Point Hope at High Noon

Point Hope at High Noon.

The sun is out there.

Just over the horizon.

And there it is... kind of.

The Blue Moon of the New Year.

Here it is again.

One more time.

Ok one more.

And the last one, really.

The Wind is insane

I'm trying to show the blowing ice and snow, but the particles are so small that they aren't really showing up in these pictures.
The white haze is blowing snow and ice, moving about 50 mph.
You may not see the blowing snow in this picture, but if you walked out there you would feel it. I think its just moving too fast to see. The haze that you see though is blowing ice and snow.
You can see that white haze around the lights which is snow.

I've never seen wind like this up here before. This is really nuts. NOAA is reporting gusts up to 55 mph at the airport, but I think maybe closer to 60 here. I went outside and got hit in the face with a chunk of blowing ice. It's really nuts. I'm going to try and post some pics but I don't think they do a good job of showing the blowing snow.

Look at this wind. Its blowing over 50 mph in gusts. The idiot weather forecast still predicts a low of 17 degrees and its 7 out there now with a windchill of God only knows what.

This is a raven. I snapped its photo tonight. Its freezing out there, but our friends the Ravens never stop cawing all night long. Even with 50 mph winds, I can still hear them.

So I was Santa tonight.

Here is what went down. On Christmas night the village gets together. Probably at least half the village shows up. They pray and sing songs and then they eat. The food is cooked by locals and handed out to people. Its good stuff, turkey, dressing etc... Well when its done Santa runs in and hands out the gifts. The gifts are stacked up around the tree. There are literally hundreds of gifts. I had a guy hand me the gifts and then I called out people's names and handed out the gifts. The problem with this is that this gym auditorium is packed full of people and screaming kids. So even with a microphone helping me out, I had to yell out 5-10 times the names of the people and the present and get it to them. And of course there were two or three little kids who thought it was funny to pretend to be someone else and grab their gift. I think we rounded all those up, but it still slowed us down.

Over all I had a great time, but my voice is dead.

Living the Dream

OMG the Santa's beard fell off.


Santa Time
Look at that stack of presents to be given away.
HO HO HO, whose your daddy?
Ho Ho
Ho
Living the Dream.

And so its Christmas....

And so its Christmas....

I dunno, maybe I'm just getting old, but Christmas seems to lack the luster it held in years past. Today our country is so divided. The liberals want to view this as a day to be ignored, the conservatives want to turn it into a reflection on moral values.... at the end of the day, it just seems like everyone has forgotten how to just have fun. I'm going to wander around town today and spread some Bah Humbug cheer.

The Eagles.

I posted some pics of these Eagles in other places, but they were hard to see. I dialed in as much as I could with my camera to get these pics. I need to get a camera with a real zoom.

Ulu's .... I have no clue what Ulu's is, but it was pretty.
A snow covered tourist prop in Anchorage.
A desolate street.
A street and a stop sign. You can see the snow covered prop to the left. I think that I was trying to get a picture of the clock.
A lovely street.


Here are some Anchorage pics. The bear was in the hotel. The bench is outside and the fireplace is the lobby. It was a nice place.
Hotel in Anchorage.

Anchorage Street at night.
Icy Trees in Anchorage.
More Icy Trees in Anchorage.

Pics taken in Kotzebue.
Here is the Hotel.



Here's a picture of the runway in Kotzebue.
Why aren't they flying out?
Here is a Korean Restaurant in Kotzebue of all places.
Another picture of the Korean Restaurant.
Hangers in Kotzebue.