Home at Last

I arrived home yesterday evening, about 5 hours later than originally planned. Apparently our friends at Alaska Airlines found it difficult to keep enough aircraft actually airworthy to get my relief person into Fairbanks on time. Once he did arrive in Fairbanks he faced a 3 hour drive to the facility, which I then duplicated in reverse to get home.

I was able to capture some interesting images while at that location. For example, we have a prime example of smoke on the water, obscuring the only bridge crossing the Yukon River:



A couple of days the smoke blew to the opposite direction, giving an opportunity to photo the fire responsible for some of the haze.


The Yukon River is virtually a highway into the Interior of Alaska, and some unusual vessels can be seem upon her waters from time to time, including this interesting combination of house boat and work barge.



When I arrived home I found that some friends had been in cahoots, and left a surprise birthday gift for me to find. It truly brightened up my whole day.


The weather has made a very drastic shift, going from the driest and highest average temperatures anyone can remember to autumn, almost literally overnight. All of the fireweed has bloomed to the tops of the stalks and seeds are now blowing about on the breezes. Many leaves are starting to turn color, and we've even had our first frost. Last night my thermometer recorded a low of 30 degrees (F).

My first day home was a busy one, in a very domestic sort of way. I have mowed my yard, filled in a lot of holes in the dog yard (with still more to do as the week proceeds), fetched my mail, and I'm now fixin' to feed the dogs and scoop the kennel, after which I think a burger and beer at the lodge would be a really good idea. I was in such a hurry to get home yesterday that I didn't bother stopping to buy groceries. I'll do that while I'm town tomorrow, getting my teeth sandblasted.