3/7/2010

We took a drive out to Willow today to see the Iditarod "re-start".  They have the ceremonial start of the race in downtown Anchorage on Saturday and then they have the official start of the race on Sunday about 70 miles north of Anchorage in Willow.  It is called the re-start.

The ceremonial start in Anchorage is cool to see, but it is really crowded and it is almost impossible to get a spot where you can actually see the teams take off.  Also, the ceremonial start means nothing.  Seeing the re-start in Willow is a much better way to experience the race because you can get right up to the trail and see the teams take off from the starting line and race across the lake up into the woods on their way to Nome.

We had a great time.  The weather was beautiful.  It was cold ... about 18 or 19, but there was bright sunshine and no wind.  We even had the baby out there bundled up inside of Rhonda's coat.

Check out the pictures here.

3/9/2010

Funny story .... When we first got here, we would get so excited to see a moose.  And, wow, did we see a lot of them.  We would tell friends and co-workers when we would see them.  "Hey, we saw a moose on our road today!"  Whenever we told anyone that we saw a moose, we would just get these blank stares and people would just say something like, "yeah .. .you will see a lot of them up here."

Well I was talking to someone else the other day who recently moved here.  He said, "I saw a moose at the intersection of Tudor Rd and Lake Otis Parkway today."  That is a pretty major intersection.  I did not really even think about it, but I gave him the same blank stare that people used to give me and I said, "yeah .. you will see a lot of them up here."

Don't get me wrong, we still get excited to see moose around town and in our yard, but it was just funny to find myself not really reacting to someone telling me that they saw a moose.

3/14/2010

On Friday, March 12th, I saw a bald eagle in a tree in the front yard.  Eagles are not so rare up here, but seeing one right there in my front yard was pretty incredible.  As I was videoing the eagle, a second eagle flew into the same tree!  I had two bald eagles sitting in a tree no more than 40 feet away from me!

I then realized that the first eagle had captured a snowshoe rabbit and he was eating the rabbit right there in the tree.  This is what drew the second eagle.  It was pretty incredible.  I could actually hear the eagle breaking the bones of the rabbit with his beak!

Obviously, I took some pictures.  Check them out here.

I also took some video.  When I uploaded the video, I lost a lot of quality, but I am going to upload a better quality version in a couple of days.  Check out what is there now.