Denali

It was ridiculously early.

Because the colors were so beautiful the weekend we drove the Denali Highway, we decided to use Mario's day off for Labor Day to go into Denali National Park itself. Last year during our Alaska vacation, we also visited Denali. We took the park bus to the Eielson Visitor's Center about 65 miles into the park. This time, we wanted to go 20 miles past Eielson to Wonder Lake. It was a 12-hour round trip, and we decided to do the same thing we did last time and take the very first bus out into the park. Unfortunately, that bus left the Wilderness Access Center at the park entrance at 5:30 am. We live about 2 ½ hours from the Wilderness Access Center. Being the cheapskates we are, we didn't want to spend money on a hotel near the park entrance, nor did we want to sleep in the car and endure another horrible night like we had just the week before. So we got up at 2 am to drive to Denali. Josh is usually pretty good about going back to sleep when we move him, but this particular night he chose not to go back to sleep. I was pretty sure that meant we were all going to have a very rough day seeing how we were all running on so little sleep, but the day actually started wonderfully around 4am when we noticed a beautiful green ribbon of light dancing in the sky over the tiaga forest we were traveling through: our first experience with aurora borealis, the northern lights. It was gorgeous but fleeting – by the time I got out of the car and got the camera set up, they were gone. They came back a few times, but never for long enough to take a picture of.

Sunrise

We arrived at the park in time to get loaded onto the bus, thankfully. We started into the park about half an hour before sunrise. It was ridiculously early, but we were rewarded with one of the best sunrises I've ever seen. It turned the white peaks a beautiful light pink and slowly brought the stunning landscape to life. We couldn't have timed our visit better; the ground cover was a brilliant red, the spruce was its usual green, and the birch were bright yellow. It was a great trip to Wonder Lake. It was fairly overcast when we started and we were worried we wouldn't be able to see Mt. McKinley at all, which would not be unusual as the mountain is high enough it makes its own weather and is only visible about one of every four days, but the clouds cleared obligingly as we went just like last time.

Dall sheep

Apart from the awesome scenery, we also saw golden eagles, lots of Dall sheep, a wolf, and quite a few moose and bears. Josh was a great sport about sitting on a bus for so long, especially as long as we didn't run out of Pringles, goldfish, or chocolate chip cookies!

The Three Bears

Moose

We finally made it to Wonder Lake and tried to stay warm with the howling wind and skies that were trying to rain on us. Because it was so windy, we didn't get the photos of the mountain reflected in the lake that we were hoping for, but it was worth the trip anyway. The mountain was gorgeous and we had a great time wandering around (this was a few weeks before Josh's leg broke, so he was in fact able to wander) before boarding the bus and beginning the six-hour trip back to the park entrance, and then the 2 ½ hour trip home. 

The view from Wonder Lake

 

Cool dust storm in the valley

What an awesome day!

Another road that makes you want to drive!

We had a week before Mario started work to get our home set up and have some fun. We decided to make a trip to see the tallest peak in North America, which happens to be just down the road from us. In fact, Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in the world if you measure from its base to its peak, but is only the tallest in North America because we measure mountains' elevation from sea level, not base to peak.

The Denali range reflected.

Anyway, we packed up and headed out. It was an unbelievable drive through glacier-carved plains with huge, delightful mountain ranges on all sides. We were fortunate enough to not only have perfect weather, but the fall colors were raging as well. There aren't a whole lot of trees, but the ground cover was a stunning crimson. It was a gorgeous day in every way, apart from the massive swarms of ravenous mosquitoes that would attack us every time we got out of the car to take pictures.

The highway to Valdez

We headed south to our cutoff to take the Denali Highway back through Denali National Park, but when we got there we were having so much fun we decided to keep on driving! We figured we'd probably not get as close to the city of Valdez (as in the Exxon Valdez oil spill) again with the time to go check it out, so on we drove.

Doesn't it make you want to explore?

Valdez is fairly isolated (by any standards except Alaska's) and is the literal end of the road. The highway to Valdez was absolutely stunning as it weaved, climbed, and fell through numerous ranges. There were waterfalls, glaciers, valleys, and just the right amount of fog to make it just a little mysterious. There were also quite a few random dirt roads that left the highway and disappeared to who-knows-where that were very intriguing. Under different circumstances, we would have given our new-to-us SUV a proper welcome to the family. Instead we found a beautiful, secluded campground and tried our best to eat our dinner without inhaling mosquitoes along with the soup. We decided it would be easiest and most comfortable to sleep in the car. We discovered that it was indeed easiest but certainly not comfortable. Our little family is absolutely not the right size for car camping anymore! What a horribly miserable night that was!

At long last, the night ended and we made it the last miles to Valdez. We were quite unimpressed, although in its defense it was a very foggy, rainy morning. Perhaps the fog was hiding some redeeming characteristics, and there are supposedly some wonderful day cruises and hiking to do from the city, but I'm glad we saw it when we did and could check it off the list without making a trip just for Valdez. (note in the picture of me with Josh that I have a bloody rag in my nose - my little darling has a bad habit of giving me very loving headbutts in the face when he gets excited.  He just gave me a wicked bloody nose!)

Kettle lakes with the Denali range in the background

A road like that just makes you want to drive!

We headed back north via the Denali Highway. It's a gravel road that winds 140 miles through some of the most amazing scenery you can find. It's only 140 miles, but it was a solid 4 hours of driving, not that we minded. Josh obligingly fell asleep as we drove, which was great except we were afraid to stop too much or for too long for fear of waking him up prematurely and ruining everyone's day. Our pictures suffered slightly for the sacrifice, but our day itself was awesome. The colors were wonderful, the mountains came out to play for a while, and it was by far the most pleasant 4 hours I've ever spent on a gravel road.

Amazing. 

Birch Hill Rec. Area

"I HAVE A STICK!"

Leaves in the backyard

The fall here in Fairbanks was phenomenal, and that's coming from someone who spent the last 3 years enjoying the best New England has to offer. I admit I miss Boston terribly and often, especially in autumn. I miss picking 40 pounds of fresh apples, of varieties I've never even heard of outside of New England, and finding new, delicious ways to eat them. I miss apple cider donuts and fresh-pressed cider. I miss the fall leaves that stick around for weeks (when you're lucky) and include every shade imaginable between yellow and crimson. I miss the balmy days and chilly nights. I miss road trips to nowhere in particular. That being said, the fall here was really great. It was different, but great. All of the leaves changed at almost exactly the same time, and they all turned the same shade of yellow. There really wasn't any orange or red at all. It only lasted about two weeks, but what a two weeks it was! We were outside every moment possible. Here are a few pics of some of our perfect fall days.

Sunset from our deck

I also dragged my boys to a local park called Creamer's Field for some family pictures while the colors were still nice. I'm pretty happy with the shots I got. A passing runner took pity on me trying to set up my tripod and ordering Mario around and took one decent shot of the three of us.

By far my favorite shot of the day.

I mentioned in my last email that Josh's leg is broken. Here comes the story on that. Josh is hands down the quietest, most reserved two-year-old I've known . . . except for the half an hour before bed every night. Those of you who have witnessed the Bedtime Crazies know that he becomes a completely different little guy. He absolutely loves the Bedtime Crazies. We run around the house, wrestle each other, laugh, scream, tickle, whatever. We have been thoroughly enjoying the Bedtime Crazies for well over six months with nothing but a happy and tired toddler ready for bed to show for it. We were having our usual good time while my mom was visiting a few weeks ago when we caught Josh by the legs, like we have a thousand times, except this time we heard a small pop and he grabbed his ankle . . . the same ankle he hurt on the stairs in Texas a few months ago.

Looks funny, but we got outside!

When he can't go out, bring it in!

When we saw that it wasn't improving like it did last time, we took him to the doctor. Three different doctors and five hours later, my poor little baby had been poked, prodded, and held down forcibly by Mario and then by me for x-rays, to have a cast put on, and to take the first round of antibiotics for an ear infection. He was so tired after screaming so much that he fell asleep on my shoulder before we even left the orthopedist's office.  For the first evening, he would cry and ask me every five minutes if I could please help him take the cast off. It was very sad, but since then he has adjusted really well. Because of the angle of the cast, he can't crawl or walk comfortably, but he can stand up for a little while and can scoot across a room just fine. It's pretty difficult to play outside with him, so we've been inventing new games to play at home (thanks for the bag o' balls, Dad!) and spending lots of time at the library.

Fairbanks!! (and some food)

We arrived in Fairbanks August 23rd.  My brother, Jed, and his family have lived here for a year and were kind enough to take us in while we found an apartment and such.  We had done some research before coming up and were able to sign a lease before the week was over, although we didn’t actually move into our new place for a few days after that since we didn’t have a car yet or anything to sleep, eat, cook with, or sit on.  We mailed almost everything we were bringing with us and it hadn’t arrived yet.  We spent most of our time trying to amass everything necessary for a home as cheaply as possible on Craigslist.  

Craigslist is an amazing tool, and we’ve used it quite successfully many times.  People here don’t really seem to understand, though, that they’re selling used goods.  Here even more than other places, prices for used items are OUTRAGEOUS.  We found a loveseat listed for $400.  You could see HUGE holes in the material and stuffing poking out in at least two places.  The posting stated that they had purchased it for $500 a few years before and that the person’s dog had slightly abused the couch but that it was still comfy.  Seriously?  We had another run-in with a very nice but slightly moronic man who had posted his mattress set on Craigslist.  So I called and made an appointment to come see/buy it.  We hitched up Jed’s trailer (more on that below :) ) and were all ready to go when he called and said he couldn’t show us the mattress that night because he was too tired to put up his new one.  So we made an appointment for the next night.  We drove the 40 minutes to his house the next day.  He met us in the driveway and said “Ok, now don’t shoot me, but . . . “  He refused to sell it again (if we had even wanted it).  Guess why.  He was too tired to set up his new mattress.  Seriously?  It was only 5:30pm!!!  And he had the stupid thing POSTED ON CRAIGSLIST FOR SALE!  Why post it if you don’t actually want to sell it?!  He said he didn’t have to work the next day and he’d be happy to make an appointment for us to come back and pick it up the following afternoon.  I told him he could call us when it was ready (as in not in his bedroom with sheets and blankets still on it) to load and if we were still interested we’d come out.  Guess who never called.  

Nice trailer, huh?

Anyway, we found pretty much everything we needed on Craigslist and started picking stuff up.  My brother, Jed, had a trailer we could use for the larger stuff like the mattresses (from a different seller, of course), table and couch.  The trailer, however, was a boat trailer.  We considered taking the boat off and just using the trailer, but I thought it would probably work better if the boat was still on it.  So we used a boat as our trailer.  Even Jed’s true-blue Alaskan neighbors had never seen anything quite like this before!

Our apartment is the top level

The apartment we decided to lease is in a nice, quiet neighborhood.  We have the top level of a two-floor building.  Half of our apartment is over the garage and the other half is over our downstairs neighbor.  Josh decided to christen our apartment our very first night in it.  We woke up to him puking his guts out at 4am, poor little guy.  (Speaking of puking, Scott, did I tell you I spewed in the desert on the way home from your house just outside of Roswell?  Thought you’d like to know.)  Of course, most of our boxes still hadn’t arrived yet so we

My oven mitts

didn’t have any spare sheets or medicine.  So I got to do laundry in the middle of the night while Mario went to the store for some drugs for the little man.  I was concerned that we had perhaps disturbed our neighbor, who we hadn’t even met yet, doing laundry right over his bedroom at 4am, so I wanted to make some cookies for him the next day.  We went to the store for a baking sheet and ingredients.  When we got home, I got all of the ingredients out and was ready to begin only to realize I didn’t have a bowl or spoon to mix them with.  I considered using the juice pitcher we had just bought as a bowl, but instead we decided to borrow a bowl and spoon from my sister-in-law, Crystal.  Everything was going fine until it came time to take the cookies out of the oven, at which point I realized I didn’t have any oven mitts or potholders either.  So I used these!  (Yes, they were clean.)  

Parmesan rosemary bread

Rolling pin

Chicken: Aromatics for the cavity and herb butter to rub under skin

Later that week, we had Jed, Crystal & Co. over for dinner.  I made naan with this rolling pin and used my awesome sock oven mitts again.  Despite the culinary implement shortage we were experiencing, I did manage to turn out a fairly decent dinner of roasted citrus-stuffed chicken (the love child of Tyler Florence’s Ultimate roasted chicken and Ina Garten’s (who I usually can’t stand) perfect roasted chicken recipes – I can give details to anyone interested) with a white wine reduction pan sauce, herbed potato wedges (also a Tyler Florence recipe and something of a regular side dish around our house), and a lovely lemon cake for dessert.   

Lemon cake!

The lemon cake was my usual “cake mix on steroids” (from SIL Suzie’s kitchen – regular cake mix, add a package of dry instant pudding of desired flavor (I used vanilla here, not lemon), substitute softened butter for oil in directions, buttermilk for water, and add one more egg than directed on package) plus the finely-chopped zest and juice of two lemons.  While that was baking (in two 8-inch round pans lined with parchment paper and non-stick spray), I made a lemon simple syrup of equal parts water and sugar (about a cup of each) boiled down gently with lemon peel and a spray of lemon juice.  I cooked it a little longer than I should have and it turned a beautiful honey-brown color.  It was delicious and had almost a caramel taste.  I also made a lemon cream cheese frosting (basic cream cheese frosting with lots of lemon juice to taste).  When the cakes were done, I put the first one on the serving plate, poked it all over, and poured 1/3 of the lemon simple syrup over.  Then I put down a layer of lemon frosting, the next cake, and did the same thing.  Finished it all off with frosting and the last of the simple syrup in a simple design on top (pour the syrup down in concentric circles, then use a toothpick or the tip of a knife and drag through syrup layer slightly into frosting layer from the center to the outside over and over).  YUM!

Josh is completely obsessed with fish.  Ever since we took him to Sea World, he has been OBSESSED with fish.  He loves to watch Finding Nemo, but is simultaneously frightened by it so he usually prefers to watch it on fast-forward or muted.  He loves anything with fish, and constantly wants us to draw them for him.  Mario thought it would be fun to get him his own fish he could see every day, and that’s how Pi the Betta came to be in our family!  The name Pi comes from our nightly routine of rough-housing with Josh before bed, which we call the Bedtime Crazies.  He loves to be thrown around, wrestled, tickled, and generally run around like a ranch-on-cowbaby (Foutz slang for crazy kid).  Josh’s way of saying he’d like to get a little nuts is to say “More play!,” which comes out as “mo pie!” We decided the fish’s name should be something Josh could say, which is an extremely short list, so Pi it is!  Josh loves his fish and especially likes to feed him.  Pi has survived his first month in the Apreotesi family, and hopefully will be around for a long time, and hopefully is the first of many fun family pets!

Why we're in Alaska

I thought I’d just give a little rundown of the reason we’re here since many of you have asked, and most of you have asked why we still came after getting such a great offer from the firm in Austin.  So here’s the deal: Mario is a clerk for Justice Dan Winfree of the Alaska Supreme Court.  According to Wikipedia, “a law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Law clerks are not court clerks or courtroom deputies, who are administrative staff for the court.  Most law clerks are recent law school graduates who performed at or near the top of their class. Various studies have shown clerks to be influential in the formation of case law through their influence on judges' decisions. Working as a law clerk generally opens up career opportunities.”  

So basically, Mario is a research assistant for the judge.  When a case is coming up, the judge needs to know what each side is arguing and the basis and precedent for those arguments so (s)he’s prepared when (s)he hears the issues.  The arguments submitted by each side can include hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pages of information, and that takes a lot of time to go through.  Most judges hire “kids” fresh out of law school to do all this stuff for them and write a sort of summary.  Mario is one of three clerks for his judge and, like most judicial clerks in the country, will only be doing this for one year.  Next year a new batch of clerks will come and take over.  

Law clerks are basically state employees, and as such don’t make very much.  We’re definitely not here for the money, but we are here for a few other really great reasons.  As it says in the Wiki explanation, clerks can be influential in forming case law, and they also become more employable as a general rule.  Alaska is a particularly exciting place to be a clerk because its state law is so new that Mario could have an active role in interpreting some laws for the very first time, thus being intimately involved in the setting of precedent for how they are implemented in the future.  Clerks are also generally more employable because they spend a year interacting with and learning from judges themselves, as well as having the opportunity to review the work of dozens of different attorneys from which they can also learn.  It’s a very prestigious position and a great opportunity for Mario to become a better legal writer and better attorney in a relatively short time.  This is why Mario’s firm in Austin is not only okay with us leaving for a year, they want Mario to be here because he’ll be a better lawyer when he gets back.    

Mario is really enjoying his work here so far.  Justice Winfree, or just Dan, and his wife are wonderful, and his co-clerks are great.  Mario is in the unique position of being the only clerk Justice Winfree has ever had who already has children, as well as the only one to welcome a new baby into the family during his clerkship.

Although we most likely would have taken a clerkship anywhere we were given the chance, we were especially excited that Mario got an offer to clerk in Alaska.  We’re thrilled to be able to spend a year in one of the most unique and beautiful states in the nation.  Really, who gets to live in Alaska for a year?!  We’re excited about having one last year of adventuring before real life sets in, and I’m sure this will be an adventure!