How Do You Celebrate a Polar Bear's Birthday? 1-19-13

With a birthday cake made of snow and ice, of course!

My favorite animals at the Alaska Zoo are the polar bears. In my opinion, they are the main reason to visit this zoo unless you're not ever planning to venture outside of Anchorage to see Alaska wildlife in their natural habitat, actually. So when they were having a birthday party for the polar bears, I thought it would be fun to go see and get some photos. It was definitely an event geared for kids, but nobody said adults couldn't enjoy it too!

Ahpun and Lyutyik, the birthday bears!

I couldn't resist... who doesn't love a bear butt and fuzzy bear feet?!

This is their birthday cake with ice candles and everything!

Here's a video for you to get a better feel for the action.

Polar Bear Birthday Party at Alaska Zoo 1-19-13 from Mary-Beth Schreck on Vimeo.

I love this shot! And I must admit I would love to rub his belly. Thankfully for both of us, there's a barrier between us.

We went to see a few other animals and when we returned, we found that the bears have been busy with their cake.

Happy Birthday, Ahpun and Lyutyik!

'Til next time...

A Winter Visitor... For Christmas!

This year, my sister and great travel buddy came to both see Alaska in the winter and spend Christmas with me. This was quite a treat since we both enjoy so many of the same things and I generally don't get to spend Christmas or other such holidays with family.

I think we both agreed that we had a great balance of getting out to do fun things and relaxing at home. We caught up on the summer Olympics (I successfully saved hours and hours of Olympic events since August on my DVR), worked on our respective crafts, baked cookies, enjoyed a fire in the fireplace, and spent some quality time with the kitties. We also got to go snowshoeing a couple times, walked along the Coastal Trail, went to a hockey game, learned to make pottery (we each made a bowl and painted it too), and got to see STOMP for the second time together! And how could I forget our adventure at the Dolly Varden Lake public use cabin?! Let's just jump right in, shall we?

First up... a little snowshoe from Glen Alps toward Flat Top.

Some snowshoe hare prints... they're so light on the powdery snow!

The Alaska Range (including Denali) was lit up so nicely by the setting sun!

What a view!

Our panoramic view from along the trail

One of our other great adventures was to stay at a rustic public use cabin on the Kenai Peninsula. This is the same cabin I went to on Dolly Varden Lake with friends last year. This year's weather was pretty similar actually... warm and windy. We even had rain for our hike back across the lake as we were leaving. One of us may not have been entirely comfortable walking on the lake, especially with the warm temperatures, but I assure you it was multiple feet thick by this time. :)  It helped a lot to know where the cabin was, so it was a nice, uneventful lake crossing.

We made it!

It's all toasty inside with that fire going!


Our view from the front porch.

It's a great cabin! It's got everything we need. It would be neat to stay at this place in the summer, although there are lots of stories of fun with mosquitoes. Maybe we'll just stick to the winter.

Our bathroom facilities

It was a fun trip, although the walk back across the lake and the drive home were rainy. Not exactly winter weather, but we were glad to get home and resume our cuddling with kitties and other fun activities!

The last outing to include here is a walk along the Coastal Trail. I love to see the sea ice in Cook Inlet and enjoy all the great views from the trail. This sure was a beautiful day!

This is Westchester Lagoon. They clear an area for hockey and an oval to skate around, and even zamboni it with a pickup truck, a water tank, and a mop that is dragged behind the truck. Pretty neat to watch. There are always people using this space... just one of the many "free" outdoor activities a person can do around here!

Ah, the sea ice is scattered around (thanks to the large tides in Cook Inlet)

I love the sky in this one!

That pretty well sums up the adventurous part of our visit. As always, it was awesome having my sister come to visit. Many more memories were made!

'Til next time...

Learning To Fly - Dec 6, 2012

This is a text-heavy post, only because for once I was completely living the experience and didn't take time to get behind a camera and take many photographs. It was an awesome experience, so I can't possibly exclude it from the blog! :)

A deal came across on Groupon several months ago for an introductory flight lesson. I tried (pretty hard, I think) to talk myself out of buying one, but I couldn't do it. Learning to fly is something I've wanted to do for a long, long time. How could I possibly turn down a great deal to do something like that?!

The flight was from Talkeetna Airport, so I had decided when I bought the Groupon that I'd like to do the lesson during the winter since I'd already seen that area from the air in the summer and fall. I almost let the Groupon expire (oops!!), but thankfully I caught it in time and I had a day I could fit it in. The weather was just perfect... clear blue skies and almost no wind. Not to mention 0 degrees F in the middle of the day. :) It could have been much colder!

What I expected from this experience was this: I'd be sitting next to the instructor and he'd do most of the flying while talking to me about what he's doing along the way. Perhaps he'd let me try a couple things during the lesson before taking the controls back. I was pretty excited for this scenario because I love flying, seeing the lay of the land from the air, and learning about all things related to flying. This scenario would make me a very happy person!

Well, this isn't exactly how it went. At all. My first clue that maybe I didn't completely understand what this would be was when I was in the office of the company waiting for the previous lesson to end. I was talking to the office manager there, saying sarcastically how terrible it was to have to look at Denali the whole drive to Talkeetna. She agreed and talked about how great it is to see it while flying, and then she told me that if I want to take any pictures while I'm up there I can ask the instructor to take the controls for a moment while I grab a couple shots. I honestly didn't think much about what she said at the time though!

So the previous student and the instructor return, and then the instructor starts asking me about my experience with small planes, flying, etc. We walked out to the plane and the first thing I notice is that it's not side-by-side seating... it's front and back! Still, I figured I'd be in the back seat. The instructor starts going over the safety briefing and showing me all the equipment on the dashboard and stuff. Then he says, "I need you to at least know what's what here because I will not be able to reach them from the back seat. If I tell you to do something, you'll know what I'm talking about." Uh... what?!

And with that, I got settled in the front seat (trying not to get anymore nervous than I already was) and we went through the checks, I started the engine, and we started taxiing to the runway. Not we... I. We had to wait for a plane that had just landed to get off the runway before we could take off, but once he moved, I was instructed to gently give it some gas and take off. Ha... suddenly, I was flying! We practiced keeping the plane level, turning left and right, going up and down, and "simple" things like that. It was gorgeous flying around the Susitna Valley!

In the end, the amount of flying I did was the inverse of what I expected. I did at least 90% of the flying, with the instructor just briefly taking the controls to show me a couple things. I even got to land the plane (after the instructor got us lined up) and taxied back to our parking spot! Crazy crazy day compared to what I was expecting. I got a student pilot log book with my hour of flying time and take off/landing logged, and then I was on my way back home.

I was able to take a couple quick photos while we were "coming in low over the river" on our way back to the Talkeetna Airport (the instructor was clearly in control at this point, never fear!), and this one below is my favorite one despite (because of?) its askew angle. You can see the (mostly frozen) Susitna River that we're flying over as well as Denali in the upper left corner of the photo. This photo is taken at about 3pm... just before sunset in early December up here. I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day and a more rewarding experience! The instructor had a great sense of how much leeway to give the student before either saying something helpful or taking over. Too bad I don't live closer to this airport so I could take more lessons from him!

The plane I just flew... I think I'm still a bit in disbelief!

'Til next time...

Another Great Aurora Show! - Nov 23, 2012

With the return of dark nights, we had an opportunity to see the Aurora Borealis at the end of November. I ended up going to Point Woronzof in Anchorage with a couple friends to see what we could see, and it was a great show! I think the photos pretty much speak for themselves, so without further ado...

I'd love to be able to see the Aurora from a plane sometime... like these people got to do as they were taking off from the airport right behind us!

It's really starting to get good now! I love seeing it reflect off the ice in Cook Inlet, too.

'Til next time...