last of day one, nome!

 i'm in between shifts.  it's cloudy out for first time in forever it seems.  we have long ago surpassed the record for number of days over 70 degrees in a row.  the same seemed to be true up north.  reports from locals of temperatures over 100 degrees in some places.  kids jumping in lakes, ocean, rivers to cool off.
above is the local church in the city square.  most of my pictures of it would load in here sideways but this one worked.  taken with the wide angle about midnight i think.

 as i said i got a bit obsessed that first day with all these old buildings so i'm sure repeats abound.  i could have taken hundreds more so i totally controlled myself

 i think the musk ox and mosquito shots that  come later have been my most popular on facebook.

 was worried rio would leave me a big surprise when i got home this morning...nope...yippee!!  she is for sure looking to be on the mend.  vet bill adds to the vacation costs, but better safe than sorry when it comes to pets and kids, right.  lets you know too, that she was in the right hands.

 flying is stressful to me, me being away is stressful for the pets.  it always takes them 24-48 hours to resettle after i go out of town.  for me, i get back to work and that is it for vacay.  back to the real world.

 flying back i was getting myself a bit anxious.  i think it was because i hadn't really mentally prepared myself for that extra hop to kotzebue.  i had in my head until that morning that it was just this little hop from nome back to anchorage, and then i had to figure in an extra leg.  it's only a 35 minute flight from nome to kotzebue though.
i felt myself getting more and more anxious.  finally i realized in my head that having some sort of mid flight anxiety attack wasn't going to make any difference as to the safety or non safety of said flight. i got the ipad out, hooked up the headphones and returned to anchorage i song at a time. anxiety is silly,but it's hard to convince your brain of that some days.

 i got anxious to a few days into the trip driving to teller.  not sure if it was a height thing on those roads heading there with some steep drop offs or if it was more related to being out in the middle of nowhere.  it was almost like being at sea with no land sightings.  you look in every direction and all you see is barren land as far as you can see.  it's almost disorienting.  on the return trip i found that my anxiety was centered around the miles in the 40's and 50's so maybe more of the height thing that the open space thing.  i drove back 10 miles at a time in my head.  probably being alone means you have nobody to distract you when your brain starts to freak itself out.

 my flights and drives were really quite routine as far as safety goes.  there wasn't ever anything to fear.  we had some turbulence here and there, nothing unusual though.  did occur to me on that drive to teller that the maintenence of the car may not be up to date and that there quite possibly wasn't even a spare tire.  there was a mental debate as to whether i should stop and check this fact out.  in the end i decided that unless i had an actual flat tire it wasn't going to benefit me to discover that i had no spare tire.  there was one by the way.

 not sure exactly why the houses are often build up on stilts in these parts.  i've heard a few things.  coastal so flooding is always possible and also the land up there is permafrost.  that means that down a few feet it really never thaws.  if you build a house right on the permafrost you will heat up that area, thawing the permafrost and then the house settles.

 much isn't said about this permafrost and global warming issues and what it will mean when more and more of the permafrost actually thaws in the summers.  this summer i'm guessing it is thawing down a bit further.  i was impressed at how dry the tundra was.  usually it is moist and boggy.  also very lumpy so there isn't really a simple walk even though as you look at this photo's it looks like a big lawn out there easy to traverse.

 outhouse open and facing the road.

 old things remain where they are when they have outlived their usefulness.  new things or new old things are brought in.

 there is talk of building a road from the fairbanks area to nome.  would be spendy and i'm not sure it will ever happen.  could be like that train to nowhere.  it may get started and then be given up long before it's built.  the dalton highway got built because of the oil.  so unless gold strikes become big enough for another major gold rush in nome i doubt it will happen.  i may be wrong though.  i'm a fan of a road trip though.  i'd drive it if it were there.

 those icu rooms look so big when they are empty, but they quickly shrink when all the icu stuff gets added to the room.  moved a long term patient to a larger room last night....great idea nelly!!  i was for sure doing some bad yoga moves attempting to do my work in that tiny room.

 woke up with a headache from sore muscles.  my patient slept great after the move and her daughter was able to sleep in the room with her so i'm sure that helped.  more and more families are sleeping in.  mostly i'm cool with that. i like when they are people who actual help with cares rather than just act like they are running the show.  this family was great though.

 a few more from the safety roadhouse or iditarod checkpoint.  i'm sure it seems more of a dramatic place when it's hopping during the iditarod.  it all looks so much grander on tv.

 i was the only person there this day.

 may want to return to nome for the winter iditarod festivities, but i'm good for a bit.  may be more fun to hit rainy pass or some other check point along the way.
 you have the history of the diptheria vaccine run but you also have the history of this sled dog race in this town.  the dog race has been run since the 1970's.  the vaccine run occured around 1925. amazing how much has changed in the world in less than 100 years.

 for sure things change slower out here, but still all the modern stuff seeps in as well.

 along these beaches you can see remnants of life in the early 1900's but also remnants of life a few thousand years ago.

 several of my brothers are basketball obsessed as are the people in the villages of alaska.  loved this random hoop out in the middle of nowhere.  big gatherings occur centered around basketball.  gotta love that kids are so simple in their entertainment needs.  there are the usual computer games, but i did see loads of people out enjoying the sunshine.  biking, walking, swimming in the ocean.  love seeing that in a remote community.

 kids seem to be left to entertain themselves more.  everyone knows everyone, just like the old days.  everyone is keeping an eye on what is going on with the kids.  it gives them more freedom to be, it can also give them more freedom to get in trouble i guess, but i do tend to feel badly for many city kids whose lives are so directed and protected.  they are rarely without any sort of adult supervision.  needs to be a happy medium i suppose, but it is nice to see kids being kids and following their curiosity.

 driftwood....seems you will never run out of wood despite the lack of live trees.

 i had great skies that first day.  expansive and beautiful. i love clouds.  would have been a bit bummed if it had just been totally blue skies without cloud cover.

 drove this road a lot, never as far as that first day, but it had the best beach access so it seemed no matter where i went during the day hours i ended up back on this road at night to find a remote beach to walk.

 a last shot of the train to nowhere.

 that first night i enjoyed watching the last remnants of the sea ice crashing onto shore.

 by the time i left i didn't see any more ice out there.  some had just moved on i suppose, but it was melting fast.

 there was still quite a bit of snow tucked here and there along the road systems.

 waves crashing on sea ice...who wouldn't love that!

 you could walk forever on these beaches.  it was so relaxing.  any stress i may have in my life just washed off of me with every step i took in the sand.

guess i shall head off for a second nap.  blogged, ate and feeling lazy.  poor blossom. she's gonna get screwed out of walk today.  just university lake yesterday and a neighborhood walk the day before.  will have to pack in a few big hikes again before the next little adventure to lost lake.  will have to see if shell can watch rio for that.  she may not want to after what rio put her through this time.  no way i'm taking rio backpacking though.

nome, second installment!

 there was still a bit of sea ice left over from the spring thaw.  by the end of my days there i didn't see any of it.  kinda cool to see the ice in the water and on the shore.  this chunk of ice looked like a duck to me.

 rio kept me busy today. she didn't approve of the first meal i concocted for her, so i had to cook her some hamburger and mix it with steamed rice.  she actually came for tonights meal so that is a good sign.  poor dog.  i think she's on the mend though.

 i just fell in love with these long stretches of beaches in the nome area.  these must go on for miles and miles...i could walk these beaches every day and i did while i was there. something about walking on the shore with the sounds of the waves and sea birds...it's just totally relaxing.

 lots of crab bits along with dead birds, a dead seal...some other dead carcass. that stuff stays there.

 the only upsetting thing of the week was that the last full day there i heard there was that walrus carcass down on the beach with it's head cut off.  guess is that the 2000 pound animal was also flipped over and had it's oosik or os penis removed as well. just like the rhino's being killed in africa for it's horn, the walrus are killed for their skull, ivory tusks and the oosik.  humans suck sometimes.

 it will probably never even be investigated and the people who did this will go unpunished.  so frustrating.

 before i left i was listening to npr and they were talking about this case where several walrus were found up north shot and killed and not harvested.  subsistence hunting is allowed, especially for natives,but they are supposed to utilize the animal they kill.

 a forensic guy who specialized in animal cases was specifically hired to go up there and do the investigation. they crashed a plane, got a truck stuck in the muck and went through many trials and errors trying to figure out how to get their equipment to work on these huge animals.  all the while they were being watched from afar.  eventually, they were able to ascertain that is was young native males who had done the deed. they went the elders, who said they had known this all along and were just seeing if the researchers could figure it out.  they spoke of being disappointed at how things were happening to their culture.  they had a meeting with the young males and things quieted down for a time, but it's getting back to what it was becoming. young people not respecting their own culture and the animals they share the land with.  really quite sad.  easy money gets tough to turn down, especially when money is tight.

 sea gulls.  there are all sorts of them, but i only know them as sea gulls.

 there were a few places that had lists of what had been seen where. of course, the one at the hotel i didn't notice until my last day there.  really it was pretty much birds...for the various birders who come through.  the walrus without the head was on there and i added the musk ox sightings.  so maybe it was best if i just hadn't seen the list.

 nome is a birder paradise.  not sure i added to my bird lists.  i love to listen to birds and i'm sure i've seen some cool speices over the years. i've never been very good with details.  much better at identifying big mammals.

 they have all this cool red sand there, not sure what that comes from.  i did collect some and put it at the bottom of the vase where i put all my sea urchins.

 this seaweed held tons of my little sea urchins.  lots of clams and some scallops as well.   i do know my intertidal zone species.  didn't see any rocks for tidepools.  i'm sure some exist out there somewhere.  miles of beach in alaska...surely there will be some rocky areas.  saw some sea stars.  picked up a few small, dried up stars.  those are also cool to find.  would be so cool to be able to boat out to some of those totally remote beaches and see what cool stuff has settled onto the beaches.

 amazing to think that this whole area was frozen solid a few months back.

 i only saw bits of leftover ice. in the winter apparently the shore ice can extend out quite a ways.  you can walk out there, the iditarod mushers run dogs on it.  they can cut holes in it and go fishing or drop crab pots in the winter.  beyond the shore ice is pack ice which moves with the currents more.

 due to the shore ice, i suspect all beach combing is curtailed until the break up.

 bought a little book at the visitor center.  it was helpful as to stuff on the roads.  seemed to focus on the birder aspect of the area. i'm sure that is the bulk of their visitors who come up in the summer. that or people fishing i guess.  i didn't fish, bird or look for gold, so a bit of an off beat tourist.  have been to some of the great birder places though.  pribilofs, round island.

 one of many empty fish drying racks.

 i suspect they are filling up now.

 ice rocks on the beach.

 we don't get much wave action in anchorage.  we have the mud flats.  people have been taking to doing a hike across the mud flats from kincaid to fire island.  a guy died this past week on his attempt.  the water rolls in very fast and if you are not to the other side you can get swamped.  it can be done, of course, but it's really not advisable and the city and state have spent money and effort just trying to keep people from even attempting it.  some guy wrote an article which inferred that perhaps we should stop trying to stop people from going and make it more clear how one can more safely get across i guess.

 i dropped a comment as it always bugs me that there are hike group leaders that take people across.  in my opinion this is irresponsible.  they apparently have been known to take teenage groups across as well.  the issue is that there is no place to put someone who gets injured or has a heart attack or for whatever reason can't carry on.  if you are having a heart attack you will have to just keep walking.  even on denali if you must stop you can be settled in someplace to await rescue.  the tides come in so fast around anchorage that you totally can't stash someone and go get help.

 sad that yet another person has died out there doing something that has been repeatedly put forward as a bad idea.  the fact that these groups are crossing just has opened the door as this being a good idea.  this is exactly what i predicted would happen when i first read and heard about these group hikes across.  the guy who died was in his early 40's, military guy.  just sad.

 tern...i think arctic.  they travel from antarctica.

 i'm behind on my news coverage.  the papers all sit unread.  eventually i will catch up.

 chatted with my brother for a bit.  chatted with my sister yesterday.  always good to catch up with family.  hit the store to restock on a few items.  started to get a bag together for my nephews visit...fun bag.

 there were sleds around all over utilized as decor...clearly a iditarod-nome flavor.  i did enjoy seeing all the cool sleds used at the various places.  there were dogs all over.  was actually surprised at the variety of breeds of dogs out in this small place.  there wasn't just the regular sled dogs.

 fish camp and it looks like another sled in the foreground.

 a few from the flight out to nome.  this looks to be big lake or the valley anyway.

 had some lovely views of denali on the way out.

 u could see the various glaciers coming down from the mountain range in the area.

 nome is "OME' i guess.  it was cloudy coming in so i didn't get any air shots and on the way out there was a kid in my seat by the window so i just sat in the aisle. i knew they were getting off in kotzebue.

 always have to get my airport shot with the name of the town.

 stuffed dog from the old diptheria days i think. i wandered through the museum on my first day in town briefly.

 front street.  not really that impressive.

 a few statues here and there, this one was for the alaska national gaurd.  ww2 i think.

 eventually i made it out the road and stopped in at the safety roadhouse.  it's the last checkpoint before nome in the iditarod.  it was actually open when i was there the first time.  it's really a bar and a gathering place in the back room.  there was an older guy looking after the place so we chatted a bit.  he says the back room is kept closed in the winter as it costs too much to heat it.  not much there really. fun to see though considering it's role in the iditarod.

will take me awhile to get these pictures in...hope it's enjoyed.  i had a great time out there and learned a lot about the area in the short time i was there.  so much more that i'm sure i missed and didn't see.  til next time.