Floridana Alaskiana v.2

another round

Rainbows near Dusk!
Glenn Highway at Eagle River, Alaska.
19 July 2008.
Nikon D70s.

It's been a nice and long week and a half. My old friend Nemec flew in from Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit and romp around southcentral Alaska. He arrived on the 9th.  He took off back for Oklahoma this past Friday.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't very cooperative during his visit. Other than a fantastic hike to Byron Glacier right after he arrived, his trip was plagued by never-ending blankets of cloud cover and light drizzle.  Still, he did manage to land a 51lb. king salmon in the Kenai Peninsula -- so his trip was still a productive one.

I do wish he'd managed to stick around through Saturday, however.  On Friday afternoon, after his flight departed, the clouds started to dissipate. By this afternoon, we had a wealth of blue sky around Anchorage.  Lori and I took off for Hatcher Pass and then up to Talkeetna.  Thick clouds hovered over Eagle River and a brew of rain spits blanketed the heights of Hatcher, but for the most part, the day was backdropped by blue skies and direct sunlight. It was absolutely gorgeous.

On our way back to Anchorage, Eagle River was still swamped with rain to our south.  We saw a total of five rainbows throughout the day -- rain dancing with the precious direct sunlight. I couldn't help but pull over to take a few shots of these rainbows rising above Eagle River, just east of Anchorage.  Perhaps a good place to begin as I dip through a slew of photographs from these past few weeks: Eagle River last week, Byron Glacier, the Kenai Peninsula, Homer, Talkeetna...  Lots of photographs to work on, to post. Good times, despite the lack of cooperative weather.

I'm deeply hopeful that today, Saturday the 19th, wasn't our only day of sunlight this week...

Janson.

interlude

Just a note:

Posts will be light this next week. A good friend of mine is visiting and we're going to be out around southcentral Alaska, hiking and exploring the region. Posts will be a bit infrequent in the coming week.

Wish us luck with the weather!

- Janson.

picoides

Hairy woodpecker (Picoides villosus).
possibly Downy woodpecker (Picoides pubescens).
Rodak Trail at the Eagle River Nature Center, Chugach State Park.
Eagle River, Alaska.
01 July 2008.
Nikon D70s.

This is either a hairy woodpecker or a Downy woodpecker. Apparently these two species are virtually identical -- but the hairy woodpecker is slightly larger than the downy woodpecker. Given that I don't have a frame of reference for either species, I'm assuming this is a hairy woodpecker. The little gal didn't strike me as being particularly smallish for a woodpecker.  It's a guess. If you know better than I do and can identify this bird, please feel free to comment below!!

The males of both species have red on the backs of their heads. So, at least I could figure out this was a female.

The birds are out in force right now -- hopefully, with more sunny days like this one, I'll be able to photograph more. Eagle River certainly seems like it'll be a great place to go birding. It was just crawling with life, from the ground to the sky.  Everything was alive.

Janson.

magpie mayhem

Black-billed magpie (Pica pica - or possibly Pica hudsonia?).
University of Alaska Anchorage main campus.
Anchorage, Alaska.
02 July 2008.
Nikon D70s.

Trekking around campus, I came across some magpies duking it out in the trees overhead. I'm not sure what was going on, but given that it's spring it was probably something related to mating and/or territoriality... Magpies do couple-up and stay together and there seemed to be several pairs negotiating the same tree with each other. 

The magpies are really cool birds. They're basically cool looking crows. Like crows wearing some kind of avian tuxedo. 

How's that for a naturalist description?

A crow heading to the prom...

Janson.

rock

Mountain view.
Albert Loop Trail at the Eagle River Nature Center, Chugach State Park.
Eagle River, Alaska.
01 July 2008.
Nikon D70s.

On the Florida peninsula, the ground beneath your feet is typically situated upon the limestone bedrock. The soil is loose and quickly erodes. If it weren't for the thick mats of vegetation holding the soil in place, it almost feels like the ground would swell like the dunes along the Atlantic shore. It is a feeling of rapid transition.

In Alaska, the bedrock tells a different story. An older story.

Even the cobblestones that line our glacial-fed streams remind me of how old this ground is...  Of how much this land has seen through the ages. Glaciers and water shape the land here. And the rock responds ever so slowly, as species rise and fall from existence.

It's an awesome sensation, treading on the surface of time.

Janson.

bluebells

Bluebell (Mertensia paniculata).
Albert Loop Trail at the Eagle River Nature Center, Chugach State Park.
Eagle River, Alaska.
01 July 2008.
Nikon D70s.

This is the first of the flora photos on Floridana Alaskiana v.2.  To be honest, I'm not very good at identifying flowers and plants. Even trees.  Still, I'm going to begin uploading and posting some flora photography, mainly because the Alaskan summer cannot be represented without a celebration of our flora.

I'm adding a "Browse by Flora" link to the main menu and will do my best to catalogue these plants and flowers as accurately as I can.  BUT, I'm really going to rely on the support of others who stumble across this site.  I need help identifying these plants.  At the very least, I'd appreciate confirmation. 

One obvious problem is going to be my use of a common name.  The bluebells featured above are also known as the "Northern bluebell", the "Lungword," the "Tall Lungwort", the "Languid Lady", and the "Chiming Bells".  To name a few.  In general, I'm just going with whichever common name seems most contemporary.

Anyhow, with any luck I'll be able to get some positive identifications for some of the flowers I haven't yet been able to identify.  (Crosses fingers.)

Janson

eagle river

Rodak Trail at the Eagle River Nature Center, Chugach State Park.
Eagle River, Alaska.
01 July 2008.
Nikon D70s.

We headed out and over to Eagle River to celebrate a long day of beautiful sunshine. It's a short jaunt from Anchorage to Eagle River. Essentially, you pass two mountainous ridges and then turn right: that's Eagle River.

The Eagle River Nature Center serves as a stop-go for numerous Chucach trails. The short Rodak Trail branches out from the Center to the old Iditarod Trail. And this, in turn connects to numerous other trails, such as the Albert Loop Trail which wanders its way down to the Eagle River itself.

This is also within the west-central region of the Chugach State Park. There are only a few roads that break this far into Chugach State Park, but a web of trails do connect and weave their way through the entire region.

Working our way down and around the Albert Loop Trail, we explored a bit at the Eagle River basin.  My oh my, it is lovely down there.  In fact, the short Albert Loop Trail is a fantastic, beautiful, and short introduction to the river valley.

I must admit, after weeks of cloud-cloud-cloud, this was a very good day.  Enormously refreshing.

-

Janson.

woronzof lit

Sunset @ 11:27 p.m.
Point Woronzof Park; Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.
Anchorage, Alaska.
30 June 2008.
Nikon D70s.

June 30th was one of our precious sunlit days.  That is, one of the few days in June when we actually got to see direct sunlight. The vast majority of the month was dominated by persistent cloud cover. It's an interesting effect when the "sun sets" at 11:30 at night, yet you don't get to see the actual sun.  You get really long days of gray and overcast skies.  I'd almost rather have the persistent darkness of winter.

But then you do get the sunlit days, the days of actual sun light -- and you want to celebrate.  To celebrate the sun.

We headed back out to Point Woronzof to watch the sun slink below the horizon. It was, again, a fantastic sunset -- and one with great appreciation, for a nice long day of direct sunlight.

11:36 p.m.:

--

11:39 p.m.:

Janson.

one year ago

University of Alaska Anchorage Main Campus, Alaska.
30 June 2008.
Nikon D70s.

. . . we left Florida, and then we lived in Alaska.

It's amazing that we left Florida over a year ago.  Technically, our one year anniversary of living in Alaska will by on July 31st.  It's been an amazing, if not slightly disorienting, first year in Alaska.

Winter, truth be told, wasn't that bad at all. Despite my Floridian-Guppie ways, and my fond love of sandals and equal hatred of socks, I was able to not only endure winter's bite, but to also actually enjoy the frozen world around me.

Interestingly, the most difficult month for me this past year was June. The month that just ended.

My internal bioclock was screaming for heat, humidity and sunshine. I was so ready for summer.  But most of June was cool, gray and overcast. Weeks went by without a drop of sunlight, despite the insanely long "daylight" hours.  I grew enormously uncomfortable and depressed by the lack of sunlight.

And then?  Then July hit:  and the sun came out.  It came out in-force.  As if nature waved a magic wand, it was as though June never existed. I was immediately refreshed, revitalized, and reanimated. We headed out to Eagle River to hike around on Tuesday -- and looking around the valley, at all the flowers, plants, and forms of water, I again found myself feeling deeply grateful to be in Alaska.  The strength and beauty of Tuesday more than justified the general sense of misery I felt in June.

In an odd way, that's what Alaska's been like for me, this Guppie from Florida.  Amazing moments of such beauty and magnificence that vastly outweigh any sense of discomfort and anxiety.

When the sun shines in Alaska, it shines in a way that I simply can't describe.  It's awe-inspiring.

-----

So here we are, nearly one year later, and we still have no regrets. Though the transition hasn't been the easiest to adapt through, we find ourselves deeply happy and content to be here in southcentral Alaska. There's still an entire world to explore in Alaska and we find ourselves giddy at the prospects that still lie before us, over the future's horizon.

I'll never lose my inner-Floridian, but I now feel very much Alaskan. Many Alaskans, by the way, don't consider "Anchorage" a part of Alaska... but I'm ignoring that.

The title of this blog, Floridana Alaskiana, actually makes sense to me now.

Janson.

tazlina glacier

Tazlina Glacier.
Viewed from the Glenn Highway, Alaska.
31 July 2007.
Nikon D70s.

Day 31 of our drive from Florida to Alaska during the summer of 2007.

At last, we came to our last day of the move from Florida to Alaska.  Working north from Copper Center, we turned west on the Glenn Highway, which would ultimately deliver us to our new home in Anchorage, Alaska. 

Along the way, we glanced south of the highway and spotted the vast and epic Tazlina Glacier creeping north from the Chugach Mountains. It was a beautiful sight. "We live here?" was our general response.  "This is our regional neighborhood?"  It was hard to believe that we would live somewhere so close to something like Tazlina Glacier...

Janson.