The risks of being prepared...

I am planning a trip to Kenya, so responsibly visited my doctor with immunization card in hand. She confirmed that I was up-to-date on all my shots, but advised that I would need to get a prescription for malaria medicine. She explained my options: you can take a pill every day while your gone, and you must continue the medicine for 30 days after you return from your travels; OR, you can take a pill once a week while you're gone, and just take one more pill once you get back. Easy, right? I'll take the weekly dose.
She said, well, the weekly medicine is known to have some side effects.  Oh? Like what? (I'm thinking nausea, dizziness...) She says: "homicide." What?!? 
Yes, apparently this medicine has induced documented homicidal tendencies. How often? Only one in twenty.
Who knew that the FDA would approve homicide as a side effect?

Happy Anniversary!

Today, my parents have been married 40 years. That's a pretty long time, especially when you compare it to the fact that Noah only spent 40 DAYS on the ark.

I can't imagine my parents forty years ago, but they must have existed. Many things did not exist then-- like rollerblades, or cell phones, or pesky computer security that makes you change your password every three months to some new code that has a lower case, and an upper case, and a number-- even if you can't possibly invent 4 such complex codes a year. My parents have been married the equivalent of 160 online banking passcodes.

Marriage, as a long-term endeavor, is somewhat antiquated by modern standards. But, between love and rollerblading, the former is certainly more challenging, and forty years of continual effort is impressive indeed.

Crazy doesn't fall far from Crazy

No matter how hard I try, my parents are always doing something weirder than I am.

Some people would never surf in Alaskan waters. Those people have never surfed.  It finally happened that I got invited on a surf trip I could actually go on. The M/V Milo headed out to the Gulf of Alaska last Friday with the mission to find a couple new surf breaks and surf a couple known ones.
Some friends bought this old purse seiner out of Washington a couple years ago and have outfitted it as a surf charter boat. What used to be the fish hold is now the "Board Room" with plenty of room to stack surf boards and even a stove to hang and dry wetsuits in front of. A hot tub was added to the back deck next to the skiff, and between the wheel house, a couple staterooms, and the focsle bunkroom, the Milo can sleep 10 surfers and crew. But this weekend, only 4 of us made the dock before she set out. It's tough to find surf in the summer in Alaska, as the winter swells die down, and this was a happy window before work gets busy where I could sneak out to nowhere for a couple days.
We skiffed around looking for waves, exploring tidal harbors and watching a Sasquatch goatherd (rumors of Bigfoot abound on the outer coastline of the Kenai Peninsula, and the mountain goats we saw were way too big to be normal).  We found a new break in the middle of a garden of large rocks, but even I managed not to smash my head or my board as we played for hours in the sunshine. With only four people on the break, we all cheered for each other to catch waves-- no crowds or strife on the line here.
Thick wetsuits are enough for 45 degree water, but on Sunday, when it started to blow snow and sleet in the small face-holes of suits, we got discouraged a little earlier.  Snow in May is discouraging anywhere north of the equator. It being Mother's Day, we dried off and started the 5 hour run home to see if we could get cell phone coverage before our moms went to sleep.
I haven't put in that many consecutive hours surfing since I wintered in Mexico, and my shoulders are just starting to loosen.
I did manage to get both my parents on the phone when I got in sight of Homer. My dad was incredulous, and scolded me for getting in the water in Alaska. Am I crazy? He issued this lecture in the clothes he wore to Cancun for a consult on illegal cancer surgery. Am I crazy?  At least I know that the reason to go to Mexico is for warm water surfing and delicious food-- not for desperado healthcare that's not even approved in the US. And, he went all the way down there without even eating any Mexican food! They're talking about taking the Milo to Mexico for maintenance next winter, surfers welcome to come along. I'll have to check my schedule and see if they're running any gringo healthcare bargains in the fall. 

Just to get you caught Up

My grandmother pointed out that I haven't posted anything in a while. I'd love to say it's because there's been nothing to say, but we all know I'd be lying.

Since the snow in Homer slowly started melting, I've been to Florida twice (it's still 'hot, flat & crowded'); I got second place in a hockey tournament;  my dad wrecked a plane that I helped him learn to fly (he's fine, the plane's not); I enjoyed the start of a great crust skiing season, except for helping my uncle wreck his knee (the skis are fine, he's getting better); I met the family of the boy I'm dating, and he, mine; I won a dance off, on a train, in a hotdog costume; and, most recently, I spent the weekend eating my way thru the ethnic foodstuff's of Chicago, en route to start the busy work/flying season back in Alaska. I could have made a sit com about any of these events more entertaining than whatever's on evening TV, but then, I don't have a TV, so I wouldn't be able to watch my handiwork, with Julia Stiles as me.

So, that's about it, in a nutshell. Sorry to have fallen off the map, but I think we're all caught up. The biggest items were the one's with the word "wreck" in them... funny how that works. How do you reconcile when people get hurt doing something you encouraged them to do? Even if whatever you were encouraging was a good thing, you still feel guilt at causing any pain, aggravation, inconvenience, or worse. And you can't take it back: one, because it's done; and two, because you probably would have done the same thing again.  

I have had a fun spring, but life keeps throwing lessons at me in the form of questions... they aren't getting any easier to answer. I'm thinking about getting a TV.

"Snow-pocalypse"

Clever, huh? That's how some folks are referring to the unusual amount of snow some parts of Alaska has seen this winter. We've gotten over six feet of snow so far in Homer. Almost everyone has been stuck at their own or somebody else's house by now, if not on the side of the road. We've all put in some time behind shovels and plows, and people with really long driveways are wondering why they built their cabins exactly there.  The roads are usually passable for the ubiquitous Subaru. The skiing is good if you don't need trails, as the groomers can't keep up.
My neighbors got their car stuck on the road outside my door two months ago. I guess it was their disposable car, because it's still there. I am wondering if there are salvage laws for vehicles and what I might do with a four-door sedan.


More amazing than the fact the the snow keeps falling is that businesses keep closing. Unemployment is a popular pastime in winter Alaska, but anyone who doesn't subscribe to that has gotten at least one "snow day" off of work. If my Subaru can get there to see that you are closed, you probably could get there too, but maybe not.
Government offices seem to shut first, followed by a litany of stores, restaurants, and services. It's becoming obvious what "essential" workers are in Homer, AK: bartenders and liquor store cashiers. You might want to go to a movie on a snowy day. You can't. Theater's closed because of weather. Or perhaps you could use that extra time to work on your new years resolutions and go to the health club: no, the club is closed because the parking lot isn't plowed. They could hand out shovels and clear the parking lot in the name of 'group fitness' but apparently people don't want to exercise until they are inside the building. This weekend, a ski event was cancelled because there was too much snow to ski.
The harbor is frozen solid, with a mere mile of ice pack blocking the entrance. Small boats have not been coming or going for a couple of weeks.
But, I can go to the top of the ridge and downhill ski straight to my house. If you can dodge ice bergs, you can go surfing. The days are getting longer, we're gaining six minutes a day, and the bars are still open. Let it snow.

It's January in Alaska. The Weather is here. Wish you were beautiful.

Who cleans their hot tub in a blizzard? It's my fourth January in Alaska, but I still am not proficient enough at drinking or domestic violence to pass as a local. So, I find myself outdoors, orally siphoning dirty water out of a 250 gallon tub in what I think is a window of good weather. The window was a lot smaller than anticipated, and due to the effects of freezing on drains, this chore wasn't one that could be left when the snow and sleet started falling again and the wind picked up to 30mph.
The next day, I settled for a more locally-themed indoor activity, and went to watch a jury trial. I learned another lesson from this activity that will stick with me as long as "don't clean a hot tub in a blizzard." No, it's not "don't go watch jury trials," if they weren't entertaining, there wouldn't be so many TV shows and movies based on them. The new lesson is: "If you ever get in trouble in Homer, AK, immediately seek outside legal counsel."
The legal masterminds of our day are obviously not working as public defenders and state prosecutors in rural Alaska, but the circus I watched was a comical reminder. The undisputed facts of the case were these: the defendant and the victim had both been drinking and yelling at each other in the victim's residence; the defendant threw a coffee mug* from a second story loft that hit the victim, who was downstairs, in the head; the victim sustained a head injury that required 22 stitches; the victim waited for an ambulance and police in a nearby vehicle; the police arrested the defendant; the victim did not press charges, but was subpoenaed as a witness for the State. The charge was assault in the 4th degree (which is a misdemeanor that the State of Alaska defines as "recklessly causing physical injury to another person"); the defendant plead 'not guilty'.
The defense was multi-faceted razzle-dazzle to shame Chicago. The argument made by the defense attorney was four-pronged:
1) *It wasn't really a "mug" it was a "teacup." Aesthetically speaking, It certainly sounds like a teacup would feel a lot better on the forehead than a mug, but not as nice as a facial massage. If either one is gonna result in 22 stitches, getting hit with kitchenware is getting hit with kitchenware. Also, fair or not, the entire jury was composed of sighted individuals and the prosecution presented an exact match of the shattered mug/teacup as evidence.
2) At some point in time the victim asked the defendant if they would be interested in swinging.  Amazingly, the prosecution never objected on the grounds of 'irrelevance' and the defense attorney was able to make multiple witnesses on the stand define 'swinging' (exchanging spouses for sex) when she brought up the request as an element of defense for the assault charges.  This was funny to watch, as no one is really comfortable defining slang terms for sex in front of a well-lit room of strangers. Never mind that the defendant and victim are not married, because we're not trying to stay on the topic for which we were called to court anyway.
3) The victim had been drinking and was sitting in a car after the alleged assault, so they should have been charged with a DUI. This would be an interesting point to watch debated if I was present at a DUI trial, as it can be argued that if you are "controlling" a vehicle if you are in it with the keys. But, as far as I knew, the only defendant in the room was the one on trial for assault. No objections from the prosecution though. At this point, I started to question if Alaska state law or court procedures really have any bounds of relevancy at all. If I'm charged with a crime, can I sight the last time my victim lied to their mother as a defense? Maybe we can also discuss the manner in which the parties involved pick their teeth. 
4) When the victim called 911, they flirted with the dispatcher.  Since this call, like the alleged DUI, occurred post-assault, and off-crime scene, I questioned its relevancy. The prosecutor did not, but she did offer a tape of the 911 call as State's evidence and played it for the courtroom. I was pretty excited to hear if the defense's remarks were true, as I would love to know how you go about hitting on someone in the course of an emergency phone call (everyone's interested in a new angle for an eligible date in January in Alaska, after all). Disappointingly, the 911 caller just sounded nervous and a little intoxicated, more or less as expected from someone that is stunned, uncomfortable, and has their own blood on their face.
More than 40 minutes were spent on each of these arguments. The victim and the cop that responded to the scene testified. The cop was so obviously annoyed and bored with the defense attorney that he barely kept from rolling his eyes. Due to many recesses & continuances, The jury made multiple trips in a blizzard to hear the elaborate details of the case and random details of peoples' lives that they probably didn't care to hear. I tried to keep from laughing out loud by admiring the architecture and paint job in the courtroom, and thinking about how much money the state of Alaska has to spend on public buildings.
Speaking of public funds, this case, by court calendar, took up at least a week of the court's time. The final verdict was 'Not Guilty.' I'm certain the prosecutor was paid for her work, even though any citizen off the street could have shot cannonball holes in the defense's case using a feather duster.  The defense attorney probably sleeps fine, as many people are required to hand in their scruples when receiving their law degree.  No one seems concerned about the use of public funds or the state of our legal system. And I say 'no one', because the same number of people show up to spectate at court cases as clean hot tubs in blizzards.

Hindsight is 20/20

I rang in 2011 with a good friend and good food in a new country: Argentina. One thing this friend taught me was to go through your pictures at the end of the year and choose 10-12 that capture the highlights. It's a bit of time travel that serves a really good reminder of how far a year can take us. I rang in 2012 a lot closer to home and with a lot more friends. I miss the adventures of travel, but relish the days of home and friends and snow. Here's what some of my last year looked like.
I made some bold resolutions for 2012: 1) get 15% better at love; 2) write a letter to someone each week; 3) buy a small plane.  I don't have the best track record on resolutions, but anything worth trying is worth trying...  Happy New Year!

Playing with rocks in the deserts of Argentina

Moved to Cochabamba, Bolivia, where I built schools, learned Spanish, and lived with a host family that I miss dailly

Celebrated Carnaval in Oruro, Bolivia

Got in WAY too many interesting situations involving buses

Visited Salaar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flats, with the friends I made at Sustainable Bolivia

Steller Air Service expanded to two airplanes and added another pilot and a staff and a whiskey bar

Basically ran a hostel at "the campus" where I live. Taylor and Alice lived here for the summer, and myriad friends visited, which made every single moment of summer busy, fun, ridiculous, and memorable.

4th of july in Spicer, MN... need I say more?

Learning to hunt wih the Fonkert brothers, Cody & Jedd: a week of perfect Alaska nature after a spin-cycle summer

Killed a caribou hunting on the Alaska Peninsula... not bad for 2nd try ever

Aubrey & Elyse.. my new nieces: the prettiest chicititas in the world

Settling in for a season of winter sports in Alaska: starting with the Wilderness Women's Competition in Talkeetna

Committing to the Crash

In the Peanuts comic strip, they have a Kite Eating Tree, in Kachemak Bay, we have a Plane Eating Runway. The FAA calls Nanwalek's airstrip at about 800 usable feet, but the pilots that operate there know to eek out extras from the ends. All flat-ish surface is stretched parallel to the beach in a curve, and a mountain of reckon-able size looms on one end. The strip is surrounded by water on three sides and a village at one end.  If the excellence in urban planning were not already apparent, a manhole cover sticks up about a foot above the gravel at one end, driving the obstacle course home. So, properly done, you have two options to get to Nanwalek: a steep turn on short final to avoid the mountain; or, from the other direction, landing on one wheel, in a turn, avoiding the manhole cover and stopping before the mountain.
Of course the prevailing wind is from a lagoon on the wrong side of the curve, constantly pushing aircraft towards a very cold ocean. In the winter, the gravel strip is covered with ice, snow, and slush. Any time of year there are dogs, children, and four-wheelers running across the strip.  Almost all supplies and passengers in and out of this small village go by small airplane.
On Thursday, three pilots were in Nanwalek in 206s, there was a lot of slush on the runway and a crosswind out of the lagoon. One of those 206s didn't make it out. Conditions were worse than "normal" and we could conjecture for hours on the how and why of the crash, but, the basics are: the airplane got off the ground, lost flying speed over the water, and went into the ocean with four souls on board.
The initial gossip was that the pilot "stalled into the water," but those of us who know what a stalling aircraft looks like can't reconcile that with how upright and gently that plane touched the cold ocean. All passengers were unscathed, and everyone climbed out of the aircraft and was able to swim safely to shore.
I had the privilege of talking to the pilot yesterday and I learned something: he said when he knew he was going to hit the water, he committed to the crash, pulled the power and flared. He landed that plane in the water. He didn't crash it. I was amazed. Why? Because I don't think I ever would have done that.
We all know I have a fear of commitment, and committing to crashing seems difficult indeed. But, it might have been what saved the passengers. My instinct would have been to keep trying to shove the power past the firewall, asking the airplane for just a little bit more than it had to give; to keep trying to save it beyond the point of hope; to ask the impossible from a piece of machinery. What beautiful grace: to accept that you are going to fall out of the sky, and be able to turn your attention to landing on your feet.

A Weekend in the "Wilderness"

The men of Talkeetna, AK (pop. 772) decided long ago that all an Alaskan male needs is "a woman and a truck, both that work." After slapping each other on the back, laughing uproariously, and ordering another round of beers, they hatched the idea for the 'Bachelor Auction & Wilderness Women Competition' to scour the Alaskan darkness for one of the two. 31 years later, the Talkeetna Bachelor's Society is still luring scores of single females to Talkeetna in the middle of winter to compete in a ridiculous obstacle course for their affections.
What a perfect venue for Homer Women's Nordic to see how tough they are. Four of us drove the 7 hours to Talkeetna and arrived just in time for the qualifying event: hauling water.  In a series of heats, women race 5-gallon buckets down the main street of town. For every inch of water spilled, 10 seconds is added to your time. The estimation of total contestants was around 45, but bachelors apparently aren't really big on numbers, so who can say for sure? The only qualifiers for the competition are that you be female and single. None of the events move you farther than whisper-distance from the bar, but all are designed to simulate something you would do as a homesteader in the Alaskan bush. Since most cabins in Talkeetna don't have running water, it's pretty normal to haul water from a creek nearby. The top five water haulers advanced, one of which was me.
The next two rounds were performed one at a time, and I had to go first, starting with making a sandwich and opening a beer and serving it to a bachelor as he lounges by the bonfire. Technically, 'serving' is defined as you have to 'get the sandwich TO the bachelor', so I chucked sandwich and beer at the lad as I ran past to throw a pile of firewood in the sled at the back of a snow machine. Then I had to pick up a handsaw and saw a board (surrounded by a group of bachelors all giving conflicting directions, increasing the authenticity of the event).
I jumped on the snow machine and hauled the load of wood around the park to drop it off at the appointed area. Timer stopped. I then got to stand by the bonfire in the building blizzard conditions to watch the other finalists perform the same tasks. One of them ran a handsaw like the proverbial hot knife through butter. I asked her later: "Any chance you built your own cabin?" Of course the answer was 'yes.' Alaskan chicks are tough. After Miss Saws-a-lot, I finished second on that round. The boys started setting up for round three.
The final round took a little more imagination to transport you from the center of town to a land of true 'survival skills.' The timer started when you were handed a casting rod and asked to catch a fish. Since you were still standing in front of the Fairview Inn, there was a velcro tennis ball at the end of the line, and strewn a ways down the snowy street were a handful of wooden 'fish' with velcro attached. The weight of casting a tennis ball is something to get used to, and the first girl managed to wrap the line around herself, one of the judges, and a parked vehicle all on the first cast. After a fish was caught, it needed to be put in a pack and the contestant had to don snowshoes to go to the next station. Next up in this hunting round was to kill a "Ptarmigan," a common Alaskan bird represented here by a balloon. After running on snowshoes with a pack, the girl was handed a BB gun and given as many rounds as needed to kill the bird. (I've been gun slinging lately, so it was a one-shot, clean kill).  Once fish and bird were 'dead,' the contestant continued on snowshoes to a tree at the top of which she needed to ring a bell. I couldn't get the snowshoes off fast enough, so I attempted to climb with them on, which is not very easy or graceful. Luckily, I am tall, and the bell wasn't really that high. I only had to get a few feet into the air to slap it and then fall to the snow below. One of the bachelors handed me a nerf handgun that I would then use to 'protect myself' from 'moose' on the trail. After shooting a bachelor in a moose costume at point blank range, I sprinted for the finish line and dove across, again only finishing second, impossibly behind the girl that, as far as we know, was still tangled in fishing line.

That's it. Then darkness sets in on town and everyone retires indoors for the bachelors to cloister themselves and do complicated math to determine which lady is the top Wilderness Woman in Alaska, or at least in Talkeetna, or at least at the bar that day.  The winner was announced at the Annual Bachelor Auction, at which dances and drinks with 36 single men were auctioned off to raise money for the local women and childrens' shelter. The girl that handsawed her own cabin won the prized fur hat of victory. I, normally completely biased for myself in competitions, would have voted for her as well. And then had her come to my house to do chores.
The boys raised tens of thousands of dollars. Everyone danced at the bar until morning. The next day, we woke up early and drove back south to start the season of ski racing, and I sleepily thought to myself: "Why would anyone wonder why people want to spend winters in Alaska? When left to our own devices, look what we get up to."

...And we did NOT die!

Sorry to leave you in suspense. Anna and I got in and out of Canada, no problem. The Canadian border guard on the way in told Anna: "You are REQUIRED to have a valid passport to enter Canada." Then he waved us on. This made me question whether Canadians have a different meaning for 'required' than we do in standard American English.
On the way home, the US Customs and Border Control didn't even notice Anna's expired passport, which made me wonder if all the people paying attention at our borders are too busy building walls in Arizona.
Anna polled all the employees at the rental car counters before we left Seattle and every one of them said we would never make it. Lesson: if you are looking advice for international travel regulations, Hertz and Enterprise night shift workers are not the answer.

Another typical Steph/Anna international travel debacle

Anna & I are going to Canada tomorrow. We've done this before. More than once. Last time, she forgot her passport at her apartment and missed her plane. This time, she packed her passport weeks ago. This morning, she sat up in bed and realized: My passport is expired. 

Anna is a champion of internet research. She was able to tell me how much of what kinds of frozen Alaskan fish and game I could bring through customs, and she never missed a beat on Facebook. But even Anna doesn't need the Internet to know that she can't renew her passport in 18 hours. But she did find a place on the Canadian government website that states they will accept an expired passport with another form of ID. Anna's driver's license is valid, but for good measure, she's bringing her library card, her lease agreement, her electric bill, and a bank statement. She also printed out the Canadian website and underlined and circled and starred the word 'expired.'

Problem is, Anna's not certain she can return to the United States on an expired passport. In fact, she sounds fairly sure it will be a problem. But we talked ourselves through it:

Anna: "It doesn't explicitly say on the US State Department website that expired passports are NOT accepted."
Steph: "It just says you need a 'passport'? So really it could be from a crackerjack box?"
Anna: "It could be homemade."
Steph: "I guess the wording is in your favor. Did you print that out too?"
Anna: "Of course. My dad is a lawyer, and your dad is a lawyer, so between us, we are basically one whole lawyer. I don't think we will have a problem arguing this."
Steph: "Actually, my mom is a lawyer too, so between us, we are really ONE AND A HALF lawyers."
Anna: "That's right. We're well-represented. No problem."

That solved, we're meeting in Seattle tomorrow, and driving to Vancouver. Sunday, Anna's dad may get a call from a Canadian customs detention center... but, my dad's gotten a call from me in jail, so I can tell you first hand, lawyers can handle these things.

Ode to Homer Women's Nordic

I went skiing for the first time this year and it felt so normal.  I guess that comfortable feeling compares to flailing around at hockey as opposed to going back to something I've been at since I was three. Because, in reality, strapping boards to your feet and holding sticks in your hands and waddling through the snow is not really "natural" behavior for humans.
But that's what I do, six days a week if I can, with a training team here in Homer. They have become my closest friends and the highlight of my winter. The team is 5 years old and led by an Amazon named Megan who organizes training for the group like we're olympic athletes instead of a group of varying skill levels, ages 24 to 65.
If the hockey team is "cool," the nordic team is tough. (Not that I'm saying the hockey team is not tough. I would not say things like that and still have as many teeth as I do.)  These ski women show up in 15F (-10C) degree weather when it's blowing 30 knots. They circuit train in the rain. Megan tells them to ski interval sprints uphill and they do. None of this behavior is "normal."
If the hockey team are the girls I want to hang out and party with, the nordic team are the women I want to be when I grow up. Who can ski everyday from 11-1? These women own businesses, run fishing operations, direct non-profits, teach, practice medicine, make art, host exchange students, donate kidneys, have great fashion sense, and can probably even check in to a flight online and get an aisle seat in an exit row without paying an extra fee. And, in their free time, they ski. It's an individual sport: their competing only with themselves, and they couldn't ask for tougher competition. This group lives up to the bumper sticker: "Alaskan women become the men they thought they wanted to marry."

Some things DO get better with age

The first time I bought a mattress, it made me a little sick to my stomach. Why?  In general: people with wanderlust do not own furniture.  My mattress only held me in place for about 7 months, and I managed to keep crossing borders and oceans for years, despite owning my own bed (this must have been before TSA got really restrictive). I bought that mattress 7 years and 11 months ago (but who's counting?). Last I checked, it was growing mold in my brother's garage.
Sans moldy mattress, I just hosted another Chili Cookoff at a house I own in Homer, AK: at a property that houses 6 mattresses (7 if you count the futon). Knowing my squeamishness at giving my life any kind of anchor, imagine the mental turmoil of planning a fifth annual something. I never really imagined being here this long. I never really imagined being anywhere this long-- because I really like new places: New places, new people, new events, new jobs, new adventures.
But, there is something really fun about being able to collect this many friends in your garage on a Sunday night.
My ex-boyfriend and I started this chili cook-off tradition together, and the terms of our break up were that we would keep co-hosting it. Homer has a lot more interesting "ex" transactions than this one, but we still managed to butt heads once or twice getting things together. I resorted to my Midwest passive aggressive roots, which he was mature enough to completely ignore, and we managed to pull off the biggest chili feed yet without a hitch. 


There were 24 chilis and around 120 people in total, and if you don't believe me, come smell the garage. All sorts of meats were represented and a few veggie chilis were presented as well. The guys that won the Golden Crockpot (our judges' award) were complete strangers to both of us and to most of the people in the garage. They were a pair of Coast Guard guys ("Coasties" as they're locally known) named Tim and Colt, who heard about the event through a friend of a friend. The Golden Ladle (the prize awarded by vote of the masses) went to Zach Brown for his "'Cause Beans are for Poor People Chili", which was a meat-only event that I would have given a prize for name alone.



Kelly Snow won best presentation for use of PBR logos: we really promote infringement of trademark laws. And, Randy Pine won spiciest for a rabbit chili that sent me running outside to refill my beer. He and his roommates just went into their yard, killed some wild rabbits with a .22, and made chili out of them.

Bill & Judy Steyer won the Golden Peeler for best veggie chili with an Indian kick. Megan & Jan Spurkland made Ginger Moose Chili and won the Golden Nut, which, as it sounds, is a totally made up award for a chili that was very interesting and that we didn't have a prize for, specifically.
The best chili, in my personal opinion, was called Chuck Norris, and was made from slow-roasted pork ribs and cherry tomatoes.
Greece, and Africa, and the Maldives had to wait, but I've definitely bookmarked a spot in this little community, if only by one annual event.  Hospitality is hard to practice as a rolling stone: its just really difficult to pack an adequate number of mattresses or crockpots.

Advertising Christmas? Already?

I know it's early, but I went to the post office yesterday and the clerk tried to sell me yuletide stamps. On Halloween! I mean, I know Halloween was on a Monday so we were all done celebrating it anyway, but that doesn't mean October is over and I am ready to talk Santa Claus.
...but, what do you want for Christmas? I want a new vacuum cleaner. One that actually vacuums. The service mine performs is to take dirt off the floor in front of it, and shoot it out the back. After running this piece of machinery around the room, not only are the floors still dirty, but so are my feet and ankles.
I want one of those vacuums that they advertise building a hovercraft out of in the back of Boys' Life magazine.  There is no way my vacuum could be turned into a hovercraft.
Of course, we shouldn't get everything we want. If I could turn my vacuum into a hovercraft, I would. Then I would have a hovercraft AND the same old dirt-spraying vacuum. And, I don't really need a hovercraft.  So, bad idea. Good thing it's too early for Christmas wishes. 

Fighting another round outside my comfort zone

Even with my penchant for trying anything once, I knew that there must be a reason that people don't start playing hockey at age 32. I was wrong, there's lots of reasons.
I already play two winter sports: nordic skiing and broomball. But in Homer, the cool girls play hockey. I would like to say that my adult choices have different influences than the junior high lunchroom, but they don't. I want to sit at the table with the cool kids.  God put 24 hours in a day, and there must be time to squeeze in hockey.
It's actually pretty impressive that I grew up in Minnesota, where every neighborhood has a rink, and I have never ever played hockey. I tried to start in high school, and my parents said it was too expensive. Eighteen years later, in Alaska, it's still expensive, so they were right about that. There's a lot of gear involved, ice fees, etc, etc. But the cool girls give it a hard sell: half-price ice fees, free loaner gear, and a complimentary PBR. Sounds good, right?
Well, I love Homer Women's Nordic, and I'm not going to give that up, so I'll just have to make them jive. Of course, the nordic practice before my first hockey practice is running 8.5 miles and biking 8.5 miles. I hadn't caught my breath from that before I gathered my broomball helmet (my only piece of overlapping gear) and headed to the hockey rink.
First thing I realized is that I will need to hire a valet to haul my gear and help dress me. There is even a specific order to put the gear on in. My valet could remember this for me as well. If you put your skates on before your shin guards, you'll fall down trying to start over. Trust me. You also have to tape a bunch of stuff on. The loaner socks I had on over my shin guards were bright pink. My jersey that I only got half way on over my shoulder pads before I had to enlist outside help (where is my valet?), was bright green. The girl next to me passed me a roll of pink tape to strap the bright pink socks onto my thighs with. The hole-y red and blue gloves I used are like wearing lobster claws. I could neither open or close my fingers, so I threaded the bright pink stick I was given carefully through the holes in the claws and headed onto the ice.
Very quickly, you see who is a good skater. Ironically, they are the ones who move like they are not even wearing skates. They casually turn and stop and go and can even turn their heads a different way than they are moving. Somehow, these super-mortals start from a complete stop and you never even see them do it. As I understand the laws of physics, they must push off at some point to start motion, but I dare you to catch them. They just float away in any direction at will.  The one skill I gleaned was that if you keep your stick on the ice, it's a third point for you to lean on.
You're getting the picture: I'm padded up as a big bright pink and green blob using a pink hockey stick as a cane as I limp around the ice. The thread on the toe of my borrowed right skate is unraveling and a wad of string drags along the ice like a black ball of snot coming off the nose of the skate to complete the outfit.
Practice starts with skating drills. The coach yells out each new drill when it starts, but it echos off every surface of the arena like we are in a cave and the only sounds that reach me are like those from the teacher's desk in a Peanuts cartoon: "Wah wah wah, wah wah, wah wah wah." All the women on the ice instinctually know what he says and switch back and forth between impressive puck juggling and line jumping routines. I just try to maintain forward motion and stay upright.
We moved into keep-away drills and I was paired with a tall girl from Maine. I never got the puck from her. When it was my turn, I didn't even finish starting the whole skating thing before I realized I no longer had the little black disc. After a few rounds of this, I subconsciously stopped trying. The junior high lunchroom took over again: We both know you are going to get my milk money, so why fight again? I'll just give it to you. I spent the rest of the practice avoiding anyone from a state that begins with an 'M', or anywhere in Canada, for good measure.
Once, during scrimmage, I fell and realized my valet's absence had failed me again and my shinguard had not been properly pink-taped to cover my knee. When I limped back to the bench, I slumped down and noticed the girl next to me used skull and crossbones tape to affix her socks. Nothing she wore was pink. The next girl I talked to introduced herself as 'Jim'.
Back in the locker room, I could barely hold up my PBR, even after removing the lobster-claw gloves. The cool girls all said I did really well, which is probably part of the hazing lingo that I don't understand. I promptly spilled half my beer on the girl next to me.
I'm as good at quitting as I am at saying 'no' to something in the first place, so an adult-sport disaster is in the making. Hopefully, hockey can be approached like any other challenge: one thing at a time. So, I'd better get on Craigslist to advertise for a valet.

"Come on in. There's room enough in here for one more sinner."

I believe in God, but I don't believe in illegal immigration. One is just much more plausible than the other. 
I can back up and tell you that my book club started this line of thought. That I'm in a book club is also hard to believe. My family doesn't have a very good book club record, as my mom has been kicked out of the same book club at least twice, and I'm not really known for my capacity for reasonable, open-minded discussion. But, I weaseled my way into a book club, and once a month, I read a book chosen by other people, whether I want to or not, and then tell that group of people what I thought of it. I try to listen to what they thought as well. 

Last time around, the club read Little Bee, which is a novel about a girl who escapes violence in Nigeria for a time, but ends up getting deported from the UK (yes, I just spoiled the end, sorry). The conversation evolved from our opinions on the book, to our opinions on immigration. Most of my friends were appalled by the treatment the women in the book received at a fictional detention center in the UK, and were horrified by the thought that such places may actually exist outside of novels. 
None of this was surprising, but when things got cloudy was when I found out that these same people thought that these "illegal immigrants" needed to be stopped from invading the western world. This seemed a contradicting opinion to me: Should they just not have to endure detention centers on their way back to the living hell they came from?
I've been 'round and 'round this issue. I've traveled all over, met all sorts of people, and I've even worked 'illegally' in two foreign countries (I don't think their governments read this blog though). I can debate ad nauseam about how the process should be changed, but after a bit a reflection and some critical analysis of the book club conversation, it was obvious that the base of my opinions on the subject is that I don't believe in "illegal" immigration. In fact, I'm even more laissez faire about people than about economics.
Who are we to say that people have to stay within the arbitrary borders they were born in? My ancestors did not. I haven't. If we're all God's children, my brothers and sisters from Bolivia have as much right to work and live in Alaska as I do.
My book club told me that this violates the social contract that we have with our governments to abide by certain laws. Just because social contracts exist, doesn't make them correct or even operable. Humans get government wrong all the time: you don't have to read many books to know that. So, I believe in something more constant: a loving God, that would like to see us eventually create a world where I can get a really good taco at a dogsled race. Amen.

The One That Got Away

We're back from hunting. I'll save you the suspense and tell you that we didn't shoot a moose. But, while I've got your attention, I'll go ahead and tell you how all that not shooting happened. 

Jedd was the mastermind of the operation, and his version of Microsfot Excel is a small yellow notepad. He had a comprehensive list of everything we needed and made Cody and I make similar lists. I followed mine religiously. Cody lost his immediately, but zeroed in on the important items on our group shopping trip to Save-U-More, Homer's knock-off Costco. 

We left Steller Air on a sunny Friday afternoon and headed an hour west. In Alaska, you cannot fly and shoot on the same day, so we took everything we could from our flying day and spotted some moose and a camping spot from the air. Our spot on the lake was on a rocky beach by the outlet, the sun set over the mountains, Jedd caught a couple of lake trout, and, most importantly, none of my three cell phones were anywhere in sight. The start was so good, I knew immediately that it didn't matter much if we got a moose or not.  

Saturday morning, we started trekking through the brush to the area we had seen moose the day before. The going was rough, a lot of thick Alder and a lot of uphill, and some very tricky creek crossings, one of them dubbed "the raging river of death." After more than an hour's hard hiking, we got to a meadow, settled in to be quiet and watch, and Jedd did some calling.  After two hours of nothing but sunshine and light breeze, a cow moose stepped into the meadow, followed by another, followed by a bull moose. Regulations for my hunting permit say I can shoot any size bull moose (many areas require kill-able moose to be over a certain size), but this moose blew any size restrictions of any area out of the water. As with any good fishing story, he gets bigger every time we talk about him, and now his rack was 80 inches if it was 5. I laid in the prone position and tried to line him up in my scope. 

Jedd and Cody are both experienced hunters and great shots, but Jedd was adamant that I kill the moose. He really wanted me to have the full experience. He made his brother agree that no one would fire until I did. I protested, but like I said, Jedd was the mastermind.

So there we are, 150 yards from the biggest bull moose any of us have ever seen, and I can't get a bead on him before he walks behind the next tree. The thought flit through my mind that if I just pulled the trigger and missed, the boys would have the go ahead to kill him anyway. But that didn't seem sporting, so, I didn't shoot and proved that cliche about how many shots you miss that you don't take. One of the cows crossed our trail on the other side of the meadow, caught our scent, spooked and the trio took off. I apologized to the boys, but Jedd shrugged: "No biggie. It's only the first day."

Now let's talk about my preconceived moose hunting notions that probably could have been cleared up by a few questions that I never asked. In Alaska, hunting and fishing are really common. People subsist by them. And, by tales and experience, they are fairly easy. If you go halibut fishing, you catch halibut. Salmon fishing, same. People go hunting and come back with bears and moose and goats and caribou like some people go to the supermarket. 

Moose hunting is so common that the state is broken up into a billion different areas all with their own complex regulations regarding the size of moose you can hunt, based on the size of the antlers, or the number of something called 'brow tines', whether you can hunt males or females or calves, how many you can shoot in a year, etc. It is a standard road trip pastime to take a copy of the hunting regs and try to figure out what is legal on the roadside as you cross hunting area boundaries. In the drugstore in Homer there is a big display of 'legal' and 'illegal' antlers. With all this hair-splitting and nit-picking, I figured that moose hunting was pretty much like an episode of MTV's "Singled Out" and all sorts of animals paraded by and you just had to be skilled enough to pick out one that was legal. Turns out, moose apparently don't even watch MTV, and that gi-normous bull was the only moose we saw all week.

Another thing I know now that I only sort of knew then: Jedd is so mellow that even if he was absolutely certain that that bull was our one chance at surviving the winter, and we were facing freezing and slow starvation, he would've said, "No Biggie."

We hunted the entire week in wind and rain on the remote lakes of the Alaska Peninsula. We saw porcupines, owls, eagles, and lots of bugs. We moved location once, and spent a lot of time hiking and sitting in silence in the rain. All the time to think was a good bout of detox after a fast paced summer. We had cards and dice, but we all preferred to play "The Time Game." Jedd was the only one with a watch, and we never tired of seeing who could get closest to guessing the correct time. With simple finger signals, this game can be played under tactical field silence as well.
On our second to last day, the rain really started falling and gale force winds blew for hours. Jedd's tent flipped over, everything was soaked and the lake rose over a foot in 8 hours. We hunted on. The fall foliage was beautiful and to witness the change one storm could have on the landscape was humbling and spectacular. After eeking out our last minutes of the hunting season in Area 9B, completely eluded by moose, we flew back to Homer.  I would've stayed and enjoyed the wilderness, the peace, and the company... even if we didn't have a chance at a moose.
Among a slough of thoughts and ideas I had while being quiet and watching, I learned an important lesson about partnerships: I had an experienced hunter with a great attitude, willing to teach me; and he had a float plane pilot, willing to take him to any new hunting venue. Both of us thought we had the best end of the deal, and were each ridiculously thankful. This new appreciation of a 'good trade' might be more valuable than a freezer full of meat.

Proving Cartoons Wrong

I learned from Animaniacs that "It's a great big world, and we're all really puny." Animaniacs was a very intelligent show. So, imagine my surprise when I'm sitting at the Salty Dawg Saloon the other night with a friend, and I vaguely recognize someone at the end of the bar. Vaguely.
Can't really place him, so I ask my friend if he's local. She says she doesn't know, but, at that moment, he looks down the bar, meets my eye, walks over, and says: "I'm Eli. We met in Bolivia." I immediately remembered hanging out with him at Sustainable Bolivia and saying goodbye to him in Oruro after Carnaval... he was headed off on a year-long South American adventure or something.
But apparently not. Apparently he got a job guiding for a bike tour company in Alaska and has been around the state all summer. It was his last night in Alaska, and he stopped in the Salty Dawg to buy a souvenir. He asked me what I was doing there and I said, "I live here!" and he confessed to remembering that I was a bush pilot somewhere in Alaska, but he never knew where.
Weird, right? But wait, don't buy it yet. I found and "friended" him on Facebook so I could share this photo of our weird coincidence. Facebook, which knows way more about us than we know about ourselves, informed us that we have a mutual friend, in the Netherlands, who he met in Boston and I most recently traveled with in Argentina.
Next time I run into Yakko, Wakko and Dot in a bar, I'm going to tell them that the world is itsy bitsy, and if you can walk down the street without running into a friend, you're doing something wrong.

Guns and Gifts

Last weekend, I went to my fifth Alaskan wedding. Correction: Not MY fifth wedding, but the fifth wedding I've attended as a guest.  Of the five, one of the weddings was in Anchorage, which is more of a suburb of Seattle than part of Alaska, and another one of the weddings was on a difficult-to-reach glacier, but the other three have all featured guns and dogs.  Two of them I arrived at by floatplane. These are the glaring differences between Alaskan and other American weddings.
As we got ready, my friend questioned my choice of wearing boots with a sundress as a little too casual. Turns out, most of the guests were in Xtra Tuffs and raingear.  The dogs usually wear flower leis, which make them fit in stylishly. Many of the guys wore guns. This is strange mainly because none of those guys wear guns at any other times. Nor do they even use guns as far as I know. But, for a dress-up event, when most men are finding that suit at the back of their closet and ironing (or just using the tumble cycle on the dryer), Alaskan men are dusting off their gun belts. Also worth noting is that everyone in Alaska can officiate a wedding once, so rarely are people married by preachers or judges when a friend will do. Traditional wedding vows must have been lost on the way through Canada, because everyone here writes their own vows, most of them have some poetic allusion to nature. No one mentions the guns.

Outside of wedding circles, I have been talking guns lately. A few weeks ago, I decided that I would like to learn how to hunt. I work in remote areas where I could see this becoming a useful skill. I also am an omnivore who thinks that if you are going to eat meat, you should be able to kill it. Beef and other commercially produced meats are very expensive and fairly poor quality in Alaska, not to mention the 'carbon footprint' of getting it here and the chemicals used in mass meat production and distribution. Add to that that a hunting trip would be a good wilderness experience, and I just needed to find a willing teacher. Luckily, I hold the trump card to convince an outdoors man to ruin his fall hunting trip with an inexperienced girl: a float plane.
My coerced guide and tolerant friend Jedd made sure that I was outfitted with the right rifles (a .30-06 and a .338, we'll see which one works best) and hearing protection for target practice. He recommends I use a .338, but I'm Annie Oakley with the .30-06... not so much with the bigger weapon. Two weeks to go...we'll see.
This isn't my first rodeo as far as guns are concerned. My dad insisted that we take a gun safety course as kids. I don't remember much from that besides that the girl who sat next to me wanted to change her name to "Crystal Blue Persuasion" and the instructor only had stubs for fingers... but could still pull a trigger. Luckily, the Army brushed me up on the M16 in college, but that was the last time I shot a rifle: more than 10 years ago, and just using the post sights on the barrel. Turns out, hunting rifles have a lot more kick, but really fancy scopes. If you can hold marginally still while looking through the scope and pulling the trigger, you will hit what you're aiming at. 
I'm not thrilled about attempting to murder an animal, but I am excited for the experience of this hunt and have been talking about it to anyone who cares to hear. Surprisingly, hunting talk is not always well-received, even in Alaska. The other day, at a remote lodge, I announced I was going on my first moose hunt, expecting to be as lauded as a toddler's first trundling steps. Wrong. Another Alaskan pilot and two German lodge patrons read me the riot act and accused me of being a trophy hunter: something that would be funny to anyone who knows about my deep seeded fear of taxidermy.  My list of reasons for wanting to learn to hunt certainly sounds a lot more "eco-friendly" than buying all-organic foods shipped in from Denmark... what's more organic than hunting and gathering? None of my critics claimed to be vegetarians, but one of them justified himself by saying that he doesn't eat animals with fur. Apparently my willingness to shoot Bullwinkle is morally abhorrent, but God condones carving up Big Bird or Nemo. So, I need to re-sight my scope, and my moral compass, but then, what do you expect from a girl who wears boots to a summer wedding?

If you've got the money, I've got the time

The federal government classifies what I do as an "on-demand air taxi." In practice, this means that someone can walk in the door, say, "I want to go here, now." and, we take their money and take them there. Usually, people don't want to go very far, as we charge $450/hr to carry them around by small aircraft. However, we are clear that our "on demand" service will go 'anywhere in the state of Alaska.' Because of this flexible policy, last week, Steller Air was the chariot for the world's most ridiculous beer run.
A guy came into the office, dressed all in motorcycle leathers, and introduced himself as "Radar." He claimed his brother was a seismologist working remotely in Alaska and he pulled up a map on his iPhone to ask how much it would cost to bring his little brother beer. Mark and I debated whether the islands he pointed at, way out near the end of the Alaska Peninsula, were a three-, or four- hour flight away. We quoted him the price to charter the aircraft. He didn't flinch. We said we would have to leave early. He said, "I'm not afraid of getting up."
So, with the main fuel tanks and the tip tanks loaded, along with additional gasoline in jerry jugs in the floats, Radar and I met on the dock at 7am and launched southwest. We stopped in Kodiak because even 134 gallons of fuel would not be enough for me to make the round trip, and because Radar needed to pick up 2 cases of Rolling Rock, as the liquor stores in Homer had not been open early.

The only thing stranger than someone from a California biker gang wanting to charter a small float plane for a distance of almost 400 miles, was the weather being good enough to go that far. We cruised along over miles of cold water and along the dramatic desolate coastline alternating between conversation and napping (well, I wasn't napping... ). Radar taught me what different patches mean on motorcycle jackets (or "cuts") and which ones people get killed over. He also regaled me with tales of all the bar fights he's won.

When we arrived at Simeonof Island, the weather was sunny and warm. The winds were fairly calm. We found a group of five tents, the only sign of human life for hundreds of miles. After judging the bay was deep enough and obstacle-free, I touched down and taxied as close to shore as possible. Due to a shallow beach and fast moving tides, I couldn't get the plane all the way in, and we would have to wade. Radar had refused our first offer of rubber boots at the Steller dock, as he had his biker boots, but we insisted. So, he was able to wade to shore with his beer while I anchored the plane to float in the bay.
Once she was secured at anchor, I opened up the floats and started hoisting fuel jugs up onto the wings and funneling fuel into the tanks.  I saw heads popping up in the water around me, and every time I looked down at the fuel tank and then back up, a ring of fur seals moved creepily closer. Seals are sneaky and curious, and these ones probably don't see many humans, let alone float planes. By the time I emptied the last jug in the wing, they were close enough that I could look into their eyes. When I jumped down and started to wade back to shore, they spooked and disappeared.
Radar was standing at the tents when I caught up with him. No one else was around. Apparently the brother was out in the field. Agreeing that they must have heard us come in, we decided to wait for them to come to the tents. Meanwhile, I waded back out to check the anchor. Halfway to the plane, I noticed a bill floating by. I reached into the water and pulled out a fifty dollar bill. Wow. Much more exciting than finding the twenty bucks you left in the pocket of your winter coat. A few steps later, another bill: another fifty.  I figured they must be Radar's, we are miles away from any form of civilization, and the seismologists don't have any kind of boat. I re-tied the plane and waded back to shore. Radar said the money wasn't his, and I offered to split the treasure with him, after all, he was the reason I was there.
We watched salmon struggling up a spawning stream, ate lunch on the beach, and waited for scientists that never appeared. Radar drank a Rolling Rock. I waded back out to the plane, and as soon as I stepped in the water, saw another bill. Picked it up. Another fifty! I found two more fifties, and then, when I saw another bill float by, I was actually annoyed that it was a twenty. Imagine my dismay when the next bill out of this remote stretch of ocean was only a ten! I tried to split the whole $280 haul with Radar, but he said the rest was mine because of my good karma for sharing the first fifty.
I was two-hundred-thirty dollars richer, no brother was showing to accept his beer, and the tide was going out. Radar tucked the beer under a rock in the creek for it to cool, and we waded back out to the plane. As we climbed away from this seal-and-money-infested island, we took a few more turns, but caught no sight of the seismology crew. Radar seemed only mildly disappointed. He slept most of the way back, and I made the straight shot to Homer in less than four hours.
Back at Steller Air, Radar paid his bill for an eight hour aircraft charter, changed back into his biker boots, and walked out the door. I made a note in my logbook. This was the most expensive beer I've ever delivered, the first sunken treasure I've ever found, and the only time I've ever tipped a customer.