Welcome to Alaska, Family!

My family got into town two days ago, and it has been non-stop sight seeing since they got here.

I picked them up from the airport on Monday at about 8:45 pm. Right out of the gate, my dad got out his notebook and directed us to the first destination. On Day Family vacations, there is no waiting or resting. We go from one tourism spot to the other, not worrying about sleep or food, until we have seen all that we can.

From the airport we went to Ship Creek, a local favorite for salmon fishing. Even though it was almost 9:30, there were hundreds of people out trying to catch a fish or two. We watched them fish from a bridge that goes over the river. I thought this was pretty funny because my dad usually says that fishing is boring, but now he wanted to WATCH fishing. Maybe he has been watching OLN. Actually it was interesting because you could see the fish in the water and could watch the fishermans' attempts to catch them. There was one huge King (which you have to throw back right now) that kept getting caught multiple times. He was probably 2-3 ft long!

The next day I went to work to go visit the LNG plant down in the Cook Inlet. This plant takes natural gas, cools it to -556 deg F, and then ships it on large barges to Japan, where people use it to fry their eggs. If the Japanese eat fried eggs.... Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) boils at room temperature, so it is a pretty interesting thing to see.

That afternoon, I met back up with my parents to eat dinner. I took them to Moose's Tooth, which is the best pizza place I have ever been to. Although we had to wait for over an hour, it was good to sit and talk. Not to mention when we finally did eat, the Halibut Pizza was delicious. We didn't end up leaving until after 10 pm, so I went home and went to bed soon after.

This weekend, we are driving up to Denali to camp in the park and tour around until Sunday. Then, I am taking them to Seward so they can catch a cruise back to Seattle. Should be fun!

Hammerman Triathalon

This last weekend I did a tri! But, I'm lazy so I did it as a team. My friend Libby swam, I biked, and Megan ran. This was an xTerra tri, so instead of road biking and running, you have mountain biking and trail running, which makes it much more hardcore. The swimming leg is still swimming, they haven't found a way to make that out of water yet.

Libby swims for Colorado School of Mines, and totally rocked the swim. She is usually a sprinter, but made it out of the water near the front. She gave it her all, and was definitely delirious coming out of the water. I yelled for her to come tag up, and she stumbled over and tagged me.

I started running to the mount zone, where I could get on my bike. A this point, we were second in the team category from what I could tell. The biking was a hard course! Half of it is on cross-country ski trails and half is on pretty technical singletrack. I hadnt done a mountain bike race since last fall, so I was excited to see how I did. I got passed by a couple of really good bikers, one of which ended up winning the whole thing. I was wishing a had a full suspension bike because Anchorage singletrack has a lot of roots due to how shallow the root system of trees here is. I fell on some really quick and blind corners, but had a serious amount of fun on the trails! I finished the 13 mile courses in just over an hour, and tagged up with Megan.

Megan did well on the 4 mile trail run course, but there were some serious runners in our field. We ended up 6th (I think)! I was really pleased with our result and had a lot of fun doing it. If I move to Anchorage, I think I will have to get into Tri's even though my Texas Cycling buddies will make fun of me.......

I forgot my camera, so no pictures!

Blackstone Bay Kayak Trip

Last weekend I went another of one of the best trips that I have ever been on. I keep saying this on almost every trip that I have been on in Alaska. This one, I planned and invited all the interns to go for a two day kayaking trip to Prince William Sound out of Whittier, Alaska. The plan was to take a water taxi out to Blackstone Bay, paddle around and then camp, and then paddle back into Whittier on Sunday. Blackstone Bay is famous for its huge tidewater glaciers. Tidewater glaciers are glaciers that empty straight into the ocean. They are quite magnificent when the ice calves, or breaks off, into the water.

We were blessed with excellent weather, which is suprising in Prince William Sound because it is actually considered a rainforest because it rains so much there. It didn't rain on us and there were blue skies each day, which made the trip and paddling more agreeable. Kayaking is fun, except when the wind picks up and you are soaked due to rain.

I was worried about people being immature and trying to flip kayaks or accidentally falling in the water. This can be potentially dangerous, because the water is around 40 degrees. At that temperature, it would not take you very long to get hypothermia and die if you fell in, so you have to be carefull. We taught everybody what to do if they did flip, and told them about how serious it could be if they fell in, and I think this sobered them up. This did not stop us from having water fights with the bildge pumps!

Saturday night we had hot dogs and sat around the fire and talked until the sun set (probably 1:00 am?). The setting sun made the water look like a grey-blue glass. As we sat pondering how pretty the scenery was, I said, "You know, I think Alaska is where desktop wallpapers are born." Even though it was a nerdy comment, I think that comment definitely verbalized what everyone was thinking.

Sunday morning we got up around 8:00 and broke camp really quickly for a group of 14. We had oatmeal for breakfast and then got to paddling. We had 13 miles to go, which equates to around 5 hours. The weather was really warm on the water, probably close to 80 deg. I quickly stripped to shorts and a t-shirt. There was no wind, which made paddling easy, but the sun bouncing off the water and our kayaks made it pretty hot. People started to get a little cranky near the end of the day, but I understood because we were doing a lot of paddling. During the paddle we stopped multiple times to take strech breaks and eat food. On one beach the water was crystal clear, so four or five people, including myself, decided to go for a swim. The water was chilly, but it felt amazing after being hot all day. It felt great to have the sun on me after a long summer of pants and long t-shirts.


Adam called Sunday a sucker day. A lot of times, the weather in Alaska is terrible, and just when you're about fed up and ready to leave, mother nature will send you a beautiful day that will "sucker" you back in to Alaska. This whole summer has been full of sucker days.

Billy and Staphane. That cliff to the right of the picture is over 500 ft tall.

Yum Yum, glacier........

Wolverine Peak: Running Down Hills From Bears

Weather Forecast For Today: Smoke

After work, about 6:00 pm, I decided to go on a hike with one of my buddies, Josh, from work. We had originally planned to do about two hours of hiking and then gorge ourselves on pizza buffet. Halfway through, Josh decided he wanted us to be more adventurous and climb Wolverine Peak, and I grudgingly agreed. I had found a nice little "access trail" that the locals use that cut 30 minutes of driving time by using a different trailhead than the traditional one. The problem was that this trail was getting quite overgrown, which commonly happens when trails in Alaska aren't used. The trail was not so overgrown that you couldn't find your way though.

It was over 80 degrees, which is burning up in Anchorage, so after about 10 minutes of hiking, I was soaked with sweat. There is also lots of smoke in the air right now because of wildfires on the Kenai Peninsula. It wasn't so bad that I had trouble breathing, but you could definitely smell the burning campfire smell all around you. Evidently, they don't do much about wildfires here, so it will be like this until it eventually rains. Another consequence of the smoke is that it makes it extremely humid. More sweating.

Once we got out above the tree line (1hour) the scenery was quite good. As we got higher there seemed to be less smoke, but this could be me just being optimistic. It took us about 2 hours to get to the top. We took a short break and headed back down.

On the way back, we encountered two infamous things of Alaska hiking: bear poop and mosquitoes. The mostquitoes were out in force and could keep up with us if we just walked, so we decided to jog just fast enough so that they could not keep up. It was all downhill so it wasn't that bad. The bear poop was everywhere. With no bear spray, it would not be good to walk through some brush face to face with a grizzly. So as we ran down the trail, I would yell "HEY BEAR!" every couple of seconds so that the bears would hear us coming. They are actually pretty afraid of humans and will avoid us if they can. Because we ran the whole time, we got back pretty quickly. The 10 mile trail took us just over four hours, which is pretty quick, considering we climbed around 2500 vertical ft. Exhausted, I skipped the pizza buffet and went home. After talking to Ally, I microwaved some green peas and went to bed. I was tired.

Kachemak Bay Kayaking Part 2

On day three of the kayak adventure, we explored a different bay in another part of the park. It was more difficult that the day before because the wind was a bit stronger. The waves in most parts of the bay were about 2 ft tall. You can't kayak in more than about 4 ft without the danger of tipping over. Tipping over is very serious because of how fast you can get hypothermia. If you do tip over they advise you to try to get back on top of your kayak, head straight to shore and get out of your wet clothes, and make a fire.

Today was Fourth of July, and it was a beautiful Independence Day. In one area we went, there were tons of bald eagles, and I could not contain my amusement of how surreal it was to see bald eagles soaring overhead on July 4th. They are actually quite an annoying bird, and squawk in a tone that sounds like an old lady dying. Adam says it was their mating call. I guess they are into old ladies.....

We also saw some cool star fish. I got to touch one and I was surprised at how hard they are. They feel like rocks. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of them.

On the way back, we got a good taste of Alaska weekend traffic. Alaskans, for whatever reason, love campers/RVs. They take them everywhere, and tend to drive no more than 50 mph. The tourists on the other hand will only drive 40, so with the combination, you don't get anywhere fast. It was as bad as traffic in Austin! The good thing was is instead of staring at buildings, you are staring at huge mountains in every direction. I think all of Anchorage had been on the Kenai Peninsula for Fourth of July.

Our water source. Mark was brave and made the climb up the slippery slope.

Oyster Farm. The balls hold up trays that the things grow on. They were everywhere in this bay.

Crystal clear water! Not sure what the underwater shrub things were: some type of seaweed that was everywhere at low tide.

Kachemak Bay Kayaking Part 1

This was one of the best trips I have ever been on. The plan was to drive to Homer on Thursday, get a water taxi across the bay to Kachemak Bay State Park, kayak around Friday and Saturday, and then come back Sunday.

We arrived in Homer around 12:30pm on Thursday. Homer has a huge spit where all the boats are, and we cruised down to the dock to find the captain of our water taxi. When we got to his business hut, we were a little apprehensive about the quality of the kayaks. They were very small! Most of the sea kayaks are bigger and newer but these were old and in need of some repair. Because of this, we searched around for another outfitter that maybe had some kayaks to rent, but everyone was booked solid for Fourth of July. We ended up just biting the bullet and going with the original kayaks.

We figured we couldn't move around because not all our stuff would fit in the smaller kayaks, so we decided to camp on a beach and just kayak in different directions on Friday and Saturday. After we arrived, we set about finding a reliable water source, setting up camp, and exploring in the kayaks. We discovered that one of the kayaks had no working rudder! I decided to take this one and try my best to keep up with everyone else. It is very tiring without a rudder!

After exploring, I started a fire (one match style, baby!) and we sat around and talked and watched the sun start to set. Someone that was camping on the same beach came over excitedly and said they had seen on orca and wanted to know if we wanted to go and try to find it. Billy and I set out in the double kayak to find the orca. Unfortunately, we never found it, but we did see a big school of dolphins! It was really neat to hear them blow water out of their blow hole when they came up for air. It was really hard to get pictures of them because they would only come up to the surface for a second, and then stay under for minutes at a time. We watch the sun set from our kayaks.

The second day (Friday) we set out for Tutka Bay, which is a smaller bay off of Kachemak Bay. It was very pretty. I think the best part was this neat arch that we found that only had about 2.5 ft of space between the top and the water. We found that we could barely get the kayaks underneath if we leaned back really far, so we had fun taking turn going underneath. Along the way I got to see sea otters and porpoises just a few yards from our kayaks, as well as a lot of Bald Eagles overhead. We got back to camp after about 5 hours of paddling. I was completely shelled, so I layed out on the beach and to a long nap, and then woke up for a while to read a book. It was really nice just to relax and take time to get some good rest in. That night, we had another fire and ended up playing card games until about 2:00 am. It still wasn't dark.

I found it even harder to sleep while camping because you can't really black out the curtains in a tent. When I go camping, I usually go to bed when the sun goes down, and wake up when it comes up. In Alaska, I think I would get 2 hours of sleep doing this, so I had to quickly learn how to sleep in broad daylight.

Grilling Salmon over the fire. It was SO tasty!

Me in Tutka Bay. Picture still doesn't quite grasp the beauty.

Sunset while hunting for Orcas. This is now my wallpaper on my computer!

North Slope Trip Part Two

The second day we saw more operations from around the field.

The most exciting thing that we did was, of course, jump into the Arctic Ocean. This is called the polar bear jump. I couldn't ever tell if this is just something that the old guys that have been around forever make up to get a good laugh or if it was for real, but either way it was fun. And extremely cold. I could only stay in for about a minute before I started to shiver. I forgot my swim trunks in the room, so I went in my boxers. Afterwards we dried off really quickly, and stuck around to take a picture.

Another funny thing that I saw was the polar bear cages. Sometimes the polar bears wait in front of the doors, so they put up cages around the doors so that you could go outside, check to see if there are bears around, and then exit. Luckily, the polar bears are only around during the winter.... primarily.

That water in the back there with the ice? Yeah, we swam in that.

Caged animal! Stay back.....

North Slope Trip Day 1-2: June 28-29

June ended with a whirlwind of activities and obligations for me, and I am just now getting time to sit down and write them out. Since Sunday, June 28th, I have only been in Anchorage for one day, July 1st. Otherwise, I was either on the North Slope or kayaking and camping through Kachemak Bay State Park. I will write these posts as if I wrote them day of... or something like that. Whatever.

The powers that be at ConocoPhillips decided to organize a North Slope Trip for the interns so that we could get some hands on experience with the wells and operations that we are working with this summer. Even though I work in Anchorage, the actual field that I work with is on the other side of Alaska, or about a 2 hour plane ride. Dallas and St Louis are closer together than Anchorage and the Kuparuk feild. Our plane left Anchorage about 9:30 am headed for Deadhorse, AK. There is one road that goes into Deadhorse, but it is only an iceroad, therefore closed during the summer months. The show 'Ice Road Truckers,' takes place on this road. The whole community runs completely by itself. There is more to this than one might think: power generation, waste management, etc. This entire time, you are in a climate where during the summer the sun never sets, and during the winter it can get to -80 deg F.

Once we got to Deadhorse, we got on a bus to go to the Kuparuk Field, about 50 miles away. A good description of ConocoPhillips operation in Alaska can be found here. The Kuparuk field is a smaller version of Prudhoe, which is actually run by BP. Conoco runs Kuparuk. We arrived at CPF1, which is where all the workers for the Kuparuk field are housed. The place was much bigger than I expected. In my mind, I had imagined a bunch of trailer homes parked out in the tundra. This building was monstrous, housing hundreds of people. There are enclosed walkways to all the buildings for the winter months. When we got there, was a 'warm' 43 degrees with the sun on you. Needless to say, I was inside most of the time.

First thing on the agenda was lunch! We all filed into the Spark Room, which is a DIY cafeteria/ convenience store. They have make-your-own sandwiches, pre-made sandwiches, microwave dinners, leftovers from last night's hot meal, dairy products, FRUIT, donuts, etc. Best part is: it's all free! All you can eat, 24/7. I was amazed. Expecially because of the fruit. Fruit in Alaska is about 2 times more expensive than in Austin, and tastes 2 times as terrible. But the fruit on the slope is free, and delicious. I have no idea what kind of witchcraft they use to get perfectly ripe fruit up above the arctic circle, but it must be powerfull. At every meal, half of my meal was fruit.

Sunday afternoon was filled with tour the CPF1 facility. This is where all the oil from a section of the field collects, gets processed, and then is pumped down the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline (TAPS) to Valdez (pronounced Val-deez, people get mad if you say it different). The oil is then shipped to Seattle to be refined into gasoline. The facility was big and loud. I am always impressed at how big a 2800 hp engine is.

After the tour, we ate dinner, where I had prime rib and a baked potato with a large helping of mixed fruit. We had no plans after dinner, so I went and worked out in the gym, where I rode a stationary bike for 2 hrs, and then rowed a little. If it wasn't for sportcenter, I would have been bored riding a stationary bike, but I suppose it's better than nothing. I went to sleep by 10 pm, because I had to get up at 5:30 am the next morning. Can't wait for the free breakfast.

I slept better than I have since I got to Alaska because they had true black-out shades instead of the cloth I have hanging up in my room. The room was pitch-black, so I went straight to sleep. Only complaint I have was that my room was right across the hall from the raquetball court, which had someone in it 24 hrs a day.

On Monday, we toured around the field and saw the coiled-tubing rig. I was so excited to see this rig. It is all enclosed so drilling can continue during the winter, and uses the newest technologies. Pretty much, the thing drills new side-wells from existing wells, thus saving money and not disrupting more of the tundra. Les, a production engineer at CPF3, threw us an impromptu BBQ with hamburgers. I was beginning to like the North Slope.

Pictures are soon to come as soon as I have time to unpack.

I guess somebody really wanted that door closed......

Les grillin' some burgers.

Home Sweet Home!!