Trout Night

Last night Mr. FishTaxi cooked up the Rainbow trout he caught over the weekend at Silver Lake. First fresh fish of the year. It was yummy!

Maiden Voyage

The old man and the sea built this sail boat and I was honored to be a part of her first trek.

The bottom picture was taken at Robe Lake where I met the builder. We met up Memorial Day at Dock Point and helped him launch her in the ocean.

He called me today from Fairbanks. Home safe and sound from Prince William Sound.

What a beautiful sail boat.

Dock Point Launch

Went paddleboating today at Dock Point instead of checking my cache out at Gold Creek. My Zodiak ride crapped out on me and it was too hot to hike out there so we headed to Dock Point and launched the paddleboat for the first time this summer.
Too much fun! Just what the FishTaxi needed. A sunny day on the water. We had a fire on the beach, roasted hot dogs and helped "the old man and the sea" launch his sail boat that he built.

Cache On!

Mr. FishTaxi took off this morning up the road to hit his fishing holes for his days off. I stayed in town to check on my geocaches. Hiked out to Bear Bread Stump cache http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=bb49d7b2-8cb7-478d-a059-b11f6583fcf3 today. The cache was in good shape after the long winter and is ready for visitors. I was sad to see the eagle's nest dormant this year but they will come back. There is a new ravens nest in the tree above the cache. You can check out the picture at the site.

Tomorrow we are heading out to Gold Creek Treasure http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=9daf606a-ac81-48c2-a902-a6746e33785e. Its a 3 and half mile hike out there so I lined up a Zodiak ride to the beach. From there the cache is about a half a mile to the bridge. Paying for gas and bringing a picnic lunch. Just so I don't have to hike out there! I want to make sure its there before some cacher hikes 7 miles round trip along a mountain side trail, crossing 3 waterfalls and a couple of avalanche shutes, to find nothing but blueberries & bugs. If it isn't there I will archive it and hide another cache this summer somewhere else out there. (The tree roots could be swallowing it)

I hope I can find the treasure since I hid it!

Alder Project

Took this picture at my neighbors house Friday night. She's curling the alders lining her driveway. It will be interesting to see how the alders grow. She is known as the town flower lady and I love visiting her & her yard.

Motorcycle Cat

Dead End Job

Theres' a hole in the bucket.

Skoools Out For Summer!

Last day for hitting the books, chalkboard and brakes for Valdez kids, teachers and bus drivers. Another school year bites the dust. Buh by!

Cat Car

Sitting on the dock on the bay kind of a day today. Beautiful. Managed to spend a few minutes of my lunch watching the ships roll in. Couldn't stick around and watch them roll away again. I had windows to clean at the college. I don't mind cleaning windows as long as its a one story building. I'm a little afraid of heights.

My Little Sistor kitty cat wanted to take Mitsu for a spin tonight but she had this drunk determined look in her eyes. FishTaxi wouldn't give her the keys. Get your own car, cat.

Breaking Records

Valdez topped the charts yesterday and I don't know about today but it was 73 in the shade.

My camera took this picture off the hood of my Montero about 3 this afternoon. The FishTaxis' daughter, the FishTaxi, the FishTaxis' sister, her daughter and my dog Roxy.

Hope everyone is having as beautiful of weather as we are!

Drum Walking

This kid walked this 55 gallon empty drum all the way down the park strip. Who needs a bike?

MooseSketti

The FishTaxi didn't have time to make mooseballs. Made a wild moose meaty sauce with garlic bread on the side.

My sister and niece are visiting from Chitina. Too bad I have to work or I would just play with them all week long. And eat moosesketti.

Hummingbird Territory

After Friday, being beautiful and sunny, today was overcast and light rain.

The town is humming though. Lots of feeders up and getting hit hard. As you can see from the picture snow is still melting and not very colorful.

Hummingbirds arrive on the backs of the migrating geese from as far as Argentina this time of year. Once flowers start blooming, hits will slow down til fall, when they hitch a ride back to warmer climes and stop at feeders on their way.

I wish there was a hummingbird in this picture but I was mainly taking a picture of the progress of my Livingstone Daisies. I'll start hardening them off next week for planting Memorial Weekend.

Written in history

Small Shrimp At Large

Yummy Yummy Yummy I got shrimp in my tummy~FishTaxi
Shrimp boats are a comin'
Theres dancing tonight. ~ Unknown

Fresh Eggs

Heres a picture of the fresh eggs my sister-in-law gave us. The big ones are duck eggs. I'm thinking about getting a couple ducks from her the next time we visit Palmer. Bring them home and let them run loose in the yard. I hear ducks love slugs! Valdez can be slug city in rainy summers. Last couple of summers have been nice and we still had a lot of slugs.

I've never ate duck eggs before but I'm going to try one in the morning for breakfast.

All Grown Up

My Eagle now appears to be almost grown. He soars around testing his wings and lets ravens mess with him for fun. He no longer looks like a juvenile bird but the proud American Bald Eagle he is.

How do I know this Eagles a He? I don't. Just a hunch.

The Evolution of Dance

http://www.break.com/index/evolutiondance.html

If you're around 50 years old you will love this.

A Steal of a Deal

If you look close Roxy is in the back seat. The back windows don't roll down (electric) but I will get that fixed along with the gas cap that doesn't close. Other than that everything else works. I showed it to my daughters friend in Anch who has a used car lot and she said "a steal of a deal!"

The reason I got it so cheap ($1000) is the tags expired and it won't pass Anchorage IM requirements. In Valdez, we don't have emmission testing to renew or register our vehicles. Took it in and got "Mitsi" new tags today. I'm switching my Alaska Veteran plates from the Chevy over to the Mitsubishi Montero since that is what I'm driving now. Roxy loves riding in it and going places with me. She jumps in & out fine at home but won't jump out anywhere else. We will work on that. I can't take her home every couple of hours to pee!

The gal I got Mitsi from was really cute & nice. I said "Craigslist rocks" and she said "yah, I've got jobs, places to live, cars and boyfriends off of Craigslist!" She came up from California a year ago with her then boyfriend. He left, but she wanted to stay, so she did. She bought a new pretty green Subaru and posted the Mitsubishi on Craigslist. What a gal!

Golden Eagle

On the way to Anchorage we spotted a Golden Eagle sitting in the bushes on Thompson Pass. This is only the second Golden Eagle I've seen in over 25 years in Alaska. It was my rides first spotting and he took lots of pics with his 35m with a powerful zoom lens.

The picture on the right gives you an idea of the Golden Eagle's view from up there.

The trip was short & sweet. Picked up the Mitsu Sat night about 6pm. Its summer in Anchorage and driving to my sister's house, I accidently turned the windshield wipers on, and couldn't figure out how to turn them off! Sunny day and I'm driving with my windshield wipers flapping.

We just hung out at my friends house Sat night and played 10,000. That was fun and relaxing but we stayed up pretty late and slept in today. So, we never made it to Bingo. It was another sunny beautiful day in Anchorage and I hated to leave. Left my sister-in-laws house in Palmer (with fresh eggs!) at 7pm and got home right before midnight.

The Mitsu runs and rides like a dream. (Once my friend showed me how to turn the wipers off:) Good thing the wipers work because it was snowing on Thompson Pass and raining in Valdez.

It was well worth the weekend Los Anchorage turn around.

I'll post pics tomorrow night with Roxy in the back seat! And Happy Mothers Day!

Road Trip!

The FishTaxi will be on the road the next few days. Packing my bag tonight and leaving in the morning. Hitching a ride to Anchorage, straight to my new slate blue 1991 Mitsubishi Montero LS, then cutting loose. (Picture shown is just year & model)

Bringing my camera, samples of my freshpack salmon, my garmin legend and a million dollar smile.

Driving back the frugal womans version of a land cruiser. Knock out 4wd manual transmission with a few pimples.

I'll be back to brag (I mean blog!) next happy monday.

Showing Off

I was so impressed with this kid I asked if I could take his picture. He backs up and stops for a second right in front of me. He asked what the picture was for and I told him my blog. He seemed to be fine with that and rode off on his unicycle without a care in the world. He was riding with kids on bicycles. They went ahead and this kid, unicycling, caught up with them.

PDubs parking lot sits adjacent to the playground in the middle of the Park Strip. I'll be seeing lots of kids showing off this summer I'm sure.

Coaxing summer on

Valdezeans can make strange phenomenons when getting rid of snow that piles up all winter.

Driving by I thought the house was possessed. It only hailed in their yard and nobody elses? It was raining, what can I say? I laughed out loud when I realized all this house possessed was a snow blower.

Eagle Watching

I'm sure this eagle pictured, is the same eagle, I watched mature this past winter. This tree presides over a dumpster and a lot of lower life birds hang around in the vicintity. Meaning G-U-elevens (seagulls) and the like. Until the fish come into port thats what the American Bald Eagle eats. All the dumpsters have lids. Small dogs are kept at bay. Fish carcasses are protruding and soon fresh fish will be running.

Comfortable Couch

Roxy dog, guarding the FishTaxi's Living stone Daisies. On pro-active couch duty.

Pussywillows

Happy Monday! Now that its over.

Took these pictures last night when Roxy and I went on our nightly walk down to the river. She pulls me on the leash (which I really like) on the road. Then at the river, right now snow edge, the leash comes off.

On the way to the bridge a couple teenagers in a zippy car with spoilers and lights were heading down our dead end road at a steady clip.

At the river, Roxy, is running and playing in the snow. (I'm getting a frisbee to see if she's like that.) I hear a vehicle coming across the bridge and its Valdez finest. They head down our dead end road also. After a bit I hook the leash back up to Roxy and head back up to the road. Sure enough, the black suburban that stops at the stop sign, returning from our dead end road, has THE DOG in the back seat, with the window rolled down. Its a black lab and when he sees Roxy he starts barking "hey baby! wanna ride?"

Course Roxy barks back "get a real job and I'll think about it."

The teenagers pulled out from behind a shed two minutes behind them.

Copper Kiss

ADN Stock Photo~

Its traditional for the gillnetters to kiss the first red king caught on the Copper River Flats (where the Copper River meets the Gulf of Alaska.)

May 15th is the commercial opener of the first, fresh and wild Copper River Reds & Kings. It will be a little while before the salmon make it upriver to the dipnetters & subsistance fish wheels.

Time to sharpen the knives and look for deals on cases of salmon cans (1/2 pound flats.) The price here at Eagle (non-union Safeway) is $34.99!!! I hope I can beat that gouging in Anchorage or the valley. Paying $35 for a case of empty cans hurts. I try and can 10-12 cases of reds every summer.

California Wildflowers

after a summer rain. Yukon sent this picture to me a long time ago and I'm glad I saved it. I needed some color in my life today. The snow is melting fast and its not raining. Just overcast but it sure is ugly around here this time of year. Pussywillows and alders are budding and thats about it besides snow, gravel and mud. Took Roxy for a walk today on the road to the Bridge to Nowhere and checked the trails out. Soon, we'll be able to walk straight to the beach from here.

Jet Jayce

Kudos goes to Grandma DoDo for Photoshopping this picture of her grandson, Jayce, future CEO. What a hip Grandma!

Its Friday night and I already got my new FREE replacement 17in Flat Screen . Can you believe that? Dell even paid the shipping for the new monitor and sending the defunct one back. We figure, since the IT guy at the college dealt with them from his college email address, Dell thought they were dealing with the college whom buy a lot of Dells. The only reason we can come up with Dell being so nice. Saved me a couple hundred bucks and I feel like a valued customer. Thank-you Dell.

Now, my dsl service is another story. It likes to go down at night when they think everybody is sleeping. I called the phone company this morning to complain and they asked me what my phone number was. I told them "look it up in the phone book. I'm going cable."

Happy weekend!

Hold on to your seat belt

New enacted law in Alaska. The lawmen of this great state can pull you over just to check and see if you and your passengers are abiding by the decades old seatbelt law.

While there they will ask for an ADL and Geico insurance. And who knows what else.

Alaska Star

http://www.alaskastar.com/index.shtml

Alaska Star-->Story Last modified at 11:46 a.m. on Monday, November 28, 2005

From A to Z - things to be thankful for

Alaska, Alaska Highway, alpenglow, armrests, attics, audio books, aurora borealis.

Bait casters, B.B. guns, beaver dams, bees, bears, Birchwood, bowls made of clay that kids make, bug spray.

Cabins, Car Talk, cat doors, change jars, chimneys, choices, christians (only the quiet, humble, lower-case-C type who do good rather than the loud, arrogant upper-case-C variety who tell others to do good), Chugiak, Chugiak High School Choir, civil disobedience, community councils, Converse All Stars, Constitution, Copper River, courtrooms, creaky floorboards, crooked creeks, crossing guards.

Dawn, delete buttons, democracy, Denali, depth perception, dew, dipnets, Dodge Darts, dogsleds, dragonflies, dreams, driftwood, dry clothes, duct tape.

Eagles, Eagle River, Eagle River Road, Eagle River Valley, Eagle River Wolves, Earth, eBay, Election Day, elementary school plays, elephants, empty in-boxes.

Farsightedness, fellowship, finding a feather, firefighters, fireweed, firewood, first love, first snow, fizz, flannel, flush toilets, folding chairs, footrests, forest floors, foresightedness, forgiving friends, freethinking, fresh fish, fresh fruit, Fridays, fuzz.

German shepherds, ginger ale, glaciers, glass, grass, grass roots campaigns, grocers.

Hand-me-downs, hardware stores, Heidi's spirit, horses, hot water, Huck Finn, huskies.
Intelligent debate, I don't know, iPods.

Jelly beans (only the little ones that come in those creative flavors, such as root beer), Jimmy Carter, junk drawers.

Karma (only good), kazoos, kickstands, killer whales, kites, knock-knock jokes (only when kids tell them.)

Lakes, lantern light, lasagna, laughter, leather, leftovers, lemonade stands, libraries, Lions Club Thanksgiving dinner, live-and-let-live, Little League coaches, little lies, loons, lunch boxes, lynx.
Magic shows, Mallo Cups, mapmakers, McMurtry novels, memories, meteor showers, moderation, moonlit mountains, moose, mushrooms, Mustangs, mutts.

Natural selection, nicknames, night tables, North Star, Novocain, now, nurses.

Oak dressers, Op-Ed pages, old friends, old growth forests, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," open meetings, opposable thumbs, owls, ozone layer.

Paperboys (and girls), parents of adopted children, PBS, peanut butter (only Jiff creamy), pebbles (except in my shoe), penguins, Peters Creek, Phil Hendrie Show, Photoshop, pianos, plaid, pockets (only big and deep ones), pocketknives, poets, polar ice cap, polar bears, pressure cookers, ptarmigan.

Q-Tips (Though I haven't used one for years, I'm grateful that they are still available in case I ever want one.)

Rain, rainbows, rain checks, ravens, reading lights, reflective tape, reindeer, rest areas, rolodexes, rotary phones, root beer, roundabouts, rubber bands.

Salmon streams, Schwinn Continentals, scorekeepers, Scout leaders, Scrabble, scratch paper, sea ice, second chances, seesaws, Senior Center, serenity, simple solutions, sky, slant six engines, sled dogs, sleep, sleeping bags, Sleeping Lady, snow, soap, songbirds, soup, south-facing slopes, spaghetti, spaghetti westerns, Steelers.

Teachers, term limits, thrift stores, Thermos bottles, today, Tonka Trucks, troops.
United Nations, United States, United States presidents (only those who don't divide the country by lambasting half - or more - of the people whenever those people question his policies), United We Stand.

Veterans, veterinarians, volunteers, voters.

Wagging tails, walking sticks, water, wax, We the People, whales, when you want nothing, wilderness, wind, windmills, wolves, wrinkles don't hurt.

X-rays that come back negative.

Yarn, yarns, yo-yos (only Duncans).

Ziplock storage bags (except when you forget to open them before attempting to slip in a slimy salmon fillet).
- Tony Bickert

Jammin' Salmon

My friend Carrie, helping the FishTaxi pack smoked Copper River Reds, a couple of summers ago. (Its funny because she won't know I posted this picture. Only a couple of real life friends read my blog and Carrie isn't one of them.)

I'd like to take this opportunity to say "hi" to Yukon and not to worry. I won't post a picture of you! Hardy har har

I have not told a soul at work about my blog. No reason except that blogging is something I do away from work.

Speaking of work. The maintenance lead had Photoshop installed on the shop computer last night. I asked "why didn't they do this 10 weeks ago?" I could have been working on Photoshop instead of cleaning all this time! I did get a work assignment though. Make a sign to be sent away and have a real sign made out of it. Pretty cool. I worked on it about an hour tonight and I should have it completed by Friday. If not sooner.

Hooray Hooray

Its the first of May!

Outdoor sex begins today!