospital in Whitehorse. I later found out that when Hugh Neff came across my dog team with a Ranger looking after them on the trail, he stopped and got his cooker going to make a meal for them and when Scott arrived from Braeburn with more dog food and fresh booties to drive them back, he and Hugh fed them, checked them out, bootied them, and drove them in to the checkpoint together. I can't thank those guys enough for what they did. It feels good to have a couple friends like them taking care of the team.
Back here at the hotel in Whitehorse, Brent's body is sore, but his attitude is as good as you'd expect. It's hard for him to fight the feeling that he let the team down, but as he said to me, "At that point there were 14 of us in the team. If one of them can't go on, they ride in the sled, but when I can't, they don't get to load me up and carry me to the checkpoint. Someone has to drive the team." Brent and the team worked so hard and were so eager to take a shot at the win, but that will just have to wait now for another race. Meanwhile, they've been eating great today (Brent and the dogs) and are being well looked after. Thanks also to our friend Sue Ellis for sticking around to help us give those dogs excellent care and rest. For us, today's a day to believe in the future of Wild & Free and be thankful for the life we get to live and for all of you.
be free
Well traditionally a third of the pack does not finish. We started with 18 teams and now 6 are out of the race.
Quote:
Advisory Re: Cody Strathe
February 11, 2014
Early this morning, bib #10, Cody Strathe activated the help button on his race device around 26 miles outside of Braeburn. The RCMP have been notified and have put together a mobilization team to reach the area as soon as possible. More information will be provided as it becomes...
Dalton Scratches in Pelly Crossing
February 11, 2014
Early this morning, veteran musher Dave Dalton (bib #5) from Healy, Alaska scratched from the race in Pelly Crossing. His decision was made for the well-being of his team.
Moose vs. musher is normally a VERY bad deal. Brent lucked out.
http://youtu.be/8dkFPfWtA54
Lucked out indeed.
Brent must have really done a job on himself as he just withdrew from the Iditarod due to the after effects of the concussion, still has numbness in his hands etc.
Here are a couple of videos I took on my way home from the checkpoint this year. No, it wasn't as slippery as it looked. The roads were actually amazingly good this year, probably as best I have ever driven them in the winter!
This is 12 Mile Summit where 3 separate crewmembers left the road last year on their way out to the checkpoint. It's a real doozy in a blizzard.
http://youtu.be/zo9LBbdGqQE
This is much closer to town, Cleary Summit. Not as bad as 12 Mile but still can be scary. Of course, I don't get scared driving much, just a matter of how much I have to slow down.
http://youtu.be/xApQzHvzAv0
There is no radio reception out there so I spent most of my drive enjoying my favorite local band, the Super Saturated Sugar String Band.
Yea, that would make me use expletives.
https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/...50601700_n.jpg
Quote:
Mother Nature has a cold heart this Valentine's Day.
In Howard Pass, Alaska (map: http://go.usa.gov/BVEC) the cold and wind have combined to produce a wind chill, or feels-like factor, of -92 F this morning. While this is brutally cold, it's even more impressive when you see that the lowest recorded wind chill of record in Alaska is -96 F from Prudhoe Bay/ARCO January 28, 1989. Frostbite can occur in less than 5 minutes if skin is exposed in these conditions.
Howard Pass lies at 2062 feet above sea level, Southwest of Barrow in the Northwestern Brooks Range, an extension of the Rocky Mountains. The region is mostly uninhabited.
Wind Chill Advisories are in effect for significant, though less severe, levels for many communities of Alaska’s North Slope, West Coast and Interior today. For the latest information head to www.weather.gov/Alaska.
Inside with warm fire....not so bad. Outside in outhouse, no way. I'm holdin' it 'till spring thaw.
We had a nice solar storm last night. Luckily I don't have to go in to work until 1:00 today.
https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/...49819335_n.jpg
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And for any of you in Denver, maybe you saw my picture on your news this morning.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...53192607_n.jpg
Wow........I be up all night just watching....
Thanks.
Great shots. Thanks.