RAFTING ON THE AMERICAN RIVER

We just received these pictures in the mail yesterday, they are from the white water rafting trip that Mike, Nathan and Lisa took down the American River a couple weeks ago. In this first picture, Nathan and Ryan are in the front, then Mike and Lisa, then Greg and Debbie. Greg is Mike's brother, and Debbie is his wife. These look like pretty good rapids! Lisa is screaming, and Nathan and Ryan look like they are about to get dumped in the river! Everyone had a really good time.

LEAVING AGAIN...

Mike and I are heading off to Switzerland again this weekend. Mike's going for his last overseas assignment for the Swiss project, and I am tagging along. It will be a short trip, only 2 weeks for me, maybe 3 weeks for Mike. We weren't sure if I was going to be able to come, but I decided that since this may be my last chance to have an almost free 2 week vacation to Europe, I had better go. Airfares were astronomical -- most upwards of $1800. Thankfully though, I had some unused miles with Delta to cash in, and they are taking me there for practically nothing. Mike is the lucky one, he got a direct flight from LA to Zurich. I get to hopscotch over. I go from LA to NYC to Paris to Zurich. Then, a 2 1/2 hour train ride to Kandersteg. On the way home, I go from Zurich to Amsterdam, to Houston, and then home. I am tired just thinking about it! But hey, it's free, so ya can't complain TOO much! August is a beautiful time of year in Switzerland, and I am looking forward to lots of time hiking in the Alps. I will try and finish my Alaska blogs while I am there, too. There is still lots to tell!
Keep checking back, I'll be posting some really pretty pictures from both places!

EARTHQUAKE!

Just about an hour ago, we had an earthquake here in Southern California -- it registered 5.4, according to the United States Geological Survey website. It was centered about 3 miles from where Mike works. It was a "nice" earthquake though, because it wasn't large enough to do a lot of serious damage, but strong enough to let some pressure off the fault line. That is a good thing, seeing as all of us living west of the San Andreas fault line keep waiting for the "big one" to hit. In retrospect, now that it is safely over, I can say it was kind of fun. Mike and I were talking on the phone at the time, and he said, "Hey -- earthquake! I wonder if I should get under my desk?" Just after he got the words out, I felt the shaking hit here, too. It lasted a good 20 seconds or more. I had stuff in my china cabinet rattling around, the windows shook, my computer monitor was moving, and the pool water was shloshing. Such fun. So far, I have not heard of any injuries. Here is a map of the area. The star is the epicenter, right near the Diamond Bar/Fullerton area where Mike works. His mom lives about 10 miles away, and she is just fine. The print is small on the map, but just to the right of the star is Riverside, which is very close to our house.We have had several small aftershocks, but nothing as big as the original. Keep safe, everyone!

BRODY GOES BOWLING!

David sent me this cute picture of "Dad and Brody's Night Out". It was so cute, I just had to post it here. Brody was very proud to have bowled a 36!

VISIT WITH BILL'S KIDS

My brother's children - Nathan, Natalie, and Billee, have been here for the last 12 days visiting me. We have had a great time ! We've enjoyed whitewater rafting, visiting David and Lisa, spending time in our hot tob, playing games, and of course, going to Disneyland, their favorite place! Here is a picture I took of the kids while we were there. Billee is 8, Nathan is 16, and Natalie is 14: We had a blast riding Splash Mountain, Billee and Nathan got soaked! Here we are on California Screamin' -- check out the gray roots on my hair! Wow! Time for a colorist appointment! Doesn't Billee look hilarious? We went into the Innoventions exhibit, which is a huge technology exposition. Nathan and Natalie both got to try riding a Segway! Nathan has decided he needs one of these to get around his neighborhood at home. Nathan had a good time in the Pirates of the Caribbean shop, he found this great hat, and is pretending to be Jack Sparrow. His own 'fro is wrecking the image! Time for a haircut, Nathan! Sadly, the kids are heading back to Texas on Monday, till next time! Love ya, kiddos!

SIDE TRIP TO SACRAMENTO

I have been taking you through Alaska at break-neck pace for several posts now. How about a short break? Tonight I thought I would post some pictures of Lisa's new home! We visited there last week while Mike, Lisa, and my nephew Nathan went whitewater rafting on the south fork of the American River. First though, a picture of the week before! Lisa and the kids were here visiting while Charles was on a business trip. One evening, we visited an outdoor mall near us, and Faith, Jack and Mike went on a little train ride: Lisa drove back up to Sacramento, and Mike and I flew up with the kids. Faith and Jack had fun on the plane with their cousins. Here are Billee (my niece) and Faith, waiting anxiously for take-off:Well, Faith had a great time, but Jack was needing a nap at that point, and was a little 'crabby pants', as you can see. He was not happy at the prospect of sitting still on Grandma's lap for an hour or more! He fell asleep shortly after take-off though, and had a nice nap. That's my niece Natalie in the background.Lisa has a really nice home, and she has accomplished quite a lot in the short time since they moved in! Here is her family room: Charles' contribution to the decorating is this wide screen TV:Their formal living room is currently a play room for the kids (great idea!):She has a nice, roomy kitchen:I forgot to take a picture of the dining room...but so far, there is not a dining room table. That will come later! Faith's room is really cute, and Jack's is a work in progress. Faith's is decorated with the frog princess, and Jack's will be a beach theme.Lisa's room has not been started yet, and look -- her bed is not made. Shameful! :-) Guess what? My bed hasn't been made all week. Oops! She has a walk-in closet the size of small bedroom, and a beautiful bathroom with a nice, deep tub.We have a home-away-from-home in this nice guest room - also a work in progress. We even have our own bathroom! The bed is nice and comfy, too, thanks to a donation by Lisa's Grandma Jean!

Talkeetna and Anchorage

Our trip south from Denali to Talkeetna was quite interesting, and very beautiful. Here is a picture of us in the large domed Princess rail car: The trains were all very comfortable, and each car had it's own dining room where you could go buy some breakfast, lunch, or dinner, depending on what time of the day it happened to be. The view from all directions was breathtaking -- and we took plenty of pictures to prove it. Here are just a few of my favorites: About halfway through our trip, the train slowed to a crawl and continued at that pace for over an hour. It seemed that the warmer weather had caused the tracks to expand faster than they should, and portions of the track were becoming unstable. So, the train finally came to a complete stop for about an hour while a team came out onto the tracks to repair the damage. Here is a photo of the front of our train (on the left) and the yellow repair vehicles that helped us on our way. We got a wierd rainbow effect in the sky for this picture, Mike thinks it had something to do with the filter on his lens and the coating on the windows:Before we arrived at the Mckinley Lodge in Talkeetna (4 hours late), the weather had been clear, as you can see by the pictures above. I was excited to stay at the Princess McKinley Lodge, because it sits at the foot of Mt. McKinley. As you can see from the picture below, the lodge has a huge window that looks out onto the mountain. Unfortunately, during our delay, the weather closed in, as did the mountain. So instead of seeing Mt. McKinley, this is what we saw! It rained for the short amount of time we had there, but we found things to do. Mike's dad and his wife went hiking in the rain, and Mike and I went to a ranger talk about climbing McKinley It was really interesting to hear about the process. The ranger said it costs about $20,000 for an individual to spend 3 weeks climbing the mountain. You have to pay for fees, plane or helicopter rides to and from base camp, guides, equipment, food for 28 days, and numerous miscellaneous expenses. Then you get to endure 21 days of hard hiking carrying heavy packs in temperatures hovering around 40 below, sleeping in ice trenches covered with a tarp,and incredible snow and wind storms. Plus, all this is done within an oxygen deprived environment. Oh, did I forget to mention you pack out your **waste**?? After all that...those that make it (about 40%) are only on the summit for about 10 minutes! I think I'll pass on the mountain climbing.

The next morning, we woke up to sunshine, and were excited to be going to Anchorage. Mike's brother Greg and his wife Debbie were meeting us for the next portion of our trip -- our cruise! We spent the night in Anchorage, and enjoyed a delicious dinner at Club Paris, a restaurant with REALLY good steaks! My friend had recommended it, so we were happy to give it a try. Here is a cute picture of Mike and his brother at dinner, and a pic of all of us outside the restaurant. If you are ever in Anchorage, you must go there! Don't know how it got it's name, there is certainly no French food! But, there are some REALLY yummy beer battered onion rings!The next morning we boarded yet another train for the 2 hour trip to Whittier, a teeny tiny port town that Princess uses to dock its ships. On the way, we taught Greg something the rest of us had learned on our land tour -- how to give a moose wave. Looks like Greg's moose has lost a few antlers! As we pulled into Whittier, we got our first view of the ship, the Diamond Princess: On my next post, I'll take you on a tour of the ship!

DENALI NATIONAL PARK

From Fairbanks, we boarded our Princess rail cars on the Alaskan Railroad for our next destination, Denali National Park. Here is a great shot of the front half of the train as it rounded a wide corner: This next picture is one I took as we came into the park, looking down on a rafting party in the Nenana River gorge. They were enjoying a quiet spot on the river!Mike talked me into doing a whitewater trip down this gorge, you'll see a picture of that trip later in this post.

After we checked into our hotel, we started out on our 6 hour Tundra Wilderness Tour, which took us 63 miles into the park. Here is a picture of the braided Teklanika River, and one of Mike and I at an overlook along that river. If anyone saw Sean Penn's movie "Into the Wild", you'll know that the Teklanika River is the one that Chris McCandless tried and failed to cross (in it's swollen, flooded state) the July before he died in the wilderness near Denali. You can read his sad story (an article in Outside magazine) here .

At the mid point of our tour, we stopped at the summit of Polychrome Pass for this picture which looks out over the Toklat River Valley. It was COLD and windy up here! Scattered here across the Plains of Murie, below the Polychrome summit, you can see small ponds formed by large blocks of ice deposited when the glaciers receded. We saw lots of wildlife on our tour, including a parade of dall sheep walking across a scraggy mountain ridge: We were also thrilled to see 5 grizzly bears, including this blonde one that was seen foraging through the scrub for food. We got a good shot of a caribou lounging on the tundra, and of this pretty red fox loping across the gravel road in front of our bus. On the way back to our hotel, the clouds that were hanging over us suddenly parted to the west, and we got a fairly good view of the elusive Mt. McKinley. There were still clouds clinging to its summit, but you can sort of get an idea of its size. Even with the clouds covering the top, it still dwarfs the large mountains in front of it.At 20,320 feet, it is the highest peak in North America. In actual vertical rise, it is even higher than Everest. McKinley starts it's rise at only 2000 feet, rising 18, 320 feet more in actual vertical height. Everest is measured taller though, because it starts it's rise at 17,000 feet, to which you add it's mere 12,000 foot vertical height. There were over 100 climbers on the mountain the day we were there -- and a search party looking for 2 missing mountaineers.

The next morning was spent hiking through the park. This sign made me nervous, and made Mike hopeful for a good photo opportunity: We walked down to beautiful Horseshoe Lake, which was just a few miles from our lodge.We hiked for a few hours here, and got some good pictures of a beaver dam: Mike and his dad did this hike again at a later time, and came upon this mother moose and her baby grazing on the plants at the bottom of the lake: That evening, we donned our "dry suits" to begin our adventure in white water rafting. The water was only 38 degrees, so I was really grateful that we didn't get very wet! I had never rafted before, and these were designated class 3-4 rapids. I was a bit nervous. After it was over though, I decided that it was a lot of fun, and I would probably go again! This trip was nice, because we didn't have to paddle. All I had to do was hold on, and try and stay inside the boat! Here is a picture of us beginning one of the rapids on the Nenana River. Mike and I are in the front on the left, and his dad and Susie are on the right:

Next stop on our Alaskan adventure, Talkeetna and Anchorage!

GOLD PANNING AND ATHABASCANS

We left Barrow, and returned to Fairbanks. Now we have officially started our "cruise/tour" with Princess Cruise Lines! They kept us busy, but took us to some really neat places. We visited the El Dorado Gold mine, and spent a fun morning being taught how to operate a sluice box and pan for gold. First we boarded a steam train that took us up in the hills above Fairbanks. There we met a young miner who told us lots of stories and history surrounding the Alaskan/Yukon gold rush. From there we watched a demonstration on how to pan for gold, and were given a bag of pay dirt of our own. Something tells me it was probably rigged, but hey -- it was still fun. We didn't come away millionaires, but we did manage to pan out about $12 worth of gold between the two of us! This was Mikes...I had about the same amount.

That afternoon, we boarded the riverboat Discovery, which took us down (or was it up?) the Chena River. We stopped here at Susan Butcher's dog camp, Trail Breaker Kennels, and visited with Susan's husband, David Monson.He taught us all about the selection and training of a good sled dog team, and about his wife, Susan. Susan was the first woman to win the 1000 mile long Iditarod in Alaska, and she ended up winning a total of 4 times. Unfortunately, Susan passed away 2 years ago from cancer. Just before she died, Susan wrote a children's book about her lead dog, Granite. Susan, Granite and the dog team not only ran the Iditarod, but climbed to the top of Mt. McKinley together. They are the only dog team to have ever climbed the mountain. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of her book, it is available at http://www.amazon.com/. All of the profit from the sales goes toward the education fund for Susan's young girls. We also made a stop at an Athabascan Indian Village. We learned all about tanning hides and preserving fish and meat. This photo is of a drying house. We also watched a native Athabascan woman sewing skins together and doing bead work for a parka. One of the parkas she made has earned a spot in the Smithsonian Institution. This parka took her about 6 months to sew, and is valued at about $16,000.

Next stop on our tour - Denali National Park. Don't miss it!