Waiting for a Volcano to Blow

If you've been following the news, you know that just across Cook Inlet from us, Mt. Redoubt has been experiencing "elevated seismicity, dominated by ongoing volcanic tremor and occasional small earthquakes," and it is expected to erupt sometime soon. We've been waiting. And waiting. And waiting. While the "edge" that we all feel living next door to an active volcano has worn off slightly (it's hard to maintain vigilance for long), our lives have been tweaked in a few ways.

• Volcano watching. I keep the Redoubt volcano watch home page up on my computer all the time (http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php) and at least a handful of times a day I pop over, refresh the page and check out the latest level of seismicity and webcams. While the ash trajectories are of primary importance when Redoubt does blow, until then, I hardly notice them. I also find myself going to the earthquake watch page (http://www.aeic.alaska.edu/recent/sub/index.html) at least once a day to see how many earthquakes have occurred in Alaska in the past few days. There are usually 85-120 quakes listed for the past couple days, and there is always at least one quake shown in red for the past hour.
• Masks & nylons. We have dust masks in our cars and at home, so pretty much wherever we are, we'll have that essential covered. I also pulled some nylons out of my drawer and stashed them in the car. Apparently we put them over a filter and it protects the engine from being trashed by the volcanic ash.
• Emergency plans. Most businesses, schools and other public places have eruption plans. Some will definitely close if there is an eruption, while others will wait and see how much ash is exploded and what direction the wind is blowing. A significant factor is when it happens. The big eruption of '89 was in the middle of the night, which creates a completely different scenerio than in the middle of the day, or as people are on their way home from work.
  
• Wrap up. Each night we wrap up our computers and I put all my electronic equipment in ziplock baggies. We also keep our VCR and a spattering of other delicate electronics wrapped up, and I've bagged up or put away other items in the house that I don't want to have to clean if we have significant dust in the house (or that I don't want to fall and break if we have a big earthquake).
• Caulk. During the 5.73 quake we had last month, the house we live in shifted and we started getting breezes coming in. I caulked the seams in the house at the breeze points. I should have done that to keep the cold out, but I'm much more motivated to keep out the ash than the cold!
• Keep an eye on the sky. I always keep an eye on the weather, but now I am more vigilant about noticing the weather/cloud cover to the west. I pay attention to what direction the wind is blowing, predicting whether we'd be in line for minor ashfall or major ashfall. Strange cloud formations get my attention and I study them rather than just glancing at them.
  

The first couple weeks after Redoubt was elevated to level Orange and Watch, I was edgy and tense. Now I just want it to blow and get it over with so we can stop waiting! Of course, this reminds me of a key factor: geological time. It is very different from human time, and it's not always predictible. Now I laughingly say that Redoubt is going to blow when we're not expecting it. But until it does, we're keeping our masks with us!

Ohlson Mountain--Local Ski Slope

Aurora got a new snowboard recently, so we finally decided to check out the local ski slope: Ohlson Mountain. We were very glad a friend was our guide to the place, since there is no sign announcing the place. The only clues are a plowed widening in the road and a packed trail leading off the road between two private residences. Once you get up the trail a ways you see the sign you see here: Rope Tow ----> We must be on the right track, but the packed trail leads all the way to the bottom of the hill, past a shack (which I found out is the warming hut) to the bottom of the tow rope where an attendant takes people's lift ticket money. It is all so casual and small-townish that I was a bit startled, yet it is a great place for kids learning to ski or ride to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Ohlson Mountain is run by volunteers with the Kachemak Bay Ski Club. Lift tickets are $125 for a season pass for the whole family, or $5/day for students, $10/day for adults, or $20/day for families. What you see on the picture here is the whole mountain. It doesn't get crowded, and there's not a lot of pressure--it's just a fun place to hang out. The tow rope does, literally, zoom you up the mountain. I was startled when we first walked up and I saw people cruising UP the mountain. I didn't realize tow ropes went quite that fast! It was a bit tricky and took Aurora numerous tries to get the hang of it. On top of that, the rope can rip your gloves up, so they have a box of leather workgloves in the warming hut to wear to protect your nice gloves.

The warming hut is, well, it is just a shack, but it does the job and it is full of small town ambiance! It is heated with a wood stove, so whoever is in there just keeps the fire going. There are some board games to while away the time while warming up, and picnic tables that have been around the block a few times, but do the job. It is all one really needs.

The biggest bummer of this place is that there are no rentals, so you have to own your own equipment (or borrow from a friend) to go here. Plenty of people in Homer make the 3-4 hour drive up to Alyeska for a day or weekend, but this is a local option that plenty of people are grateful for--my new 'boarding daughter is one of them!

The Eagle Lady...is Gone...

Over the past year and a half of living in Homer I have heard the name "The Eagle Lady" bandied about. I didn't know who she was, what she did, where she lived, or anything else about her. Two weeks ago a friend and I were out skiing and she mentioned the Eagle Lady, and two days later, Jean Keene, the "Eagle Lady", had died. It is only now, having read about her life in the local papers (see http://homertribune.com/ for a wonderful account of her life), that I begin to understand what an impact this lady has had on Homer.This afternoon at a ceremonial eagle feeding in memory of the Eagle Lady I had tears in my eyes and my heart was heavy even though I hadn't known Jean. I don't agree with feeding wild animals, still don't understand why Jean was allowed to when no one else is, and yet I couldn't help but feel the significance of the moment and I appreciated this gesture--a ceremonial feeding--for people to come and see what Jean did, and in a way, to say good-bye to her. Part of my tears and heavy heart were for my husband's grandma who died this week and whose funeral was just this morning. My thoughts turned to legacies that some people leave behind. Jean did, as the Eagle Lady, just as my husband's grandma did, with her indomitable, fiery Irish Catholic spirit. The papers say that Jean Keene put Homer on the map, that people would come visit Homer just to see the eagles, that she helped the local economy by drawing people here time and again. She also forged relationships, connecting with people all over the globe. I can't shake the feeling that there was something special going on here, as much as I intellectually resist the implications of feeding wild animals.

The eagle feeding has attracted hundreds of people to Homer over the years (thousands, perhaps?), many of them photographers. Today the photographers were lined up, tripods, microphones....all the fancy doo-dads. It was almost as interesting watching them as the birds. You could tell some people were there for the birds, some people were there for Jean, and others just hoping for a good shot with their camera. I took Denver out of curiosity: I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Was this really as neat as people said it was?
Reports say 300-500 eagles show up for this event, and as 3:00 neared, I looked around and every lampost, every building top, every perch within sight of the Eagle Lady's trailer at the end of the Spit had an eagle or two, or six perched on it. There were, literally, hundreds of eagles perching, swooping, flying, scrawing. Usually people are not allowed to get out of their cars during the feeding, but for this one time they made an exception and allowed everyone up to a cordoned off area of the beach.
Ten minutes after they started throwing the frozen herring to the eagles, many people began to wander away. Jean threw fish to the eagles here on the Homer Spit nearly every day of the past 30 years. That is a dedication and tenacity that I deeply admire and respect. And despite the phalanx of photographers and those vying for a position of honor in Jean's fenced-in yard, I found it to be a special moment--a moment of reflection on people and nature, life and death, brevity and legacy. I was glad to be there to share this moment.

Quake II

Just as I was putting together the previous blog post, everything on my desk started hopping and shaking and there was a hollow noise like Denver pounding up the stairs. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was an earthquake, but by time I ran down the stairs the worst was over. Our houseplant leaves were still quivering madly, but the roar was gone and other things weren't shaking. The leaves continued to quiver for another 20-30 seconds before they finally stilled.

This is only the second quake we've noticed since being here. The first one I barely noticed (was like the feeling of a heavy truck driving by outside), and it was a 5.0 with the epicenter in Homer. This one was substantially longer and stronger, so I'm guessing it was a 6.0. I'm heading in to the Islands and Oceans Visitor Center right now for a Family Fun Day, and they have a seismograph there so we'll go check it out!

Later....Guess Islands and Oceans doesn't have a seismograph (maybe I saw one at the Pratt Museum??), but the lady at the desk had the following website up (http://www.aeic.alaska.edu/recent/sub/index.html) and kindly let us look it over. When you follow this link, you'll discover there have been dozens of quakes in the past few days, but this one was by far the largest (most were 1.0-3.0; this was 5.73). One of the ladies was at the Visitor's Center this morning during the quake and she was scared because the cables that were attached to the beams holding up the large glass wall were twanging, something she's never seen before. They were afraid it was all going to come down! In my house, one cup fell over in the cupboard and that's it. No damage to the Spit or anything. It was bigger than usual, but still pretty mild. Of course, at our house we were a good 70 miles from the epicenter (48 miles from Homer), and it was also 62 miles deep. WOW! Amazing that we could feel it at all!

I've been reading up on the 'Quake of '64 so I am somewhat mentally pschyed for a big one, though I don't think anyone is ever truly ready for an event like that.

And More Ice Skating....

What is normal a little puddle with grass pushing through 1/2 mile from our house became a nice-sized pond with our recent thaw and rain. I'd been eying it each time I drove by it the past week, but it wasn't until Denver and I were out walking yesterday and we discovered that the ice was very smooth that we decided to try it out skating. It was wonderful! The ice was nearly as smooth as what you get at a skating rink, it is protected by trees so we didn't have a wind, and no one else had been on it, so it was fresh, unmarked ice. Joy!
The big pond by our house has water levels that vary quite a bit, and it is deep as well, so it is not as safe to go out on. As you can see from the picture to the right, that ice is all broken up now, and wasn't even frozen in places. So until it snows again, we have a new local skating pond!

Ice Skating on our Driveway

Yep, that's me ice skating on our driveway. Two days of rain has turned all side roads into, literally, skating rinks. When 100 mph winds and flooding closed the road past Ninilchik today and the school district forbade anyone from participating in school activities, Doug and the kids couldn't get to Anchorage for the robotics competition tomorrow. Doug had the ice skates in his vehicle, so the moment he pulled in, I got them out. I headed down our driveway (I'll admit, I slid down the first part of it on my backside; it's pretty steep) and then skated about a 1/4 mile to the neighbors house and back. With the headwind and uphill it was quite a workout. The warm weather is holding, but it has finally stopped raining. The ice won't last long at this rate. We had a glorious sunset and now the stars are out. This weather is just leaving our heads spinning! Personally, I prefer the cold to the wet & icy.

Break from the Outdoors: Bay Club Time!

I walked outside today and said, "Yuck! Rain!" Yes, believe it or not, that cold snap has suddenly turned warm and our snow is disappearing quickly with rain, rain, rain. Thus, rather than hit the ski trails today, I headed to the gym (Fancy that--subzero, I'm outside skiing, but rain? I head inside!). I peeked into the pool area and saw I had the whole pool to myself--joy! It redeemed this yucky-weather day.

The Bay Club is our local gym. It is twice the price of our gym in Michigan, and maybe slightly nicer. We weren't sure it would be worth it, so just signed up for 6 months last year. When we arrived back home after a summer of traveling, we discovered we did indeed miss it, so in the gloom of fall, doled out a large amount of pocket change and joined again. This time around, it feels like we are using just about everything they've got!
The climbing wall is the kids' favorite. Both Aurora and Denver look like they were born climbing, so I took the class, got my belay card (the person on the bottom who holds the ropes and keeps the climber from falling) and now the kids climb a couple times a week. They climb at the high school also, but that is a straight wall. The Bay Club's wall has ins and outs that one must climb around, so is more challenging.

The swimming pool is another favorite. Every Sunday we go to church, get some lunch and then head to the gym. The kids swim and Douglas and I take turns swimming with them and working out. It is a fairly warm pool, so it is a fun one for playing in--you don't start shivering after 10 minutes!

I personally love the racquetball court! At our gym in Michigan we had to pay $12 per person each time we played even though we were members ($24!!). Here it comes with the price of membership. Doug and I manage to play racquetball once a week, and we appreciate the awesome workout we get doing it! The kids come on in and play too, which is just a blast with the ball bouncing crazily off all the walls. Denver, especially, likes hitting the ball against the back wall so that it goes and hits the front wall.

The gym has the usual plethora of weight equipment, treadmills, ellipticals, stairsteppers and rowing machines, all of which we use. The best part of it is the view out the window, seen from any machine or the pool: the Homer Spit, Kachemak Bay, the Mud Flats and the Kenai Mountain Range, as seen in the picture above one morning a few weeks ago. It is so easy to count my blessings when I am rowing along, gazing out on such a glorious panorama with bald eagles cruising by regularly just outside the window.

All the exercise classes are free, though we have yet to take advantage of any of them. Yoga, Pilates, spinning, tai chi, etc. They are well attended, and we can always tell when there's a class because the parking lot is full. The sauna and tanning booth are in regular use too, but we don't use those since we usually have the kids with us.

The other big difference I've noticed about the Bay Club compared to our gym in Michigan is how people dress. In Michigan many females would be in scantily clad workout shirts or tight shorts. Here many women wear long pants and t-shirts while working out, and skimpy isn't something I've seen, so it doesn't feel like a pick-up place that I'm embarrassed to have my kids hang out. The locker rooms, on the other hand, see a lot more flesh than Michigan (I know, this is strange) and feels a heck of a lot more liberal than our gym back home. I'm not sure why this is. I keep expecting to get used to it, but the difference in dress and attitudes of patrons continues to strike me often.

Overall, belonging to the Bay Club is a welcome place to spend some time when we're in town, and it is an important part of our lives. We still get out skiing, ice skating, and play basketball, but it is nice to have a place to take a shower and head to work after the workout--and it is a great place to have some family time too!