OK, fine, another eruption!

I woke up this morning, looked out the window to see this dark "cloud" moving our way and dashed to the computer to check the AVO website, sure that that dark cloud to the west was ash and not cloud. Sure enough: Redoubt had erupted again and it was blowing our way; no ducking it this time. I ran outside, put the car under the lean-to, ran back in, unplugged and wrapped up the computers and electronics, then waited for the ash to hit. The phone kept ringing, with coaches announcing that all of my daughter's basketball events were cancelled for the day.

The ashfall advisory was till 10 am. At about 10:30 the dark clouds had moved closer but had lightened. The advisory was extended until noon, but I was convinced that we were going to be missed! I could see the darkness heading over Kachemak Bay to the Kenai Mountains, but it wasn't getting any nearer to us. At noon we decided to drive up the road to McNeil Canyon School and go skiing--or at least check the conditions. At McNeil, when we looked very closely at the snow we could see a bit of ash (individual specks), but decided it wasn't bad enough to keep us from our ski. We did a loop, and I shook my head in consternation because on the way back our tracks from 20 minutes before had a dusting of ash collecting in them. The wind was blowing from the north (not the direction of Redoubt), so I wasn't expecting ash to be blowing, and we certainly couldn't smell it or feel it, but it was there.

Our friends who live 5 miles up East End Road got a good coating, and apparently Homer got hit pretty bad, while 15 miles up the Sterling Highway to the north, Anchor Point got a half inch of ash. Right now: the kids just came in from playing outside and it is a beautiful sunny day. One would never know Redoubt just blew from looking out the window. You can bet that I'm counting my blessings today. Now I just hope my hubby makes it back from Anchorage. That's a lot of ash to drive through!