Quartz Lake Weekend

Last weekend Becky and I joined some of our friends of ours for some skiing/ ski jouring/ dog sledding debauchery at Quartz Lake, about two hours south of Fairbanks. Good times, great weather and loud laughs. Nothing but bright sunshine, warm temperatures (above 10F), and good clean snow.

It was a Saturday gathering but some of us decided to stay at one of the Public Use Cabins for the night.

Now.... normally I would not divulge this sort of sinful information, but in the morning we all woke up and collected at the main cabin in the parking lot where other friends were staying. Jeff was cooking up the best caribou sausage I've ever tasted. Amazing! He shot the caribou then had Delta Meat, in town, turn some of the meat into sausage. The thick spicy patty kind. Just 2 inch round patties of thick juicy goodness. He stood their for a few hours putting patties on the grill, flipping, then down on the plate in the middle of us. Our mission, if we chose to accept it, was to sit at the table, admire the view out the large front window, drink coffee and enjoy the sausage. I feel like I should be doing Hail Maries or going to a confession booth or something.

We can finally see our own shadows. I've canoed in this very same spot.

Patterns in the Park

Ice Park 2001

What would you do with a refrigerator sized block of ice? What if someone gave you several blocks of theses giant pieces of ice, a chain saw, some carving tools, and a fork lift? I'd probably chip the ice off for margaritas until the ice was gone but some folks would make beautiful works of art out of them. Fairbanks is once again hosting the World Ice Art Championships from now to the end of March. Beck and I went the other night with a group of friends to see the creations and... well... play in the ice park. Sure, we were the adults playing on the kiddie slides but it's a hell of allot of fun sliding down 100 foot long ice slides. I'll try to put some photos of the slides soon.