Hot Dice, Cold Bets

I was assisted with my second major auto dig-out today, which was nice as the most recent snow dump was heavy.  Temps soared up to +32F, generating lots of powder, which was good for skiing but calamitous for tourists hoping to see the aurora.  The three questions I never want to hear again are: Do you have wifi? When will we see the aurora? Is the hot water free?

We do not have wifi.  You will see the aurora when it is good and goddamn ready to be seen, which is not when it is snowing.  And there is a sign directly above the hot water spigot that proclaims "HOT WATER - $2.95."

Maybe I'm just a little salty ending a seven-day workweek with hosting, after the actually-more-fun annual kitchen deep clean and awkwardly being filmed for Japanese TV.  Luckily my weekend aligned with the solstice, and we combined Silent Dance Party with Craps Night.  The backstory is, when covid first hit, things shut down and the coworkers here used the extra time to build a craps table and play a bunch so they could travel together to Vegas and win big when things reopened.  We brought out the table and I was given some vague and bewildering explanations; there was excited shouting and nickels and quarters won and lost all around.  And then the true kindred spirits pranced and spun and kicked and swam through the waist-deep snow, jamming out quietly under the stars to help pull the sun back in our direction.

After first accidentally throwing the dice in Derrick's face, I redeemed myself by rolling for over an hour.

Pretty colors the last clear day.

Delightful moody blue light.

Powder Blue

Krista came through with room breakfast and story time this weekend.  We had a floor picnic of eggs and bacon and hashbrowns and yogurt and fruit and giant pancake, then read aloud from classics and new literary delights, like "We Found a Hat" and "This Is Not My Hat."  It was lovely to stay inside and sit around in pajamas for hours.  Otherwise, I have been getting after it -- skiing every other day, re-breaking the trail after 18" of snow, miring in the woods where it's thigh-deep, farcically crashing through thin ice coating a huge culvert, even...rowing along to Ke$ha in the gym.

The days have narrowed to the extent that it's dusk when I wake up at 11:30am and nighttime at 4pm.  The beautiful blueish light of the muted half-tone landscape, the subtle pinkish-peach airbrushed hillsides when clouds part, and the snow's seeming luminescence meld into an alluring, mellow palette.  Soon we'll reach the nadir, and again the light will grow; but for a time we pause, becalmed in the quiet cold.

Other Claire mushing while Dan breaks ahead

Ptarmigan(?) tracks by the river  

Got the Honda free again.

The Sun's Gonna Shine Again

It's hard for me to remember things as a server such as who ordered Diet Coke because I don't give a shit.  I'm oddly fascinated by this lack of attention to detail as Editor Claire was formerly so invested in the proper employment of punctuation, page layout, and index development.  I'm trying to perfect my technique handling biscuit and potato roll dough, and I clean with adequate enthusiasm -- but my hosting/serving is mediocre at best.

There are many diverting things crowding my brain and reducing its interest in recording whose burger gets tomatoes on it.  The river steamed mythically for a few days as it iced over; the sun crept lower and disappeared below the horizon for the next two months; moonglow lit the trail for night skiing; a horde of dogs whipped our sled over the tundra; Cleo and I gossiped over a glass of wine in the ladies' bathroom; I transformed butter reserves into 500 cookies; and a bush plane carried off my favorite bike hobo.

No more polar bear plunge access.

See you somewhere soon, comrade!

Doggies pulling like beasts.

Wintopia

After a few flirtations with hypothermia last year, I committed to always taking extra layers skiing.  A couple days ago, we finally plunged down to proper winter temps; -1F isn't too bad for these parts, but somehow every ten minutes I went from toasty to chilled and back, resulting in a slow-motion fashion show, pulling on and peeling off to briefly parade assorted tops and gloves.  Today I achieved a dual-shirt equilibrium and was able to enjoy the view through unfrosted glasses the whole time.

Biking is a beast of a different kind.  We have a small fleet of fat-tires to grind through powder.  Churning over sand dune-like hills calls for, unfortunately, the opposite of the technique of standing for extra leverage on single-speed trash bikes that I've been honing over the last decade or two.  I'm learning to quell that instinct, downshift, and keep my butt in the seat for adequate traction.

A lot of tourists ask (incredulously) what draws us to live and work here, particularly when buffeted by wind on cold dark nights awaiting the aurora.  When I say there's good skiing, it's both an honest and deflective answer.  I'll flip your burgers and wash your plates but I won't try to explain what Thoreau so aptly wrote: "The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward!"

shared moose path

Krista pet all of Dan's dogs that day while I stayed just beyond chain's reach.

Dalton Drive II

The distance from Coldfoot to Anchorage is the same as from Detroit to New York City.  A long drive, but significantly less than the 4,000+ miles from Michigan to Alaska.  I don't need a car for the winter, but I really want one for next summer.  So my dad identified some promising wheels in Anchorage; I choked back the bile that accompanies purchases over $200 and commitments longer than six months, and drove a big chunk of the latitudinal distance of this big ol' state. (Thankfully, with a pause in the middle courtesy of my Fairbanks friend, whose cute cat and myriad assortment of tea did much to dispelled the town's dingy dreariness.)

I'm settled back in at Coldfoot, treading the (very) well-worn floors, dancing between the fryer and flattop and fridges, chanting to myself the components of breakfast plates and burger orders.  And I'm hosting/serving, so awkwardly hunting and pecking around the computer screen for the button that adds chicken tenders to customers' salads and inventing the extra charge based on how amiable they are.

My two favorite truckers remembered me, which was nice.  I'd put them both at about late 50s, though its hard to tell with weathered faces.  One remarked on an uncharacteristically southern herd of caribou I'd seen on the drive up, noting it's been over twenty years since they'd chomped trough their favorite lichen all the way down to Livengood.  Maybe on the next clear day I'll drive a bit to see if I can spot them again.

The cafe has its tables back this year.

It's still in the 30s and Slate Creek is barely beginning to freeze over.

The season ends with Lego Batman and lots of lox

In a normal year the lodge becomes The Cottonwood Club: for one night as many of the company staff as possible crowd into camp to dance, drink, and play ping pong.  Cocktail attire and eccentric outfits are strongly encouraged, and dedicated attendees coordinate multiple costume changes.  Because of covid, the remaining ten or so of us turned the evening into a tent-pub crawl: in festive garments, our happy mob traipsed from tent to tent for a beverage and a surprise.  We drank grape-juice mimosas and watched anime; sipped Dark & Stormys while learning our love languages; fired off postcards to our future selves with hard spicy kombucha; scribbled poetry with watermelon gin; played Pass the Face, contorting our expressions 'round the room with rummy ice cream; performed an impromptu talent show with red wine + Coke; and stuffed our mouths with marshmallows after hot chocolate with whiskey.  And after all that, tipsy ping pong to keep up tradition.

The next day we moved out of our tents, cleaned up a bit, and read and dozed in the woodfire-warm lodge.  A feeling of slack tide prevailed -- sated from a full summer, we paused before a long exhale, then departure, flowing outward in disparate directions.  Clean up, put away, talk over the season now passed, last hike, last kayak, last dinner, goodbye.

September is a transitional month.  Already the Chugash mountaintops had frosted over.  Back in Michigan it has been beach-summery and chill-rainy and in between.  I'm glad that when I get to Coldfoot it will be definitively winter, the drear death of autumn already mercifully cloaked by snow.

great wig on a great boss

I still like you even if you barely work, Stove.

TWO 'bows

Courtesy of Trevor and Kait's loan of a perfectly equipped VW Westfalia camper van, and the friendly Berkeley family that adopted me for a weekend, inviting me to hike, kayak, cook and eat with them on Tutka Bay.

lake girl

By the shores of woodsy lakes: I grew up.  I learned to swim.  I learned to paddle and row.  I learned to fish (a bit).  I sang and talked to myself.  I played with frogs and toads and pollywogs and minnows and shells and rocks.  I splashed and dove with friends and theorized about people and the future.  I made out with boyfriends.  I read, and walk, and watch sunsets and fireworks.  I said yes, and I honeymooned.  I visited the Transcendentalist's cabin.  I thought there was still a way; I knew all was lost.  I enjoy the sun-sparkles reflecting off the water.  I try to absorb good engineers' advice.  I washed off the sweat from tramping.  I got a long-awaited hug.  I stare at the light, the dark, the stars, the moon, the shadowy branches and boughs that fringe the sky and the lake, connecting the liquid realm below with the boundless blue above.

Skilak Lake on a shifty morning.