Bike Trip (finally!)

Remember long, long ago when I went on a bike trip in Oregon with my dad, as he finished his ride across the country, but I didn't have any pictures because I smashed my camera on day 1? Well I recently recovered the pictures I had taken that morning, at least, so here they are:

There's my pa, pedaling his way out of Redmond, OR.

Some of the Three Sisters (probably), outside of Sisters, OR.

Me and the old man posing for a picture on just about

the perfect morning for a bike ride.

More of the Cascades, from outside Sisters.

The Three Sisters, again.

Three-Fingered Jack mountain, with what I think are 1,500 year-old

lava flows in the foreground.

Hmmm... this looks more like Three-Fingered Jack to me than the

last one. Maybe there are two mountains with the same name.

My dad, biking past some of the lava flows near the top of the climb.

A pretty barren slot of road near the summit.

Nothing but lava on both sides.

McKenzie Pass: just a bit over a mile high, and almost 4,000

feet above our campsite for the evening!

The biker boys at the pass.

Still at the pass, with the Three Sisters (or at least two of them) in the background.

It was right after this that I tried to use a triangular monument as a tripod for my camera and had the pleasure of watching it bounce 173 times as it fell the 4 feet to the ground. That was the end of the road for my camera, so unfortunately I missed a bunch more great photo opportunities over the next couple of days. But mostly I was just so glad to be there for the trip. I felt totally welcomed by the group and had a great time on the road in camp. And of course it was the best to get to spend a couple days biking with my dad!

Beth's brothers were in town for a bit over a week. As predicted, several hijinks ensued. Here's the evidence:

The first stop of the trip was Homer, Alaska. Allegedly it's the halibut capital of the world, but we didn't even see one.

We camped out on the Homer spit, which is basically a 4-mile long sandbar covered head-to-toe in tacky tourist crap, which is just what you'd want if you had a really unique geological feature in a gorgeous setting. We camped on the beach next to the road and next to some rather amorous neighbors who failed to show proper vocal restraint. Bella was, needless to say, intrigued. There were eagles, seals and sea otters, though.

On the way down to Homer the weather was beautiful and we could see across Cook Inlet for some of the clearest views of Mt. Redoubt and Mt Iliamna that I've ever had. Very gorgeous.

In the AM, after a quick boot check by Beth and Ian (results: success!), we were told that we couldn't go on our planned bear-viewing and flightseeing adventure. Although this was technically the point of our trip to Homer, I'd say we did a beautiful job of transitioning to Plan B: eat a giant breakfast and then hike it off.
This was the destination of our hike: a beautiful lake at the toe of a glacier, complete with icebergs. The scenery was gorgeous and the weather was the best we've had in weeks. Unfortunately, Beth's only footwear was her Xtra-Tuffs. They're not exactly ideal for a 5-mile hike, but she's a trooper.
I just love this picture of our friend Louis with his beard and deadpan expression on the one hand, and his foofy drink in a cat mug on the other. Trying out Bloody Marys made with different flavors of vodka (bacon, salmon, pepper) was one of the main activities for the rest of the week. They were all delicious. Since I had to work while Beth and her brothers were going off on their adventures during the week, they were very good at making sure that once I got home I had one of these (or a beer or glass of wine) in hand as soon as possible.

This classy shot was taken after Ian decided to see our classiness (we were having our second bottle of Eric's-birthday-related champagne) and raise it with a pack of fake moustaches. Well played.
Ian did the better of the two Wilson boys when it came to wildlife. Here he is with a nice rainbow trout that he caught.

And here's a moose that Beth and Ian saw wandering around in a busy intersection near our house. I think Ian saw so many moose that he got bored with them. For Andrew we had to go on a special moose-finding mission after Ian had left just so he could see one. We were successful, though, and found him a big bull moose with huge velvety antlers.

Well, there you have it: a photo journal which chronicles 2 or 3 of the many many more things that happened while Beth's brothers were in town. Hope you enjoyed!

Volcano update

Here are some pictures from the eruption of Mt. Redoubt on Monday. Things with the volcano seem to have settled down for now, but thats what they said about a week before the eruption happened, too. I'm just hoping that no ash ends up in Girdwood before Friday, so I can go snowboarding. Anyway, this eruption produced an ash cloud up to 60,000 feet high which led to ashfall over 100 miles away in some places, but fortunately not in Anchorage.

The first picture is from a remote webcam located about 7.5 miles from the summit, and the second was taken by scientists the day after the eruption. Melting snow and ice due to the eruption flooded the Drift River valley, with high water marks on the valley walls showing that floodwaters were up to 8m higher than at the time of the picture. Thats 25 feet!

and Volcano?

Over the past 2 days, Mt Redoubt, a 10,000 foot high volcano just over 100 miles from Anchorage, has seen a dramatic increase in seismic activity accompanied by observations of increased sulfur gas emissions. An overflight showed that no eruption was in progress, but the Alaska Volcano Observatory raised the Volcano Alert Level to "Advisory" which is colored orange, indicating an impending election (get it? fucking neocons.) although an eruption is not necessarily immenent. You can read the report and get further updates from the observatory.