Kachemak City Chili Cook Off

Technically, I don't live in Homer. It's actually "Kachemak City." Kachemak City is an area of about 400 people that is surrounded by Homer, but the residents strategically incorporated just before Homer did. What this means in application, is that as Homer grew, our taxes stayed low. Pretty fancy move for a town without a sewer system.
To commemorate moving out of the Subaru and into an assortment of buildings, Wes and I hosted "The Best Chili Cook-Off in Kachemak City." Photos are long overdue. My apologies.
The idea was born on an Indian Summer day in November. The day of the contest brought six inches of snow. Luckily, my garage is bigger than my house.
Nine chilis were entered. Two of them were vegetarian, two were white chilis, one was chili out of a can that the clever contestants had dressed up to look homemade. 

About 50 people attended, tasted, and voted resoundingly for Mike Peterson's "Mean Green Machine", a spicy green pork chili. The panel of judges (Wes, Sarah, & Terry) agreed with the crowd, and Mike took home both the grand prize golden crockpot and the people's choice golden ladle.
The evening devolved into a big bonfire, hot-tubbing, and molotov cocktail bowling (sledding into flaming beer bottles, of course). The event was a success. A spin off is being planned across the bay in Seldovia. Next year I'm going to make people sign wavers for the sledding event.

An Ironic Twist of Postal Relationship

I haven't been able to update because a dog ate my arm. Really, Teacher.

Part of my job description is to deliver the mail. Many, many, MANY things in Alaska are sent via US mail. It is very expensive to ship freight of all kinds to towns you can only fly into, so Alaskans figure, "Why not let John Q. Taxpayer help with the bill?" and they throw whatever it is in the mail. (letters, packages, soda pop, toys, turkeys, concrete blocks, etc.) After this mail is processed in all the usual ways, it finds its way to the ramp at Smokey Bay Air, where your favorite bush pilot loads it onto her Cessna 206. (Yes, it is expensive to send concrete blocks by 206, but at this point in the story, you should be more worried about me having to load them than about the taxpayer's pocketbook!)
I fly the "mail" into three villages. It is against postal code for me to leave that mail unattended, but luckily there is nothing for the postman in said villages to do until I arrive, so they are usually waiting on the airstrip.

In Seldovia, said postman has a dog that rides in his white van.  This dog is the size of a Tyrannasaurus Rex.  It sounds like one too.  I think to myself, this dog will be reasonable if I offer it my hand and prove that I am friend, not foe.  So, before I begin off loading the mail from the plane, I extend a tentative arm to the snarling carnivore.  (Unfortunately, I was not wearing my raptor gloves.)  

To my surprise, the dog received my hand with a curious sniff and gave me the go ahead to give him a scritch behind the ear.  I obliged.  After a five second ear scratching, in one swift movement, the dog swung his Mastadon head and chomped my right forearm.  I moved just as fast to get away.  Ow! Ow! Ow! I checked my arm.  Two layers of thick winter clothing, still intact.  Ow!Ow!Ow! I peeled back my sleeves. Though his teeth didn't penetrate, the pressure of his jaw ruptured the skin on my arm.  Ow!Ow! Don't cry at work. Don't cry at work. Owwww!  

The postman raced to the van and told the dog to "Get in the bow!" (Apparently, this dinosaur/lab mix is also a Midshipman.)He said he was sorry, ascertained that I would not sue, and helped me get rid of the mail.  

I have changed my dog policies.  As you might notice, heretofore the principle was to never pet a dog without seeing how he reacts to the smell of your hand.  No more!  I will henceforth be one of those polite people that asks pet owners for permission to get their pets fleas all over my person.  

Stephanie, Champion of Semi-Permanent Dwelling

That's right everyone, the rumors are true. I'm out of the Subaru and have purchased what Anna refers to as "a campus." I've set up shop in Homer, AK, for who-knows-how-long. Homer is a town of about 4000 fishermen, aging hippies, and a small force of laborers. It sits on the tip of the Kenai Peninsula, a four-hour drive south of Anchorage, overlooking Kachemak Bay and the mountains and glaciers on the Northern edge of the Harding icefield. The area is hemmed in by the volcanoes that border the Cook Inlet. Wildlife includes moose, bears, sea otters, whales, sheep, and even some South Dakota-looking pheasants. Homer is mostly made up of independent businesses, so my mission of avoiding chains and "forget organic, buy local" is pretty easy. Friends are easy to come by here, even for new kids, so the campus is already the site of many a get-together. As proof that I am ready for visitors, here are some pics:

On the Topic of Vodka

Anna's Rant

I just went to the liquor store to buy a bottle of Żubrówka for my college-friend reunion this weekend. Sitting there on the shelf next to its clear vodka brothers and sisters, it looked more greeny/yellowy than I'd remembered it from a mere month ago. So I studied the label a little more closely and saw there is FD&C Yellow #5 added! Wha?!?! And the grass isn't really special Polish bison grass! I did some web-based research and am so sad to learn we'll be consuming a "reformulated" product for American import. I was sure being in Polish Chicago I'd be able to get my mits on the real stuff. I'll just have to meet a Pole who brought some over.

Drink an extra shot of the real stuff for me the next time you have a chance.

The story according to wikipedia.

A "J-O-B"

That is what my dad always says is the goal. I say, "wrong." Isn't the goal actually not having a job? In fact, I think that is the whole reason people have jobs: to get to the point of not having one. Right?
Well, fathers are not bound by reason, and to appease mine, I tracked down a place interested in employing me. I'm working for Smokey Bay Air as a pilot. I fly Cessna 206s (which is basically the flying version of an SUV) for air taxis, bear watching, hunting, flight seeing, groceries, dead cats, you name it.
We fly in and out of four main villages: Homer (where I now live in a hotel+kitchenette...woo hoo, life outside the Subaru!), Seldovia (a pretty fishing town), Port Graham (a Native Alaskan/Russian Orthodox village), and Nanwalek (Port Graham's party-loving cousins). On the first day of work, the training pilot took us around the bend to Nanwalek as she said "This runway used to be straight." The Nanwalek Airport (see photo) sits on a short, curved strip of uneven gravel that has a town on one side, water on two, and a big ol' cliff on the other. This picture of safety in air travel is littered, at any given time, with four-wheelers and dogs.
I'm sure that landing in a turn, on one wheel, jumping the town dog pack and strategically avoiding the cliff are all life skills that will help me in my quest to not work. However, NOW my dad is saying this is not a very good job. As "good" was not listed in his previous criteria, I am going to press on for a while flying Cocoa Puffs and airsick tourists.

Anna and Steph, Reunited!

Steph met Anna enroute back from Poland. They joined some friends at Oktoberfest in Munich. Here are the results: Polish Vodka

In response to inquiries about living conditions...

Yes, I have gotten a few questions about how two people and two dogs residing in a green subaru actually works out scematically. Well, wonder no further, dear reader. Here are your answers with visual aids:

First of all, I provide a base example of the green subaru. This really isn't a fair example of car living, because I am the only person in the car. I include it mainly because it looks cool driving through a creek. When was the last time you drove your SUV through a creek? The other thing that makes our wheeled home look like it means business is the "THULE" Topper. Wes and I spend a lot of time arguing about whether or not it is pronounced "Tool-ee" or "Thool" (rhymes with "drool"). You may laugh, but these things are important if the word is printed on your house. Whatever its name, it holds everything from dog food to a tool kit to a yoga mat to a bunch of stuff we forgot we put in there but is wrinkled beyond recognition.
This is a file photo of my two-man tent. "Two-man" translates to "one small person in a thin sleeping bag," but it was a pretty good deal when I got it a Midwest Mountaineers a couple years ago and it does its job proudly.



Sometimes, it rains for days on end and we have to find a place to dry the tent before we can roll it up. Otherwise, it will get the Thule all moldy.



Even though my little tent has served us proudlly and never leaked, Wes decided to give Scotchguard some business. This was the result. Now the tent STILL doesn't leak, and it looks like a grizzly bear drooled all over it.

Once the tent was all drool-y (rhymes with "Thule"), Wes used it as an excuse to make his power play for a FOUR-man tent (translation: two-man tent). He claimed he wanted the extra space, but I think we can all see he wanted a dog door.







This is the Subaru's backseat. As you can see, the kitchen is on the driver's side, and the laundry room, passenger.










Constant source of hair and smells, the dogs and their rancid sleeping bag hang out in the back. Sometimes Toby climbs to the front to have a look around, smashing everything in his path and liberally distributing dog hair to the front seat.



I know it's all fairly extravagant, but we have managed to drag this palace thousands of miles in the last 2.5 months. We're now employed and looking for less mobile conditions, but I think we'll probably take our good sweet time. You can see why.

"For Sale By Owner"

By being an owner, you have proven only one thing: that you can BUY an item. You have absolutely no qualifications, WHATSOEVER, in sales. Do not delude yourself. Pay people to advertise. Hire a broker. Talk to a lawyer. Anything! Just trust me, you don't know what you're doing.
"How can you be so sure?" you ask me. Because I'm trying to buy your stuff, and YOU are stopping me! That is not the goal of sales. Please talk to a professional.

Still looking for an airplane...

We're in Fairbanks, where we followed a great deal on a Maule M-5. A friend of a friend recommended a great mechanic (don't think we don't use all those random names you give us of people you know in Alaska). The great mechanic did an inspection and we decided the great deal wasn't as great. The maintanence on the plane for the last 10 years hasn't been what you would call "Four Star", and we are as four star as two people that live in a station wagon with two dogs can get. The friend's mechanic was so great, he didn't even keep the wrench that had been left in the engine of the "great deal" aircraft. Back to Craig's List... more deals await...

The most important word to teach a dog

"Come." I've done research, and that's definitely it.
While staying with my cousin Solveig and her husband, Jeff, I decided I could take all three dogs (Wes' 2 + their 1, "Silka") for a jog. Jeff thought it sounded a bit ambitious, but I forged ahead. All went well at first, all three dogs heeling at my left-hand side, matching my slow trot. We drank in the sights and sounds of the neighborhood for about a half-mile, at which point we were ambushed. Two tiny dogs yapping, followed by a big dog barking, followed by two humans yelling, came running out of a flanking driveway. Chaos ensued, and I emerged moments later with three leashes wrapped around my legs, two dogs still at my left side, and one dog on the other side of the street. Silka had used the confusion to her advantage and slipped backwards out of her collar. She pranced and mocked from the otherside of the street as I demanded, "Silka! Come!"
In response to my repeated demands, Silka repeated her mocking dance. I proceeded walking down the road, Silka skipping along about 10 yards ahead of me. Fine, I thought, be that way. I can just herd you all the way home.
After another half mile of this ridiculous parade, the largest bull moose I have ever seen stepped into the road about 50 yards ahead. None of the dogs even noticed, but I thought it just might work to scare Silka into running back to me. We would continue down the road until she took note of this gargantuan.
Only to reiterate my estimation of the moose's size, a super-sized soccer mom vehicle came up behind us and proceeded down the road to within a few yard of the moose. It towered over the Expedition: Ford's Soccer-game-on-a-mountain Edition. Again Silka grabbed a window of opportunity as the moose stepped out of the road to allow the SUV to pass. She shot between the vehicle and the large mammal and trotted off down the street. The Expedition drove down the road, and the moose walked straight towards myself, Wrigley, and Toby. Knowing the moose should not be trifled with, I edged myself and the dogs to the otherside of the road, avoiding the moose that had closed the gap to 5 yards. Hoping we were safely clear, I ran after Silka, who had disappeared around a corner.
The moose couldn't be bothered with anything but the suburban shrubbery, but Silka had disappeared. I frantically called for a few minutes, then called Jeff.
"I lost your dog." Isn't the greatest thing to have to say. Jeff sent Solveig to come help look. She shoved on her shoes and opened the front door. There on the front stoop, with a clever grin on her face, was a collar-less Silka. Wrigley and Toby and I trudged back, dragging an empty leash, thankful that Silka hadn't been hit by a car. "I killed your dog." would definitely be a more uncomfortable phone call.

One of the Alaska State Fairs

Alaska has some understandable “big state” dilemmas. (No, not like Texas… they’ve just had a Napolean complex since Alaska got its own two senators in 1958.) Alaska has problems like: “Where should the capital be, since every city is a multiple-day journey from the rest of the state?” (They settle that by choosing the city that is most inaccessible to the most people.) Also: “Which communities should we spend our billions building roads to?” (This was solved by halting all road construction and concentrating on maintaining the three short roads they’ve got.) Another dilemma was to figure out where to hold the state fair. If they hold it in the state capitol, as in most states, no one could go. So, many communities proposed they host the state fair and an all out Olympic bid war began. The result is more state fairs than you can count, most of then no more notable than a county festival in rural nowhere.
I’ve passed opportunities to see the “Tanana Valley State Fair” and the “Kenai State Fair” just in the last week, holding out for the state fair near Anchorage (the states biggest city, weighing in at 500,000 souls). The “Alaska State Fair” is held in Palmer, a nearby community. Solveig and I went to take in the sights and the food, and I realized how spoiled my fair tastes have been as a long-time attendant of the Great Minnesota Get-Together.
We ate cream puffs, tamales, cookies, garlic potato chips, dippin’ dots, chewy sweet corn, and free water. But, I missed my hometown’s Sweet Martha’s, pickle-on-a-stick, Wisconsin cheese curds, Minnesota sweet corn, and all-you-can-drink milk. However, the tamales at the Palmer fair were the best I’ve found outside Mexico- impressive considering Palmer’s distance from the Rio Grande.
The pig racers came up from the Kenai (some shows cannot pick their fair allegiance), and watching pigs ears and tails flop as they sprint around a track is pretty hysterical. Lumberjacks came up from Wisconsin to do a “lumber sports” show, but I was sad that Alaska didn’t have some cabin-building woodchoppers to throw into the mix.
The big pig wasn’t as big as the one in Minnesota, but it was actively in labor when we went by the pen—with a piglet-catching attendant and everything. The live infomercials were excellent enough for a man with a fake foreign accent to convince Solveig to buy a Magical Star Fiber Mop. And, perhaps the saving grace of the whole scene was a couple sixty+ pound cabbages. Texas has never seen that much coleslaw.

The ADA (and other camping hazards)

We decided to take a break from our quest to have a relaxing weekend in Chugiach State Park with Gustaf and Ginger. Gustaf was keen on climbing a moutain. The smallest one we could find was one "Goat's Head Mountain," 5000 some feet. Now, it should be clear that sitting in a car for a month eating doritos and reading Harry Potter does not condition you for moutain climbing. We weren't even halfway before Ginger was skipping up ahead and Gustaf was all but dragging me to keep up. Toby and I, both creatures that see the value in a nap over exercise, would have been content to have a sit and wait for the rest of the group to notch their belt with this "accomplishment." But, good sports that we are, we hauled ourselves the 3 miles of ridiculous uphill and were rewarded with beautiful views and loads of blueberries. (Toby proved the more efficient blueberry picker.) Gustaf and I flew his kite in the breeze.
We spent and hour or so catching our breath, and with a Nalgene full of bluberries, headed down to camp and dinner. One third of the way down, we came upon a pudgy man carrying his pudgy dog that made Toby and I look like Olympians. The man's dog, Dixie had collapsed and the owner was alternating between carrying his dog and carrying his pack, shuttling up and down the hill for each, on the verge of cardiac arrest. I grabbed the pack, and Wes took turns carrying the dog (estimated at 100-lbs of sweat and smell and fur) the last two miles of downhill.
Dixie and owner safely returned to their family, we returned to our campsite and threw ourselves into dinner. Wes and Ginger were making ice cream, Gustaf was stoking the fire, and I was chopping vegetables, when a ranger walked up and told us we were in a handicapped camping site. After talking with the ranger, we discovered that though it wasn't obvious, if you had a doctorate in encryption, you may have been able to DaVinci Code-out that this was, in fact, a handicapped reserved camping slot. No, the ranger explained, no one needed the site YET (it was 9:30pm), but we needed to move to the one other open campsite in order to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. OK, we'll move.
But actually, we already have our fire lit, our tents up, our dinner half-ready, and we've been here for two days without incident. Would it be ok if we stayed in the site, (leaving the empty site available for another group) and if anyone came who needed the site (it's now 10pm), we would pack up straight-away and drive back to Anchorage... even if it's 3am? At this point in negotiations, the "camp hosts" (old people who live in an RV for free all summer in exchange for selling firewood and watching the campground) drove up, claimed they had been "looking for us all day", and accused us of "conveniently overlooking" the handicapped sign (which there wasn't one). Well, they poked the wrong bear: Ginger's mom has MS, Gustaf and I have a blind parent each, and Wes' best friend is a quadriplegic: accusing this group of intentionally taking advantage of the disabled just wouldn't sell. Wes pointed this out, said that was an unfair accusation, and explained that WE had been looking for the camphosts this morning, perhaps THEY need to be at their posts more frequently. The ranger, offended at any suggestions of change in HIS campground adminstration, skipped over strikes 1 and 2 and sent us packing. He saved the other open campsite until 11pm, waiting for us to apologize. Then he came over, yelled at us again, and shut down his "full" campground with two open sites and our $10 camping fee in his pocket. We rolled back into Gustaf and Ginger's in Anchorage at 12:30am.

Toby's Nose

We thought it was a foxtail (a common Alaskan weed), so we let him sneeze for two weeks in good faith. Don't get me wrong, we would look up his nose every few days and then argue about whether it was further in or out. We also spent a good two hours feeding him valium and then using six people to pin him down and pick his nose with dental tools.
Finally, we broke down and took him to the vet. Their drugs worked better than our valium-- he was a noodle within minutes, no holding necessary. Though the vet was cheating with her fancy drugs, it was quite exciting when she extracted a large chuck of hard plastic from the noodle-dog's nostril. The whole office got toogether and decided this item was something Toby had chosen to snack on, but instead of down his throat, it went up his nose, though this probably hurt even more than when you are laughing while drinking Coke.

Nature in Kenai Fjords National Park

Wes & Steph in Alaska Update

by Wes

We went to the bluegrass festival in Anderson, AK. I don't know what you think of as a bluegrass festival, but I was under the impression that there would be a lot of country folk with corn cob pipes strumming on the washboard, keeping time with two spoons taped together while a banjo plays and people dance the softshoe in the dirt. In reality, a bluegrass festival is a grateful dead concert....with country music. It's composed of rather dirty groups of teenagers, varying in age from 14 to 68, wearing lots of tye-die, and doing lots of drugs. When the fireworks at the end of the music went off, a full 75% of the crowd was giggling at what they thought was a great, but private, hallucination. Now, you must realize that it never really gets dark here, which helps the all-night party to go on at full speed and full volume. We set up our tent in the "quiet" area, but it really didn't get quiet until around 6:00am, when it started to rain, although you could still here the occasional group of people reliving the woodstock mud experience. Then another phenomenum erupted: the older RV'ers who could not sleep because of the noise, decided to exact their revenge on the passed out revelers by leaving early and blowing their horns while driving all the way through the camping area. Note to self: pass up the next opportunity to go to a bluegrass festival.

From there we travelled down to Talkeetna, the center of aviation for the Mt. McKinley flying tours. We met the owner of one of the operations that evening, he listened to our qualifications, including our hours of flight and told us: "You are in the right place at the right time, we need pilots!" He asked us to stay around til the next day to get a check flight with him, and we would have a job. Yay! We stayed in a B&B to the tune of $170 and dinner for $100 (Alaska is really expensive). We arrived early, studied the airplane manual, sat in the plane to familiarize ourselves with it, and then waited.... This lasted until 2:00pm when the owner's wife came over to tell us we didn't have the minimum hours for the insurance...good day. ARGHHHHHHH!!!!

Now we are in Anchorage, we had a very succesful interview yesterday, and were offered jobs flying freight and mail out of Bethel (a fly-in community with no road access) into the native villages, pretty much the kind of flying we are looking for. However, after looking at the cost of living in Bethel: milk at $6.50 a gallon, cell phone service at $1.00/mn and rent at $1,600 per month we calculated we would be living at a net loss. So, the adventure continues....

"Leaving 911 Response Area"

We're in Canada's Yukon Territory. The EMS forces of White Horse and Dawson City, which are entirely volunteer, have gone on strike. The feel they are overworked and underpaid. Can a volunteer be underpaid? So, the residents of the Green Subaru are not able to live recklessly, as we rely chiefly on government assistance to save us from ourselves.
In other Canadia news, an elephant or two were at large in Newmarket recently, escaped from a circus or some other elephant function. A resident called in the sighting to 911 (apparently still up and running in the eastern portion of the country), and the dispatchers chief inquiry was "How big of an elephant?" The callers response: "I don't know... an elephant." If you haven't laughed today, please listen to the dispatch recording: Canadian Elephant 911 Call

When landing on the beach, look out for dead whales

Wes' brother, William, procured a Cessna 172 and flew us to the Washington coast. At a Copalis State Park (S16), you can land right on the beach, ala Austrlia's Frasier Island. Thinking we were pretty cool, we hopped out of the plane for a stroll in the sand. I decided to go balance on a log, like I was in a Land's End catalog. I got close and thought, 'that's a ripe smelling log,' as Wes and William warned, half-jokingly, "That's a dead whale." But what I thought was a broken branch was a rotting flipper. The flies were having a feast and Green Peace was nowhere in sight.

We flew back to Seattle, disappointed that the fly-in fish and chips restaurant had been closed. But truly, I had already had my fill of sea creatures for the day.

My brother, the rockstar

On passing through McCall, ID, we got to catch the evening's big event "Ed and Joel". They played such audience favorites as Hootie and the Blowfish and "I come from a land Downunder." The pizza was good, if you could stand the line, and a stranger was awarded quote of the night: "My brother wouldn't even think of buying the shorts that your brother is wearing."

Home on the Range

Seven years ago, Madeleine and I drove from the Canadian Rockies to Minneapolis, passing through Medora, ND, where we were asked: "Are you going to the show?" Having been in the car for weeks, we had no interest in whatever cheesy entertainments North Dakota had to offer. We pressed on. In the interim, hundreds of (or at least 5) people have asked me, upon my mention of NoDak, "Have you seen the SHOW in Medora?"

Wes and I drove the same stretch of road this week and righted this oversight. The Medora Musical is $32 worth of campy song and dance, a piano-toting yodeler, and a large plush bear that they refer to as the sheriff. Most impressive, the ampitheatre in No. Dakota's badlands seats 3000. The show runs every night, all summer. And, on the Thursday that we passed through, at least 2000 of our closest friends were drinking in the family fun.

July 3rd... and 4th, Spicer, MN

Dad suffered a pre-party attack from deer flies.





The Jo Bros are replaced with college rock.








A new team of bartenders... the drinks just as strong as of old.





The frat boys do shots of Captain and margarita mix and pat themselves on the back for thier invention.





Monica's in from DC and ready to dance.





The Anderson family photo... and some other guy.



















Dick Score cleans up after the parade.

Anna is Abroad! Stalk her via the World Wide Web!

Anna has left the Midwest as an ambassador to her ancestors' homeland. Follow her adventures in Poland via a new blog .