Road Trip Teaser
Whitehorse, Canada
Jim and I are currently in Whitehorse, Canada, 946 miles from Homer, AK where we started. It is 1:00am here, and we are parked next to a little motel leaching their wifi. Both of us are typing blogs right now while we wait for the engine to cool off enough so we can change the oil. It hasn’t been changed in 17,000 miles! We started smelling a weird burning smell and decided that now was the time we should do this as opposed to after the engine locked up.
We have had no hold ups, and very little traffic. When we crossed into Canada, they didn’t stamp my passport! I didnt even think about it until after we pulled away, but I am kinda upset about it. Canada has been interesting. It looks a lot like Alaska, but the people speak just a little different. Still haven’t heard an “Eh” in its natural habitat, but I am anxiously awaiting the debut. We are going to power on through the night, alternating shifts and see if we cant make Vancouver soon.
We have been listening to comedy on the ipod, discussing the aspects of the collective, and generally mocking the great country of Canada because that is what you do when you come here. (No offense to any Canadian friends I may have – it is simply an ingrained thing I have had in me since childhood.)
That’s all for now, I am going to go change some oil in the rain.
-Ben
Post Delay, a common affliction of the non traveling blogger
I had previously considered my blog a travel blog. It held the thoughts that came to mind after every unique experience I had while traveling in Asia.I had to quickly write them down or I would forget them when the next amazing thing smashed into my brain. Now that I am actually working in Alaska, living in a small town that is totally devoid of creative inspiration, I find blogging about my daily life to be monotonous. My weekend excursions are fun, but they are just that – excursions. The life of daily adventure is no longer mine. I leave here in 12 days to drive down to San Francisco, and from there to Burning Man once again. I am looking forward to this change because I feel that SF will be a much better place to once again start writing. (SCUBA Diving the California coast anyone?)
Lets see, weekend before last I jumped onboard a small plane and flew around Mount McKinley in Denali National Park, landed on a glacier and had a shirtless snowball fight. This was followed by a reindeer burger (I ate Rudolph) and beers before a sunset over the river. I slept on the floor of a cabin with six other people in a camp with 35 sled dogs that run the Iditarod Trail every winter.
This past weekend I helped throw a party that turned into a sunset to sunrise event which led directly into whitewater rafting three canyons of class four and five rapids.
That’s the short and sweet of it. Fun weekends, adrenaline rushes, working weeks, looking forward to a big city again.
(Front: Seb, Back: Cam, Me, Rachel, Jeff, Susy, Casey, Lara, Cyril, Carlos)
The ice water was so blue
Goodbye planet Earth…
Have you become a Digital Dependant?
When you depend on something so entirely that your life would be drastically different without it, do you tend to ignore the fact you depend on it? Take fuel as an example. It wasn’t until the recent (in terms of years) gas price increase that the average Joe realized how dependant he was on a thing he had no control over.
Technology is one of those things for me. The Internet, Computers, GPS, Cell Phones, Digital Cameras, all of these devices and applications have become so integral to my life, lifestyle, earnings and communication methods that I have completely pushed the fact the I depend on them for survival out of my mind.
How often you think about the fact you are using a relativity new technology to accomplish everyday tasks? Fellow blogger Laura McNamara of Giramonda.com and I have put together a list of questions to help stimulate your (and our) brains.
Please don’t answer them all, but if you feel like some of them are pertinent to your life, please comment on them. At the very least, consider how much digital technology has transformed your life… and what that could mean. Full list below the jump.
What is your profession?
How long do you spend on a computer a week?
How do you check your email?
How do you contact others?
How do you manage your finances?
How do you track your productivity?
How do you keep on top of tasks?
How do you get your news?
How do you find doctors/dentists/etc in your area?
If you’re single, how do you look for potential dates?
If you’re married, how do you find information on marriage?
How do you buy hard to find items?
How do you buy electronics?
Alaska’s Crow Pass Trail Part 2 – Water, Hitchhiking and a Movie Star
When we woke up the next morning it was raining, so we stayed in our tents and drifted off to sleep again. We were worn out from the day before, and the rain just gave us an excuse to sleep a little more. Our 8:30 am wake up turned into 11:00 am. As we were getting ready, we realized that our water situation was critical. I had less than one liter left, and most of us had less than that. The water that was flowing near us was gray with glacial silt (rocks that got turned to dust by the power of the ice) and we didn’t really want to drink it. We decided to postpone breakfast until we found some cleaner water.
30-40 minutes of hiking brought us to Thunder Falls, a fast moving stream coming out of a gorge to our right. The water here was still silty, but not nearly as bad. At this point, we would have drank anything, more because we were nervous about not having water than because we were dehydrated or even close to it. We set up my stove and boiled the water for a while before adding in our oatmeal. Casey had some iodine pills and we used a few of them for six liters or so of water before moving on.
Looking Back (Photo by C. Fenton)
Site Redesign
Just in case you didn’t notice, I changed the way that my site looks. The other one was good, but this is much cleaner, and I like the fact that I drew all of the elements myself. The idea behind the redesign was to get rid of all extra junk I felt was detracting from the writing.
I am still trying to decide what should go in the white space on the left of the header. Any ideas?
Alaska CSC Talent Show [Video]
Written by Kelly Patterson for http://www.blog.couchsurfing.com.
In case it is not clear by now, there is not much “nightlife” out here in Homer, Alaska, save for really bad costume karaoke, playing pool at a scrubby but charming pub, bonfires with Chubby Bunny contests, Scrabble, “Netflix Night”, and the hot tub. Therefore, we at the Collective have to be very creative about our leisure activities. So inspired by the show “American Idol”, we hosted our own in-house, home-made Alaska CSC Talent Show last Thursday, July 10. It was a surprising success!
Despite being poorly organized by Mandie and myself, and in typical CS-fashion (meaning everyone does everything at the last possible minute!), we managed to come up with eight outstanding acts! In addition, we asked three colleagues to play the roles of the American Idol judges: Weston played “Randy”, Rachel played “Paula”, and then Cam played “Simon” (with incredible accuracy.)
Act One: Joel (our visiting French Chef) taught us all how to make Les Bananos Flambees in the kitchen…which involves rum-soaked, flaming bananas (with a side of fire extinguisher.)
Then we moved into the Dining Room for…
Alaska’s Crow Pass Trail Part 1 – Glaciers, rivers, and mountains
Alaska’s Crow Pass Trail Part 1 – Glaciers, rivers, and mountains
I destroyed my legs this weekend. Absolutely tore them to shreds. I used one excursion point (we have 18 of them to spend on excursions that appeal to us) to go on a 25 mile long hike called the Crow Pass Trail. It started off with a 2,300 foot elevation gain in a few miles, and then kept up a slow but steady decline for the rest of the trail.
An outhouse along the way… (Photo by A. Otto)
The hike was one of the most beautiful I have ever been on and I cannot wait to do another one like it in the near future. We began at the trailhead which was at the end of a 10 mile long dirt road outside of a small town called Girdwood. We made it about five minutes up the trail before Andrew started to realize he had not packed his bag efficiently. We dumped it out, and helped him sort out some of the problem. 1 ½ pounds of Fig Newton’s, a box of chocolate wafers, some hot chocolate packets, a box of tea, a set of five solo cups, flip flops, extra bowls, and a roll of aluminum foil later, he was set to go.
Facebook’s New Profile
Seen the new profiles on Facebook yet? I didn’t think so. They will be rolling out the week of July 14th and they change a lot of things that have become comfortable to users.
Links to sections or "Boxes" will be at the top of the screen now and will be organized for easy access.
Interesting new layout that gets rid of a lot of the crap that has been building up because of worthless applications.
Also, in case you didn’t already notice, you can now comment on items in people’s mini feeds.
When Parents Visit You Get To View Whales
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My Parents just left Alaska. They were here for a week and it was a busy one. They didn’t make too many plans, which turned out to be just fine since my week ended up being pretty open. A lot of people left the collective this week for various reasons, and the house was pretty empty. |
On Monday I left around noon and hitchhiked to Seward, which is a few hours North. My mom said she was willing to pay for a bus there, but the bus left at 9:00 am and took six-seven hours to arrive. Why bother when I can get there faster for free and meet some interesting people along the way?