And Alaska Shall Cleanse the Lands

It's the end of September, the end of the summer season, and the end of times.   Denali has had enough of the throngs of tourists tromping around her.  There's fire in the sky, hurricane force winds whipping through the canyons and the rivers have broken their banks to wash the landscape clean.  

Armageddon is here!

First, the "termination powder" began it's march down the mountains in an attempt to frighten the uninitiated...

The Sandhill Cranes, being smarter than tourists, took this cue to head south.  They swirled through the sky, slowly gaining height and breaking off into smaller groups to get away from the impending arctic blast...

Still the tourists came in on buses and trains and planes.   

Then came the winds.   Insanely high winds rushed across the interior of Alaska for two days, with gusts of up to 70 mph.   Trees came crashing down into power lines all along the Parks Highway, shutting power off for a 250 mile stretch from Fairbanks down to Cantwell.   All the gas stations were shut down as the pumps had no power.  Travelers were stranded with no fuel, and no way to buy food, booze or trinkets as shops were shut up until the power returned.  

Once the tourists could gas up their vehicles and were satiated with some keychains and Coke Zero, they moved on pretty quickly.   However, the cruise ships continued to transport people up to the interior via train.   

So, next came the floods.   Heavy rain in southern Alaska caused the rivers to swell and push over their banks.   Train tracks outside of Talkeetna washed away, stranding tourists going both south and north on the rails.   Tourism will NOT be stopped however, and buses were brought up to cart the weary travelers north to Denali.  The floods continued for days, doing their best to flush out the new arrivals...

 Hopefully Denali has finished with her wrath, and can rest easy now in peace and winter solitude.   

What a summer.

Time for me to go close up the Park Mart for another season.   Let the snow fall!

Fall Has Fell

The first snow has powdered the south facing side of Mt. Healy, as seen from the Park Mart!   Winter is slowly making its self known.  We're done with any more "warm" days for the summer it would seem.   Sorry tourists.    Though, I really didn't hear too much complaining about the cold/wet Alaskan weather this year, as the rest of the country was having a record heatwave.  Come for the moose, stay for the rain!

The brilliant Alaska fall colors have made their last hurrah this week.  Fall is the most beautiful time in Denali, and also the briefest.   Before I could even really comprehend that the summer season was coming to an end, the aspens, willows and fireweed pretty much went dormant or died.   Luckily I was able to get out of work for a few hours and experience the most glorious time in Denali...

I didn't have to go far from my front door to see spectacular fall colors speckling my yard...

Now that I've lived in Alaska for a little over a year, I'm becoming more Alaskan every day.   Here I am throwing the "Alaska" sign next to my sweet new TRUCK!         

The moosemobile and I have had some good times together, she got me through my first winter up here after all, but it's time to retire her.  She'll make a fun car for some seasonal employee trying to get out of here for the winter, or maybe a fun summer car for next year.

Two and a half more weeks of work to go!

From Mew Gulls to Meow-Meows

Wow, another month gone by!   I wish I had all kinds of crazy stories to tell to fill the gaps of this blog.   However, really I've mostly just been stuck at work.  Most of my employees are heading back home for school, which means I'm back to working 90+ hours a week.    *sigh*  Gone are the easy days, where boredom lead to creativity in the stock room...

In the four summers that I've been working at the Park Mart in Denali, this is the first one that Mew Gulls have made a nest and attempted to raise chicks in our parking lot!   When we first spotted the babies, there were four of them running around the lot, peeping and almost getting run over by cars.   Their mom was VERY protective and would dive bomb the unsuspecting tourists that got too close to get a picture; and screech something awful when dogs or kids attempted contact with the chicks.   One night when I got off of work back in July, the mom gull was trying to herd up an errant chick for the night...

I found the chicks resting by the side of the Park Mart on my way to work one morning...

Before too long, we started only seeing two adolescent gulls hanging around. Why oh why would a Mew Gull have her babies in a busy parking lot??  The Mew Gulls usually make their nests on the small islands in the middle of rivers.   I 'spose cars and dogs are just as dangerous as foxes and the rising tides of the rivers.  The two siblings seemed right at home in the parking lot anyway...

No one at the Park Mart has seen them in weeks... I like to think they flew away to greener and wilder parts.

In other animal news... CATS!   Outside!  Both Hadley and Ernie have been enjoying the warm summer weather... sans leash!   Of course there will always be a worried mother inside of me knowing they're out in the cruel world, however it's totally worth it to see them frolicking in the tall grass and rolling around in the dirt...

Hadley had a little scare with a neighborhood dog and ended up a tree one day...

Before I could even enlist the help of the Panguingue Fire Department, she was back down all by herself:)

After a particularly long day at work, I turned down Antares to head home.   What should I see on the side of the road!?!!?   Moose!   Babies!  Any bad memories from the day past are instantly erased...

Today was my last off of work (hence the time to blog) for probably the rest of the summer.   I drove down the old cemetery road to take a hike.   I stopped at the cemetery for some moments of solitude that can only be shared with the deceased... 

Then I headed further down the bumpy dirt road to find a sweet hiking spot.   I encountered a newly married couple that had camped out for night and killed the battery in their car.   Luckily I had my jumper cables and was able to get them started again.   Any trip seems to turn into an adventure around here it seems!   They said their thank yous, and then I found an old ATV trail to start hiking down.   It was so amazing to just get back out into nature.   I swear, I spend so much time at work, sometimes I forget there's this whole other world right around me with beavers and caterpillars and just LIFE...

New beaver lodge

Old beaver lodge

So, now I'm back home and ready to relax and enjoy some of the sweet "fruits" of my labor... or schwag as the case may be...

Winter dreaming, on such a summer day...