Anchorage, AK

It was a long day of traveling (12+ hours), but I’m finally here. Alaska is beautiful! It’s the perfect temperature all the time. We met a fantastic waitress at our first restaurant, which also has incredible pizza!

First thing was getting all the equipment and all our stuff to where we’re staying. It’s a cabin feel in the front and a garage in the back. It’s the Alaskan mullet, in building form. Our fridge is stocked. And is now overflowing with two enormous boxes of pizza. Everyone’s eyes were bigger than their stomachs from traveling all day. But now we have leftovers!

This is going to be quite a journey, learning experience, and a ton of fun. I don’t feel out of my comfort zone yet, but I know that I will soon. That’s half the reason I wanted to do this trip. Similar to Australia I’ll be in situations I’ve never been in before and are completely new to me, but that’s what will make it the most fun.

Our crew for filming, climbing, and living together is just awesome and I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to dive into this new experience with. As far as I know this is all new to all of us, save for a few activities. But those will have to wait.

Tomorrow will be a nice recovery day for us, but we’re jumping right in on safety when climbing, hiking, moving as a team, and many other situations too. Already feeling less overwhelmed than I did getting off the plane. I had been telecommuting into class in DC while I was in Wisconsin and felt a little separated from the group, but not anymore! We're gonna have a blast!

Time to finally get to bed. It’s 2:30 am in Wisconsin and 11:30 pm here in Anchorage. Funny thing is: here it’s still light out. The sun is almost fully set, but with a range of mountains near us it couldn’t get any better!

Arrivederci!

SFS: Trip to the Mountains

I have spent the past four days at a place called the Marae. It was incredibly awesome! I'm not the most outdoorsy person per se, but I really enjoyed my time here. We all got to see what life was like on a farm and experience the life of a Maori family.

One of the greatest things was how accepting they were of all of us. They brought us into their lives, shared their culture, food, and home with us and we tried to do the same thing back. All 19 of us students stayed in one long hall, guys on one side and girls on the other. We weren't allowed to wear our shoes in this room because it was a sacred house where their ancestors were acknowledged and respected. We couldn't have anything but water in this room and all food was not allowed.

There wasn't hot water always readily available and the first night I took an ice cold shower. The reason being that I and a few others went on a short run that first night there. While running we saw shooting stars, the milky way, and the southern cross (again). Not only that, but we spotted an owl sitting in a tree and just took in the silence and darkness around us. It was awesome!

That first night was the latest any of us stayed awake, mostly just talking and hanging out until about midnight. Then we tried to go to sleep, but as was repeated every night, laughing fits befell a few of us and I ended up in tears from laughing so hard. Nothing was really funny, but when one of us started to laugh others would join in and it would become an endless cycle.

The first day we were there we got to witness a cool dog training program. This training is used for hunting dogs so they don't go after kiwi (another flightless bird). This dog aversion training was very interesting to watch because it only took one shock on an electric collar to get the dog to avoid the dead kiwi. Also, dogs who had been trained over two years ago, still had an aversion to kiwi and their smell and would stay away from them. Fantastic!

Following the kiwi experience from the first day, we all had the opportunity to go out into the mountains at night and listen for kiwi in the woods. This was fun even though it was pretty chilly. We went out about a fifteen minute roller coaster drive and sat on the road and just listened. Again, it was pitch black and absolutely silent. My group of six heard five kiwi over the course of two hours. We heard many possums and a few owls as well. And being out in the woods and having a clear night, we got to see a lot of shooting stars and many different constellations as well.

Yesterday was fun despite the rain and cold. We hiked through the mountains for about four hours in the rain and mud and had a barbecue up in the mountains at another cabin. While hiking around we got to see many of the sacred sites around where we were staying and it was very interesting to see it all. From there we walked back to the Marae to eat our Hangi (spelling may be off). This is a traditional pit-cooking style and boy was it delicious.

Two days before we took this hike the "man of the house" Aaron shot a wild boar that was on his land. That boar ended up being our dinner last night and it was great! A Hangi works like almost any pit style cooking. It's a hole in the ground that you have hot rocks in, which will cook your food. You put your food in a metal basket and lower it into the pit after wrapping it in layers and layers of burlap and a white sheet. Cover it all up with dirt and leave it there for three to four hours. Come back and you've got a fantastic meal, piping hot.

My favorite thing about being at the Marae has to have been the kids. There were four kids who would be around sporadically throughout the weekend and they loved to play. Three brothers, ages 7, 4, and 2 (I think) were the most fun. We practiced rugby, ran around, and just acted like kids. I loved it all. When we left today the women both told me that the boys would miss messing around with me and would tell them thanks and goodbye for me. All of us in the group have an open invitation now to go back to the Marae sometime in the future and visit everyone there and as of now, we're all trying to think of a good time to have an SFS reunion back at the Marae. Maybe it'll happen soon, but I think it'll be sometime in the distant future.

Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't, but I know that staying there with this family (both SFS and Maori) was an experience I'll never forget.