Taking a closer look at God's gifts...



Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Typical Day in Alaska? You Decide...

Ever wonder what a typical day in Alaska looks like? Let me share my yesterday with you. True story. All of it.

Here's Mr. Grouchy Pants giving us a dirty look just for
disturbing his meal and invading his territory. 
I started off at the DMV. Hear any warning bells? But they were friendly folks, the line was short, and I should’ve been in and out of there in five minutes. All I wanted to do was renew my vehicle registration and since I now live as a senior (yuck) in Alaska, it was free. So far, so good. But someone made a considerable goof on my initial registration when they entered 2006, rather than 2014, as the model year. Why they didn’t catch it in Tennessee is a mystery, but they didn’t. I didn’t either. But Eagle-Eyed Lady at the Alaska DMV did. Now I have to call someone at the Tennessee DMV to find out how to get that corrected. Of course that means I’ll have to get up at O-Dark-Thirty to do it since most offices in the lower 48 are closed by the time I remember I’m supposed to do business with one of them. But that’s my fault, not theirs.

I decided to leave that for another time, and we embarked on the next portion of our day. A friend of ours, Cody, owns one of those ATVs with a roof over it. It’s still open on the sides and back and has tires bigger that some semis I’ve seen. I sat in the front with Cody, who is a delightful woman, a teacher-by-trade who is also experienced in most outdoor activities. My daughter, Darice, and granddaughter, Molly, sat on a bench seat behind us. That meant Darice, who is almost six feet tall, could see over the roof, but had to make sure she didn’t knock her teeth out when we hit a bump, which was every 2.5 seconds.

And when I say bump, I don’t mean a little indentation in the road. No, this was a mountain trail—a primitive one, at that—with dips as deep as some of the boulders alongside the road. A long time ago, someone probably came up with the idea of digging them out and placing them beside the trail to give ATVs something to fall into and then bounce against. Just for grins, I guess. I must say it’s been a resounding success. We traversed eleven miles into the Chugach Mountains. Eleven miles one way with bumps every 2.5 seconds. And mud puddles. Tree branches. Curves. Steep inclines. And more dust than I’ve eaten in the past fifty years.

But all that amounted to nothing compared to what we saw along the way. The trail followed the shore of a blue glacial lake that glimmered and shimmered in the sunlight. We stopped at one point and walked to the lake’s edge. Molly tossed the biggest rocks she could find into the water, while I picked up half the Chugach Mountain range for my rock collection and stood around like a country hick who’d just been driven to the big city. You could’ve driven the ATV into my mouth. I was enthralled.

Later we stopped at a raging river that splashed its way down the mountain from an unknown source (glacial, though) and flowed over and around huge rocks to the lake below. I couldn’t help but wonder how many thousands of years that same water sat suspended in a glacier before being released to slip and slide, skip and splash joyously down the mountainside to the lake below. I took dozens, no, hundreds of pictures. We continued through the deep forest on one side and the lake on the other until we headed straight into the woods. The trail at some points wasn’t more than three feet wide. We barely fit. All around us, mountains soared overhead, some so high the clouds ringed the peaks that poked far into the blue, blue sky. Some were clothed in green with grasses and pine and birch trees, while others stood naked with only massive boulders, gigantic rock faces, and jutting cliffs as stark adornment. We passed a waterfall that began its plunge to earth so high up on the mountainside that it wouldn’t fit in my camera’s frame. I had to take three shots to get it all. We reached the edge of a glacier, but were leery of traveling on foot with a 5-year-old to get to its base. Even from our perspective, though, it was spectacular.

Wildlife is widespread in the park, and we were on constant alert, particularly when we left the ATV and hiked. Both my daughter and Cody were armed with guns, so we knew we were protected. Still, running into a bear on the trail is never a good idea. We were lucky. No bears in sight. That’s partly due to our telling Molly to make noise, an ability she excels in. While we walked, she yelled, “Here, bearie bear! Here bear, bear, bear!” at the top of her lungs. Luckily, we encountered no highly-trained bears, so none of them came running straight to us to grab themselves some lunch.

Finally we headed back the direction we came. The sights were just as spectacular on the back side as they were the first time around. We bounced around for about eight miles with nothing but scenery all around us. Occasionally we’d meet another ATV, move over, and wave to its occupants. I sat, jostling around in my seat, with my jaw hanging open at the splendor laid out before us and praising God continually for His creativity. I gave up trying to find wildlife. The ATV was noisier than a fighter jet, so any bear who didn’t run away was either deaf, dead, or not scared of mere humans and their noisy transportation methods.

And then it happened. Darice yelled over the din of the motor, “There’s a bear!” It was about ten feet into the woods and occupied with eating something. It obviously wasn’t dead, so it was either deaf or not scared of us because the noise we were making had no effect on it. Now everyone knows you don’t mess with a bear. Period. And never, ever if it’s eating. We’re smart, knowledgeable, intrepid ATVers, so we did the smartest thing we were capable of doing. We turned around and drove back to get a closer look at it. After all, ten feet away from a ravenous black bear is just so far away. (Turns out we’re not all that capable. Or smart.)

Sure enough, it was a bear. A big black one. And sure enough he was eating something with great relish, probably grubs or maybe ants since he was digging. I’m not up on bear delicacies, but whatever it was, he was really into it. While he chowed down, we took pictures and generally o-o-ohed and ah-h-ed our seasoned adventurer hearts out. Until, that is, he looked up at us and gave us the stink eye. When Mr. Bear took a step toward us, Cody threw the ATV in reverse and we bumped backward down the road—bump, bump, jar, jiggle, jiggle, thump, bump—until we could turn around, then warned some other folks who were taking a break from their vehicles that they might want to carefully watch the left side of the road, and headed back to the truck and home.

So last night after washing off enough dust to build our own trail and eating supper, we fell into bed around 8:00 p.m. Even Molly was exhausted. I, on the other hand, spent a good share of my time in the bathroom suffering from a chronic digestive issue. I wondered briefly if an unsuccessful visit to the DMV, traveling twenty-two miles in an ATV bouncing around like a pin ball from the teeth-rattling, bone-jarring bumps, eating six pounds of dust, hiking over rugged terrain, and encountering a grumpy bear might have played a role in my stomach upset. Naw.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, but was just a mere four hours later, I fell into bed, exhausted, sore, and ready to put this typical Alaskan day to rest. As I drifted off to sleep my thoughts centered around my aching muscles, the miserable hours I'd just spent in the bathroom, the beauty we’d experienced, the close call we had with the bear, and the fact that I was more than ready to shut down my body and brain and call it a day. Besides, what more could possibly happen to make this day more exciting? Nothing, right? Wrong.


For it was at that moment that the earthquakes--two of them--struck.  

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

The Wild Rose of Summer

It's summertime in Alaska, and while that's true of most of the northern hemisphere, up here summer is a great ...big ... deal. At least it is to me.

 A wild Alaska rose blooms alongside a river as a beautiful
example of God's provision.
Alaska's winters come early and stay late. The aftermath of all that snow is not a pretty sight, as it melts in big piles of slushy mush and dirt. They don't use salt up here to get rid of snow; instead they use sand or another sand-like substance. It's probably better on our car bodies, but it wreaks havoc with the roads when it's no longer needed. Once the snow is gone, the trash is visible, and once that's gone, we're left with great gobs of dirt on the roads and sidewalks. Eventually, crews are able to clean the streets and roads, but not before the wind picks it up and dust devils run amok.

But once all that winter detritus is gone, the greenery of springtime and the beauty of Alaska's flowering trees and bushes reign supreme. Yes, the season is short, but it's also magnificent. Seeing the glories of God's creation, even for the short time they're available to us, is at once humbling and joyous. He didn't have to give us the variety of flowers, birds, butterflies, trees, plants, and every other conceivable facet of nature He provided for our pleasure and nourishment, but He did. Walk deep into the woods and you'll find wildflowers that perhaps one person will see before it dies, but He placed it there for someone's (and He knew who it would be) pleasure. Nature is a constant reminder of our Father's loving kindness and utterly phenomenal, unmatched creativity.

Just as He created the universe and all its mysteries for our enjoyment and exploration, He also provided the tiniest of pleasures for those who are willing to take the time to look around. Beauty surrounds us at every turn. It's up to us to find it (just open our eyes), appreciate it (breathe a prayer of thanksgiving), and acknowledge that He did all this for us (tell the world). It's that simple.

See you along the trail...