Seasonal Awesome Disorder

You can't do it all.  At least I went in the ob tube, if only for a few minutes.  That porthole to another world was stuck in the ice for weeks, but I only happened to luck into going down when some other people already had the key.  It was pretty neat to see divers in the water, though, fins undulating in the dim, silent world of jellyfish and ice crystals.



(Hi mom and dad -- here's my face, I'm still alive and well.)

Our access to the ice shelf also wrapped up a couple weeks ago -- significant melt pools are visible near the coastline, and the ice is slushy, weak, just plain unsafe.  The cross-country skis in my corner by the closet stare reproachfully every time I enter my room.  I know it's been awhile, gals, but there's just so much fun music.  Oh, and Christmas.

All I can say about Christmas is this town likes to party.  Varying combinations of booze-music-food-presents carried us from Friday afternoon straight through Sunday evening.  There was Uno and shots; there was Pink Floyd and lobster tail; there was a scarf and chocolate.  It snowed late Friday night, which was our Christmas Eve, and I knew I better go walk in it even though it was 1am.  When I woke up the next morning, it was all gone.

P.S. - We are starting to fill shipping containers with cargo in anticipation of the yearly supply ship arriving in a couple weeks.  What does this exciting new development hold for me?  Aaaaaaand it's...more data entry.

Down To Fun

What's that, the cover of a new Christian rock album?  No, just pregaming enjoying nature before band practice, out at Hut Point.  Julien makes a mean mojito, especially when you consider that the mint is a few weeks old and the lime is powdered.  Also, there is a guy here who's actual first name is Steel.  He's sitting on the right.

For a few days there I had a lot of spare time on my hands with only one band going...but thankfully, they're both fully operational again.  Our bass player suffered an unfortunate accident and flew home, but I scooped up a replacement so we can still play IceStock.  And another side project is brewing: I met a guy who was a professional jazz drummer for like thirty years, and who made and brought down -- to Antarctica -- his own set of vibes (as in vibraphone, not psychological energy).

Christmas week is upon us and the debauchery started right with the firefighters' dinner/party.  My friend and drummer cooked a feast: meatballs, pasta, latkes, crepes, asparagus, and more.  They're about as rowdy as you'd expect any such group to be, and it pleased me that the chief ended an otherwise congratulatory and sincere speech with a quote from the sage of our times, Jerry Springer.

Tonight beckons like a giant chocolate cake: planning our short film, followed by band practice, followed by maybe my favorite event of the year -- SOLSTICE SILENT DANCE PARTY.  We will enter into the transcendent quiet beauty of this landscape, moving to our own tunes on headphones, the sun as high as it ever is all the way to midnight in a strange southern land.

What time is it? Show time.

My gosh, I haven't talked about the first gig...ok: Down To Freeze was well received at the Crary Lab science social, achieving that perfect ambiance-music volume without turning into a spectacle.  Because, really, we were background music for what I assume were varied and erudite doctoral-type conversation.  I borrowed a little black dress from one friend and savagely high heels from another, and we swung through the jazz tunes and pounded the rockers without me toppling over.  It was a great night, though tinged blue as our guitarist departed a few days after.  The plan is to integrate a new guitarist, but most of the jazz is going away.

After many -- and I don't use this word frequently or lightly -- epic rehearsals, last night Midnight Rhythm graced the stage of Gallagher's bar.  Things really got amazing about two weeks ago when we tapped an as-yet-undiscovered drummer, Dave, the egg line cook.  That kid can hit some shit.  Most of our tempos increased, transforming what had been a remorseful post-break-up original into a fist-raiser of an I-will-remember-you, and our three 12-bar blueses(eses) into groovin' dance tunes.  For a second time, I abused my aging knees keeping time in four-inch sparkly purple velvet heels.  I think the bubbles in our champagne (one bottle each, frequent toasting) encouraged an effervescent mood.

And as if all this music weren't enough thrill, we got our first delivery of ice cores from the South Pole.  This is the for-reelz science down here, the most prized of the field samples, and there is a strict protocol we follow to ensure their integrity.  Usually they are flown in at the coldest time of day, about 2am, but we had had several days' weather delay, and eventually it was decided they would come during normal work hours.  So thankfully I didn't have to do this the first time confused and bleary-eyed.  My main job is to put bar code stickers on boxes and record temperature data logger numbers.  I also have to talk on the radio, which is scary and awkward, as I've never been a big rig driver or bus dispatcher, and fail to conjure the proper jargon.  My coworkers are the ones actually driving forklifts into shipping containers and carefully placing every pallet.

Picture Fun Time

It's a Thanksgiving miracle -- the internet doesn't totally suck!  And so I can finally show you some photos.  The gorgeous curling uplift of the pressure ridges with a back-drop of volcano Mt. Erebus:

And here's town with a fresh coat of powder from atop Observation Hill last week:

This stark little homestead is a dive shack on the ice at Turtle Rock, reportedly one of the most beautiful dive spots in the world according to those in the know:

The seals like it there, and so do I.  We listened to 70s rock while the divers strapped on their tanks and gear, then one by one they slipped beneath the slush and down into the cold quiet deep.  Eventually, air bubbles stopped escaping through the hole and a stillness took hold.  Other than fifty or so lazy seals, I was the only being on the surface of the ice for miles in every direction.  Thirty minutes passed like a single slow breath, and the small circle of open water roiled again to announce the divers' return.  It's always fun to get out of town and science.

This Week in Music

Greetings from the McMurdo band room, where your heart and voice will soar, break, and soar again.  Overall, I’m pretty drama-averse.  When my pals brought in a new guitarist,  I tried to be welcoming, open to his suggestions, and not roll my eyes too openly when he couldn’t consistently alternate between the three chords in a blues…but when he incorrectly identified a song’s progression as Rhythm changes, he had to be put in his place.  I swear, it wasn’t just me; apparently he got the vibe and bowed out, and we’ve returned to a tighter, funner little group.  Likewise, with the jazz group, we were finally all there – guitar, drums, bass, me – and sailing along; then, at a performance, the tune I most looked forward to went completely off the rails.  At least we didn’t stop; I kept smiling dopily, and eventually we stuttered back to the head for one last time through.  Luckily, that was the first tune, so I hope everyone forgot about that by the end.  And then comes the moment you pick just the right song where everybody clicks in and it seems to play itself.  Anyway, all this jazz stuff is leading up to a week from now, at the Crary Lab Science Social, where beakers (scientists) will swirl glasses of wine and regale each other with witty anecdotes as we noodle in the background.

A perfectly clear understanding of the parameters of my job remains elusive, but at least I make fewer data entry errors.  Mystified people ring me several times a day, and I take a stab at answering their questions, often thickening the fog.  My boss is like an all-knowing oracle, but with sass: he purses his lips, sharply inhales, and says, “Let me speak with them, please,” and sets us all straight.

It finally snowed a good few inches, and we took advantage of the relative humidity to have a snowball fight.  My aim is terrible, but a sort of drive-by shooting technique helps me score direct hits at close range.  I hope it sticks around long enough to ski on Thanksgiving, which we’ll celebrate on Saturday in order to have a two-day weekend.  Now, I want everyone to go out and eat a nice pastry for me, and eat lots of butter, as it’s difficult to come by down here. 

Orange but Not Evil

Oh office job, how you warp a human being…  I broke a personal vow to never create a PowerPoint presentation today.  All I did was copy some cat images from the internet and make a slideshow (well, I didn’t actually use the slideshow function, I just put the pictures onto subsequent slides) for my upcoming safety lecture on sunburn prevention.  (In the interest of “safety first,” every work center conducts a weekly safety meeting in which very important topics are discussed.  I thought some visual aids in the form of a kitten wearing a sombrero would energize the otherwise blandly informative content.

We all kept an eye on election results throughout our Wednesday afternoon.  Things were not looking good when I took a break for dinner and band practice.  I was at the Coffee House when the blow struck; I kept looking beseechingly at the messenger for ten minutes, waiting for the  “Just kidding!”  And then the thought that all this life, work, and play here might shudder to a halt due to lack of interest and funding threatened to swamp us all in grief, which we fought back with more wine.  It still feels far off, but the distance back home shrank quite a bit.

Tonight is the long-awaited, one-time-only performance by Cold As Ice - Antarctica’s Premier Foreigner Cover Band.  Things are shaping up for a rager of a Saturday night, but as I have a pressure ridge tour to lead tomorrow morning, I’m shooting for 2am bedtime.  As always, safety first, and remember to cover up in the sun.

SKIIIIII

Something fairly magical happened: after two years of meaning to cross country ski the ice shelf in Antarctica, I finally DID.  A six-mile chunk of it, at least.  Everything was just right, from the perfect weather to the energetic pal that skis up to 20 miles a day.  When we stopped, just a few minutes short of catching a ride home on a shuttle van, we barely waited until a delta (big ol’ industrial truck) came trundling up at 8mph and gave us a lift.   Being out in the sun was refreshing, and I felt better about the slab of melted brie I had eaten at brunch.

So, work – that’s right, I work here.  The data entry is rote but not so bad; it’s the tiny bullshit like accidentally sending the Northbound Priority List instead of the Northbound Packing List that gets me flustered.  (Such incredibly different things, maybe we should differentiate their names a bit?)  I get an odd satisfaction from printing labels and stickers (always been a sticker fan), and while filing itself is a blah activity, I like the facility of referencing a physical record.  And then there’s afternoon hot dog break.  One of my coworkers gets pretty snacky near the end of the day, and has developed a rotating menu of hot pockets, empanadas, chicken nuggets (microwaved), and hot dogs on the Foreman grill.  It’s pretty entertaining to see it sizzling away in front of our window framing remote snowy mountains across the sea.

The near-eternal South Pole winter finally came to an end, and a few pale friends stopped over in town for a day or two before being released back into the greater world.  I thought a year of two-minute showers, spotty 3am internet access, and nowhere near enough marshmallows would have them looking hollow-eyed and shell-shocked, but relief at leaving put huge smiles on their faces.  I hope they continue to come back to life in New Zealand, back home, and beyond.

Bad Self-Portraits in Jazz

It’s a bit like shining a flashlight into an old attic: “Oh yeaaah, I forgot that was back here…”  As I wrote out rehearsal times for this week I realized it’s been almost half my life (several more than ten years, anyway) since I practiced music every day.  But after a mere two years of cultivating friends and asking around, the stars aligned and I found some people that like jazz standards.

I happened to walk into the Coffee House one night where a few people were chatting, and a guy strummed guitar off to the side.  I stopped in my tracks and cautiously interrupted to ask, “Are you playing ‘All of Me’?”  Fast forward one week to happy hours of imitating my favorite singers, going over beautiful old tunes, and throwing in some more bluesy-rockers to even out the set, and we’re on our way to something great.  I’ve listened to that Lake Street Dive song at least two hundred times, and got just the right edge of frustration to describe taking landscapes and still lives, taking night classes and making sculptures, and painting bad self-portraits.

The one downside is that I have barely been outside, and haven’t taken any pictures.  And it’s been pretty gorgeous lately; quite cold, but almost windless, and clear clear clear, with fata morgana (inverted reflection mirage) of the mountains in the distance. 

So instead of pretty photos, I’ll leave you with the mental image of a jazz-style cover of Green Day’s “Pulling Teeth.”  (“I’m all busted up, broken bones and nasty cuts, accidents will happen, but this time I can’t get up.”)

Goo Blobs of the Deep

Maybe because the view is so familiar, I keep forgetting to photograph (digitally snap?) my snowy volcanic surrounds.  I did pretty thoroughly document the creatures in the “touch tank,” though, so here you go:

These guys are a starfish and a nudibranch.  When out on business, the divers pick up various harmless undersea blobs for us to *carefully handle* and increase appreciation of science, or something.  It was really interesting to hold them, though I wondered how my really warm hand compared to their typical 29F saltwater environment.

In work-related news, I have wrangled with many a spreadsheet; most frustratingly while trying to update instruction sheets and forms that we display, poster-size, in the warehouse so people properly categorize their packaged cargo.  The pain of formatting everything was redeemed by using the science lab’s giant-ass printer (or “plotter”).  This beast stands almost as tall as me, can print four feet wide, and automatically cuts its fancy paper upon completion.  After witnessing this technological marvel, it was fun to fire up the ol’ Master Lam 72 laminator, straight out of an early-90s elementary school.  It did a fine job, though, and I happily adhered my new posters to the warehouse wall.

Other than that fieldtrip, there have been lots of barcodes and phone transfers.  And then I signed up to shovel snow for two hours on my day off, to hasten the reopening of my favorite hiking trail.  There are some real gung-ho shovelers in this town, let it be known. 

Rough Rider

It seems this throwing up on planes is becoming a thing (thanks for not being openly hostile, LA to Auckland and Auckland to Christchurch seatmates).  My brother, who intercepted a shoe-full one memorable flight when I was about three, will be not at all surprised, but I had thought of myself as a normal, non-airsick person for many years.  Ah well.  A mere two flu-shivery nights in Christchurch later, I was privileged to board this big gray guy and fly down to the Ice once more (didn't throw up on this one!).

Now that I'm back in an office with my own computer, and my boss keeps the TV on (muted), my sense of geographical isolation has diminished.  I also realized how static-y hair gets down here, and, that it is cold.  (-4F not counting wind, for inquiring minds.)  When you're not scampering between ovens and grill tops and heaving hundreds of pounds of trash into bins, an extra sweater becomes necessary.  Even, dare I say, gloves.

There are no deep drifts, but it was blustery and dusk-dark with snow last night.  I had a drink with friends and cringed at karaoke before giving into a firefighter looking for a second person with whom to perform "Rawhide" (you know, that song from The Blues Brothers?).  And so the third season begins...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Hiiiiii.  There are lots of boxes and bags happening right now.  And allergies (I still love you, Michigan).  How about an indulgent interstitial post to transition from Alaska to Antarctica?  And how about we include lots of unnecessary interrogative phrases and marks?

That drive up the Dalton Highway?  Not too shabby.  After reading warnings of basketball-chomping potholes, my already vigilant eyes and white knuckles shifted into DEFCON 2, and though my giant SUV got totally covered in mud, it wasn't hurt a bit.  But you don't want to hear about paranoid parallel pipeline propulsion, do you?  (Disclaimer: this is not the highway, but you can see the pipeline pretty well, right?)

Now you've seen what it looks like by the Arctic Circle.  Also, there were crazy auroras shimmering iridescent green and purple spanning the entire Milky-Way-bedazzled sky.  What, iPhones don't take great pictures in low light?

Chris and the crew at Coldfoot made me very welcome, complete with raging 20-foot bonfire, tour and talk with local off-the-grid-subsistence-hunter-log-cabin guy, and my first (last?) time shooting a revolver (guns are fun?).

A nice 12-hour train ride gives one plenty of time to contemplate the past, present, future...really, any thought you've ever had swirls through your brain when trying to pass the time.  To be fair, one hour was pretty spectacular, taking in the gorge near where I worked.  Isn't that nice?

Now, what trip to Alaska would be complete without a jaunt in a small plane to some remote locale?  More than twenty years later, I still have a healthy fear of living out the story in Hatchet, where a kid crash lands in a bush plane and survives alone in the wilderness thanks to his hatchet.  So I went on a small jet to Dutch Harbor, America's answer to Scandinavia's charm-packed, mountainous fishing outposts.

Is that a picture of an ancient Greek temple?  No, it's the view of Captain's Bay halibut processing boats from inside a WWII concrete bunker.  I'm sorry, what?

Let's move on, then, shall we?  The last leg of travel took me south to Cooper's Landing and more good company.  With little warning, Cat kindly hooked me up with my own tent, got me fed and watered and sauna'd and river dunked, and guided me to one of the prettiest hikes this side of a waterfall as well as to the Exit Glacier toe.  See how much it's receded since 2010?

And that's going to have to be enough Alaska to be getting on with for a while.  A new era has begun: I purchased a new backpack today.  How many dirty bus station floors will you scoot across, New Blue?  How many tiny travel bottles of shampoo will ooze into your pores?  Will you be too young to remember your first trip to New Zealand, innocent and free of invasive plant materials?  Reader, tune in to the next post to find out.

Last Hurrahs

It's September the 1st, time to get on the Hogwarts Express.  Tomorrow, actually, I'll step aboard the Denali Star and head north to Fairbanks.  From there, I'll start a long, arduous journey to visit some far-flung parts of the state, including Coldfoot (hi Chris!), Dutch Harbor, and Cooper Landing (hi Cat and Jams!).  After semi-solo-touristing, there's just time enough for a whirlwind visit to Michigan to procure new shoes and sock and attend my brother's wedding (YAY!), before continuing on to Antarctica.  For those of you in this only for the penguin photos and not the bitter vitriol, congratulations, there's just a few more weeks before the regularly scheduled program returns.

So many fun things happened this summer, I'm really happy two of the best were saved for (almost) last: I made it onto the catwalk under the big bridge over the river.  The views are stunning, and you can hang your feet over the edge and feel a little badass.  The other great thing I did was whipped-cream-pie one of my favorite coworkers in the face yesterday at the end of my last shift.  He is known for perpetrating this act, so I was simply acting in preemptive defense.  I even hand-whipped the cream.

Fall Colors + Monster Truck + Mystery Tour

Wouldn't it be fun and festive to change color every season?  (Like way more than tanning.)  When you sense that change in the air, the forlorn sound of the wind, and want to eat soup all the time...what if those fall feelings thickened our skin, colored our hair aflame, turned our eyes/veins/fingernails purple?  I suppose it's just as well we don't dry out and blow away.

Nothing complements a contemplative, blustery autumn hike quite like a ride in the back of a pickup truck outfitted with monster truck tires and a cooler full of beer, etc.  'Lil patriotic flag -- check.  Lap blankets -- check.  Evidently well-known country music on a small speaker -- check.  I think we affected the course of the river, smashing over the gravel embankments too many times to count.  It was ten times more 'Murican (merkin?) than ATVing.

Ok, my Alaska travel plans are much less mysterious than they were five hours ago when I scribbled out that headline.  I will brave the Dalton Highway, a "high-speed gravel road," piloting a rented SUV equipped with spare tires (yes, plural), a CB radio, water and snacks, and cross my fingers that it goes better than that time I drove a rental van containing all my earthly possessions and sideswiped a delivery truck a couple blocks from the Holland Tunnel entrance (that would be leaving Manhattan, folks).  It's been over four months since then (that's almost 2 1/2 years in dog years), so I'm pretty sure I got that out of my system.

Why is this happening?  I'm not completely sure, but there's a good chance of seeing multi-colored auroras up north of the Arctic Circle, as well as pretty neat rocks.

-I only sold one oatmeal today, technically after breakfast hours.  #NeverSurrender #YouCantKilltheOatmeal

Help from the Grey-Eyed Goddess

She's a workhorse of a stove.  The oven runs hot and the door squeals something fierce, but you can put out a lot of food with four big blue flames and a few square feet of flat-top.  (Not pictured: deep fryer, conveyor-belt toaster, really old microwave.)

My breakfast days are an amalgam of hope and frustration, wherein fleeting moments of satisfaction akin to those of executing intricately contrapuntal piano exercises are followed by seeming hours of personal failure manifested as incompletely flipped eggs and mangled toast.  When the board is clear and you haven't run out of anything yet, the potential for a positive outcome returns: new eggs liquidly conform to their temporary circular habitat and gently, inexorably coagulate.  Manage to be there at the right moment and you can plate a thing of beauty and a joy for breakfast.

But sometimes all the voices' ruckus can't be addressed with merely two hands.  "I'm burning!" "Flip me, hurry!" "I need to be buttered..." "Buuuurp, excuse me, better clean that up."  Which leaves you smashing your hands across the keyboard, so to speak (ie: repeat "fuckfuckfuck" as necessary), drowning out the clamor of mistakes and inattention with your own cacophony.

So it's nice that only happens two days a week.  It practically feels like goofing off the other days, making chili and casesar dressing and candied walnuts and corn muffins.

Oatmeal update: Apparently the cereal grain gods disapprove of my shit-talking, and avenged themselves upon me with an unprecedented volume of oatmeal orders (like 30 bowls in an hour and a quadruple to-go order).  I hereby stick a spoon in the ground and offer up the finest joints of burnt toast in appeasement.

Also, I got to ride in a helicopter -- for three minutes!  The hiking guide happened to choose the closest mountain ridge to the the take-off point, but what we lacked in heli time we made up for in hiking and seeing of awesome landscape.  Hurray for fresh air and employee comps!

Bonhomie

On a rare night without (much) rain, the bus costume party became a ping-pong and bonfire party.  Pippi here shared her infectious joy, and enough margaritas to swim in did their part.  Despite trying to eggwash-and-sesame-seed myself, I was unable to attend as one of the baker Chelsea's buns.  I was also thwarted in my attempt to wrap myself in toilet paper, a la mummy.  And I didn't stand a chance against Dan(i) in gorgeous drag.  But it was fun, and being a responsible old person, I was in bed by midnight.

A long time ago, I started school, and liked some of the people and some of them liked me.  Then I went to another school, and didn't like most people and most people didn't like me.  Then I switched again, and made some of my best friends still to this day.  Partly, it seemed like a fluke, that I better really hold onto those good ones as previous experience wasn't encouraging.  I'm wary of meeting lots of new people and joining groups, but this summer's crew is widely varied and incredibly companionable.  I heart you guys.

Ladybugs and aphids are taking over, and the plants are burnished.  Summer is waning, and there's just enough sunshine to take in all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.

P.S. -- People who get oatmeal at a restaurant still suck.

Animals

So, I could happily turn this into a moss/lichen/fungi-related blog, but I'm not sure my rusty knowledge of the Calvin cycle (whoo, ATP power!) could really carry us through several months' worth of posts.  How about instead I catch you up on more macro-level biological happenings?

Most important, mom and dad are visiting!  And they brought rare clear(ish) skies with them.  We took a bus two-thirds of the way along the park road and saw Denali itself gleaming in sunlight, numerous caribou, a few groups of celebrated Dall sheep (whose near-extinction helped motivate the organization of the park), a couple moose, ptarmigan, a golden eagle, and pretty much everything but a bear -- though we did stop to look at recently impressed paw prints.  There were endless stunning mountains and river beribboned valleys.

Last week was basically dedicated to revelry.  The teen boy squad (our fabulous 18-21 year old troop of dishwashers) had been hard at work building Shantytown, their very own nest in the woods beside our dorm, complete with tarp awning, extra car seats, wooden platform, and high-rise triple-decker hammock.  They hosted a shack-warming party-cum-talent show, offering grilled cheese and jungle juice to all who came.  People kept their acts close to the chest, and we were all thrilled and chilled by the feats of intellect, artistry, and brute force onion eating.  If it had been my vote, I think my friend who perseveringly sat in a tiny chair and ate an onion for TEN MINUTES should have won, but, astonishingly, I won after singing a little song, and was ennobled with a lovingly constructed cardboard-and-beflagged-toothpick crown.  Then we all drunkenly harassed the bartenders next door.  Then we had our own little Drunk History night.  Then a group of us drove up to town for a real live bluegrass show with like 1,000 people, more than I've seen in weeks.

It's all a nice lead up to 33.  I aged a few extra years in the last twelve months, but maybe acting 23 will even out feeling 43.

All About Lichen

-And check out that moss, too.  I first became fascinated by lichen when my group (rock on, Aud and Steph!) took on the entire biological history of the Cretaceous Period in eighth grade science.  That's the 80 million or so years that followed the Jurassic, and whose end marked the mass extinction not just of dinosaurs but all kinds of life.  Flowering plants, ginkgos, mammals, and marsupials all ramped up, and true grasses populated wherever there was open land.  I had previously found these pseudo-plant-fungi* beings pretty, but my appreciation swelled as I learned about their mastery of the entire world.

*Lichen is a composite organism comprised of symbiotic algae (or cyanobacteria) and fungal filaments.  Lichens grow pretty much anywhere, on anything (inside rocks; blows around in the air), and are some of the longest-living beings on the planet.  They slowly pulverize rocks into fertile soil.

Now, this description is so nicely worded, I will copy it from Wikipedia: "Lichens may have tiny, leafless branches (fruticose), flat leaf-like structures (foliose), flakes that lie on the surface like peeling paint (crustose), or other growth forms."  Just reading the word "crustose" would throw me into a ten-minute giggle in Mr. Chapple's classroom.  

Without further ado, check this shit out:

Also, continuing my adorable mushroom photo trend, I did not compose the elements of this picture -- nature just put them there this charmingly:

Shaka Brah

Ok, this picture is just clickbait (haha! it worked); sure, ziplining was pretty fun, but I am smiling in surprise at winning my "race" against the guide, who assured me she was not just letting me win.

At any rate, as you can see, I went ziplining (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFIOTEyMT18).  It was kinda rainy, fairly cold, and the helicopter-ride-plus-land-on-a-glacier I thought I had scored that morning was sadly cancelled due to poor visibility.  So, after sitting in the coffee shop for a couple hours wondering what to make of my day off, two friendly coworkers and I decided, what the hell, let's zipline.*

*for free


Yesterday I hiked a semi-arduous path up 1,000 feet in the blustery rain and, after first sweating so much salt stung my eyes, I came home chilled to the bone.  The view was rather foggy, but I happily spotted all kinds of mushrooms, including many rather large specimens.  Like, eight inches across, some concave and filled with nearly a cup of water and forest bits.

Let's see...I'm going to try to make this installment's juicy kitchen tidbit a positive, life-affirming one.  Do you like butter?  Do you like eggs?  Do you wish you could eat like half a stick of butter on top of your eggs?  Make some delicious hollandaise sauce -- it's easy!  Over medium heat, whisk a few egg yolks, a pinch of salt, and a tiny blob of mustard until the mixture feels hot to the touch but the yolks don't scramble into chunks (we're shooting for 110 degrees here).  It will get frothy and thicken.  Remove from heat.  Melt a cup or so of butter, so it's a similar temperature (not scalding, not just room temp).  Now -- SLOWLY is the key -- add a little melted butter to the stuff, whisking constantly and incorporating the oil so it fully emulsifies before adding more butter.  Et voila: magic sauce that is way more delicious than melted butter or warm egg yolk alone, transformed alchemically into orangey gold.  When you make this, think of me eating a fucked up order of eggs Benedict, standing over the trash, sauce dripping off my hands and smeared on my cheek, hoping neither of my bosses will not turn the corner in the next 45 seconds.

Ever Northward

Apparently someone named Claire Veligcan flew over the Arctic Circle:

It was really sweet of them to make out a certificate, freeloader that I was.  And the nice shuttle driver drove me the extra 15 miles home so I wouldn't have to hitchhike at midnight with dubious truckers.

Speaking of truckers, I didn't realize until I arrived at Coldfoot Camp that it is a prominent feature of Ice Road Truckers.  It's one of a handful of places to refuel and get a bite to eat on the highway alongside the oil pipeline (Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay -- 500 miles).  The vibe was surprisingly similar to McMurdo -- lots of heavy machinery, trucks roaring down dirt roads, cafeteria-style buffet, aging utilitarian buildings, and a collection of odd, delightful people that don't want to be anywhere else.  I had to turn around after two hours and fly back as there was no guarantee I'd snag a spot the following day, but I'm determined to return.  The flight itself is fascinating, traversing endless miles of shallow permafrost lakes that mingle with thinning boreal forest before you reach the Brooks Range.  We passed a wind farm as well as a government anti-aircraft microwave test facility (our pilot calmly pointed out the dishes pointed away from us).  And it just so happens to be the time of year fields of purple flowers bloom up north, coloring the hillsides.

It was a very clear night, and Denali was visible most of the way back, pink in the lingering sunset, over a hundred miles away, catapulting above the horizon.  (It looked a lot more awesome with my eyes than this camera-phone-shot-through-the-window.)

  


I was all set to lay off the cafe patrons this week, but then someone ordered deconstructed halibut tacos with substitutes for wheat and dairy allergies (which = four bites of fish + cabbage pile + limp corn tortilla).  Would it be too scary to have us place your fish bites and cabbage pile on the tortilla for you?  You want to do that step yourself, or do you just like using extra dishes?  Thankfully, I had handed over the reins momentarily to another cook, took a moment to close my eyes and shake my head, and continued slicing onions while she dealt with this inanity/insanity.*

---------
*You could stop reading now, or you could proceed with caution and take in this footnote about the purpose of a restaurant.  I suppose I'm in the minority here, but I have always operated under the assumption that businesses, while providing courteous and thorough customer service, must have some sort of limit to what they do.  For instance, at the shoe store are a bunch of items with prices.  Do you say, "Gosh, I'm in the mood for suspenders, could you guys whip me up a pair?  Or perhaps you could dye these shoes for me, as I'd prefer them a different color."  I could see how an optimist/narcissist might be tempted to ask...but in fact, no, your typical shoe store does not have a secret cache of somewhat-related accessories, nor do they manufacture products at a moment's notice.  Perhaps what you're looking for is a cobbler, who, for several hundred dollars, would painstakingly construct your most detailed footwear desires.  And those of you who would like something not on the menu -- the list of stuff we just spent at least a day prepping and cooking and heating so you could breeze in and eat meatloaf without waiting three hours -- what you're looking for is a private chef.  They would be thrilled to stop everything and make a single serving of mac and cheese for your kid for the market rate of $50-100/hour.

Regatta!

Originally, the plan was to run in several heats, have an official timer with stopwatch at the finish line, and other such formalities that would qualify the event as a true regatta.  Truly, though, our homemade boat race down the creek could not have been more...legit.  We crowded precariously at the creekside, heaved our vessels into the roiling rapids, watched in wonder as some stayed upright, and ran alongside to keep up with the bobbing survivors as they were caught midstream not by the pathetically stretched net but by the brave, cold hand of a 19-year-old in waders.

My boat, Rower Not a Shower, unfortunately got caught on a shoal and had to be retrieved after the race.  I think I'll release it into the big river before I leave for the season, perhaps with a message inside so when a Japanese fisherman finds it three years from now he can report back on Rower's seaworthiness.

You might notice several ornamental bandaids bedecking (ha) my boat -- they suggested themselves when I took a tentative break from applying them to my slightly mutilated thumb.  There is a blood-thirsty new serrated knife at work which claimed a chunk of one of the dishwasher's index fingers; apparently that incident only further whetted its appetite for flesh, and it surprised me in a weak moment, indecisively cutting bread crusts for croutons.  The regatta was quite a fun change from being sick the past week.  I need to get reacquainted with the splendor of the outdoors, and pause the weird, confused dreams that come from dozing off while listening to endless hours of NPR podcasts.

-I'd like to conduct an informal poll/public service announcement: have you heard of baked Alaska?  I first came across it in a Clue series chapbook, as something wealthy people with a tendency toward murder enjoy at their social gatherings.  It is ice cream on a base of cake, topped/encased by meringue.  Traditionally, it gets popped in the oven briefly to brown the meringue, but you can also pour some alcohol over it and torch it.  I'm just curious how widely known a dessert this is, as I expected to see it in every restaurant up here (how could you resist baked Alaska in Alaska?), but it seems it's rare and not well known even in its eponymous land.

Sit Down and Stay a While

Oh my, well, that's over.  Let's hope that will be my only six-day week of the summer.  Because the only reason you should agree to work that many days in a row is so you can go to Antarctica.  I hope my fellow breakfast cook enjoyed his three-day weekend, and never gets another one.  :)  I did celebrate by hiking up the hill last night, having a nice little fire, and watching the sunset.

It's rained steadily most of today (well, since I woke up at noon -- the sun set about midnight, and this day off is dedicated to laziness), affording the opportunity to read through some of my previous notes on cooking.  A few days ago, when it was quite busy and I was plating my 87th side of bacon, I was reminded of the eternal hustle of the fancy restaurant where I trained.  I'm thankful to no longer carry anything/everything (boiling pots of stock, fifty-pound bins of oysters, endless quarts of dill pickles) up and down a steep flight of stairs.  I acutely recall the failure-panic of trying, in way too short a time, to prepare for service, and my resentment of seemingly minor requests or additions to the systematic labor thereof.  If something prevented me from finishing slicing lemon wedges by 2:25, I just had to press on with the other parts of readying my station and hope for some spare, salvaged moments to catch up on the lemons.

Which brings me to: oatmeal to go.  My fellow Americans...for fuck's sake, can you not even handle instant oatmeal at this point?  Like, we could give you the already-boiling water -- for free! -- and you could effortlessly have oatmeal.  Since you placed your order the night before, I intuit that you are capable of planning (perhaps next time you could purchase instant oatmeal packets).  Since you're taking it to go, I intuit that you do not care about the pleasure of sitting and eating breakfast (consider injecting yourself with caloric fluid).  Since half the time you order it plain, unadorned by raisin or pecan, I intuit that you do not care about food in any way (wood pulp is pretty much equivalent to plain oatmeal).  What kind of sadist interrupts the earnest cooking of eggs and pancakes to procure oatmeal to go?

Please, stop doing this.

Gosh, I had a lot to say about that.  Let's just calm down with a look at these pretty rain-spheres perfectly cupped by amiably outstretched leaves:

 

Rock the Mag-bus

This post is coming to you from, I think, the false summit of Sugarloaf Mountain, where I await my more intrepid hiking buddies. (Don't worry, I have the bear spray.) It's a lovely day, and the sun was pretty much directly overhead by 9am, which means we sweated through our shirts in about ten minutes. 

On an unrelated note, I thought you might like to know I sighted the elusive bull moose(!). There were dozens of cars pulled off the road; I thought there'd been an accident. But wait -- everyone had a camera or phone in hand -- in a rush the fellow in question cantered across the highway and disappeared back into the woods.

I don't have a segue for this, but I want to share a picture of our party bus.  It's situated a solid twenty feet away from the dorm to allow for raucous celebration without interrupting everyone's sleep. Or at least that's the idea. When a manager (rather lit) ran through the dorm berating us, room by room, to play corn hole at midnight, I wondered if it might be wiser to have a Quiet Bus for those of us inclined to unwinding with knitting and Sherlock Holmes audio books.

Fleshy Fungal Fruits

As I usually enter through the rear kitchen door and fleetingly glance into the restaurant at extremely busy or slow moments, it catches me off-guard how charming our little place is:

A truckload of flowers were delivered a couple weeks ago, and with attentive weeding and watering (not by me) are holding up pretty well.  One of the dishwashers is regularly pulled for gardening duty, resulting in several bathtubs' worth of rhubarb, which ends up in tasty strawberry-rhubarb coffee cake.

Drinking beers on the stoop the other day, hearing stories about employees of yore really put my own efforts into perspective.  I have not (yet)

- peed myself and the common room couch* in a drunken stupor
- arrived to work drunk
- nearly come to blows with my boss's husband
- strewn random foraged mushrooms about the employee kitchen to dry, only to later consume and sicken from them†

*it was later aired and burned
†due to utter lack of effort to identify shrooms, some guys risked paralysis and death; apparently drying mushrooms smell pretty icky


Maybe I can only handle one order ticket at a time, and maybe I forget about the potatoes darkening in the deep fryer for an ill-fated extra thirty seconds; maybe I spray everyone and everything when I wash dishes, and maybe I don't actually distinguish between over easy and medium eggs...but you can count on me never to throw food or spatulas at or sexually harass my coworkers.

Continuing this vein of self-affirmation, I chose a great hike for a great day -- the Triple Lakes trail, seen on this perfectly clear sunny morn (featuring Lake 1):

I hoped for a moose carefully plodding the shallows each time, but Lake 1 was empty, Lake 2 was bare, and Lake 3 dotted by a few ducks.  But it was gorgeous, and the 1,000-foot gain to the ridge had some rewarding views.  I even passed a troup of impeccably-confectionery-chocolate-looking mushrooms.

Copilot

Three of the six sweaters selected for my summer wardrobe have the word "Antarctica" on them, which has prompted a lot of conversation.  I don't want to be that guy that always brings it up and tells stories about the one same thing, but it's cool when you're meeting someone and they're excited to hear about it.  And a lot of people up here have a friend who's worked there or are scheming to get down there themselves.  It was nice to find out the guy who runs the flight-seeing tour desk and I have a mutual friend.

It was even nicer scoring a last-minute unsold seat on a plane!  My friend did all the work, calling and sweetly repeating our names almost hourly in the hopes we might get to fly on the clearest day we've yet had.  You can see how happy I was, as this is post-eight-times-barfing (in under 90 minutes!), and I want to do it all again:

This is not Denali, but another gorgeous snowy peak on the way:

I don't know if it was sitting copilot, having eaten three forms of peanut butter, the increasingly swirly low clouds, or just too sensitive an inner ear, but that was a lot of heaving.  Ok, since you read that gross sentence, here's another picture:

Into the Woods

Local fungi anecdote: apparently somewhere "south of Fairbanks" are acres and acres of morels.  Like a lower-level mafia figure, a guy appeared in an old pickup truck at the cafe and without preamble offered to sell us these delicacies picked by a woman he knows from around there.  Just making his way down the highway, over a hundred miles or more, hoping for deep-pocketed mushroom enthusiasts.  My boss sprang for a pound at $20, not too shabby.

And...I finally made it into the park!  Remember that car every other kid had in high school, a ten-year-old Toyota with faded paint, a million miles, worn out brakes, a tiny middle front seat?  That's our company car, used to shuttle employees up to the other restaurant we run up at the canyon.  If there's space, we're welcome to tag along.  I got dropped curbside, hustled past the busloads of tourists, and started hiking the easy paths by the entrance.  There are about fifteen miles of trails with little elevation gain, including one that intersects with the scenic railroad.

The wooded areas are pretty similar to what we have out back of our place.  Now that I've got the lay of the land, I'll tackle the peaks and more involved trails.

It could be coincidence but it seems the increase in traffic has caused our neighbor mooses (meese?) to retreat back into the wilderness.  I went with a friend on one of my regular hikes today, past the at-first-alarming-but-now-reassuring-signpost moose leg.  It just so happens that she has a coworker who collects bones, putting them to decorative use about her employee housing in a non-serial-killer fashion.  You be the judge:

Order Up

It turns out the more nonstick omelet pans you jerk around, your skills might just slightly increase.  I continue to pass off B+ eggs in whatever fashion possible.  Next time you're at a restaurant and it looks like the bacon is just casually draped over the edge of your eggs, or the potatoes are piled gracefully -- distractingly -- while nudging your yolk, know that it is not chance.  No, it's artifice, and it's hiding a mistake.  Wow, what a generous amount of raisins on your oatmeal!  (Please don't realize that the oatmeal itself is aging, gluey.)

And it makes me feel better when someone who's been cooking for many years, experienced with the idiosyncrasies of our grumpy, always-way-too-hot oven, burns the bacon just as often as I do.  This I can master, though, with the super technology of the timer.  Its one flaw: needing to be set.

Now I just have to quell my murderous Pavlovian reaction whenever the horrible dot-matrix ticket printer blipscree-spits out an order.

Walking off stress is pretty awesome in this place, though:

Even when the mountains are foreboding and you can't see an inch into the murky river, at least you don't have to worry about toast being sent back.

Settling

It's been a bit of a food time-warp for me.  Way too many years ago during a semester in Italy, I lived by a menu that was both cost effective and tasty: roll for breakfast, pb&j and apple for lunch, and linguini with carrots, broccoli, and tomato sauce for dinner.  Once a week I'd change it up, sauté thick slices of potato in olive oil and top them with parmesan.  My friends across town had me over for ravioli-making dinner parties, and one roommate occasionally presented us delicious veal-and-eggplant dishes.  Ok, sure, I ate out some as well.  But for four months, night after night, it was me and my pasta.

So, here history repeats itself, and cooking simply for myself on the cheap = lots of pasta, of which I will never tire.  Or, after a ten-hour day of egg cracking and potato frying, I might just dip apple slices into a jar of peanut butter.

One big difference is there's lots of great beer in Alaska (though I do miss those 2-euro bottles of chianti).  The query of my trip to "town" today is now chilling in my fridge, ready to effervesce a bit of pleasure into any day.

I got to town on another group bonding trip: dishonoring nature's beauty be tearing through it on ATVs.  Here you can see me (surprisingly) in pink, coaxing my death-wish vehicle over a small stream.  Driving over uneven, rocky terrain?  Forget the seatbelt -- just hold on tight to those handle bars, and hope against a neck injury.

In other news, I switched rooms.  Being beside the slamming door, next to the staircase, underneath evening-shifters that play darts and smoke lots of pot was not a good recipe for sleep.  Let's hope the new digs are a  it quieter.

Fun mistake: when I told the 19-year-old dish washer I was a quiet old lady, he guessed I was 23.  

MAIL!

Two awesome things today:

1. I got a mailing address -- and I love writing letters.  I might even draw you a little picture on a card.  Please drop a line!

Claire Veligdan
PO Box 488
Denali Park, AK
99755

2. I saw two more moose; they crossed the road and scared me into walking along the highway instead of into the woods.  It's nice in among the trees, but from the road you can see this:

Blazin' the Trails

Greetings from up north -- if I understand latitudinal distances (nowadays the internet does my math), I'm about 1,200 miles north of my familiar northern Michigan 45th parallel.  Tonight the sun will set at 11:15pm, and it will still be dusky enough to see fifty yards or so into the trees at the darkest hour.  It was really quite lovely the first few days, 60s and sunny, and then we had a flurry of heavy snow yesterday, beautiful and hushed, which melted after a few hours.

Usually (in my now-4-day experience) things look like this:

Creekside is aptly named, situated next to swift, chilly Carlo Creek.  The woods are dense but crisscrossed with countless ATV byways, hiking paths, and game trails, and in most places you can blaze your way through springy (now sponge-soaked) moss-and-lichen-covered little hills.

It smells amazing here.  A green, cedary-piney, robust, Alpine-cowherd-yodeling-with-joy kind of smell.  The mosquitoes are big but dumb, easy to clap against my (sort of) white wall.

So far my projected diet of nuts and grains has been supplemented by castoffs from the cafe.  I'm not sure who purchased several large freezer packs of chicken wontons or why they neglected to consume them, but they've made for a few tasty lunches already.

There's not much to report about work because I've barely done any.  We had an actually constructive and fun team-building/ice-breaking day white water rafting through a canyon; the first day of work was thirty minutes of HR policy and paperwork; then I came in for a few hours of burger pattying and vinaigrette whisking; and yesterday we scrubbed out the coolers and I continued down the list of salad dressings.  WHEW...now it's time for three days off.  And what happens on one's day off?  I saw two moose!  Those gals were enormous, like horse-dinosaurs.

And Now the Other Direction

Hi people!  Back by popular demand a few people's encouragement, I'm going to keep writing about cold places that start with A.  I last wrote about my first Antarctic sunset and awaiting a big ol' vacation.  I saw innumerable indelibly beautiful places throughout New Zealand and Thailand.  I swam in a sulfurous hot-spring river and petted elephants.  I ate lots of cheap noodles and drank out of a coconut bigger than my head.  It was pretty fun, and though I was often deeply sad about getting divorced, the time spent traveling allowed me to sort some of my thoughts in a way I hadn't managed while redirecting angst at steaming pans of for-institutional-use-only meat.

Island Hut Hotel, Koh Mak, Thailand:

And now in just a week I'll go to Alaska (where roughly 17% of people trying to recall where I've been take a stab at guessing since Antarctica is too implausible).  Seven degrees shy of the Arctic Circle, just a few miles from the entrance to Denali National Park, I will flip eggs -- and pancakes! -- at a small "lodge," really thirty or so little cabins with a restaurant next door.  It's still early spring and near-freezing at night, but the summer season will ramp up quickly as thousands of people flock to the remote area to be frightened by bears and eat acceptable omelets.  

With three days off a week, I should re-learn French, perfect my fly fishing...I'm open to suggestions.  One fun thing is I mostly have to procure my own food and cook for myself, an interesting prospect as the grocery store is a few hours away.  I'll bring in a good amount of staples, but it would be awesome to forage for mushrooms and berries and pork tenderloin.

So I hope you enjoy dispatches from up north.  I'll return to regularly scheduled Antarctica musings in October, but with the inside view as science cargo admin (but don't worry, I'll still keep abreast of the latest in food folly).

Almost Done

The pictures are off the wall, I vacuumed up all the volcanic dirt and bits of cheese and bread off the floor, and my possessions have been divided into a box that will remain here and my backpack of practical travel clothes.  I had today off to clean and pack and "bag drag," which is actually dragging your bags up to the transport building to weigh in what each person will account for on the flight tomorrow.  BUT, our plane got delayed coming to pick us up, so there will be at least one more day of half-assed work before leaving.  Luckily, the winter crew are all good cooks and have things well in hand, so we'll make some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, mop the floor, and call it a day.

The weather has been quite nice lately, and I've taken a couple more turns around my favorite hiking path.  The open water has come relatively far in -- not record-breakingly so, but beyond what it has in several years.  Here you can see some seals hanging out near the edge, which ominously creaked with the tide.  I didn't see any big chunks break off during my hike, but that's what's happening.

I had the time, inclination, and permission to use actual good food in a soup on my (formerly) last day, and spent a cheerful hour or so nicely cutting carrots, onions, celery, and parsnips into tiny cubes.  These were gently cooked before being combined with vegetables stock.  But the best thing I've made in a long time was my own breakfast omelet, in a pan on the stove, with sauteed mushrooms, spinach, gouda, and lots of butter.  We've all passed a good amount of time talking about what restaurant food we'll get in New Zealand.  Sushi is a popular choice, and good beer is high on lots of people's lists.  Conversely, we all have fractions of liquor bottles to bestow on the winter-overs.

Hey -- I did it!  I got up last Saturday night at 12:30, walked in the frigid cold and watched the sunset!  This doesn't really do it justice, but I like Scott's hut on the right there:

There were a few clouds to catch the colors, and though it was windy I stayed for a decent interval.  I thought it would set extremely slowly, but once the edge was touching the horizon, it proceeded as it usually does.  It was still pretty light out after it was completely gone, and supposedly it's staying set for a few hours a night now.  If it's not too overcast, I'll try to catch it one more time before I go.