Not Fooling

In which our Heroine experiences a Spring, of Sorts.

Travelogue: Alaska.

Dear nephews and nieces in Phoenix,

I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen snow before, so I thought I’d let you in on a little secret:  I have A LOT of it.  I’ve included some pictures below, so you can see what my outdoor life is like—at least in part. 

The last few weeks have been beautiful here in Alaska.  The cold snap is over for now, and it is a relief.  This winter was LONG.  It was the second snowiest winter ever recorded in Anchorage, actually.   But there’s still time for this year to make the number one spot—it is only April 1, after all.  Am I fooling around?  Not at all.  Here are some photos to prove it:

This is Eva helping me to dig out her play equipment on the back deck a few days ago.  The snow is deceptive—it was actually about 55 degrees in that sheltered and sunny part of my backyard that day.  So warm!!!  The problem with clearing off the deck is that the snow has to go somewhere, and my snow-throwing range is short, so… now we can’t get off the deck area anymore.  The snow is too high.

There’s so much melt-down going on that it sounds like it is constantly raining: (molto allegro and staccato: drip drip drip drip drip drip drip.)  Also, the snow on the roof is starting to slide down, so now we have 2 rows of icicles.  Pretty sure my crawl space will be flooding this year. 

A history of our winter shown here: In December we had 4 chinooks (warm winds from Japan that thaw stuff temporarily).  And then it got really cold and snowed and snowed.  I am used to waking in the middle of the night to the sound of GIGANTIC snow plows.  (Seriously, they’re like the stuff of little kid’s nightmares).  The snow gets plowed into the middle of the street, and then a GIANT snow blower shoots it all into dump trucks, which take it to one of a number of city snow dump spots.  If these snow mountains don’t melt this year, can we call them glaciers?  Dear nephew A, you should come to AK and get a summer job shoveling snow.  Ha Ha.

Present left by the neighborhood moose about an hour ago.  Because moose and sometimes black bears live in the suburbs too, apparently.

Oh, and by the way, I DO NOT LIVE OUT IN THE BUSH!  Here in Alaska, our little family lives in a normal townhouse (not an igloo).  We even own a TV.  However, we do use ice cleats on our boots on occasion, and popular outdoor activities here include snow-shoeing and skiing.  Spring-time holidays like St. Patrick’s and Easter are a little funny since there’s still snow everywhere.  And Jon has been known to wield a pick axe/ice-chipper come springtime to dig off the 6 inches of ice build-up on our driveway.  Sometimes, when we back out of our garage, the car slides into the road and people swear at us.  Oh, and we DO NOT live in the dark for 6 whole months of the year.  In fact, tonight the sun will go down around 8:50 pm.  Ah… life in Alaska, so misunderstood, but also kind of funny.