Anything But Eagle Beach, Man

Actually, Eagle Beach was an excellent call.  Saturday turned out to be an incredibly nice day.  No clouds in the sky, but the temperature was around 22 – a bit chilly.  We decided to take a drive out the road to see the sights.  Many of the trails were inaccessible due to snow pile up, but we did mange to find a parking spot near Eagle Beach and headed out for our walk.  This first photo is of Michele and Barkley from the scenic overlook, taken before we found where we wanted to hike around.

And now here they are, walking down along the beach.  That is snow you see in front of them, even though it does look a little like water.  We were lucky int hat it wes low tide out there at the time, so we could walk pretty far out there.

We did let Barkley off his leash for a few minutes.  He’s fine about not running away from us… unles he sees another dog.  And that’s why he only got to go off-leash for a few minutes.  Another dog came down with a family about 100 yards from where we were.  As soon as Barkley caught a glimpse (or whiff perhaps) of the other dog – he was off to the races.  We tracked him down – we just know that all dog owners don’t like starnge dogs playing with their dogs – and he had not caused any trouble.  But it was back on the leash for him.  That meant it was my turn for a bit.

I actually did not realize how bright it was out there until I looked over the pictures.  Some of them did not come out as well as we had hoped because the reflection off the snow was so strong.

This is a shot of the view we got to take in during the walk.  Not too shabby (especially since it’s only about a 20-minute drive from the house)…

Once we walked out a little ways, we came across these neat sheets of ice.  They looked like pieces of glass, and would shatter just like glass when you threw them or stepped on them.  Here I am holding one of the ice sheets, though it’s kinda hard to see because of the sun…

Here are a few cool shots of those ice sheets on the sand…

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I think this one was the best photo of the bunch (taken by Michele, of course).  This is the sand we were walking on.  It had this ripple effect going, which made for a pretty sweet photo with the sun’s rays hitting it just right…

And here are two photos of the sun on its way down.  It was due to set right around 4pm, but it fell behind the mountains a little earlier than that.  Once the sun went down, it was time to get back.  We were both surprised out how noticeable the temperature difference felt without the sun out.  We went from comfortable to really cold in about 4 minutes.

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Good News For Blog Readers

Michele and I took a nice walk over the weekend wtih Barkley out to Eagle Beach.  It was a clear, sunny day and the tide was out.  As soon as I get the pictures online, I’ll post the recap.

Afternoon Hike

Since Michele and I had big plans for watching football on Sunday, we decided to take a walk near the glacier on Saturday with Barkley.  This trail is not near the visitor center for the glacier, but you can still catch some glimpses of it.  It runs along the Mendenhall River, and there are tons of people who take their dogs there – so Barkley got to make some friends.

After the hike, Michele and I headed downtown and watched the new Clint Eastwood movie – “Gran Torino.”  As a side note, we both agreed that it was a very solid movie and would recommend seeing it.

Anyway, here are a few photos from our walk…

Just Like The Commercial Says

This is the banner hanging up outside the Subway here in Juneau…

Slide, Slide…

I forgot to mention that, a few weeks back, Michele and I went to a rather entertaining event… Barkley On Ice.  Click on the link below for some footage we shot…

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8082818242446815983

Your Mom Likes Trivia

This past weekend, Michele and I had a pretty entertaining Saturday night.  As many of you know, I host a trivia night at a local watering hole called The Imperial.  Well, some folks who have played before had the idea to have a trivia night charity event to benefit the local theater.  Hence, Michele and I got to play trivia together – not with me asking the questions and her answering.

Of course, this meant my team was under some solid pressure, as the guy who hosts trivia certainly has to make a good showing.  We also enlisted the help of our friend Brook, a regular at the Imperial’s trivia night.  There were a few people at this trivia that normally come to the Imperial’s version, and a few other friends we knew we participating.

They had 3 different sections – 1 of general trivia, 1 where you named paintings, and 1 of name that tune.  The one highlight from the actual questions was the guy asking some absurd question where he used the word “hearty,” as in the “hearty guide” to cooking or something.  We asked him if he meant “hearty” or if a person named “Hardy” was the author of the book.  Seemed like a reasonable question to us.  Well, we had a little run in with one of the theater nerds who smugly commented to us – “Yeah, hearty, as in not the Hardy Boys.”  This was a player on another team, not the host.  The host politely answered our question.  Fortunately, we smoked that particular theater nerd team.

In the end, we got 2nd in the competition.  I think we were all pleased by our performance, especially since the name that tune portion did not go so smoothly on the presentation, and it was all 60s music.  But it was nice for us to make a solid showing with about 12 or so teams playing.

But the real highlight was our tie for first in the Team Name competition.  Our name?  Your Mom Likes Trivia.  (A la “your mom goes to college.”)

So it was an all around successful evening.  Oh, and we won a raffle they had and got 2 free tickets to the next play.  Then UNC lost on Sunday.  Can’t ask for much more than that.

And just so I don’t have a post up with no visual aids, I’m including some random photo from a few weeks back for your enjoyment.

The Aurora – finally

Here are a few of the photos our friends from Minnesota emailed us of the northern lights.  The first few are from the night Michele and I were actually up there.  The ones at the end are from Saturday night.  They decided to drive back to Chena on Saturday night and check the lights again.  Of course, Saturday night had a pretty sweet display, but Michele and I were already back in Fairbanks and could not get the show like they had on the moutain.

These are from Friday, when Michele and I were on the trip…

And below are some photos from Saturday night, which apparently was a pretty dazzling display…