In 2011 I was living in Palmer, Alaska, and I just started to look into renting this small brown building to be a home for my software-consulting business when some family issues came up and I moved back to the Lower-48.
There probably wasn’t enough work in the Palmer/Wasilla area — also known as the Mat-Su Valley — but I loved the area so much I wanted to give it a try.
Back in 2011 I was at the start of the Iditarod race, which started on the frozen lake in Willow, Alaska.
Do women run in the Iditarod? Yes, they do. When I took this snapshot back in 2015, seven of the top twenty mushers (racers) in that Iditarod race were women.
Sled dogs, from the start of the 2011 Iditarod, on the lake in Willow, Alaska. (I took this photo that day.)
This is a photo of the rubber duck, Mr. Bubble bath soap, and bathtub at the Talkeetna Roadhouse in Talkeetna, Alaska. I stayed there several times, but I’ll guess this was from the fall of 2010.
As I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Seward this afternoon, a dog walked in the back door and just stood there, looking at everyone. The owner tells me he was looking for a good poker game. ;)
~ photo from Seward, Alaska, February 25, 2011
This is THE speed limit sign on the Dalton Highway in Alaska. If I remember right, this is the only speed limit sign you’ll see when headed north from Fairbanks heading towards Prudhoe Bay.
I started off driving about 50 mph, but then after realizing I was the only person on the road — an almost-entirely entirely dirt road — I drove as fast as conditions allowed, typically a little over 90 mph.
This is part of a little log cabin church that used to be on my walking/biking path in Palmer, Alaska.
Every spring I think about moving back to Alaska, and last night I ran across this high resolution map of Talkeetna. For the record, I used to live on I Street in Talkeetna, which isn’t shown on the map.
Back in the day I drove up to Fairbanks, Alaska, and then from there I drove up to Prudhoe Bay, which is as far north as you can drive in Alaska. I put some gas cans on the car because I didn’t know if there were really going to be any gas stations on the 494 mile drive, but a little “town” of Coldfoot had a couple of gas pumps.
I stopped here, filled up the gas tank, had a burger, and then finished the trek on the Dalton Highway to Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay, where I stayed at this little, ahem, motel.
With the Iditarod race coming soon, I thought I’d re-share this: The Alaska Dispath News has a great video documentary that details what happened during the wild finish to the 2014 Iditarod race. This photo shows Dallas Seavey very shortly after he crossed the finish line, not knowing that he won the race.
When I first learned about Scala I lived in Talkeetna, Alaska, population ~876 (in the summer). Talkeetna is mostly known as a base for expeditions to Denali, and for possibly inspiring the excellent tv series, Northern Exposure. Some of my first Scala blog posts were written while sitting in this cafe. :)
The image shown comes from this Flying Squirrel Bakery Cafe Facebook page.
A little Iditarod humor in honor of the race starting on March 8, 2020, in Willow, Alaska. Photo from the Seavey family Ididaride website.
This is a view of the mountains from my apartment in Palmer, Alaska, way back in 2011. Palmer is surrounded my mountains on three sides, and these are the mountains you see to the south.
I don’t remember where I saw this photo — it may have been the Fireside Books account on Twitter or Facebook — but it shows that they don’t worry about cleaning the snow off the streets too much in the winter in Alaska. This photo was taken about three blocks from my old apartment in Palmer, Alaska. (My apartment was one block down this road in the direction shown, and one or two blocks to the right.)
My favorite garbage dumpster in Seward, Alaska: “Look for moose.”
January 5, 2011, Wasilla, Alaska: This is a photo of our parking lot, a half-inch or more of ice, and black gravel they’ll sweep up and re-use come March or April.
“Someone is always in the way.”
That was my predominant thought after living in Alaska, and then moving back to the Lower-48.
In Alaska you can go to a lot of places and find solitude, and when you go to the grocery store it isn’t crowded, but as soon as I came back to the Lower-48 I constantly found that someone was always in my way, standing in front of me, at the grocery store, at the post office, in the Rocky Mountain National Park, wherever.
Way back on December 31, 2010 I lived in Wasilla, Alaska, and planned on driving down to Seward to spend a few days around New Year’s there. But a bad ice storm and the inability to find the right size tire chains derailed my plans, and I ended up in Anchorage instead. But because of that, I learned that they have a great fireworks show in Anchorage on New Year’s Eve.
As I mentioned in my second Facebook post on that day, there’s an Alaska saying that goes, “There’s old pilots, and there’s bold pilots, but there ain’t no old and bold pilots.”
The local parks people have created the best outdoor ice skating arena I’ve ever seen here on Wasilla Lake, night lights and all.
~ a note from December 11, 2010
