After some rain

Ballaine Lake at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. The weather finally cleared up after about 3 days of gloominess. It was nice to see some blue skies and sunshine again.

Fairbanks has been a little chilly and rainy as of late. The last few days the high temperatures were only in the 50's. This afternoon the clouds cleared up, the Sun peaked out, the sky turned blue and I went for a walk back on the campus trails. The mosquitoes were bad, but the trails were fairly nice anyway. At least until you get to the classic interior water-bogs. There were a lot of dragonflies and the trails were mostly grassy, different from what I am used to. Most of the trails are winter trails, so they are only really passable in the winter or with good tall boots.

During the rain I have been working on my website and science blog. If you haven't seen it yet you should check it out: www.everythingphysics.com. It still needs a lot of work, but I've made a lot of progress on it.

Here are a few more pictures from today:
Everything is turning magnificent green and the trees just grow right out of it.
Caught him while shooting some flowers back on the UAF trail system. The wing structure is so freaking cool.
Sun comes out after the rain and sends some light through the water drops on the blue bells.

Finally A Break

The fireweed is starting to bloom in the backyard.
When I posted a picture on flickr a couple of weeks ago my friend Jason said, "Finally new stuff. I thought you got eaten or something." It was just a result of the non-stop work Kate and I had to do for science camp. I can't believe how tough a job that was. Kids wearing me down all day long. Then I have to spend half the night getting ready for the next day or out camping with the kids trying to wear them down so that we can get some sleep during the sunny night. It's kind of hard to sleep in a tent during the midnight Sun, but it's even harder with 20-30 kids.

I said to Kate last night, "you know, it's the last night of the weekend, but you know what . . . It doesn't matter."

That's right, we have no more science camp next week. In fact, we have almost nothing to do next week at all! I look forward to relaxing and taking more pictures of the Alaska greenery.

Oh yeah, we have a big spider living in our front door.


Our new friend wrapping up mosquitoes in the front door.

Murphy Dome: Wildflowers and Wildfires

Kate and I went for a walk on Murphy Dome yesterday. The temps in Fairbanks hit the mid-high 70's, but up in the hills it was a comfortable 64. The winds were calm which meant the mosquitoes were bad. We did find a few spots that were completely mosquito free, making them really nice places to sit and enjoy the place we were in.

Out in the open the bugs were scarce while the scenery was not.
The Hastings fire was still burning north of the Chatanika River. There were at least three plumes of smoke that we could see. Last I heard there were nearly 1000 firefighters working on it and it had burnt over 23,000 acres.

Click to see the large version. This is the northern panorama from Murphy Dome with some smoke still rising from the Hastings fire.
The wildflowers are really starting to bloom up here now. The other day I realized that our entire yard is filled with fireweed and now are really excited for that to bloom. Here are some more wildflower pictures from Murphy Dome.

I believe this is frigid arnica, Arnica frigida.
Arctic Sandwort, Minuartia arctica
I do not know what this is. It was the only one of its kind that we saw. Anyone?

Taking some time to breathe

Kate and I have one more week of science camp. The last three weeks have been 80-90 hour weeks for both of us and we are finally in a place where we don't have to spend the whole weekend working. So, I'm sitting at the school uploading a few pictures I took last week while waiting for Kate to shower so that we can go to the Farmer's Market then go for a walk on Murphy Dome. The Midnight Sun Festival is this weekend so we'll spend some time at that too.

I think I'm getting used to the light at night. I don't like it, but I'm getting used to it. It longer feels as weird to walk outside at 2 am to be surrounded by bright light. Also it's less weird to watch the sunset almost an hour after midnight.

There hasn't been much time to take pictures, but I did drive out to Chena Lakes on Thursday to drop some blankets off for Kate since it was her camping night. I stopped at the flood control project to take some pictures because it was a gorgeous day.

Why there is so little sleep

I took a picture of our street last night at 1 am. That's one o'clock in the morning, just about half an hour after sunset, and about 2 hours before sunrise.



Kate and I have completed our first week of science camp. It was awesome, but completely exhausting. We just worked about 80 hours over the week and now we have to be ready to start it all again tomorrow. It's an incredibly rewarding experience. I actually had 4th and 5th graders tell me they would rather hear me lecture than do activities.

It's been really hard to find time to go online to post pictures, blogs or even check e-mail, I'm still playing catch-up, so if I don't respond to you right away on facebook or e-mail please don't be offended.

Hayes Creek residents urged to leave as Hastings Fire nears

This thing is getting crazy. We could see the smoke plume from college road yesterday afternoon. The Newsminer is reporting that it has burned more than 12,000 acres already and some nearby residents are being asked to leave.

Hayes Creek residents urged to leave as Hastings Fire nears: "Updated 11:50 p.m.
FAIRBANKS — Residents of Hayes Creek Subdivision were advised to leave Monday as firefighters prepared to initiate a burnout procedure on the Hastings Fire.
A burnout, often..."

Lightning Causing New Wildfires

The smoke was really bad yesterday. I hoped that it would drive off the mosquitoes a bit, but it didn't. The closest one to us is the Hastings fire, about 15 miles from where we live. When the winds shifted to the south it started filling up the town. Locals tell us that the smoke wasn't too bad compared to how bad it can get. Yikes! This morning on the radio I heard that the Hastings fire is up to 5400 acres. The Newsminer reported last that it has about 334 firefighters working on it including firefighters from Washington, Oregon, California, and probably other states too. Thanks!

Lightning Causing New Wildfires