A lot happens when the sun never sets

We finally got a chance to take the Sweaty Yeti back on the road and do some camping this past weekend. We headed back through town to Ekultna Lake just a few miles up the road. The lake was massive and freezing from all the snow melt and glacial melt that fed into it. The water was a murky blue/gray color which we decided to name Jamaican Blue (patent pending). It gets this unique color from the finely ground bits of rock that are created by the glacier, called rock flour. We did a little hiking and then headed back to our campsite for crescent rolls and hotdogs over the fire. We liked to call them Fire and Ice because the crescent roll was a little burnt but the hotdog was cold in the center. Not the greatest meal we have ever made but pintrest just made it look so easy. We even managed to start the fire just like they do on survivor! Courtesy of the flint and steel given to us by Hillary and Case. A group of high school kids moved into the sight next to us and they got a little loud in the night. So we decided to keep to ourselves in the camper and play cards for the rest of the night.

The next day we packed up camp and headed down to Anchorage for a day of sight seeing and souvenirs. We found an antique shop with tons of cool artifacts from the area and even some relics from when Alaska was still a part of Russia. A massive painting of a mountain was calling our names but at 5 feet tall and 7 feet long we decided that would be a little tricky to haul home, let alone just to the car in the parking lot. We ended the day with some pizza and headed back to our cabin.

Tuesday morning we decided to do some hiking at the trails just down the road from the nature center. Less than a mile from our driveway we found a moose eating buds from a tree just off the road! We got a few dozen pictures as she continued to eat with no regard to us watching. The trailhead was just a short drive away from our new moose friend. As we got out of the car and started to gather our hiking supplies we saw two more moose just at the edge of the parking lot! We quietly got back into the car and watched the cow and year-old bull cautiously cross the lot and disappear into the woods just ahead of us. The camera was practically smoking with how many pictures we took! Finally we were able to start hiking for the day but not for long. Ashley's allergies started acting up so we took a break from the trails and headed to town. We wandered around to a few shops before heading back to our cabin to make dinner. Enchiladas were on the menu for the night and for the rest of the week since we made enough to feed a small army. But that was just fine because they were delicious!

On Wednesday we had the day off from work so we could attend the state park volunteer training program. Our manager, Laura, took us down along the Turnagain Arm where we got to meet the other volunteers for the season as well as the park rangers. We had already covered most of the material during training from the nature center but there were still a bunch of interesting things they covered. The craziest part was that for all of the half-a-million acres of land that is the Chugach State Park, there are only 5 rangers! And even crazier is the fact that they also cover the largest state park in North America, Wood-Tikchik, which is 1.6 million acres or roughly the size of Delaware. Fortunately they have a single additional ranger to help patrol that area. So 6 rangers to cover over 2 million acres of land. You can do the math but no matter how you slice it, something doesn't add up. After that we drove around town with Laura and she pointed out some cool places to check out. We got to haul some supplies for the trails and Laura even bought us ice cream! She's pretty cool! We definitely picked a good place to work for the summer.

Thursday was a pretty mellow day at the nature center. It was pretty windy all day so we didn't have too many people on the trails. But that night we got to have a super cool date night! The nature center has a projector for presentations and we were told that we could use it for watching movies. So we decided it was a perfect time to use that privilege and watch the season finale of Survivor! It was like a movie theater with the big comfy chairs and the lights out and enchiladas galore! The only scary part was the loud thud of the someone pulling on the door to the nature center that clearly read "CLOSED." Sure it was still light out, but read the sign! Also the survivor that Ashley chose at the beginning of the season won! If this spoils the results for you then we're sorry; but we're also glad this blog takes precedence over your television shows so let's call it a wash? Deal.

Friday was a busy day for the staff because we were having a dedication ceremony for the newly built trail maintenance garage. The nature center was pretty empty most of the day so we were told to close up a little early and head down to the ceremony if it stayed quiet. Unfortunately the general public didn't get the memo and decided to all come to the nature center 20 minutes before we were going to close! We finally got a chance to lock up and head down to the garage for the final speech and the ribbon cutting. Did we mention this is the same garage where we have our kitchen and bathroom? So this was technically a ribbon cutting ceremony for us and the kitchen in which we prepare enchiladas and sometimes spaghetti. Take that regular kitchens! There were appetizers and local beers, including a beer named specially for one of the river access points in our park called Echo Bend. We met the board members and other volunteers that until now we had only heard about. After the party died down we stayed to clean up because let's face it, that's our job and our kitchen. There were tons of leftovers and fortunately we had the only fridge in sight. We've been eating like royalty ever since.

Saturday and Sunday were more training days. We covered plants of the area and holy smokes is there a lot to learn! Some plants are edible and some aren't-same as Wisconsin. Some berries are good but their bushes have thorns- pretty typical. Some berries are poison but they can look like a good berry- uh-oh. Some plants have poisonous berries but the leaves and roots are edible- what? Some plants can be used to heal a cut but others will burn you just from touching them- seriously!? Needless to say there was a lot of material to cover and we're still getting the hang of it. But don't worry! We won't eat or touch ANYTHING. Except for blueberries. Blueberries are the same everywhere.

Now we realize that we're not the greatest at updating this blog, but can you blame us? With a crazy week like this it's a miracle we don't collapse from exhaustion. But it's still incredibly fun and we couldn't imagine a better place to spend the summer. We'll see what next week brings!

-the A-Team

PS. Below are some pictures of our cabin from the outside, per request :)