Howdy y'alls.

Long time, no post, we know. We know.

We moved - twice - and here are some pics of our new place! If you want the address, just email us, but I think I have spammed our new address to any of you who might need it.

So, walking up to our house, you might see this: a pretty nice (but small) deck

With a Prongles trying to escape out the door...

We live in a Tri-Plex, our landlords are in the unit next to us.

Mr. Prongles stares longingly outside...

This is our kitchen! It's kind of dated, but the appliances are new enough.

Dining Room - table still needs to be refinished, but we bought 4 new chairs (with birthday money from Grammy!) to reupholster as well. Note Anna's Stained Glass artwork and the bird kite Wendy brought me back from Tibet

Better picture of our table, newly reupholstered chairs, and chairs that still need some work.

Anna's stained glass piece she made and gave to me!

Downstairs bathroom has a large storage space for some inexplicable reason.Downstairs Bathroom

Living Room/ Dining Room complete with wood burning fireplace. Huzzah!Picture of fireplace - it's going to be great this winter!

Living Room: now with a NEW 40" 1080 flat screen TV. Yeah, we spoil ourselves.

Mr Prongles on our WIDE stairwell.

Computer Room (Rick is vacuuming our computers):Computer Room Closet

Computer Room has a lot of bookshelves... (even though I took these pictures days ago, we haven't gotten around to putting away any of these books)

The Upstairs Bathroom (with a Washer/Dryer not pictured off to the left):

Spare Bedroom

...has turned into a camping gear room!

Master Bedroom is big!

Our furniture looks dwarfed!

We had our first game night in the new place. Pictured is Hilary, Ryan, and Rick

We played Settlers of Catan

Lesly, Chris, Paul, Hilary, and Ryan

Lesly shows off her poker face.

We're having an awesome time in our new place...

So, here's some random photos from Ghana that we think are particularly interesting or representative of things that are uniquely Ghanaian. Enjoy!

Kyle & Meg need some Hilarious Services, including faxing and photocopies.

How many people need a ride into town? If you think this is a 5-passenger car, you are so wrong.

This high school has a coat of arms, including U and E (for Upper East).

This boy saw me taking photos and wanted his picture taken, so I obliged.

Things are often written on the back of taxis (much like we would have bumper stickers). Still One Love carried Caroline & Grant back to Techiman. Awwww.

Click to see a bigger view, but this man has "Thinking of you/ at a time like this" written across him.

Piping system being put in Techiman. Compare the size of the concrete pipes to the woman carrying a basket! There were huge ditches these were being put into and we had to jump over them to cross the street.

This taxi driver also saw me taking photos and wanted a picture. Sure! Why not?

Sodom and Gomorrah is a slum in Accra, the capital of Ghana, that is the "home" to tens of thousands of homeless Ghanaians. Water and electricity had thus far been connected to some of the hovels, but they got disconnected while we were there. What's a city to do? Homelessness is a problem all over.

The Blood Of Jesus Cosmetics. Mmmmm. Lots of stores have religious themed names, and calling it "blood of jesus" is like protective covering for the store. You know, the blood of jesus cleanses you and purifies you.

How many doors does this taxi have? Count again.

BARACK OBAMA FLAG!!!!! These sell for 1 Ghana Cedi (about 80 cents). We have one, now!

Obama pen. Barack visited Ghana back in July '09, so Ghana had Obama-rama for a long while.

From whom should you buy purified water? Only Skywalker makes delicious drinking water without any dark side.

One more post about Ghana. This is our trip to Mole National Park. We went on the PM nature walk. Most westerners will find the commendations at mole quite comfortable. However the ride getting there will not be.

A wonderful tree. Africa is a trove for trees.

That is an elephant foot print in the mud.

This was our nature guide, his name was PK, just like the gum. He was very knowledgeable about the park and its animals. Not sure what caliber his rifle was, I think it was mostly for show.

Sadly this was the most we saw of the elephants in Mole. I guess you have better chances at seeing them in the AM tour.

This is to defend against the baboons.

They have a pool. The greatest pool in the universe. It was actually really great to feel like a tourist and not care about how I dressed or acted in front of the Ghanaians. The pool was one of the highlights of the trip for me.

A couple of pasty white Alaskans.

Our guide informed us that these are called Pumba. Exactly like the movie. Us Americans in the group giggled.

Our trip getting to Mole was not easy. You get there by taking a bus (lorry) from Tamale. But when we arrived at the lorry station in Tamale we were informed that the bus was full for today even though we arrived at least 2 hours before it was going to leave. So we found a hotel close by and stayed the night in Tamale, and caught the morning bus to Mole. There is not much traffic going there because the road is very bad. Hazardous to most vehicles. I think we got up at 4am to catch that morning bus. And when you get to Mole there are 2 nature walks that happen every day or you can charter a walk. There is a Morning and evening walk. The sad part is these nature walks are not scheduled with the buses going in or out of Mole. In order to do the morning walk you would have to spend 2 nights there to do it. It was a bit scary being able to get so close to the baboons and warthogs. Your not really sure how they will re-act to you. Anyway it was a great time and we really enjoyed it.

Rick S.

Do you wonder what we ate in Ghana? Well, for Rick it was mostly bread, crackers, Laughing Cow "cheese product":, Fan Ice (bagged ice cream), and bananas, but here's some of the rest of what I ate.

This is both salad and a "club sandwich". Ahhh, Ghanaians.

Rick eats some DELICIOUS kenkey and red sauce. Kenkey is a fermented corn product. I know, it doesn't sound delicious. It is so much better.

One of my favorite Ghana-foods; egg sandwich, fried just the way you want it and served on delicious bread.

Rick eats plain bread and washes it down with Lemon Fanta.

Yams. See how big they are! There are two different kinds; I don't know which is which.

This is a strange spicy bread made of sugar, flour, and plantains. You might think it's good. It's not.

EGG SANDWICHES. I don't think you know how much I love this. Also, crepes. Darren's egg lady made crapes. mmmm.

Bananas and Peanut Brittle. So, so good.

French toast, Darren style. Bread soaked in eggs mixed with dried milk, sugar, more sugar, additional sugar, cinnamon, and sugar. Fry.

I... don't know. Rick got it. With fries.

My tomato pasta. It has meatballs. I gave them to Rick. It's spicy, not like italian seasonings, but like... pepe.

Cocaine Rice. Mmmmm.

Cappuccino chip ice cream. Expensive, at 1.2 GhC, but so worth it. Delicious, found only in gas stations. Gas stations are air conditioned. Double awesome.

Rick finds his favorite barbecue sauce, Buccaneer Blends in Ghana, for 5.8GhC. It's actually a good price!

Vegetarian ground nut soup (peanut butter soup) with agooshi balls (agooshi is a seed) with kontomire (spinach). Delicious. Rick wasn't so into it, but he's not really up for veggie things.

Pounding fufu, made from yams, cassava, and/or plantains. The guy pounds a large wooden pestle into the mortar while auntie turns the fufu. You pound one of the ingredients, then another so that they are equally as soft.

Lenore's site, cooking. Lenore's "small boy" helps her cook -- he's a great chef! I helped him do some minor chopping and other things, but he was in charge!

Mmmm stew (with fried egg) served with rice or yams. Served at Lenore's.

Rick is picky. Sometimes it came down to cream crackers and laughing cow cheese.

Rick's "cheeseburger" -- he ordered the large plate, but his patty was still less than two inches in diameter. The cheese? Laughing cow. This is what happens when Ghanaians make American food.

SOYA KEBABS!!!! Oh, lord. They are so good. Tofu chunks in spices and then fried or thrown over some coals (I don't know which). Layered with onion. So, so good. Did I mention how good they are? 10 pesewa each, cheap, too!

Groundnut soup with rice balls. Traditional style.

Vicky tries to kill an orange.

Vicky makes homemade pesto. So, so good. She grew her own basil and mixed it with oil, garlic, pepe, rosemary, and ground peanuts. Mmmm.

Vicky makes us tomato soup and grilled cheese. From scratch.

Ice cream in Bolgatanga w/ Toby. Cute!

Toby eats groundnut and veggie soup with goat meat and fufu. He says he likes goat meat best of all.

Dizzy cuts an orange. She's, like, 7.

Vicky eats pizza. She loves it. :D

My curry with saffron rice.

Peanut brittle cookie.

MORE EGG SANDWICHES and tea.

I'll take a page out of Rick's book -- less talkie, more photos.Palm trees planted near Darren's site for Palm nut production.

School building and landscaping at Darren's JSS.

Darren's road.

Waterfall near Caroline's school.

Caroline & waterfall

Bridge over swamp to go to market.

Cows at Lenore's

Palm tree grove at Lenore's

Vicky's most gorgeous site.

Vicky and I walking in the bush.

Big sky country.

You know you've always wanted to.

Baobab tree.

Baobab.

Krista in a tree.

While we were in Ghana we went to a town called Adanwomase, about an hour north of Kumasi. They make Kente there; it is a traditional woven cloth worn for special occasions. As its handmade it is also very costly.

A Peace Corps Volunteer, Jeremy, is stationed at Adanwomase and his friend Seth gave us the tour around. Although Jeremy himself wasn't there, Seth was a great tour guide.

We were showed where people buy thread. The white and black dyed cotton is local, the rest of the cotton is imported from China, there's also polyester and shiny threads.

Rick measures out lengths of thread for kente.

Traditional weaves. The Kente setup is hard to work with and describe. In order to change the patterns, the white threads (hanging perpendicularly to the weave itself) are pulled via the orange threads. The white threads are tied to the background threads (the long skein that you just saw being made in the previous photo). A kente weaver must tie the individual threads to the background threads in a precise order in order to get the design to come out right. He also has foot petals to pull to change something else. Not quite sure. He then runs the secondary color (or more, as in following photos) in between the background color. Anyway, it's a process. I bet half of that explanation is wrong. Enjoy some photos:

The weave below requires additional individual threads to be woven in (like the blue threads in the upper left corner).

See how long the skein is!?

Rick and Seth, at Adanwomase.

Adanwomase was a town for tourists. Nobody would hassle you or call out "Obruni!" (White man!) Below is a... trashcan! This is the only town (maybe besides Accra) where I saw trash cans.

Rick might have more to add, but that's my post for now. Questions?!

Hey, we know we've been slacking on posts from Ghana. Cut us some slack! What with Krista still trying to find a job and the holiday season, we've been feeling pretty rushed. So, without further ado, here is Post 1 of Ghana.

Rick looks tired and I am so excited to be in Ghana. We hadn't really slept in 36 hours.

We went to Darren's - about 4 hours away from Accra.

Ghana scoring. Slightly different from the US.

Darren's home. Note the garage.

Ghana, a 3 cat country. Also, look at the kitten's eyes. It has eyeliner!

Roadside.

Plastic goods store.

Rick and I ride in a Tro.

We then went to visit Caroline. She wanted to get a dress repaired at the tailor's.

Caroline took us to her market town. It's a huge local market!

We were then shown by her co-worker to a local waterfall. Caroline w/ local kids when we are underneath the falls.

Rick and Caroline's co-worker underneath the falls.

Local women.

Man who is making me tire shoes. They cost GHc 2 (about 1.50) per pair. I bought one for myself and one for Caroline. She got flip flops ("Charlies") and I got the strappy sandals.

The school buys yams to cook in bulk. This will work for one meal for the student population - you can't see the rest of the pile on the ground, but it fills the back of the trunk plus three additional seats in the back of the bus.

Rick with our freshly laundered clothes.

Cocaine Rice. Great stand name. Caroline and Grant buy breakfast.

Rick and I drink sugar-soda. Delicious. Fanta in the US doesn't taste good atallll.

Grant and Caroline prefer the boxed wine. Mmmm.

We then went to visit Lenore's site. She had grown yams in her garden and sent one of her smallboys to pick some up. We had boiled yams and the boys ate rice.Lenore's school that she teaches at, a JSS (Junior high). She says that the students share these desks 3 to a seat.

Rick and I hang out at Lenore's.

When I asked what Lenore's friend was cooking, she said "Water". Silly me!

Since we traveled with only carry-ons, we did laundry quite a bit during our trip. Here we are in Bolgatanga!We hung out with Toby in Bolga, these are his hairdresser friends. They love him and want him to bring more American men by. Had Rick not been married, they would have jumped all over him. :)

After Bolga and Toby, we went to visit Vicky at her site -- about 3 hours from Bolga. Her site is the most gorgeous place I have ever been. More in an upcoming post. Oh, my gosh...

This is Dizzy, one of Vicky's neighbors. She is one of the only girls her age with a weave. Most go to public schools where the only appropriate way to wear your hair is shaved. Dizzy attends a private school.

Rick and I hang out in Vicky's summer hut. It was hot, but cool under the hut.

Vicky and I do some girl talk.

Our last stop (after a grueling all day bus ride from Tamale to Accra (What, about 15 hours?)) was Accra to meet up with Meg and Kyle. We went out to an indian place together. Ok, I lied, the bus ride wasn't that grueling. We rode in air conditioned style, one seat for each of us, with two stops along the way. No bathrooms in the bus, so you'd better hold it. The last two hours or so was the approach to Accra (population: 1.6 million, roughly the size of Philadelphia -- the 5th largest city in the US), which was ridiculously slow. Highways? Hah! We don't need no stinkin' highways.

More into detail in the coming posts...

We bought a Christmas tree. And here we are putting it up...

We had thanksgiving with Chris and his mom.

My half awesome beard a couple days prior to thanksgiving.

Enough butter to satisfy paula deen.

Oh my goodness we are slackers. Partly due to laziness and partly due to a lot of things going on with us we have neglected to update this thing since we returned from our African vacation. We still have yet to go through those pictures so a post will come later about Africa, Keep an eye out for it.

So last week I went to an Alaskan Village for work. It was just a job walk to see how it was progressing. I brought my camera and snapped these up. Enjoy!

This was the man camp. This building is much bigger than the picture lets on. There are 2 apartments each with 3 rooms, a full kitchen, dining area, living area, and laundry room. They are actually quite nice and comfortable.

This is the rear of the school. Taken from the steps of the previous picture.

The frozen steppe...

The school will be partially wind powered. Since it's all open plains out there the wind is merciless.

Half of the village of Kongiganak.

The other half of the village as I await my plane to go back to Anchorage.

This was not my plane. I will wait for the next one, if it comes....

The school taken from the air strip.

This guy pulled up as the plane landed. Pretty awesome tracks. They probably cost more than the rest of it.

A photo right after take off.

It only takes the small planes like a couple hundred feet to get air borne, they get air borne at about 60mph! I did not dress appropriately for the arctic conditions and got sick a day or 2 later. I an search of the white bunny boots here in town. Something that is required when I return in January or February.

Rick S.

Krista's first pan! It looks great.

This one is a little late. About the 1st weekend of September we drove up to Hatcher's Pass and there is an abandoned gold mine that you can walk around along with trails in the area. A lot of people have told me how great it is up there and we finally got the chance to go up there. Here are the pictures. If you haven't noticed yet, I like to put the photo caption below the photo I'm talking about, while Krista puts the caption above the picture.

We arrived a little before lunch time so we ate first. This was a graham cracker moment.

The road we just traveled, from the parking lot.

Apparently the person who owned / struck this claim discovered gold about three quarters the way up this mountain. Insane!

Various buildings of the mine, engineering house, cafeteria, apartment house, store / post office, and more. The place is kind of like a museum, you can only go into a couple of the buildings. The rest are locked up. probably not safe to enter.

We were able to go into this building, I think it was the appraisers building. that might not be the correct name but they assessed samples of gold for each day to see their progress.

Chipmunk Crusher: possibly the single greatest name for a piece of equipment.

No joke, the official name for this thing is Chipmunk Crusher. As it is marked on the device its self.

Vermont pride. These were the hosts of the park. Probably very similar to what we did in 2007.

We went on a trail that was close to the mine after we visited the mine. So here are those pictures. The trail head. It's not often we get photos that offer a scale so I like to include these when I can.

This is where we just came from. The trail is slightly to the right in this one.

The trail went up to 2 lakes in the mountains but we stopped at this peak. It had a great view that I don't think the lakes could have compared to.

You can't see it unless you click on this one to make it bigger, but there are people down on the trail. Very small. There were wild blue berries on this mountain, they were excellent.

Well that was it. It was great. I really liked Hatcher's Pass. Probably be our last hike without snow. Krista has some good pictures of this one, but I don't have access to them so, we'll post them later.

Rick S.

Rick & I hiked the Primrose / Lost Lake trail system again. The first time, if you recall, was on my birthday in 2007 (turning 21 at the top of the world). We decided to go back later in the season so as not to run into any snow.

We got to the trail and to the credit of the National Parks Service it was newly brushed. (See the new mulch under Rick's feet?)

It was a mostly level hike, but had a few (like 4-5) really hard steep parts. You get really tired doing these.Note my new pack cover (orange). After our recent Seward trip where it rained ALL THE TIME I decided to buy new gear that was actually waterproof. Last trip = wet, unhappy krista. This trip = no rain. Even though the weather forecast showed rain, we didn't get a drop. We were so lucky!

A view of the Kenai Lake from halfway up our hike.When we hit alpine about 5 miles in (or so???), the scenery got gorgeous. It opened up, there were some scarce trees, and to the right there was a large gulley with more mountains on the other side. Despite not having been a rainy summer, there was plenty of water to be had at the top of our hike.

I think I have a similar (old) picture of Rick hiking down where these stairs were hidden under the snow. Background right you can see Lost Lake.

Nice! I totally found the picture. Rick's not in the same position, but it's the same place. I know, you're telling yourself it's not the same. It is.

We crossed splinter bridge (Rick got a splinter from it) over the river that drains from Lost Lake and I went on a side journey while he was de-splintering his finger.

We camped at the "edge" of lost lake - maybe 300m away. Here's where the Lost Lake and Primrose Trails meet. Not many people actually go to the LL trailhead at the lake - they just hike by.

Rick and I hung out at the Lake's edge. I did a lot of reading. Rick skipped stones. We were pretty tired after an 8.4+ mile hike.

Later we hiked up this hillside. Amazing pictures to follow.

Relaxing.

We bought a new stove, because our old one was... good for some things and not for others. This new one folds up really nicely and the fuel is liquid fuel. It can run off of ANY liquid fuel (gas, kerosene, rocket fuel...)

Of course, our favorite meal: trail pizzas. (This time it's Krista's pizza - mushrooms).

Calm Lost Lake.

Funny story. The night we tented up there, we were hanging out playing cards in the tent and Rick goes out to pee. There's a plane flying nearby, we can hear a slight buzzing sound. He steps out the door unzips his fly. No more than 10 seconds later, Rick says "hey, he's flying right towards us. He's... he's going to do a flyby! Why is he flying directly over us?!"

This dude was like 100' off the ground, we could practically ID him and he comes around exactly when Rick has his pants partly unzipped. Stay classy, random pilot.

There were still a lot of fireweed plants when we went. Fields and fields of fireweed! It's so gorgeous. We tented in a field surrounded by it. We wake the next morning and eat some breakfast. We left all of our food gear at the lake's edge so we didn't have to worry about critters. We take a walk down the Lost Lake side of the path because we realize that in order to get back to our car we'll need to head back down the same way we came up. We weren't sure we'd be up for hitchiking.

Along the way to view Seward in the distance, we happen upon more moguls. These things are HUGE! Rick pretends he's in an army foxhole. Us in the morning light.

As we tried our new water system (the steripen!), I hear a HUGE cracking noise coming from the mountainside. I turn just in time to see a snow pile calving into the river. About 30 minutes later we go and check it out.

Right next to the snowpile there is a marmot trail leading up the mountainside. We contemplated making our way up it the day prior and decided it would be worth a shot. It was pretty steep, but really fun to climb. It reminded us of photos of European climbing where it was all alpine, totally green, the ideal. Here is a view of Lost Lake from the top of the first hill (there was a larger hill and then a mountain behind that. We could have climbed the second half of the hill in two or so hours if we had wanted - but the mountain... we wouldn't have summited in a day).

Look carefully and you can see our tent (view from the top of the hill)

Marmots were whistling ALL OVER up here. There were den openings littered all over. We heard and saw about 15 marmots as we were climbing. They got angry when we came near, so we tried to stay out of their way - as any respectful hiker will do.

Lost Lake views:

Coming down was 10x scarier than going up. You constantly feel as though you're going to fall. Here's Rick going down.

Me, scared

Gorgeous fields by the lake. We were just up to the rockface.

We then decided to pack up and go. Rick packs the tent.

A farewell view of LL as seen from the Primrose Trail. See the two spits of land that almost touch? Pretty cool.

There was PHENOMENAL blueberry picking on the way down the trail. We stopped more than 10 times to get handfuls of berries and also picked off a few as we were walking. This and other information lead to a very unsuccessful berry picking session about a week later (in a different location). However, they were so, so, so good!

We had an awesome trip!

We've been pretty lazy about posting lately. So here are some pictures from our Seward trip we took on July 18-20th. We decided to drive down and camp in town for the night because we weren't going to make the tide to hike out to Caines Head, which is where we were going. We were planning on spending a couple of nights out on the Alpine trail because it's really nice up there. But thing's didn't work out that way. It rained the whole time we were in Seward, and overcast so to make the best of it we camped at North beach, really on the Ranger Station's porch. The very same ranger station we lived in 2 summers ago. Funny story, we stopped by the Lowell office to pop in and see if anyone was around. We ended up chatting with the current volunteer there. She was very pleasant and also desires to move to alaska after volunteering here. Anyway, she offered us the key to the cabin for ol' time sakes. We turned it down, but learned that if someone offers you a key to a cabin, you should take it. On with the pictures....

We started to hike Mt Marathon, the hikers trail. Which is different than the runners trail. It will still hard, and fairly steep in places.

A nice view of Seward harbor. I'd say about 1/3rd the way up.

We got to a little ridge and I heard a noise in the woods about 50 yards away. and I saw this black face looking back at us. It was a bear. It wasn't on the trail, in fact it was to the left of the trail in some trees. He went back to the woods, we were making noise to spook him off. We tried to look and listen for him and it sounded like he was coming towards us, so we decided that it was time to decend the trail.

Hill side of mt Marathon.

Steepness...

Devils club can grow to ridiculously large sizes.

This part of the forrest is just littered with devils club.

This is our base camp at the Seward water front. Thats me preparing dinner.

This was dinner. An awesome pack pizza!

The morning low tide was for 5am. And the trail recommends you leave 2 hours prior to that time. We hit the trail about 5:30am. So needless to say by the end of the coastal part we had to run. The tide was coming in and lapping at our feet. It would be advised to start the 2 hours prior.

Like and old friend the dock was waiting for us when we came to the North beach.

This is quite possibly the largest bear box in the world. I could have slept in there. And if we saw a bear that day, I probably would have.

You'd never see a tree like this in Vermont. Every limb is covered with moss.

This is the obstacle we had to overcome on the return hike back to Seward. The low tide was 6:30pm ~2.7 ft. This was a small point which was sea weed covered rock. Very slippery, if you fell your in the ocean and its cold. We met a man from Paris who was backpacking all over Alaska for the summer. At first we tried to wait for the tide to go down a little further because it wasn't quite low tide yet. But it was clear that another 30 minutes wasn't going to give us enough to walk around this hazard. So I tested it out by going over it without any gear to see if it could be done. It wasn't fun but we made it around this thing. Don't hike the trail if it's over a 2ft tide.

We didn't take many pictures because it was poor weather and its nice not to take pictures sometimes because you remember events differently or not at all when taking pictures. We did hike the Alpine trail and had lunch up there. It was fantastic, they had just brushed the trail and it was grand. It was for the better that we didn't spend the night up there because there was no source of water up there. We would have been in a lot of trouble.

We crossed tonsina creek in sandals and man that was a mistake. that water was freezing! it was painful to walk in that water, and it was only at our shins. Krista did much better in the creek than I did. I'll bring the muck boots next time.

This trip didn't go quite as planned but we had a great time and met another couple hiking there which will hopefully evolve into a friendship. It brought a lot of great memories back staying out there. I wish we could have slept in the cabin and pretended we could stay there for the rest of the summer.

Rick S.

I went to deadhorse alaska for a business trip. And here are the pictures I took.

Note the large marshmallow tires.

The deadhorse airport in all of its glory.

Took this while driving. There are several trucks retro fitted with the tracks.

Snow cats for when the weather gets bad. Like the one from the shinning.

In side the job site. Mostly a large warehouse, like every other building in town.

Big machine.

These are passive cooling spires, It keeps the ground frozen so the building wont sink in the ground. The shot above is a close up. its like a big heat sink.

The general store and post office.

Each little building is an oil well.

This is where we slept.

Nice big freezer doors into the building. Pretty cool.

My view from the room.

My room. Not bad. Actually its pretty nice.

Thats about it it really. I might add more if I have more time.

Rick s.

Well, lo and behold I have broken almost every single piece of electronic equipment I have.

Since returning from Ghana in September (a mere 9 months ago), I have broken the following:

- my computer (unknown error)

-my Zune (charge port broken by cheap 3rd party charger)

-my battery charger (overheated somehow while charging batteries; warped the plastic; almost caught on fire)

-the LCD screen on my cell phone

-my camera (not dead yet, but often fails to open - even with newly charged batteries).

I have replaced my computer (by using Rick's old one - he was ecstatic to learn that he would have to buy a new one), my Zune (with an IPOD so that Rick and I have the same hardware), the LCD screen (fortunately a cheap repair at $17 having done all the work myself).

I guess I'm waiting on the battery charger, even though I know I'll need a new one soon, and the camera isn't quite dead yet, so I want to hold off.

Hope you guys are faring better than I am.

It's hard to get to sleep here in the summer. Although we have blinds that cover our windows well, the sunlight still streams in every hole it can find. I took these pics from the webcams at 9:10pm. The sun isn't anywhere close to setting.

Since the start of the hike, Krista was getting sick. Nothing too serious, a sore throat and sinus issues. And now I caught it, along with a sore ankle. We decided to end our trip a day early due to being in such rough shape.

I'm not having any luck googling the name of the tundra moguls but its what they look like.

One last look at the cabin before we leave.

The ranger told us to bring snowshoes. pfft what they do know....

The camera is actually resting on one of the tundra moguls.

Thats our way out.

And that's it. well not quite. there's more to tell.

I never got any pictures of the 2 Texans we met on our hike. We actually met them on the 1st day. they already had their tent set up at the camping ground that we wanted to end our day on. They were way more hardcore than us. They brought guns and killed squirrel and rabbits to eat on a fire they started from a magnesium bar. We ended up leaving camp the next day just as they woke up, so we had a good head start on them. We came up on the camp site for the 2nd night and guess who was there, setting up. The 2 Texans. It's a small world. I guess we made a good impression the 1st time because they didn't mind us camping there with them. Again we took off about the time they woke up and headed for our cabin. They eventually made it to the cabin, late in the afternoon, and set off to camp somewhere on the Devils Pass trail. We had a great night at the cabin, its so nice to not worry about wind while cooking. We set out after breakfast and found the Texans again just about to take off. So we all kind of hiked out together. It was kind of nice to meet them on the trail and talk to them. They were very friendly.

Death.

I should say that we did bring snowshoes but decided to leave them in the car when we got to the trail head. It didn't look that snowy.

There was a point on the Devils pass trail where I feared for my life, and Krista's. We had to cross a part of the trail that had snow on it, very deep. Probably snow from an avalanche. I say this because it was a slide from us to the bottom of the mountain. I could see the bottom, all ~2000 ft below. It was frightening. The snow was hard packed, and steep. We should have had poles and ice grippers. We found sticks and took it very slow. If you had started to go down, no one would ever see you again. We didn't get any pictures of it because we wanted to leave quickly after crossing it. It gave me the willies. I will not do this trail in late may again. I can wait for snow to melt next time. When do hikes in may / june we will have poles and ice grippers.

This is our day 3, when we arrived at the Devils Pass Cabin.

Reflection from the door window.

We went on a hike to the north Resurrection Trail. We saw no foot prints in the snow up there.

Out of the blue or bushes I should say, this moose popped out. And trotted past our cabin and continued on her way.

Here are some pictures of the inside of the cabin. The Kitchen.

The source of heat, uses kerosene.

The very spacious bunks. You could sleep 8 here. It would be tight but if you don't mind getting cozy with them, your set.

The table and benches.

Rarely do we remember to take pictures of us doing things while camping. Here Krista is serving tortellini for supper.

This is my Tortellini. We used 3 cheese tortellini, and pizza sauce, and I added real bacon bits. This meal was awesome, better than I eat at home.

We spent 4 days backpacking on the Resurrection Trail from Cooper's Landing and took that to the Devils Pass Cabin where we spent the night and eventually left on the Devils Pass Trail. Here are the photos of it:

My pictures start at Day 2: Morning.

This is Juneau Lake. Very Beautiful, The Romig Cabin is here and has a canoe for its occupants to explore the lake. We took it out for a test drive because no one was around. This is where I confirmed my place in a canoe, which is not in the rear.

Juneau Lake still. The trail wraps around it.

This is Swan lake. there is another cabin here, with a brand new row boat, and the old row boat too! which the people staying there let us use. We had crossed their path a couple times while on the trail and they are nice people. All those white specks are gnats. You really appreciate it when you click on the picture.

Again, covered in gnats. Click to see them.

Swan Lake Cabin.

Krista's Turn! We spent about an hour or so there tooling around in the boat, then we had lunch and took off for our camp site for the night.

That is the lake we just were on!

The valley we hiked through all day. In the far back you can see Juneau lake.

Rick and I went on our hiking trip this past week. Well, really ... a week ago. Not this past week.

In any case, we went down to the Ressurection Pass Trail. It is on the Kenai Penninsula and we drove about 2.5 hours to get there from Anchorage. It runs from Cooper Landing to Hope, but we did the lower portion (Cooper Landing to... halfway) stopping at the Devil's Creek trail and hiking out that. We stayed in the Devil's Creek Cabin one of the nights we were there. (It should have been two, but we both got sick - more on that later).

We have two great pictures that Chris (our roommate, who was nice enough to drive us to Cooper Landing) took of us. He suggested that if we died on the trip, they would be the pictures they would use in our tribute film (a la Into The Wild).

We're ready!

Rick & I, a nice photo:

We hiked for awhile, following the mountains at a very slight uphill route. Trail crews had done a wonderful job with everything except two parts during Day 2 (where large trees impeded travel).

Right before the first camping area (I think around 4 miles in), there was a gorgeous waterfall:

We stopped here to eat lunch and check it out. Rick's lunches were half bagel + cream cheese and a good portion of his "meat log". Mine were pb&j on a pita and dried fruit and (for the first day only) cut veggies.

The trail got pretty muddy right around there, so we opted to wear our newly bought gaiters. Rick models.

The first day we decided to stop around mile 8.5 or so. We got there in early afternoon (might have been around 2pm? 3?). We decided to do some wood collecting after setting up our tent to have a decent fire that night.

We had to refill our water. The river is freezing! However, we do have a great "new" (a year old that we had yet to use) gadget: a SteriPen. I made us pre-filters (as the commercially bought ones are pricey at $14) out of standard 3" dish drain strainers and a reusable coffee filter at about $3 each. I need to redesign so we don't really have to hold it on the bottle (I think it will involve buying us each a spare cap at $2 each and hot glueing a cut reusable coffee filter mesh into it).

Rick, using the steripen. Swirl that water! The SP uses UV rays to get rid of bacteria & viruses.

This is the camp toilet. I'm going to point out something TOTALLY DISGUSTING. As a male, Rick has no problem using this toilet. However, when I go to sit on the toilet seat (there's one not pictured under the wooden cover), and "go", the holes down at the bottom IMPEDE THE FLOW OF PEE FROM GOING DOWN INTO THE PIT AND INSTEAD RAIN IT DOWN ONTO YOUR FEET. This was discovered the first (and only) time I used this toilet. (Actually, that's a lie. I used it a second time using the "reverse squatting" method).

So, the first night is when we met the Texans. The Texans were super hardcore, but very, very nice. They were 22 & 29 year old guys who met at church and decided to have a fantastic journey to AK. The first night I was honestly a little wary, but by the time we met them for a second time, I knew they were alright. They brought guns to shoot game and cooked over open flame (although they did bring other food). They tended to be perpetually hungry, however (I guess normal 20-something year old men are). It was quite a pleasure to meet them, and although we didn't hike with them, we ended up at the same campsite both nights. We also ended up hiking out with them (and giving them a ride back to their car-- could you imagine trying to hitchhike being two 20 year old guys with guns?).

Without further ado, their kill (night one):

Rick did an awesome job of doing Days 2-4, so I'll just add snippets there, if necessary.

We miss you guys!

Love,

Krista (&Rick)

A cute picture of the Rock Band they all formed. Pictured is Rick, Chris (our roommate), his friend Hillary (with whom we have hung out with a fair bit), and his other friend whose name escapes me.

Chris actually did awesomely at this song on the mike.

Another date night means another fun activity. This time it was the Wildlife Reserve near Whittier. About an hour's drive from our house, the reserve is $10pp and you drive around and get out to look at the wildlife. Things like caribou, bison, moose, porcupine, black-tailed (sitka) deer, and both brown & black bears were there. The brown bears were my favorite, and for that, a movie.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rdMOAGBGDU]

Beware: just because you're in Alaska buying pictures from Alaskans of wildlife doesn't really mean that the person did a whole lot to capture the photos. Judging by their cameras (and the fact that they were alone), I would think these aren't photos to be passed among their family & friends. At only $10 apiece, this is a cheap way to get great "Alaska Wildlife" photos to sell to tourists.

Rick has way better pictures of the wildlife than I do, as he was sporting his nice camera, so I'm going to make him upload pix when he gets back.

Rick and I participated in Creek Cleanup day in Anchorage.

http://anchoragecreeks.org/pages/creekcleanup_about.php

Basically, you clean up the creeks for better salmon spawning and for the good of the health of other creatures. Trash removal, etc. We chose the location and just showed up. There was a volunteer there to tell us where to go and who gave us plastic gloves and trash bags.

Apparently, creek cleanup is synonymous with Homeless Eviction Day. We found one one-tent hobo camp and the couple that was working (their butts off!) next to us found 2 large (3-4+ tents) hobo camps. Although ours looked unkempt and abandoned, it had not been so for long. There were still things like shampoo and soap in the tent (which was in ill repair and ripped apart). Paperback novels, packs of gum and other food, and blankets. It felt really strange to tear apart somebody's home - even though it didn't look like they wanted to use it again.

Every year, dead bodies are found in the creek. Dead homeless folk. I believe two were found this year - one in our vicinity. In the past month, 6 homeless folk have been found dead (no foul play is suggested). It seems like a strange time of year to be dying - it's finally the lightest and brightest it's going to be all year.

There are some options for homeless in Anchorage and it's more common than you would think for such a cold climate. There is obviously a problem going on here.

On the cooler side of creek cleanup, we did get to see a moose up close & personal and there was a free BBQ afterward.

Moose pic (are you getting tired of these yet?) PS I swear this is a moose not a horse.

So, sometimes I go driving. Recently, I drove to Whittier (well, not quite there. The tunnel was blocked and there's really nothing good in Whittier anyway). But the drive is spectacular. Here are some pictures.

There's a glacier right near Whittier, so the river flowing from it has gorgeous blue-green glacial water.

Also, since we live in Alaska, here are some obligatory "gorgeous mountain" photos. This is the Kenai Peninsula.

Ok, so it's been a week. My version of soon, your version of soon: maybe they're different. I don't know. Rick's been gone for the past week (since Sunday) so I've been here alone. Monday I played kickball and Tuesday I got together with an (ex)coworker and a friend I met because I make his coffee & his girlfriend - a friend of the X-coworker. Yesterday and today I did nothing which was fantastic.

Having made friends here is fantastic. I'm still working on it, but it's much nicer to know that if I wanted to, I could see people. And they'd be like "yeah let's hang out".

Here's an old photo and a story to go along with it.

When we did the Bird Ridge trail (now a month ago!!! eep!!), we drove up the New Seward Highway back into town. While we were at the stoplight at 36th, 3 police cars RUSHED past us! Then, less than a minute later, 3 more! Wow! 6 police cars, sirens blaring. They looked like they didn't know where to go (should they turn or go straight??) We didn't think much of it.

As we turned down to get to our road, however, we see no fewer than NINE police cars, lights going, down our street, blocking the way to our house!!!! Holy crap!!!! I'm driving so I drive like 20mph down the street. We pass two cops with huge rifles. We see at least 2 more rifle-laden cops ahead.

Do I turn back? Do I keep going? I don't know?! We're so close to home! Literally 30 seconds and we'll be there. We roll down the windows to see if any cops that we pass will give us instructions. As we pass one in the car, he yells out the window, "Get out of the area!" I did a highly illegal turnaround right there and sped away to the library for an hour. We frantically dialed our roommate to make sure all the doors are locked and he's staying inside. Don't leave! When we came back the police cars were gone. What is going on?

Turns out there was a bank robber who got away (and hasn't been caught, to date, as far as I know!) down our street. Sweet.

Ok, that's it for this post. Short and sweet.

We got back from our backpacking trip down the Lower Resurrection Pass & through Devil's Pass yesterday, but we've both been battling a bad cold with lots of phlegm - so we'll have to update later.

We go back to work tomorrow (Thursday!) and Rick flies out for Seattle on Sunday evening for a week of training for work.

In the meantime, enjoy this picture of Rick.

Last weekend we did our first real hike of the year. We went to Bird Ridge (Click for trail map). It was great, but really hard. The trail is all uphill and quite steep. It would rank as strenuous. There was a cross country ski team who were running up this thing, as their workout in the off season. If you can run up this mountain, you are in peek physical condition. Needless to say we weren't keeping the same pace. In fact this trail showed us how out of shape we are. We didn't make it to the top or the false top. I'm not sure where we stopped but it was very steep and actually a little scary. If you fell or your bag fell you'd never see it again. Oh, I forgot, since it was our first hike of the year, we didn't know what to expect for the weather up there. So... we packed hoodies, gaiters, gloves, hats in case it was cold, windy, snowy. It was so hot we didn't need any of that stuff. there were people just in shorts. Enough with the talk, on to the pictures.The mountain across the bay from us. I don't know the name of it but its always right there when you drive on the Seward hwy.

This is a good shot that gives you an idea of just how steep it was.

The mud flats extend a long way from shore. Some day we'll go explore those too.

The edge, its a long way down. I think this is as far as we went. We were pretty tired and still had to get back to the car.

Taking a rest.

I love how many trees are down there.

The tree line ends here. I believe this is what alpine is.

Another break on the way down.

It's hard to think people run up this.

We are very small.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures, we enjoyed the hike.

Rick S.

We had a few really nice sunny days last week. And we went out on a walk in one of the parks that Karen suggested. Here are the pictures from that walk.

These are the mountains behind anchorage.A little closer look.We found this chair someone carved out of a stump.This picture would be great if I didn't mess it up. It was really bright out.This one is better.

This is the 'sleeping lady'. It's a mountain across the bay in anchorage. My self, looking awesome.This branch is growing into the fence. I think it's cool to find things like this.

On a terrible note, I accidentally re-sized all these pictures and overrode the originals.

Then on a good note... Stan recently mailed my guns from Vermont to Alaska, So I am really excited about having them again so I can go out shooting again. Krista and I have resurved a cabin in the Keni for a couple nights. Its the devils pass cabin that we visited in 2007. It will be our first over night hike of the season. We will be on the trail for 4-5 days. We'll have more time to explore and go at a slower pace to really enjoy our time. It's going to be great.

I'll be going to Washington for some work related training the first week of june. I'll be in Redmond for 5 days.

Thats about it. keep in touch.

Rick S.

So, recently we had to call 911. I was trying to dry our comforter in the dryer and ... there was a smoke smell. coming from the dryer. I was kind of upset becasue we had just bought this (faux down) comforter. On the cool side, there were firefighters that showed up.

Sorry for the bad image, but I wasn't sure if something was really burning or what. The response time was phenomenal, though. Like 10 minutes from when we first called, if that.

Anchorage FD!!! Go!!!!

Turns out nothing was wrong, nothing on fire. They thought it might be the belt that turns the drum of the dryer. We got (ermm our roommates bought) a new dryer, but also had to spend 12$ on drying our clothes at the laundrymat. (Where I beat Rick in all 3 of our games of Uno.)

The past few days we've been on a Katamari kick. (Like Rick was playing for the past hour that I've been blogging - 5 posts now.) Here is Karen, our roommate, playing Katamari:

(Note, it's not a wii. The controller doesn't turn the character on the screen. Your hands are doing nothing.)

Rolling up the world. The king of the cosmos says: "We asked you to fix that toy from mars!". She's near Chile, I believe.

We miss you guys!

Love,

Krista & Rick

So, I'm still in touch with some of the PCVs in Ghana. Sure, I read ALL of your blogs, but there's only a select few with whom I'm corresponding. Or to whom I've ever written. (If you'd like to be on this elite list and aren't, please send an email, postcard, or start us off with a letter and I will reply, post haste!)

So, here's my pictures of letters from Ghana. Yes. I do take pictures. Yes, I love them THAT much. So far, the winner for the most number of letters is Jack. His also have fantastic pictures inside. So, he's basically winning all over.

These are not the extent of pix of letters from people, just an interesting few.

LETTERS!!!

A pic from Jack. I see he's growing out his Osama Bin Laden (honestly, that's what our Ghanaian Trainers said!) beard again. Pictured with some 2nd year girls.

Letter from Jack (Addressed withheld due to privacy).

Jack's wax seal (his name, in picture form). I first thought he was weird when that's how he signed his name in Philadelphia when we all met up. (Come on, Jack, you WERE wearing a 3 piece suit at the time), but it's pretty awesome when you think about it.

From Serena. All of the stamps were because she sent me some AGOOSHI!!!! TO MAKE KONTOMIRE FROYE!!!!! Hooray!!!

I'd like to note that it only took about 7 days for it to get to me. I was quite impressed (also, thank you for spending like 2 days salary on me, Serena.) Well, that's an exaggeration - it only cost 1.80 Gc to send - or about 1/3 of a day's pay.

Generic 4000 stamp.

Commemerative 1994 Los Angeles Olympics stamp - 1 Cedi ( I assume they mean Ghana cedi, because 1 cedi is like 0.0001 dollars (0.01 CENTS). Less than one penny. 1/100th of a penny. Women's 400m.

Agooshi - a melon seed (I think??) ground up into a paste.

Was... was this legal to be shipped into the US? Oh gosh.

The resulting Kontomire Froye. Made with spinich instead of kontomire (like 50x larger than spinach leaves).

Essentially oil + onion + garlic + spice + spinach + more oil + agooshi mixed with water. It forms the little clumps you see in the dish. mmmm delicious. Not as good as when I was in Ghana, though.

The weirdest thing I have received is something that Rick sent me. They RTS (return to sender) any packages (but not letters, I believe) that are sent to Ghana in your name once you leave country.

The first is the whole package, the second is a picture of the sticker they affixed when they realized I wasn't going to be there. Somebody (peace corps? the government of Ghana?) paid 12 Gcedis to send it back to me. I appreciate it.

Inside were some 7 days (a favorite local newspaper of mine in VT), some not-not copied DVDs, and some hand sanitizer.

12.57 to send it back. Thanks!!!

Alright, I think 4 blog posts may be enough... Maybe just one more.

We went to the Bear Tooth Theaterpub. It shows old (either just out of theater or classic) movies for just $3 each. They also have tables in front of the seats for their delicious food that they serve right to you. Part of the way into the movie, out comes your pepperoni pizza (if you're Rick) or your delicious and huge burrito (if you're Krista). It's a really cool idea and they do really well. They also have an upper-scale dining room right next to it if you're into more of a 'sit down for really awesome food and fantastic atmosphere' type of thing.

We watched Soylent Green - which neither of us had seen before. Not an expected ending. :(

All in all, a fantastic time. Anyone who comes to Anchorage needs to try it out! It's on us.

So, Rick and I do these date night things. Every Tuesday, we go and do something as a couple (rollerskating, where I cut my eye up; going out to eat at various places that we're hopefully both into, going to the Anchorage natural history museum, going to the dinner& a movie theater) and back for our date night about a month ago, we went to "color me mine".

It's a chain pottery painting place where you can make many different creations. We went on a day where the "studio fee" (ie the fee you pay to just sit down in there and to have it fired for you) was $.01 (one penny) apiece. Thank you, Lincoln's birthday. It's normally $8 apiece. Jeez.

So we picked out some pretty reasonably priced mugs. They have all kinds of things there: bathroom soap & toothbrush containers, all types of plates, serving dishes, piggy banks, mugs, figurines, etc. Anything that can be made out of ceramic, is.

I did an anchorage themed mug and Rick did a "bubble" mug. He had to blow bubbles in paint for like 3 hours (well, not really), and then slowly mush them onto his mug. It was green. I say "was" because the first time that he washed it, he dropped it. We didn't even get a picture. Oh well, it was fun enough while we were doing it.

My mug:

So, for having internet access daily, we sure as heck haven't updated. We've been playing the "you update..." "No, YOU update!" game. Rick had pictures from our other trip to Kincaid (local Anchorage park) and Girdwood (Alyeska Resort, the second time), but he refused to put them up. He says I write better blogs. He just doesn't want to try. (He's currently downstairs watching or playing Katamari).

So, here's a blog without good pix because somebody is being lazy. Jerk.

We've been lazying around for the past few weekends (for shame!) partly because of a lack of good powdery snow and partly out of laziness. Last weekend we tried out a local cafe (Snow City) and it was fantastic. Good service, cool hippy-like people, and a great atmosphere. We went with Chris & Karen, our roommates.

Also recently, I've been trying to make friends. Like, actively trying. My coworker and I are starting to hang out (we've gone to Indian and also out for lunch one day and down to see the "fur rondy" events.) Fur rondy is like... a big anchorage-wide festival where people come out of their winter hovels and ... hang out. It's got some rides sometimes, it has snow sculptures, Native crafts, etc. By the way, native crafts are pretty cool, but not so great for those of us who are ... not into leather and whale bone.

Also, this guy I met from work (ermmm... he buys coffee from me) came over yesterday to hang out. We showed him Katamari and we had a marvelous time playing. Krista Friends Count: 2. Awesome.

I also need new book suggestions. I've enjoyed going to a local bookstore (Title Wave) for good, cheap books. Gently used ones for like $3. (I bought the Kite Runner - which I thought I had but can't find, Girl with a Pearl Earring, House of Sand and Fog, uhhh and two of Amy Tan's novels). I've also been scouring thrift stores for Stephen King, John Grisham, and any other books that look like they'd be worth the 50c. Some are, some... not so much. So... any suggestions you want to send my way? I chew through books. One every 2-3 workdays on the slow days, every 5-7 days when its faster. The library is my friend.

The volcano has... ERUPTED!!!! We didn't die. We didn't really get much ash-fall. The winds weren't really pointing our direction except for one Saturday... about two weeks ago. Then we got a small small small "wow that snow looks a little dirty" amount. You couldn't even really tell, but maybe this visual will help:

(Taken from a webcam during the ashfall).

ASH >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> NO ASH.

So, it still could (theoretically) keep erupting. Again, we're not worried. We're fine. Anchorage has been not hard hit at all. Everybody's going crazy (like when our roommates went to the store when it first erupted at 1am... the line was 30 people long for the SINGLE checkout) didn't really matter.

What else is new? Oh, some cool moose pix from awhile ago - this is right outside our apartment:

(Two separate times). When winter is rough, the moose like to eat the bark off of our trees. The first is 2/25, the second set is from 3/7.

2/25. Yeah, eat that tree.

K + Moose 4 ever.

3/7

Note how there's much less bark on the tree.

Ok, honestly, I think that's it for this post. I'm working on another, though. This thing can't go on for days.

With Love,

Krista (& Rick, I guess).

Rick and I have been out snowshoeing again.This week we tried to do Powerline Pass, but it is pretty long (miles and miles) and we ended up kind of wandering around there. However, we did run into some pretty sweet powder at the top of the mountain, so it was a lot of fun (& snowshoes required!).

A view of Anchorage from the aptly named (and far up!) "Powerline Pass".

Anchorage below: on powerline pass.

The sun is finally up! We are up to ALMOST 10 hours of daylight!!!

Rick's position after he took my picture. (See below)

My pic. I was facing the sun and don't have sunglasses (yet) - mine were lost somewhere in Ghana.

A neat pic of Rick's outline.

A view of the mountains from the parking lot.

So Rick & I and our roommates (Chris & Karen) had an awesome Valentine's Day dinner. We made ravioli with home-made sauce (Rick made!), toast, salad, and I made our dessert cake with lightning pink frosting. (We don't have two square pans, I was going to try to cut hearts out of them, but I gave up after realizing that one of the squares was thrown out ... it was rusty).

Rick cooking sauce.

Our roommates, Chris & Karen, and Rick. Sitting down to a delicious dinner.

This was the third picture. The first two don't show Rick smiling.

My awesome cake and the roaring fire.

We had 4 bottles of Sparkling Cider.

Rick and I.

Edit: Forgot the first time I was posting this: HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!! :D

Just a Mt. Redoubt update: NOTHING has happened! No cool explosions or anything. Sorry guys.

So, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) of Anchorage put on a Winter Trails Day sponsored in part by REI to encourage outdoor trails usage. REI offered FREE gear rentals, there were door prizes, and free food (mmm too many cookies) & hot drinks. There were also booths for things like AK state parks, learning how to wax your skis, etc.

Rick & I (along with our roommates Chris & Karen) decided to try out XC skiing. Rick & I got classical skis, but unfortunately by the time Chris & Karen got to the gear, there were only skate skis for them to try. So we parted ways and Rick & I headed out on what would be a very long loop around.

There's differences between XC skiing & snowshoeing. For instance, skiing makes you sweat. A lot. Also, it requires more balance (something I am lacking). Rick took a great dive in the first 10 minutes shortly after realizing that XC skis don't allow you to lean back like regular downhill skis. Sorry, no picture to go along with that one. I took a few dives (but none as spectacular as Rick's). It was great, frankly. We both decided that XC skis would be a "rent, not own" type of item right now - we aren't good enough at it yet. The trails there were groomed really nicely, packed, and it was good. There were a few scary hills (I walked up & down 2 of them), but Rick tackled them like a pro. By the end I was even comfortable with the hills - somewhat.

Unfortunately, the trails weren't as well labled as we expected them to be (or, there were many more than we thought), so we decided to wing it. We were out for 1.5 hours and sweating terribly by the end. Oh my gosh, it's so much more work on skis, and you get so hot.

Anyway, some pictures.

Me, along the wide part of the trail. When nobody was coming, we could ski abreast. Maybe we should get some Smittens.

Rick, when the trail got smaller and slightly harder for us to navigate. Also, it's hard to take pictures when your batteries like to freeze. Lots of the times, when I would pull out my camera, it would tell me it was dead. I should keep it in a pouch closer to my body heat, but I don't know where to put it to keep it out of the way & warm.

Me, lamenting about how hot I am. My glasses are fogged up! Both of us wish we wore less clothing out there.

We're having much more fun now that the weather is cooperating (today was mostly cloudy - low reflections on the snow, 30 degrees, and no precipitation - the best day yet!)

We miss you!

Love,

Krista & Rick

Ok, the formatting on this one is terrible. Sorry.

Hey Guys-

Sorry for not posting last week, but here is our last Saturday's snowshoeing trip. We went up to Eagle River Nature Center (Eagle River is about 15 minutes outside Anchorage - about 30 minutes from our house to the Nature Center) to do their loop trail.

The drive was gorgeous, actually - driving through the valley, right by the mountains, and the hike was equally gorgeous. It was kind of packed snow and there wasn't a whole lot of it, unfortunately - we could have walked just the same. It was certainly worth it for the views (& exercise).

What we didn't plan on was that being in the valley means the sun goes down much before it would in Anchorage... so at 2pm we were out there shivering our butts off in the shadow of the mountains. Other than the cold, it was a nice 1.5 ish hour snowshoe loop. There weren't many other people out there.

The remains of a bunny. Frozen slightly.

Somebody brought their LLAMAS!!!!!

A beaver lodge.

Rick, admiring the mountains.

Also, to see more of Rick's pictures (he took another AWESOME panoramic) please visit the website:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricksheppard/sets/72157613489229451/

Rick's pan view of the mountains.

A pic of me that Rick took. You'll note that my breath has condensed on my wisps of hair as well as my scarf and hat to create icy cold snow. It was COLD once the sun went away.

We miss you guys!

Love,

Krista & Rick

The news for the past week and a half here has been Mount Redoubt: a volcano seated approximately 100 miles southwest of Anchorage is due to erupt... soon. We won't get lava in the streets (unfortunately), but we should get a few millimeters (read: 1/10 of an inch) of ashfall covering, well, everything.

People have been going CRAZY here, buying up water, face masks, eye protection, extra food and such. We've been getting warnings that it might blow "soon", but as with any geologic activity, soon in earth-time is slow as molasses.

We're not particularly worried that anything crazy will happen, but we have taken precautions like making sure we have an extra air filter for the car, in case we need to drive through ash and replace it after. Also, we have plastic'd up our window and vents to the outside (like the fan from each of our bathrooms). It also helps to insulate the house and keep the heating costs down.

In any case, unless you don't hear from us ever again, we're fine. Just dandy. Don't even worry.

Love,

Krista & Rick

A current view of Anchorage (click link above) from one of Anchorage's many webcams. Camera is off at night, but does give a replay of what happened during the day :) It updates every minute.

Those of you who we sent an email to at Christmas already got this, but here it is again for any other interested person! They are from Christmas-time.

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These are some pictures from both Christmas & a few days before (I think the 22nd) when Rick & I went to Girdwood, Alaska, for his work party at a fancy ski resort named Alyeska. We rented some snowshoes there and took a long stroll (almost getting lost!) and ended up near the airport. We enjoyed snowshoeing so much that we bought snowshoes yesterday at REI and can't wait to try them out tomorrow.

Also included are pictures of me on Christmas wearing a nice light blue sweater from Mom and cranberry colored Fair Trade necklace from Gram as well as Rick in our roommate's bouncy Santa hat.

Picture #5665 is from our Christmas afternoon stroll down the block. We recently saw two moose outside our house down this street (and then they walked right outside of our huge picture window - we would have gotten a picture, but it was too dark!)

One special picture for Mom& Dad - Dante's gift tag to Rick. Maybe he wanted the gift :).

Phew, our last blog post came in November and it wasn't much of a reader. Here's some photos & commentary from a recent snowshoeing trip (the first we've been able to take, thanks to the weather and my work).

We decided on Kincaid park, which turns out to be a rather large park on the west side of Anchorage. They have a lot of XC skiing trails, but only a few "multiuse" (ie dogs, snowshoes, boots, and XC skis) trails. We did the coastal trail, one of the few snowshoe-ok trails. At least, we hoped we did. The trails aren't super well marked - but we followed the ones with dog tracks and boot marks, so we weren't doing any worse than those before us.

In the past month since we bought the darn things, it has been -20F, I had to work on a Saturday & Sunday, then it rained one weekend and there was no snow the next! We finally got a few 2" flurries back to back and had a gorgeous 20 degree day to go out and explore!

Me, in all my gear glory. The snowpants were a gift to ourselves using Rick's Christmas bonus from work (bought at severe discount at Burlington Coat Factory). Mom & Dad helped to finance the snowshoes, the hat & gloves were Xmas money that Grammy gave to us, and the under-gloves (you can't see them very well, but my large gloves fold back and are fingerless underneath) were a gift from Tiandra.

Rick, with our car. His snowpants are also new (Xmas bonus), snowshoes are, again, partially due to Mom & Dad, his new gloves were Grammy's Christmas money and the hat is from Mom & Dad last christmas.

Me, with the view of some mountain. Who knows which one. Well, somebody knows, I'm sure. Also, you can see all of the mudflats (this is normally where the tides run in & out).

On our way back to the warmth of our car, WE SAW A MOOSE!!!!!! It was so cool. We were about 1000 feet away, approaching slowly, but loudly. We had to get about 100 feet away so that we could continue on our trail, but we were above the moose and it didn't seem to mind. It would look up from time to time to watch us.

Just kidding, we saw TWO moose! One was significantly larger (most likely a mother and "calf" - although what passes for a calf midwinter

is huge). Neither seemed frightened of us, just wary.

It was awesome!

In other news, I just had my 3 month review at work - which, if you didn't know, is Cafe Del Mundo, I am a barista making coffee drinks Sun-Thursdays. I've been doing well.

Life goes on out here, but we're almost (tomorrow should be the day) at 8 hours of daylight! Sweet! We can't wait to get back outside again. We miss you all!

Love,

Krista & Rick

Hey all!

I am back from site visit, and I wish I could give you a huge recount of what I did, but I need to type it up first, this is just my "OMG I didn't have internet for a week what happened and who emailed me" internet usage. I will get a blog post soon, hopefully tomorrow.

Hope you all are well. I have great cell coverage at site.

Got to go!

Site Visit!

Hi all, short update today.

Tonight I go to a college in a nearby town and have two days of workshops with my headmaster & teacher counterpart before I leave for site visit!

While I am on site visit, I have no idea if I will get to use an internet cafe (if they even have one) and I don't know if my cell phone will get service (there will be some cell phone providers that do get service there, but MTN, the brand that I bought, might not) so expect lax replies.

WARNING: this means my phone number may change when I go to site, but I will get a new number while on Site Visit (changing networks costs 1 cedi = 1 dollar) if my old network isnt' supported.

Hope all of y'all are doing well, I'll take lots of good pictures and post them while I'm visiting my site!

I have uploaded pictures from the football match that was held on 2008-07-16 in Suchen on flickr. Here is a link: Football Pictures.

Rick S.

So, I've talked about the x5 rule with cost of items as a general

rule, but how much do items really cost in Ghana? Luckily I took

pictures of a bunch of things I bought each day and here they are

below:

Razor: 1 Ghana cedi, also 40 or so peswas for 6 blades (5 + 1 free!)

So Klin (washing powder): 15 peswas. About enough to do one week's

laundry (soaking & washing) for 2 people. To get out sweat & smells,

ALWAYS SOAK YOUR LAUNDRY.

Bluing Powder: I'm still not sure how this works, but it was 30 peswas

(probably enough for about 10-20 washes). Put this in with your

whites in the rinse water to keep them white-er.

Popcorn: 35 peswas.

Key Soap: Another laundry utensil, it costs 40 peswas for a good size

chunk (about 3.5 inches long).

Bourbon Chocolates: Non-alcoholic cookies ("biscuits"), 50 peswas.

For the big spenders. They are filled with chocolate cream -

sometimes.

Butter Biscuits: 70 peswas. Slightly dry, but cookie-esque

Two Additional Photos:

Ming: This is a photo of Ming, one of our PCVRFs, who is eating rice

out of a bag while texting. So very PCV-esque of him. :).

Rickalike: This is Rob (first name Richard), a volunteer who worked &

lived in New Hampshire, went to visit Alaska, looks startlingly like

Rick and who has the same pants as Rick. Hmmmmm

Sky: A great picture of the sky from Kukurantumi. :D.

boti: This is Boti Falls, one of the two waterfalls that are in our area. Both Boti and Akaa falls are kind of off in the middle of nowhere, so you have to rent a tro and make sure he will stay out there so you can have a ride back. We took the Peace Corps "tro"

(best tro in Ghana) out to both falls a few weekends ago.

Botigroup: This was the group of us that gave up a Sunday morning & afternoon to go to the falls. I'm in there with my green bandana and Rick is to the left and behind me. Most of us chose to hike from Boti to Akaa falls, which was mostly flat with only a few 'moderate' areas (like Mount Manadanock, for any of you who may have hiked it) where we had to go hand-over-foot climbing.

Botihikeakaa: This was a grand view that we had from the Boti to Akaa falls. The grasses that you see are like 6' or 6'6'' high.

haddonheights: The boy in the green shirt, although he is skewed by other children, is wearing a "Haddon Heights" Soccer club shirt.

Haddon Heights is the (rival) town next to my grandparent's town of Haddonfield in New Jersey. I had to take a picture.

Christabel: Christabel is an adorable girl who lives in the complex where I learn Twi. She is very soft spoken and reminds me a lot of Sharae (approximately the same age, too). She will speak both Twi and English with me and probably knows more English than I know Twi, but I'm not sure, because I rarely can get her to talk. As a side note, many of the village children think MY name is Christabel, because they haven't heard of the name Krista before. I let it slide, it's close enough.

head: We played a Trainers v. Trainees football match and this was a great picture of Andrew (from my Language Team!) heading the ball. I played about 1/3 of the game (defense) and Rick took the pictures.

Kdress1: This was the first dress that I got made. The neck has a really cute triangle cut out of it. If I could I would probably get it taken up to the first set of lines to make it easier to walk in.

I'm still considering it. I bought the fabric for 5.6 ghana cedis and got it made for 2.

Kdress2: This was the second dress I got made (although the first bit of fabric I dropped off). Ghana time... I got a really cool head wrap made out of the leftover scraps. The fabric cost me 5GC and the dress was "free" - it was my mother's friend who made it and I'm not sure if my mom paid her or...?

Krista-akaa: This is Akaa Falls. It's more of a series of waterfalls rather than one large one. It was really cool to look at, but the path that you walk down to get it was more parallel to the falls than perpendicular, so if you wanted a good picture you had to go out on this 30 foot long rock platform to get in front of the falls.

Strange.

scaredofball: Another football match shot. I'm pretty sure all of the people here look like they are scared of teh ball. Perhaps it's a bomb...?

team: This was our soccer team. I'm in front with my green bandana (it cost 50 peswas in New Tafo). We won, 2-1, although I'd like to point out that neither goal was really scored by us. The first was scored when the goalkeeper accidentally backed up into the goal after saving the ball and the second was an accidental shot by his own team member. :(

Teamkids: The children of Ghana LOVE to have their picture taken.

Love. It's hard to get them to back away from the camera so they aren't cut off! The children were nice enough to stay out of the first round of pictures (after quite a lot of coaxing) so we invited them into the last few shots.

umbrellarock: On our hike between Boti and Akaa falls, we encounterd Umbrella rock. There's really not much holding it up, actually, even though it might look like there's a fair amount of contact surface area. You can see a child in white between the Rocks. It was a great place to rest for 10 minutes (and take pix) and there was enough room for us to comfortably fit about 12 of us up there (between the rocks, not on top) simultaneously. We chose not to climb the sketchy ladders to the top. Oh well.

Walkdiana: Myself and Diana, another PCT (who is going to the upper west region, practically Burkina Faso) walking & talking after

(during?) the hike betwen the falls. We both used to be vegan before Ghana, and just today she offered me some home-made Soya Kebobs her mom had spent 2 days making. I want to know how to make them!

Trying to do even the simplest of tasks is a monumental quest so why should leaving the country be any different. I'm going to tell you about my tales of flying home to Vermont.

Part 1: The Accra Airport

First I am certain that it was a different airport than where we had arrived as a group. Or at least certain it was not the same side of the building.

Step A: Get in the long line for 'Customs'. I use the word loosely here because unlike everyone else the man only asked me what was in my bags without rummaging through them. And then he made a mark on my bags with some chalk and told me I was okay to go to the next step. Show this man your passport and ticket.

Step B: Weight your bags. Give the man your passport and ticket. He will give a small small 'Emergency Contact' Form. It requires your name, name of contact, phone number and country of residence. He will in form you that you are okay and proceed to the next step.

Step C: Pre- Checkin. Give this person your passport, ticket, and the Emergency Contact Form you just filled out. She will scan your passport into a nearby computer and let you pass to the Check-in place.

Step D: Check-In. Hand this lady your passport and ticket. She will give you boarding passes. On to checked luggage security.

Step E: Security. Hand this man your passport and papers. From now on Passport, boarding pass will be referred as 'papers'. Give him one back you wish to Check. He will open it and rummage through it. Repeat if you hare checking 2 bags. He will take them from here on. AKA this will be the last time you see them for a while.

Step F: Locate your gate... There is a Security point before you get near the gate, this man wants you to fill out a form. It is the same form you filled out on the plane before arriving in Ghana. I think its the Ghana customs form. He can supply you with one. Give him your papers. Pretty much give your papers to anyone with a uniform on.

Step G: American Style Security check point. Put your carry-ons through the x-ray machine and walk through the metal detectors. And locate your gate.... Note: this is the last time you can get any food before you get on the plane. There will be no places for food or drink after the next step.

Step H: A security person looks in your bags and pads you down. Enter and have a seat, you are now at the gate.

It took me about 45-60 mins to do all that. Even though it was a longer process than in American airports. Oh btw, I wasn't very clear but all of those steps where different places and people you had to go to, like stations to visit.

The flight from Accra to JFK was 10 hours. I watched 4 movies and several tv shows. I actually watched one entire movie while sitting on the tarmac in JFK. I loved the in flight lunch. It was the best meal I had in weeks. Beef stew with rice and carrots. A large brownie, a bun with laughing cow and butter. They also gave us an 8oz cup of Fan Ice. and Later on they fed us a snack which was a toasted cheese and mystery items sub. With an orange yogurt health bar. All of these things were incredible. I was happy.

Part 2: Arriving in New York City

We arrived at JFK and there was a very long line for planes to leave their gates for departures, that meant there was an equal if not longer line for planes to get to those same gates for arrivals. There was a large storm coming in and many planes where delayed or canceled. We sat on the tarmac for at least 1.5-2 hours. We eventually got off the plane and into the airport where chaos ensued.

Part 3: "Whoaa.... It's a mad-house!"

The storm had caused its damage. I got in at about 7:00PM. First thing you do is get you baggage. Then go to a security person and he lets you pass.

Next you go through customs and if your a US Citizen it means the person looks at your passport and your US customs form that you got on the plane and filled out. And thats it. They don't look through your bags.

Now comes anarchy. Remember that storm? well, many flights where canceled or delayed. Mine was canceled. So I found what I thought was the correct line for Delta ticket-ing but when I got to the counter after waiting in line for at least 1 hour the man told me I was in the wrong line and I wanted the one across the hall.

So I wait in that line now, and 45 minutes later get to the counter. I say my flight has been canceled, what are my options? His reply was to rent a car and drive home. I had him check the next available flight for Vermont. He said the 4 that leave tomorrow are all booked. He offered to put me on for stand-by or friday was open. I asked for the money my ticket was worth and I would find my own way home. He then told me that my ticket from JFK to VT was worthless and could give me nothing. Great. Moving on. On right the anarchy part.the flight delays and cancellations effected many people. There were like at least a thousand people in this tiny section of the airport all of which were coming from international flights trying to get to their contecting flight. I met a girl who came from Cairo, Egypt she was going to Boston I think, or maybe LA, I can't remember. Then a girl infront of me in the false line started crying because she was coming home from living in Europe for the past year and missed her flight to see her family. And one of the Delta staff asked her why she was crying and not in a sympathetic way either. It reminded me a lot of Tom Hanks in League of their own, when he said, "are you crying? theres no crying in baseball...". Needless to say there were many pissed off people and everyone was at their ropes end.

Except for me because I knew I was screwed and was more than likely staying over night in this airport. So after I discovered that I was screwed, I tried getting a bus or rental car to drive home. I wasn't going to spend 36 hours in an airport. So I found the 'Ground Transportation Information Desk" Closed. Figures. But theres a row of rental car phones on the wall, perfect. But none of those phones have dial tones and the one that did no one was picking up. Choice.

What to do..... It looked fairly clear that I wasn't leaving that place on my own before friday. So I called in a huge favor. I called Zach and asked if he could come pick me up. He agreed. and Long story short.... He brought me from JFK to Randolph VT. And then my mom picked me up there and home. This entire time I did not sleep. I have not slept in ... I dunno, at least 36 some odd hours.

Well that was my story, I hope it was entertaining for everyone.

Rick S.

It's late (9:40pm)! I'm not really tired (possibly due to the coffee I drank at 9), and my goal for tomorrow is to get to the internet cafe during one of our breaks. We are light tomorrow, we have 2 hours of Twi in the morning then 2 hours of review twi in the afternoon. This means I have from 10-2 (minus lunch) free and New Tafo is only about a 10 minute ride away. I also have to work on my PPP, my personal project presentation (or something like that).

By the way, just to let you know, I am going to go acronym crazy. The Peace Corps is also crazy with acronyms (PCT, PCV, PCVRF, PCMo, LCF, CD... all of those are titles for different types of people during training), so if I use some acronym you don't get, let me know. My PPP is going to be about the backs of Tros & Taxis, which (about 50% of the time) have some type of saying on it in yellow lettering. Something like (In Twi or English) "God is the 1" or "Except God" or "Eye Adom" ... etc. Some are slightly more ridiculous "Bat Man", "Still America", etc. My job is to find out what they mean (to the person who put it on there). So far I don't have nearly enough for a presentation, which is due on ... Friday or Saturday. Which leaves tomorrow to do it! Sweet! They've given us plenty of time & warning to do it, but I have only gotten like 1/5 of what I want. It's fine, but tomorrow I have to work a bit harder.

Tonight with my coffee, Esther, my homestay sister, gave me COFFEE CHOCOLATE. The one time I had Ghanaian Chocolate was... a less than pleasant experience, but the Coffee Chocolate seems to somehow make up for it.

I still haven't gotten mail from people. At all! If you are considering and wondering whether you should send any, the answer is "Yes! Of course!" Just a letter is fine. I swear. I am living vicariously through some of the other people (I really want to know whomever Chris & Tammy know, they are living the high life with 1-2 PACKAGES every time we get together!)

So next Tuesday (one week!) we leave our homestay for some type of a hotel so that we can meet our counterparts & headmasters. We spend 2 days (Wed&thrus) getting to know them and talking about the logistics of our school then travel to our sites. Finally! I can't wait to see Twi Town2 and the house I will be staying in. Im curious to see how we get there (Ferry? Through Kumasi then a pontoon boat? Through Tamale and driving all the way?) I'm not sure what's fastest, honestly, or whether the school will bring their own car or what. I honestly can't wait to find out.

Alright. I guess maybe perhaps it's time for bed. I will be up in under 8 hours (this morning I was up BEFORE the birds. They start at 5:38am - note that this data is scientifically unavailable and I may be performing more of these experiments soon)).

Goodnight!

Krista

PS By the time I post this, Rick will be home. Give him a call at his parent's house to chat, or an email at rick.sheppard@gmail.com

Hi All,

It's July 22nd, a Tuesday, and this morning at 7:15am Rick left in the Peace Corps car for Accra and tonight he will board a plane for the Us. He's going home to stay and I am continuing my Peace Corps service here in Ghana for the two years.

So I'm sure Rick can explain better than I the exact reasons he left, but it was a combonation of not enjoying the work (level of involvement?) expected with Peace Corps service, not enjoying the food, not enjoying the culture (Greeting everyone. Everyone.), missing home life, and not really enjoying teaching all that much. There was very little, other than the technical aspects that he did enjoy.

We had many discussions throughout this past 40 days about how he was feeling and ways we could both change to help him do well here. He was considering staying until we got to our site (so we could actually live on our own and see how it was different from training). He talked to PCVRFs (current PCVs who are helping our training), he talked to various trainers, and finally on Saturday he talked to Bob, our Country Director. The trainers and Bob suggested that if he was really feeling like there was not a whole lot he liked here, it probably wouldn't be better at site. If he didn't like teaching, it woudln't really matter, as that's what he wouild be expected to do at site. Also, meeting the collaborating teacher & headmaster from your site and going on "site visit" (in 7 days) was pretty-much a guarentee that you would be at their school and he was highly encouraged to make a decision before next Tuesday. We talked about it over the weekend and he decided to go home.

He had debated staying here and being unhappy, but we both thought that would not be healthy for either of us. If he was unhappy, he couldn't be any help to the commmunity and he would probably end up dragging us both down. If I left, I would be unhappy and not quite sure what to do with myself back in the states. I made a commitment to be here, and I am enjoying it. It's hard work, some things haven't improved since I got here, but lots has. I can't give up and go home right now, when I'm happy and productive here.

So where does that leave us? I know, you're probably wondering if we've had some huge argument and left on bad terms, but I think we'll be okay. We both agreed to this decision and we'll see how it works out. Two years apart from your spouse isn't easy, we both realize that. Coincidentally, I asked Lenore, who is "married serving without spouse" recently how it is working out for her and her husband. She says that they call every other day and text a few times a day, and that seems to work out. Her husband is great; things like tucking in CDs of her favorite soap opera that she's missed in the past month into his care pacakge are adorable. I think that, if I had to pick a time for Rick to leave, it's when I have 31 other fantastic people around me to help me through it, rather than when I'm the only american in the 4 hour area.

Rick's plans are to go home and hopefully get a job from a company in Alaska who will pay to move him and the rest of our stuff out to AK, prepping our home for when I come back to the states.

I hope you're all well.

Love,

Krista