Agony and Ecstasy: The Big Alaskan Fishing Trip

After Jenn and I went to Alaska two years ago, I knew that I had to get my dad up there for a fishing trip.  Luckily, it didn't take much convincing on my part, since it's been on his bucket list for a while.  What I didn't know was that while my dad was on his mission in Scotland he met Allen Lee, who lived in Alaska for 18 years.  He and Allen planned out a float trip down the Talachulitna River, which is about 50 miles west of Anchorage, and invited Dan and I to go along with them.  Here's a recap of our trip:

 

In case you forgot what Shug and Paul look like, here they are!  They were gracious enough to let us crash at their house for the weekend before we left to go camping.  It was awesome to get to see them again!

Oh, did I mention that I got walking pneumonia the day before we flew to Anchorage?  For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of having walking pneumonia, it consists of having a fever for a week, following which you get to have a terrible hacking cough, and you feel absolutely exhausted all the time.  I was really debating whether I should even go on the float trip, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity, sick or not.

We went on a hike up to a glacier before we went out into the bush, and happened upon this little guy right on the trail.  He was pretty unconcerned that we were there!

Here's Raven Glacier, at the top of Crow Pass.  July 7th, and it was 38 degrees up there.  Brrr....

The hike down was a bit tricky as we decided to go across some snow fields, but nobody took a spill down the mountain.

On Sunday I just slept at Shug and Paul's and tried to feel better.  It didn't really work, as I still felt pretty sick on Monday, but it felt good to sleep a lot anyway.

The intrepid travelers in front of our float plane.

The view of the float plane airport out the window of our plane.  It's crazy how many planes are in Alaska.

This is Judd Lake, where we got dropped off.  That river you see is what we rafted down for 54 miles.

Our plane dropped us off on the shore of Judd Lake, and as we pumped up the raft and gathered our gear, he took off.  We simply told him to meet us at the bottom of the river at 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, and then had faith that he'd be there.  I was still feeling sick, and as I watching him fly away I thought to myself, "Well, no turning back now!"

It didn't take us long to start catching fish.  Here's Dan with a dolly varden right on the shore of Judd Lake.  I think we caught 4 fish right here before we even got in the raft.

The first night on the river, we ran into a lot of arctic grayling.  I'd never caught one before, and we had a great time watching them come up for our flies.

Dan showing off the big fin on the back of the grayling.

Dad and I catch double grayling on the fly rods

Allen got in on the action as well, catching a nice-sized dolly varden on the river.

We camped on sandbars like this every night.  Dan and Dad made me sleep alone in the Pumpkin tent.  I'm pretty sure they spread honey on it in case the bears showed up.

Speaking of bears, we saw bear prints like this on almost every sandbar.  But, we saw a total of zero bears. Someone might have been coughing pretty much the whole trip, and that might have scared them off...

The king salmon run this year was so low that they actually banned fishing for them in most of Alaska.  On the second night of our trip, Dan was fishing for trout on his light gear when all of a sudden his line started zinging off his reel.  We saw the salmon jump about 3 times before it broke his line.  Dan's pretty sure it was "this big."  After that, we all used our heavier gear, just in case we accidentally hooked in to another one.

As it turned out, Dan hooked in to another one the very next day.  He caught this one right from the raft.

There was one set of serious rapids on the river, and we opted to line the raft through them rather than try to run them and capsize the boat.  Here I am standing in the water, ready to catch the rope from Dan before he and Allen go over the falls.  That water is freezing cold, by the way!

Here's a look at the rapids after we got the raft through them.

I need to pause here and show off my awesome spaceman waders that Shug and Paul lent to me.  My thighs were just a bit big for them, so my pants tended to scrunch up inside of the waders, leading to some odd-looking bulges.  But, I was the only one with neoprene waders, which are a lot warmer than the thinner ones that everyone else had.  So, despite my spaceman appearance, I was really grateful to have them!  Unfortunately, I punctured them with a stick when we crashed the raft into a tree.  Sorry, Shug and Paul!

Also, you see how I've got my hood on, zipped up all the way?  You probably think that's because of rain, right?  Well, it was quite rainy, but the hood is really for mosquito protection.  You have no idea how bad the mosquitoes were.  We kept only our heads and hands exposed, and made sure they were covered in 100% deet all the time.  The only time we were really exposed was when we had to go to the bathroom.  And I'll leave it at that.

Okay, back to the fishing.  As usual, my dad caught the biggest fish of the trip.  This lunker was 41", and somewhere close to 30 lbs., we think.  Just a huge fish.

Here I am fighting a king salmon of my own!

Yep, I landed him!  Definitely the biggest fish I've ever caught in my life.

On our last night, we camped across the river from a group of fishermen who were on this sandbar.  Around 6pm, it suddenly turned into Miami Vice when two helicopters showed up to take them back to their cushy lodge.  We didn't see many people at all on the river--maybe 4 groups total, and most of them were from the lodges on the midpoint of the river.

So, you can imagine our surprise when this little Piper Cub showed up on the same sandbar an hour after the helicopters left.  Look at that picture of the helicopters again to see just how small this little "runway" is.  You can see here just how close to the water they stopped.  They didn't have much extra room when they took off 4 hours later, either.  Just out for a little evening fishing, I guess.

I actually never saw the Piper Cub, though.  I was crashed in my sleeping bag, hacking and coughing and just feeling miserable.  That night I actually coughed so hard I threw up.  The whole week I was pretty up and down--sometimes I'd feel okay, then I'd end up shivering in my sleeping bag for a few hours.  The worst part was that all of the food we had was super heavy, and all I wanted was something light like chicken broth.  Instead, I was muscling down eggs fried in bacon grease, hash browns, pasta, etc.  Normally I love all of that food, but it just turned my stomach for every meal because it was so heavy.  After 5 days of this, I was reaching in a bag to grab a hot chocolate packet, and imagine my surprise when I pulled out a Lipton Cup 'o Soup packet instead.  "Dad!" I said, "Why didn't you tell me we had Cup 'o Soup?!?"  "Oh, well, I brought that in case anyone got sick," Dad replied.  "You didn't get sick, you already were sick!"  Haha, Dad.  Real funny.  :)  In all of the other food preparations, Dad had just totally forgotten that we even had the soup packets.  Needless to say, I had soup that night, and boy did it taste good!

We kept on fishing from the raft as we rode out the last few miles.  We caught a whole bunch of trout all through the river.

At last, we made it to the take-out point.  Our plane did indeed show up, only a 1/2 hour late, and took us back to civilization in Anchorage.  We stayed with Shug and Paul one more night, then bid farewell to Alaska ... until next time!

Several people have asked me if I'm glad that I went, given how sick I was.  Yes, I'm glad I went.  Would I go again, knowing how sick I was?  That's a bit more iffy, but I probably would.  However, I'd go back in a heartbeat if I were healthy.  Who's coming with me?

May the odds be ever in your favor

I don't consider myself an overly lucky person, but the odds have certainly been in my favor the past few months.  Here's the story:

When I was about 13, my buddy and I somehow got into doing magic shows.  I think it was after watching some David Copperfield special or something.  We'd beg our parents to drive us to Salt Lake so that we could visit the only magic shop in Utah and blow all of our allowance money on new magic tricks.  It was tons of fun, but the hobby died out after a year or so.  But then, about 6 months ago, I ran across an economics article that was talking about the magic market, which is a "tricky" market (pun intended!) because you're selling secrets.  Once you've sold the secret to someone, what's to prevent them from giving it away free to everyone else?  Anyway, the article referenced a website called Theory11, which sold magic tricks.  I clicked through to the website, and was blown away with how cool some of the tricks on there were.  (Seriously, they have cool stuff on there--no magic wands or cheesy top hats!).  I soon found out that Theory11 held a Saturday Night Contest online each week where you could win free stuff.  The contests range from creating your own magic trick to simply naming a card that someone else is thinking of.  Now, me being a generally unlucky person, I wasn't all that inclined to enter the contests.  But some of them were really easy to enter (e.g. just name a card), so occasionally I would check in and throw my hat in the ring if it was a simple contest.

The end result:  I've entered 7 times, and won 3 of them!  I'm on an incredible run of luck here.  Now, you're probably thinking, "Well, there's probably like 8 people that visit this site, so he's bound to win fairly often."  That's actually not the case.  In the most recent contest, the goal was to guess how many cards were inside a box.  There's 54 cards in a deck (including jokers), so guesses could range between 0 and 54.  I was guess #109 that week, but no one before me had guessed that there were 50 cards in the box.  Actually, 50 was the only number left that hadn't been guessed yet (obviously, most of the numbers had been guessed multiple times, but 50 just seems like too round of a number so no one guessed it).   At least 100 more people entered the contest after me as well.  Guess what?  There were 50 in the box!  Winner winner, chicken dinner!

So far, I've won a free $20 magic trick, a "brick" of 12 decks of high-end playing cards, and a deck of collector's edition cards called "White Monarchs."  Here's a picture of my spoils:

The White Monarchs (in front) alone are selling for about $75 on eBay right now, and each deck of cards in the brick they gave me sells for about $6.  That's a total of like $160 of merchandise they've just given me!

Now, since I don't collect playing cards, the plan is to just resell most these on eBay, but I thought I'd better snap a picture to remember that, at least for a few months, the odds were in my favor.

M&M's to Independence

Once upon a time, there was a boy who wouldn't ask nicely.  No matter what.  He would rather throw a 45-minute tantrum than say "please."

And he needed his mom and dad to help him with almost everything.  He could use the toilet by himself, but he wanted Mom or Dad to walk with him to the bathroom and wait.  When he was finished, he would grunt and pout, waiting for Mom and Dad to interpret that he must need help with his snap and zipper.  If he dropped his fork on the floor during dinner, he would cry and fuss until someone else picked it up for him, insisting that there was no way he could do it on his own.

This little boy was at a challenging stage of life.  He had some bigger battles going on at the time, so Mom and Dad decided that it was not yet time to fight the "please" battle.

But then, the time finally came.

The "M&M's to Independence" jar showed up in their house.  Every time this boy or his brother did something FOR HIMSELF that he normally would need help with, he got an M&M in his jar.  Every time he did something helpful or did a service without being asked, he got an M&M in his jar.  The M&M's would accumulate until the boys were ready to eat them - they could choose them for their after-dinner-treat.  Every time a boy couldn't do something for himself that he normally SHOULD be able to do, Mom or Dad would gladly help, at the cost of one M&M that they would get to eat immediately.  

Over the next few months, the boys developed good habits.  The little pirate learned to ask nicely almost 80% of the time!  He learned to go potty by himself.  His brother learned to put away his backpack, coat, and shoes without being reminded.  Mom and Dad didn't have to nag as much, and everyone was happier.  They are still working on their first "pounder" bag of M&M's!

First of all, I must thank my friend Laura for the "M&M's to Independence idea."  She invented it for her similarly dependent girls . . . and it has worked brilliantly for us!  The great thing is that if Ellis is in a really bad mood and just desperately NEEDS someone to pick up his fork for him, I don't have to have an internal battle about it.  I just say, "Sure" with a smile.  Then I make sure to grab an M&M from his jar and munch on it while I'm picking up his fork.  I try really hard not to warn him that I'll have to steal one of his M&M's, because that just causes a battle.  If he asks for something in a grumpy voice, I can just say, "Ooh, I'll ask nicely for you . . ." and before I can do it (and steal an M&M), Ellis has already started rephrasing his question.

These are some of the things the boys did to earn M&M's (they each had separate rules):

- Ask nicely the first time 

- Put shoes/coat/backpack away without reminders

- Help or do a service without being asked

- Go potty without help (E)

- Do a job nicely without complaining 

- Do morning chores without reminders (H)

The Crazy-Abouts

Were you wondering what Ellis is crazy about right now?

GAMES!  He can't get enough of them!  He wants to play games and more games and more games, almost always with a parent.  Occasionally, He'll settle for Henry as a partner, or he'll play by himself.  His favorites rotate a lot, but recently he has been enjoying Disney Rummikub, Guess Who?, Memory, and Snack Attack.  He also likes to use the game pieces to set up unique configurations.  In the picture above, you can see the Disney characters at a soccer stadium, with the Cheshire Cat and Fairy Godmother as the goals.  In the picture above, you can also see what happens to Ellis' hair when it goes a few weeks beyond needing a cut - CURL!

Were you wondering what Henry is crazy about right now?

THE ORIENTAL TRADING CATALOG!!!  Now that we've ordered online from Oriental Trading at least twice, they are sure to send us a catalog at least once every two weeks.  You never know when you might need 8 dozen rubber duckies (for only $8.99!) or 300 dinosaur erasers (only $6.00!).  This kind of information absolutely THRILLS Henry.  When a new catalog comes, he considers it to be the best part of his day!  He then pores over it and tells me about all the good deals.  I think he also has about 10 new ideas for his next birthday party.  

Were you wondering what Sam is crazy about right now?  

GHNKNG.  That's Sam language for "drink," which means his little cup of milk.  He didn't like it at first, but now he asks for it a hundred times a day.  I think part of it is the thrill of being able to ask for something and then actually get what he asked for.  But he's drinking a bunch, and I'm hopeful that we are reaching the last few weeks of nursing.

See?  So refreshing!

Were you wondering what I'm crazy about right now?

Cute boys in matching clothes!

Were you wondering what Ben is crazy about right now?

Let's just say that Ben's a little crazy in general.

Little Kickers

Ben got to volunteer for Henry's Little Kickers soccer this season.  I think it was fun for both of them.  But then, Ben would probably do just about anything for a free purple T-shirt.

This lady was the most lackadaisical coach I've ever seen in my life.  And I'm pretty sure she had never interacted with kids AT ALL before starting this job.  That is why the kids were lucky to have Ben doing his best to bring some life into the good old game of soccer.

"Goal!"

And now, for a small stack of after-soccer reading.

Last Day of Kindergarten

Monday was Henry's last day of Kindergarten!  This year has gone by so quickly, and Henry has learned so much!  I have loved watching him go to school and enjoy being part of his classroom and school communities.  He never complained of being bored in school - mostly I think because Kindergarten is so focused on the SOCIAL experience.  He has really loved his friends, teachers, and the structure of each day in school.

This is Henry with Ms. Brown.  She is an awesome Kindergarten teacher!  She has special songs and poems for just about everything.  Henry came home singing new songs all the time!  She also has special names for everything that just make the world seem more exciting (hand sanitizer is called "magic soap!").

We had to get a picture with Mary, our favorite crossing guard.  Sam and Ellis have enjoyed riding in the jogging stroller for Henry's drop off and pick up.  Ellis' favorite part is the crossing guards!  Every day, he notices if one of them is missing, if one has a sub, and if any of them are wearing different uniforms.  If Mary was wearing a special orange rain cap, or if she forgot her white gloves, it was the highlight of the day for Ellis.

These are two of Henry's best Kindergarten friends, Jules and Ethan.  They are perfect friends for Henry because they are on the same wavelength of boyish weirdness coolness.  At recess, they like to invent games that are like video-games-come-to-life (they try to defeat enemies, earn points, and have "lives"), or invent complex worlds like their original "army of penguins."    

I like this picture because it shows that Henry is not the only 6-year-old incapable of taking a "normal" picture.  See Ellis?  He looks great.  I guess he hasn't hit the awkward photo stage yet . . .

One of the things Henry made the most progress with this year was spelling and writing.  He started Kindergarten already being a great reader, but writing was something we hadn't really tackled yet.  All of my boys seem to be slower with fine motor skills!  Here are a few writing samples from Henry this year:

 

First Poem: a Haiku called "Spring."

I like butterflies

I like to look at flowers

Springtime is the best

Another great poem about apples!

Glad to hear he feels loved when Ben pays his allowance.  :)

I am so proud of this boy!