Little Black Guidebook

You would think that Alaskans would care about the Winter Olympics given that we have ample weather for practicing these sports. In fact, most of us couldn’t care less. I am easily addicted to the Olympics though. I love the personal stories and pomp and circumstance. I spent the Beijing Olympics huddled near my TV for two precious weeks of summer watching people go back and forth in a pool. Man what a waste. I missed out on actually doing something for two weeks because I was watching the Olympics. This year, no more!

I have been invited twice to curling watch parties where die-hard fans huddled around a screen with a Canadian cable channel playing as you apparently  can’t trust American networks to provide equal coverage to non-US (and probably better) teams. I didn’t go, as strangely tempting as it was.

Instead what have we Alaskans been doing over the last two weeks?

Carving Ice in the World Ice Art Championships, or in my case, going to look at the finished results.

With our long winters we have to keep busy indoors to so we have an active arts community. Last weekend we had a world famous cellist Zuill Bailey in town for one of our Symphony productions. This weekend we’re off to see The Tempest at the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre. I myself am back in piano lessons and loving the use of my right-brain again.

Alaska isn’t exactly on the triathlon or Iron Man circuits so instead we’ve invented our own alternatives. Arctic Man and Iron Dog respectively. Iron Dog is the world’s longest snow machine race and Arctic Man is one of the World’s Toughest Downhill Ski races, and an exciting snowmobile race, all in one. The skier begins at a summit elevation of 5,800 feet and drops 1,700 feet in less than two mile to the bottom of a narrow canyon where he meets up with his snowmobiling partner to finish the race. Attending the starts and finishes of both races is a communal craziness. (13,000 fellow adrenaline junkies make Summit Lake the 3rd largest city in Alaska for a weekend every year.)

If you think that is crazy and wonder whether the winter has frozen our brains, there are even crazier Alaskans who participate in the traditional “Chatanika Days Outhouse Race”. Each March five-person teams race a one-mile course, with four pushing and one riding in the specially built “racing outhouses”.

For those who prefer more sane or scenic pursuits there are also the traditional winter sports: snow shoeing, skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, going to the hot springs and Aurora watching.

So what could you be doing this winter weekend instead of vegging out to the Olympic commentary?

Panels of Hawaiian History – Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii

Pearl Harbor Memorial – Honolulu, Hawaii

We walked downstairs to the lobby and got in a van driven by a local surfer-boy. He rolled-down the windows and turned on the radio for the short 1 hour drive East from Waikiki beach. We drove-up through the mountains and the radio died as we popped into a tunnel and sat in silence for a few moments before popping out on the other-side to a view of the ocean meeting the mountains.

The small town of Kailua on Oahu’s East Coast is full of surfers like our van driver. In the summer the windy coastline allows them to kite-surf and in the winter the increased waves on the North-shore drive the scuba divers to the East side of the island in search of wrecks and whales. That morning our surfer-boy was taking us on a sea kayaking tour to look for Honu (Green Sea Turtles) and other marine animals in beautiful Kailua Bay while visiting the Mokulua islands.

Because of the time of year, the economy or maybe just sheer luck our group tour included just the two of us and our guide. There was another group with another company on the water that morning with 20 something kayaks to one guide. They had to go at the pace of the slowest kayakers and we quickly outpaced them, tacking on a trip to Popoia Island, a dedicated sea bird sanctuary on the way out to the Mokulaa Islands.

Once we reached the Mokulaa Islands and finished our lunch our guide turned to us and said, “Ok, now its time to jump off a cliff.” Now if you knew me personally you would know the fear that struck into the bottom of my heart. Falling and heights are some of my worst fears. But I’m trying to make life an adventure so I let him guide us on a hike around the island, climbing hand over hand along volcanic rock and barely clinging on at times. We reached a little cove with a rocky-ledge and sat down to take a break. The ledge was too high up for me to imagine jumping from so I sat there watching the waves and resting up for the hike to my inevitable jump. I’m sure you can imagine what happened next. We stood up to keep hiking and our guide asked: “Are you ready to jump?” “Say what?, huh?” I turned to my husband and said: “You first.” Without blinking he went for it, taking away my excuses, so I jumped.

Back on the beach we threw on our snorkels and found some sea turtles to watch. Even if you don’t feel like jumping off of a cliff you should stop baking on Waikiki and see more of this amazing island. If you want to hang with the same amazing surfer dudes that we did you should look up Hawaiian Water Sports.

All prices include life-vests, paddles, snorkel, seats, backrests, dry-bags, lunch, and transportation to and from your Waikiki hotel. $99 4 Hour Group Tour if you book online, about $30 more each if you book in person. If you’ve had experience kayaking before you can rent out a double kayak without a guide for just $39 a day + $10/day for a snorkel set. For us, that was a little too much adventure for our first time sea-kayaking, but we would definitely try a rental if we did it again.

Uploaded by mrtwism

If you look at the tagline for this blog you’ll see that it is about making life an adventure. To me making life an adventure means that I do things that are sometimes outside my comfort zone. In Hawaii this meant trying scuba.

I swam in high school and snorkeled before, but had never tried scuba. I didn’t want a big group class, but I didn’t want to spend too much either. I ended up finding a structural engineer on sabbatical who is a professional scuba diver and under-water photographer in his new-found free-time. He teaches through Deep Ecology on the North Shore of Hawaii.

Deep Ecology is a full-service, five-star PADI Dive Center and a National Geographic recognized dive center, located on Oahu’s famous North Shore in historic Haleiwa. In addition to the classes they give they participate in environmental activism activities such as turtle rescues, ghost net recoveries and the creation of the North Shore’s first marine sanctuary.

Our intro to scuba class was held at Shark’s Cove on the North Shore. (so named because of the shape of the rock formations in the caves not because of the number of sharks) There were a bunch of other classes out there that day, but most of them were groups of 6-8 whereas ours cost no more and was just the two of us and the instructor. Also, they were all out of the water before us and didn’t go as far away from the shore. Since we weren’t held back by whoever was the least comfortable in our class we got to progress a lot further in our class, learning a few extra skills including confined diving in a lava cave with sea turtles.

After our class we chatted with our instructor about life on the North Shore, being an engineer in Hawaii and got a lunch recommendation. If you’re ever on the North Shore of Oahu with a hankering for Mexican look up Chollos Authentic Mexican. They have the best nachos and margaritas. I would drive the hour from Waikiki just for their nachos. Hubby loved their mojito as well.

I will admit I freaked out a little bit before getting used to it. But looking back it was one of the most amazing things I’ve done in a long time. We saw so much wildlife and a totally different view of our world. If we get another chance to go back to Hawaii we’ll definitely try and do our Open Water dive certification in 3 days.

Cost $109.00 for 1/2 day of scuba. $20 for lunch.

Hawaii Packing List by lisetiffner

I can’t post our itinerary here ahead of the trip because hubby reads the blog. The first three days will be just us, then we have an Army Family Programs event and then he has his Army commander’s conference. He’s so stressed about the Army part that he doesn’t have time to think about the vacation part so I am surprising him and planning everything. We leave tomorrow night and I am super excited. Right now in Alaska the leaves are yellow and the temp is in the 60s so it will be nice to warm up.

I felt slightly guilty for going to Chicago and not posting anything about here. Since it is my third trip there I didn’t feel the need to take another day off of work to see the city so I just bugged in and out over a three day weekend. However, I don’t want to leave you empty handed. Here is a Matador network post on Chicago on a Budget and I will add the following. Staying downtown can be pricey. If you’re going for a short trip you’ll be going to and from downtown in a cab or on the “L” at least once to stay downtown. Instead I would suggest staying at the airport, taking the “L” downtown and seeing your sights and then taking the “L” back. If you’re only going to do this once roundtrip then you’ll save time as you already would have had one roundtrip just getting to your downtown hotel. Even if your event is downtown you can take the train downtown, go to your meeting or whatever, do your sight-seeing and return. Sleeping by the airport is also pretty convenient for early flights as you can’t depend on Chicago traffic if you’re in a cab and the “L” can be a pain the morning, especially with baggage. Waking up, checking out and walking straight to your gate after getting your boarding pass in the lobby couldn’t be easier. It really makes Chicago so much less of a hassle.

Any locals have some tips? I have always found Chicago to be difficult to budget travel.

Sorry for the general lack of posting in the last week. I got back from a quick 3 day trip to Chicago (not really worth posting about because I spent the entire trip in the Airport hotel) and then flung myself into work before going out on a work trip. This was my first time visiting an Alaskan village and I wish I had more time to explore. My biggest experience was with village travel and small planes.

Left FAI (Fairbanks) for ANC (Anchorage) the night before, slept in ANC for a few hours and then flew to BET (Bethel) at 7am in a 737 which was half full of cargo. Then was put on a 4 man Cessna charter and flew at about 500 ft. out to MOU (Mountain Village) which took about an hour. It was like a flight-seeing tour over a completely alien landscape. I fly over Alaska all the time, but the view is different when you’re above the clouds in a 737 than it is when you can see the moose a couple of hundred feet below you. The flight out was freezing cold as the door barely closed and the window leaked air through a couple inch gap. I plugged some of the holes in the plane with napkins so that I wasn’t being sprayed with water that was running through the gap in the window and that helped a bit. Pretty miserable, but got great views. Unfortunately my camera was in my bag below the plane so I was taking photos with my camera phone. The N95 takes pretty good photos, but I would still have preferred by camera. I about lost it out the door when I dropped it during some turbulence, but rescued it just in time.

I was boots on the ground from 11am until 3:45pm when it was time to go meet the plane. Now if you’ve only flown commercial flights in and out of major cities you need to reset your mental picture of this. Basically 3 trucks with people who were on the outgoing flight pull up to this big gravel pad a little ways outside the village. There are some lights stuck in the ground and a windsock, no terminal, no staff, nothing. Eventually one of the other trucks pull up and say they just spoke to the airline on their radio (from their car) and that the plane is delayed by an hour (or so) so we continue sitting there. Eventually everyone gets out of their trucks and starts talking, a few people walk off to the side of the gravel pad an pick some wild blueberries for snack food on the plane. Nobody stresses, because really there isn’t anything you can do about it. Eventually someone hears something and we all go quiet. You can hear a motor coming and eventually someone spots the plane. When it lands and the passengers get out, we realize its full of all the teachers who are coming back to work at the village school. Talk about packing light, they have to live for a school year out of a duffle bag, no rollybags in sight and no, there won’t be any other bags coming on future flights. At $1.35/pound, you learn to condense your needs into as little luggage as possible.

This plane is huge compared to the one I came in on, it holds all of 8 people and is a slightly larger Cessna. Still no oxygen masks or boarding passes, but hey the doors actually seal. The only thing they ask before boarding is “How much do you weight?” This time I have my camera, but the flight is higher off of the ground since the plane is larger. Midflight the pilot turns around and yells back that our connection from BET back to ANC is still good as they are delayed an hour there as well. Nobody stresses. My biggest concern on this flight is that since we are at a slightly higher altitude we are basically flying through, not above, not below the clouds the whole time. And since its such a small plane, I see what the pilots are seeing, which is not much besides white puffy clouds. Good thing they have instruments. The air is also choppier since we are going through the clouds, blech. Eventually the heater kicks on and my jaw stops chattering and we arrive safe and sound in BET.

BET feels far more civilized after leaving MOU. It has a counter and boarding passes and everything. Well the computer can’t print my boarding pass so nobody worries about it. Again I’m asked my weight and we all board another plane, this time it probably held almost 20 people and felt enormous. The altitude went up again to just above the clouds and the ride was smooth enough that I got a few winks on the flight. Having been up since 5 am and on my 4th flight of the day I was wiped. ANC to FAI was uneventful and I look back on the whole day as a pretty unique experience. Life is just different in the village. It isn’t rude to stare, everybody knows everybody, mot people are related and half of the construction crew had the same last name. They were genuinely friendly and would strike up a conversation without reserve. I was offered more food than I could ever eat and genuinely felt welcome to be there. I wish the trip could have been longer so I could have seen more of the village than the project.

A few lessons learned:

1. Be friendly, it pays in having a richer experience
2. Be flexible, you can’t control the weather/flights
3. You’re on village time now, the bush has its own pace, speak more slowly and learn to listen
4. Nothing stays clean for long, be prepared for mud
5. If you need it, bring it with you, be prepared to stay longer than you planned if the weather doesn’t cooperate and pack accordingly
6. Bring cash, if you do need anything don’t expect either an ATM or credit being accepted

   

   Our baby plane

   

   Beautiful changing colors

   
   

   

   The pilot’s view

   

   Leaving Mountain Village, what a beautiful airport