Objects in Mirror Are Closer ... Well, You Know

 Okay, third time's a charm ... stupid corporate 'puters at work won't let me save this text. Typed it twice already, so here we go:

Winter is coming. No, that's not a blurb for yet another go-round of Game of Thrones.

Our leaves began falling promptly on August 1st this year, which is not an encouraging sign. We've had snow on the nearby mountains, down to about the 5,000 foot mark - twice in the last week. And it was only 41° here this morning.

This is our fourth consecutive colder-than-normal "summer" season, with LOTS of rain since around the 1st of May. I think we've had 23 days of 70°+ weather this year, in total. I don't have the season's total rainfall in front of me, but 2023 is in the top 5 or 6 wettest summers on record. 

We had 70 mph winds that lasted for nearly 24 hours, last week, and lost yet another tall tree. It's worth noting that we purchased this place, some 7 years ago, largely because of it was heavily-wooded (emphasis on was). But now we've lost roughly 40% of the trees which were here. 

Between the 7.2-magnitude 'quake in 2018, a complete septic system replacement, and lots of heavy rains/snows and wind, there's a lot more daylight - and correspondingly less privacy - than when we moved in. I have faith that God knows exactly what He's doing, and this is not a complaint. Rather, think of it as a chronicling of what's happened during our tenure. 

And then there's this: fireweed, a fairly-reliable indicator of each upcoming winter's snowfall, is signaling another year of heavy snow. Well, okay then. 

I have a large snowblower, and am in better health now than I have been for several years. Bring it.

AccuHunch Found a Thesaurus

Today's forecast calls for "copious" rain this afternoon. They guess that some places locally could see more than 1.5 inches. That's a lot, for here.

The same system caused a mudslide on Sheep Mountain, some 100+ miles to the northeast, washing cars down a hillside. It's supposed to arrive here later this afternoon or evening.

We're as ready as we can be, but since we live on a shoulder on the mountainside, things could get exciting.

Guess we should have started that ark a tad sooner...

One Thing After Another

The winds didn't do any significant damage in our neighborhood, although some trees were knocked down. But there was nothing to complain about in our immediate vicinity. In fact, it even cleared the two-inch layer of leaves from the driveway. :)

This morning is another story, though. It's raining heavily out our way (although I'm at work, now). Poor visibility, hydroplaning with water standing in the ever-present ruts, heavy traffic, and an accident in the left lane and median, about halfway here.

Naturally, since no one in Alaska's ever seen an accident, traffic was backed up for a mile and a half, going only about 8 mph as folks slowly merge into the center lane and rubberneck at the twisted remains of pickup trucks.

Thanks to the water-filled ruts, there were places where I had to slow down to 30 or less, just to keep it on the road. It seems the nice, quiet summer tires on my SUV don't handle standing water at all.

Oh, well. I made it safely here, and can always get new summer tires next spring.

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We're debating whether to bother watching the Presidential debate next week. Apart from already having made up our minds, we know that the news outlets will air their favorite clips, making points, distorting and/or adding to what the opponent said, and generally making the audience nauseous.

Oh, I'm sorry ... is my disdain showing?

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Southcentral Alaska electric utilities say most areas' power has been restored after high winds and major outages hit the region overnight Sunday.

The Associated Press reports shortly before noon Monday that Matanuska Electric Association spokesperson Kevin Brown says most customers' power was restored by 8:30 a.m., with Chugach Electric spokesperson Phil Steyer reporting most customers back online by late Monday morning.

The majority of those affected were served by MEA, with the association's Facebook page saying a Palmer outage had left “thousands of customers without power.”

 And from the Anchorage Daily News:

A windstorm pounded parts of Southcentral Alaska early Monday, knocking down trees and cutting off power for thousands of people from the Matanuska Valley to the Kenai Peninsula. A gust of 106 mph was recorded in Bear Valley, on the Anchorage Hillside, with a 105 mph gust at Glen Alps.

Most of the outages were north of Anchorage, or at high elevations above town. Here in town, we had 30 to 50 mph gusts, with a month's worth of rain falling in about 36 hours.

A spectacular sunset illuminated lingering clouds after the rainstorm on Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. BILL ROTH — Anchorage Daily News

Morning Lull

Last night's winds were strong, but not vicious and destructive like the previous storms of the last two weeks. Only 200 customers are in the dark, according to the local news. Winds are mostly calm this morning, with light rain falling, but the wind is expected to re-intensify this afternoon, peaking between noon and 4 pm at 20 to 40 mph, gusting as high as 70 mph here in town. They will be stronger at higher elevations and in open areas.

The bigger story is the heavy rain that's falling across the area. For a place like Anchorage that sees only 1/4" of rain in a summer month, two or three inches in two weeks seems a lot - and results in flooded intersections and standing water in parking lots. We have virtually no storm drains - again, because we so rarely see anything like a heavy rain - so it takes awhile for the water to disappear.

Towns to the south have seen much worse: Seward is expected another 9" of rain over the next 24 hours, and Cordova could see another foot ... and that on the heels of the 12 to 18 inches they've already received.

Streams and rivers are out of their banks, and there have been some landslides in the mountain passes above Seward.

This is a very strange month, weather-wise. Meanwhile, there's fresh snow on the mountains every couple of days. While temps in Anchorage are moderate (low 40s at night, and mid-50s in daytime), the cooler air isn't far away. We've already seen overnight lows in the 20s, when the sky is clear.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, life goes on, and south-central Alaskans go to work ... as should I. But before I go, please read "Why are we even having this debate in America?" It sums up today's political scene as well as anything I've read.

Have a great day, friends, and thanks for stopping by.

Windstorm, The Sequel: Here it Comes Again

Forecasters tells us that we'll have more heavy rains and 25 to 45 mph winds this weekend. Hundreds (thousands?) of trees in the area are leaning at a 30-degree angle, due to the rain-softened soil and the 90 to 130 mph winds of a week ago.

The expectation is that many of those will fall when the winds hit us again on Saturday.

I know it could be worse - much worse - in the grand scheme of things; still, I look out the back windows & see a neighbor's tree that's just touching the side of our house. The branches were six to seven feet away, prior to last week.  Heck, the durned thing might fall over just from the rain we'll get.

Oh, well. It hasn't far to fall, and therefore won't have much momentum when it goes. I'm not concerned about structural damage, so ... it could be worse.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... City Hall has informed the Anchorage P.D. that many of its most recent academy graduates may be laid off, if the police union isn't willing to make concessions to allow the Assembly & Mayor to keep the rookie cops.

The Alaska State Troopers did ride to the rescue & address the newbies, saying they have openings to accommodate anyone who's laid-off here.  Employees facing layoffs don't often get a parachute like that.

* * * * *

It occurs to me that mornings would be better if they didn't arrive so early in the day.  I'll close with that bit of profundity.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Weekend: Fairbanks & North Pole, Alaska

(Some pictures in the previous post, here.)

We survived the drive to Fairbanks. The roads are very rough and bumpy in places, with many cracks, dips, and frost heaves. It can be exhausting to drive hundreds of miles on bad pavement, but roads in Alaska can be like that. At mile 72, give or take, there's an 11-mile construction zone where the roadway is being widened. No pavement there, but plenty of mud and potholes. While that wouldn't have been a big deal in my truck, we elected to take the car, opting for 28 mpg vs. 17. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, that was probably a mistake. We did okay, but the truck would have handled the load (four passengers, luggage, and shopping bounty) plus the roads (mud, dirt, gravel, and potholes galore) with greater aplomb.

The drive north was interrupted by two such zones, the northernmost being 18 miles in length. On Friday, the crews were working despite the rains, and we had to sit in queues awaiting our turn to be led by a pilot car through a zigzag obstacle course around pylons and excavating equipment. On Sunday's return trip, the zones were unmanned, and the dirt sections were "proceed as best you can, given the conditions".

Having not previously traveled more than 120 miles north of Anchorage, we all enjoyed the sights. The stretch through Denali National Park was really interesting, too, with deep gorges and mountain vistas somewhat different from those surrounding Anchorage. Mt. McKinley, alas, was shrouded in clouds on both days, so we didn't get any up-close-and-personal time with the continent's highest peak.

We did note that some of the valleys near the entrance to the national park were named in a fashion to discourage getting out of the car: Iceworm Gulch and Hornet Creek. Of course there were several Bear Creeks, and at least two Bison Creeks along the way. We also crossed the Upper and Lower Troublesome Creek valleys; I'm going to try to find out what's behind the name. That sort of thing interests me.

The drive of 365 miles took 6.25 hours.

Fairbanks reminds me of Anchorage back in the mid-'70s, before the oil boom. More frontiersy, and a bit more rustic. We found the people to be more polite, and in less of a hurry than those in Anchorage, too. Nice.

Dining out was a bit more pricey there, but we had some really good meals.

The heavy rains came on Saturday; having spent well over 45 years in the Midwest, I'm no stranger to gully-washers. The thunderstorms that blew through in the afternoon were as heavy as I've seen, with visibilities at one point down to less than 15 feet. It brought traffic to a standstill on the highway, and flooded local streets and intersections. I never realized I missed that (a little, anyway) until this weekend.

On Saturday morning, we drove to North Pole, a smallish town about 11 miles southeast of Fairbanks. We all laughed at the highway sign, announcing "South Hwy 2 to North Pole" ... you know you're too far north when you have to turn south to get to the North Pole ...

On Santa Claus Lane, all of the streetlights are striped like candy canes.

When visiting North Pole for the first time, everyone must visit the Santa Claus House (on Saint Nicholas Drive, of course). It's the place where, every year, dozens & dozens of volunteers hand-cancel Christmas cards which have been sent there, so that the cards go to their destinations postmarked "North Pole, Alaska". That's nice.



The ladies shopped ... and shopped ... and shopped some more. We arrived at 8:30 a.m., and didn't leave until noon. My wife decided it was a great place to find Christmas gifts, and got a kick out of the idea that we'd have 95% of our shopping done in July, for a change.

After looking around for an hour or so, I walked around outside, taking pictures of the building (lots of murals), the reindeer (what? surely you knew Santa's house would have reindeer) and generally enjoying being in one place. Seven hours in the car on Friday made me glad to sit still.

After lunch back in Fairbanks, we headed north to the El Dorado gold mine, a functioning mine which extracts three million in gold daily. It opens to the public at selected times for guided tours, including a narrated ride on an old train which goes through a permafrost tunnel, past old mining shed & sluices.

Part of the tour includes the opportunity to pan for one's own gold - and you get to keep whatever you find. Youngest daughter's sample produced $69 worth of flakes, which we split between two lockets so that each girl could have one.

It was on the way back from the mine that we ran into the heavy rains. Dinner was at a neat place called The Pump House, an interesting place with a tin roof and Victorian decor dating back to the Klondike gold rush. Another round of storms came through while we were eating, first causing the power to go off for a moment, and then the heavy rains hit & drowned out conversation for awhile.

It was worth it, all told, to drive up there & back ... but next time, I believe we'll fly. If for no other reason, it's a great time-saver: it only takes an hour to fly.

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Younger Daughter informs me that she took over 400 photos, so I'm anticipating a marathon review & editing session later today.