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Well, I’ve been so focused on one aspect of my digital creative life (sorting a backlog of photos since last March, taking new photos) that I’ve somewhat neglected this one. But I want to post just a few recent highlights from Alaska:
Flattop Trail, Anchorage
Girdwood in July
Soldotna Fishing Pier
Homer, Beach
Park Strip, Anchorage
Mountains, Wasilla
January Sunset, Downtown
I’ll get back to writing soon, and finally finish up those draft posts hanging out!
It’s actually dark at night, the leaves are browning and yellowing on the trees, and the snow marches down the mountains toward the city. Must be autumn.
September was a silent month on the blog but a busy month in real life – and October, though busy and starting stressful, will not be similarly silent. Which is to say, I’ll post soon.
And November is conference month! I’ll be in Fairbanks for the APA Alaska Chapter festivities, and heading to Baltimore to throw down some wholesale produce distribution knowledge with the Society of American City and Regional Planning Historians (SACRPH). And in the meantime, frantically tying together the loose ends in my life to make way for some new threads.
Last Warm Days on the Coastal Trail
- Autumn Along the Seward Highway
Better bottle this early morning sunlight soon...
Start: Muncho Lake, British Columbia, Canada (10AM)
End: Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory, Canada (11PM)
Miles: 602
Our best (most efficient) driving day, I think. We didn’t do as many miles, but that was due more to the road than us. Part of what this day feel great was that we were actually on the Alaska Highway by mid-afternoon – felt so much closer to our goal, and really started to realize how far we had already come. The trip felt a lot more manageable being two days, not six. And when we reached our stopping point for the night, we knew that the next night would be in my apartment in Anchorage! (but actually ended up being a motel because it was so late and I had no furniture or anything there).
Highlights: Seeing a herd of 80-100 wood bison on the ride of the road. Driving into the Yukon Territory and realizing we’d pay less for gas, and as it turns out would actually have roadside bathrooms (BC doesn’t). Watson Lake, where we were practically overrun by RVs but saw two Northwest Territory license plates, as well as the Sign Post Forest (it’s worth a look – none of the sites I found about it, including the one above, give sufficient indication of how freaking big this thing is). Stopping in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon, with not one but TWO McDonalds. Mount Logan (or was it Mount Hubbard?) in the distance. Kluane Lake and its accompanying park – really, really amazing. Looked like another world. Taking a “glamor shot” of the Subaru (covered in highway dust) in front of the mountains and the lake. The Talbot Arm Motel, where we stopped for the night, with its logo of a grizzled old gold miner or something. Splitting a bottle of wine to celebrate (early) our trip – “house” wine, Sawmill Creek, from Ontario.
Lowlight: As always, we put in a lot of hours that day, and didn’t get to stop as often as we might have. Being in the car for 12 hours a day was also really beginning to wear on me, and probably Mom as well, as if my legs were just stitching themselves to the seats. We tried to make semi-frequent stops on the side of the road to walk around, to look at the amazing scenery, and because there was really no one on the road, so it would be easy to just stop on the side of the road anyway. More mosquitoes, though still not as bad as in Regina.
We had one more (extremely long) day of driving left, but we’re almost there!
Wood bison (including many babies!), BC
Yukon Territory welcome sign, Yukon (also note major discrepancy in translation)
Sign Post Forest, Watson Lake, Yukon
Walking through Sign Post Forest, Watson Lake, Yukon
Northwest Territory plate, Watson Lake, Yukon
Alaska Highway, Yukon
Mom at Mile 1000 (1610 km) of the Al-Can Highway
- Coyote at rest stop, Yukon
Kluane Lake National Park, Yukon
Kluane Lake National Park, Yukon
Subaru Glamor Shot, Kluane Lake National Park, Yukon
PS – if you can to go to Kluane Lake, do it. I would go back.
The next few posts (Days 4-6, and anything about Seward or Flattop) will be more retrospective, as they happened a couple weeks ago now. I’m catching up to the end of the trip, then will be more “forward” thinking after that!
Start: Whitecourt, Alberta, Canada (9AM)
End: Muncho Lake, British Columbia, Canada (11PM)
Miles: 692
On Day 3 we stopped about 50 miles short of where we should have, in Whitecourt, a small town basically made of motels. The Alaska Highway motel was not as desirable as I had hoped (that’s what I get for picking based on name alone) but we got on our way and saw what began to be the really awesome part of the drive. Also of note: it was still (twi)light around 10:30PM when we stopped at the motel, despite some clouds. We were clearly pretty far north, and it didn’t really hit us until then.
This might have been my favorite day of the drive, overall – mostly for the evening ride from Fort Nelson to our ending point, the Northern Rockies Lodge along breathtaking Muncho Lake, a long and skinny blue lake stuck among some really tall mountains. I wish I had gotten a photo of it at night (again, not fully dark out) but the morning ones will have to do. Also, the Northern Rockies Lodge was basically like staying in that hotel in Twin Peaks – it was a big log cabin, with each of the rooms having log walls (if on exterior walls) and a huge great room/morning dining area with windows overlooking the lake. NRL is owned by a (Swiss?) couple, and the husband is a bushpilot (flies those small sea planes etc) who will fly guests to lodges and remote places for day tours. If I had the time and inclination, I would most definitely go back there – driving in and out of it was great.
Highlights: Leaving Alberta finally, although we did get to see some more lovely prairies, the start of the northern woods with its short-ish dense evergreens. Awesome little rest stop with birches and bear-proof trash containers. Entering British Columbia and, shortly after, passing through Dawson Creek – MILE ZERO OF THE ALASKA HIGHWAY sign. Going past a place called Wonowon. The Fort Nelson hotel and its Tiki lounge/ballroom area. The drive between Fort Nelson and Muncho Lake. Really feeling like we’re in the far north. SEEING MOOSE!!! AND BLACK BEARS!!! And one sheep. Plugging my phone charger into a log (with an electrical outlet). Muncho Lake, which has a stupid name but is just beautiful.
Lowlights: Not listening to the Garmin (that somehow knew about a road closure that had just happened that week) and driving west anyway, only to hit an abrupt “Road Closed” sign with a mound of dirt that redirected us onto a gravel farm road and back the way we came. Apparently, some washouts/flooding nearby. Hitting a miles-long backup of construction around Taylor/Fort St. John where there was single-lane traffic to get across the end of a mountain pass and major bridge – no detours here, folks. Paying about $6/gallon ($1.40/litre) because of BC towns’ remote location and high taxes. Also, worrying about where to get gas and where we were going to stop – luckily, a woman at the front desk of the Fort Nelson Hotel was kind enough to call ahead to what ended up being a super awesome place to stay (see above).
The next day we headed into the Yukon, officially, and ended up with a similarly spectacular (but very different looking) lakeside view on Day 5. More to come. For now, some photos.
Nice Rest Stop, Alberta, Canada
Black Bear, Alberta, Canada
Mountains, 8PM, British Columbia?
Moose in the Mist, British Columbia, 10PM (wish it wasn't so blurry!)
Mist and Trees and Mountains, 10PM, British Columbia
Northern Rockies Lodge (seaplane dock), Muncho Lake, British Columbia
Upstairs hall, Northern Rockies Lodge
Greetings readers,
My mom and I arrived safely in Anchorage around midnight (while the sun was still at twilight stage) last night! The last few days’ drive have been long but AMAZING, and I will be posting photos and summaries retrospectively in the next few days when I have Internet access hooked up.
Summary: We drove through Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territory, saw 34 states and 9 provinces’ license plates, and saw the following animals (I have a count of totals elsewhere) – moose, wood bison, regular bison in a pasture, mule deer, arctic hare, coyote, grizzly bear (mama grizzly and two cubs!), black bear, ducks, swans, possibly a loon, a lot of ravens, and fifty billion mosquitoes (that is an accurate count). We drove through mountain passes, boreal forest, past beautiful lakes with mountains rising right from the shore, and past rivers and glaciers. We saw the tallest point in Canada (Mt. Logan) and went north of the 60th parallel. We saw the roadsign pointing to Chicken, Alaska (too far out of our way, but I am TOTALLY going back). And we took glamor shots of the Subaru in front of mountains, with the wheels covered in dust from the Alaska Highway. Good times, 3700 miles.
Starting work on Monday! Excited and overloaded at the same time!
Kluane Lake in Kluane National Park, Yukon
Herd of Wood Bison, British Columbia (before Watson Lake, YT)
Start: International Falls, Minnesota (9AM)
End: Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada (10PM)
Miles: 626
Highlights: Beaver dams! Blue heron! Prairie dogs which had taken over an empty lot in Portage la Prairie! So much wildlife, and luckily the only animals we’ve hit (and boy have we hit them) are lots and lots of bugs. Canada is lovely in western Ontario and pretty uneventful otherwise, although the drive is just interesting enough to not get too monotonous. Stopped for lunch at Yesterdays Restaurant in Kenora, ON, looked like a small summer-tourism town among the woods and lakes. We’ve been keeping track of license plates and in addition to various U.S. states, we’ve seen Nova Scotia and New Brunswick! (The harder-to-find plates when you’re this far west). If we see Prince Edward Island we’ll automatically win.
Lowlight: Regina, at least the outer suburby area where our hotel is, has SO. MANY. MOSQUITOES. We got bitten up just getting things out of the car, ugh! One of the disadvantages of the prairie.
We have to get on the road so I’m only uploading one photo. Today we plan to get to and past Edmonton, and ideally to Grande Prairie or Valleyview in northwest Alberta. Apparently Kate and William (the royals) are also in Alberta these couple days… I’m guessing they were smart enough to fly to their destinations though!
Farmhouse in Whitewood, SK
Small lake in western Ontario
And, the map – I realized the embed link didn’t work so just click on it and zoom in!
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=201480590623565578563.0004a5df2b74730aa1961&ie=UTF8&ll=50.148495,-100.879585&spn=22.972677,66.785301&t=h&output=embed
View Alaska Trip in a larger map
Start: Highland, Indiana (9 AM)
End: International Falls, Minnesota (12 AM)
Miles: ~ 650
Monday: We set off from Nana’s house yesterday morning and drove north through Chicago, Madison, Eau Claire, rural Wisconsin, Duluth, and rural Minnesota until we stopped just shy of the border in International Falls.
Highlights: Wisconsin sure has a lot of cheese stores! We saw a Castle, Haus, Chalet, and several of unspecified type. Duluth is actually a pretty nice city! Really cool grain silos, large ships, and other industrial buildings along the port and bridge between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Saw a redwing blackbird, and after dark a few foxes and deer on the side of the road. The last leg of the trip was the roughest, in the Boundary Waters national area, which included hard rain and high winds, fireworks going off DURING said rain and winds, fog, deer looking ready to bolt, and most of all the dark woods. We were going to cross into Canada last night, but we saw the motel sign and just needed to sleep.
Wisconsin
Bluffs, Wisconsin
Minnesota Welcomes Us
Lowlight: I think my camera lens is broken. AGAIN. All these photos are coming out grainy and just wrong. Will look into this…
Tuesday: Officially leaving the U.S. today, not to return until reaching the Alaska border. After crossing into Canada first thing this morning, we’ll be heading northwest to Winnipeg and Regina, stopping in the city or perhaps going a few more miles down the road.
Anchorage or bust!
Below is a map (hopefully this works!) that I’ll be adding to as we go along to track the route. Notice that according to Google, the area between Whitehorse YT and Tok AK doesn’t really exist.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=201480590623565578563.0004a5df2b74730aa1961&ie=UTF8&ll=51.524013,-116.50701&spn=22.972677,66.785301&t=h&output=embed
View Alaska Trip in a larger map
In the view days of calm before the storm, also known as Spring Break, I spent a lot of time working, and a fair amount of time sleeping. But I also spent some time (a little over a full day) seeing parts of Upstate with a couple friends. We passed through a lot of farmland and saw a lot of lovely historic architecture, unfortunately a lot of it empty or at least not what it once was.
We stayed overnight in Rochester at Reen’s B&B and saw a bit of the city, including the Eastman House, the random assortment of buildings downtown, the Public Market, AAAND the flagship Wegman’s Grocery Store in the suburbs.
Here are three representative images from the trip:
Barn in Upstate
Downtown Rochester
Eastman House, Rochester
Back to work and blogging soon!
Gosh, it’s been a while and I’ve neglected this site (not least those food links I promised!). In honor of the new year, I decided to start by sprucing the page up with a fresher photo and a couple of other tweaks. I’ve also posted an updated resume on my About page, as I’m officially in the home stretch and graduating in May!
Please also note that I’ve added many new photos to my Flickr page, and will be adding more from my research trip this month. I’m currently in the writing stage of my capstone report, focusing on the relocation in 2000 of the Chicago South Water Market, now the Chicago International Produce Market, one of the few remaining wholesale produce market facilities in the U.S. I’ll post some cool history, interview tidbits, and other things as I work through the project this semester. And of course, photos of the market.
More to come soon. In the meantime, do you like the new header image? Below are the runners up, photos from Chicago and elsewhere I’ve seen in the past year. Should I have chosen a different one? Which one do you like best?
Header 1, "Urbs in Horto" (Chicago)
Header 2, "Times Square" (NYC)
Header 3, "Windows" (Chicago)
Header 4, "Long Island City" (NYC)
Header 5, "Getty Museum" (LA)
Apologies for my absence!
It’s been more than a month, and I need to get back to writing some things down. Fall semester has begun in Ithaca, and this long weekend is a bit of calm before the storm – and a bit of calm after the storm, according to the beautiful and dramatic weather we had this evening.
More substance on the way! In the meantime:
Sunset in Groton
