Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Alaska

These are the long waited photos I referred to in a previous blog post when I went out to Girdwood and Portage for the first time. This was the first scenery I saw by the Seward Highway. It was quite amazing to me! These were taken with an HTC Hero, so the quality isn't great, but it was all I had. I caught some pretty things and have a video too so take a look!

Here's a quick clip of a little goat walking along the highway:

 

I, also, just wanted to thank you for following my blog. It means so much. It soon will be coming to an end. I leave this Tuesday. I made a post referring to my Alaskan internship, but it didn't directly correlate with the rest of the posts I have been posting on here. It was more of a lesson that I got out of working at the clinic and for those types of things, like my life experiences in general, I post on my Tumblr blog, called The End Result. 

Go ahead and check that post out here. There are many more exciting posts to come before I leave, including some cool videos and some stories of my recent biking activity! I will do my best, but I am very short on the time that I have.

Hope all is well. Thanks again!

"Don't take another step!"  I said to Tyler as we started to advance on the Glacier...

 

Thursday night I went camping out by Portage with Tyler Willis, a guy I met the night before. Funny how things work out. We had a ton of fun so I thought I'd tell you about it! The drive to Portage is a little under an hour. We really didn't pack much, not even wood or an ax to get some; we just roughed it. When we got there we walked over to the river and the water was completely clear all the way to the bottom. Not only was that amazing, but there were hundreds of Sockeye Salmon swimming up stream, some a vibrant, bright red color. Sadly, they were all swimming upstream to their death because that's a part of their life cycle.

We had to find wood though for the fire because like I said we had none. We scrounged up some wood left over by previous campers at the nearby campsites and managed to get enough to last until we decided to hit the sack. Or... the sleeping bag that is. All the camping gear I had was lent to me by a very friendly person who also let me borrow her Expedition. Lucky me! She even had an air mattress in her gear. I'm typically not one to use those as I prefer getting the "full experience", but this particular night I was very grateful to have one.The areas between all the trees weren't big enough to put the 16x16 foot tent in so we had to set up his tent on the gravel. First time I was ever glad to have an air mattress.

We waited for the sky to get completely dark - which it did about 12:30 or so. The stars were so bright and it was the first time I could really see the stars in Alaska! It has been such a cloudy summer and if it wasn't cloudy I was either working or still in the city and had no way to get far enough out to really see the sky the way I saw it that night. We suspect we even saw Jupiter or some planet - it was way too bright to be a star.

The next morning we got up about 8:45am, ate, packed up and left around 9. We drove to a trail about 20-30 minutes down the road. I had no idea what I was about to see at the end...

I know the video quality isn't the greatest, but it was amazing. There aren't any words to describe it. You can see the huge amount of snow/ice that was over the river and the river actually dug through the ice, creating a cave. We walked across the creek and went underneath it. The wall of ice was easily 10 feet high if not higher. It was a humbling experience. 

We then continued past the end of the trail, onto the rocks and boulders. We climbed/hiked up through the rock field and watching in amazement as the scenery behind and in front of us became more and more clear. On three sides of us, mountains jetted into the sky and waterfalls spewed out of them feeding into the river below us. While we were hiking, Tyler said to me "You know, I enjoy going to cities and seeing the amazing things man has done, but I enjoy more going out and seeing what God has done. God kicked our butt!" I laughed, but it got me thinking how true that is. We really do have something quite amazing to appreciate and there are places like this all over the world.

There were several levels to the hike. First you had just the rock, then rock on top of snow and then pure snow, then... glacier! That's right, we walked right up to ice that was millions of years old. Such an awesome experience. Then, I realized where those waterfalls were originating from! I bent down and touched the melting glacier emitting small little trickles of water. These small trickles were fusing together to make something bigger than themselves. I don't have any pictures of the large glacier in front of us as both of our phones died on the hike and we didn't have a camera. We were very unprepared. However, I saw that the enormous glacier in front of us was slowly melting, sending water downhill and continuing the flow of the river that creating the ice cave. It really was a "waterfall effect"! We hung out at a particular spot on the glacier for a bit, looked at some scenery through binoculars and caught up on our H2O intake. Then I asked if he wanted to continue on up towards more of the glacier. Tyler agreed and I took about five steps and then stopped. "Don't take another step!"  I said. Something caused me to stop - the sound of running water beneath my feet. I looked down and saw that I was right on top of a glacial crevass and that the only thing keeping me from falling in was a piece of ice, I estimated at a foot deep, if that. Tyler and I slowly stepped away and then went backed and looked at how deep it was at a little safer angle, which still probably wasn't very safe. I couldn't believe how close I was. Had I not heard the water, what would have happened? Would I even be writing this right now? It was scary, but such a cool feeling at the same time. We have to respect nature and the fact that nothing is 100% safe and to always approach it with caution, but just enough to still enjoy it. On the way back down, I heard another sound of running water beneath us! This time we were at a much safer location. The water was rushing underneath all the rocks we were climbing over, feeding into the river.  It was really neat.  This is a picture of me with my back to the lake that the Portage Glacier rests by.  This was a different glacier all together.  The one we were by was right behind Tyler as he was taking this picture. Unfortunately, right after this one his phone died and we didn't get a single picture of the glacier we walked on.

Hope you enjoyed the post and pictures. I plan to post more pictures once I get them from Tyler.

Last night was unbelievably busy and I've been running on 4 hours of sleep since Saturday at 11:51 PM.  I never seem to get very much sleep on Sundays.  If it's not one thing, it's another that keeps me up all day.  Most of the time it's just friends that I want to see or talk to... but it's always worth it!  Anyways, about the night...

Last night was so busy it didn't even "start"; it just blended with the day shifts.  When I clocked in at Midnight, there were already 9 animals in the treatment room either being treated or waiting to be.  Several more were waiting in the lobby.  Minutes later, a large, seizuring dog was rushed in. Things "settled' by 2 AM, but it wasn't for very long.  Through most of the night we were looking after several patients.  There were 3 cats, 5 dogs and a ferret (and actually he came in a couple times in the night! I'll get to that in a bit).  Out of those 9 patients, 3 of them were operated on.  This consisted of 2 cats and the ferret.  One of the cats was a 12 month old stray that had been attacked by a dog and the dog's owner paid $802 for the cat's eye to be removed, as it was completely destroyed.  Another cat had a laceration in its left armpit so we fixed that up as well.  The ferret was brought in because it had previously been in surgery and the incision opened up, with part of his Omentum hanging out.  (Note: apparently "Omentum" isn't in my browser's dictionary. No idea WHY! *sarcasm*)  I'm not sure what the doctor did, but I believe she just wrapped him up firmly and sent him home to avoid a large medical bill.  However,  hours later we got a call and the girl told me that he (the ferret) freaked out, tore off the bandage and that the Omentum was hanging out further.  They brought it in and we removed the part of it that was hanging outside the incision and stitched him back up!  

There was a particular part of the night that was insanely crazy though.  "Buster", a 14 year old dog, was out in the lobby with his owner.  They were waiting on the results from the blood work diagnostics.  All of a sudden we heard a "HELLO? HELLO? HELLO?"  The tech, doctor and I rushed through the swivel door to the lobby where we saw poor Buster was having a Grand Mal seizure.  This was his first and the owner's daughter was absolutely scared to death.  I quickly grabbed his head and mid-section to support him and keep him from hitting his head on the tile floor.  The tech grabbed the drugs while the doctor supported his lower half.  We stabilized him and found out he had had small tremors in his limbs, but nothing ever this bad.  If you're not familiar with what a Grand Mal seizure is, its when the whole body is basically having convulsions, all parts at different rates causing them to move in all different directions at once.   The first one I witnessed almost put me in shock, but now I know how to handle them.  It's just one of the few things that working in an emergency hospital has taught me.

But that wasn't the crazy part! The crazy part happened once we got him back in the treatment room.  He was still quite anxious and squirming all around and actually bit me in the neck.  So while we were trying to calm him down to get a catheter in him, a 2 year old Beagle, who was also in for seizures, started having a Grand Mal in the kennel directly behind us.  All this commotion prompted a Pit Bull, who had been hit in the nose on accident with a machete, to start jumping up in down in his open topped cage, breaking open his incision.

GAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! It was crazy for about 30 minutes straight and then silence...

Well, kinda.  We stayed busy all through the night. I took a 10 minute break to eat and then started working again.  Close to the end of our shift the tech told me I did a good job. I told her I didn't feel like I got much done (referring to cleaning). She told me we took care of all the patients and that's what really matters.  I agreed and it got me thinking though... my supervisor has been on me about cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and so that's where my mind has been set, so I literally forgot what was the most important part of the job and the real reason I'm here in the first place.  It does somewhat show how they take advantage of free help. Anyways, not to complain, as I am very fortunate to work here and have learned a lot of tech skills as well as better work ethic!

I don't have any pictures from last night obviously, but here are some good ones I haven't shared yet!

Here is the room I stay in.  Pretty basic.

We make paw prints for free for those who have private cremation.  It's a service we provide to give something of memory to a client that lost their best friend. Here are the steps we go through to make one.

I have been asked quite a bit about the sunsets up here, so I thought
I'd take some pictures for you. Pictures can't even describe it, but
this is the best I can do, aside from buying all of you plane tickets.
Enjoy!

Yes, that's right I am tapping into the extremely boring subject of weather. Nooo, just kidding... but while I'm here I might as well say that the past few days have been sunny!  And also, as the title says, cloudy.  If you're not awake in the morning you pretty much miss all the bright sunshine.  Sure, it's light out till 11:30 or Midnight, but it's not "sunny".

Last Thursday I went fishing on the Knik River with Kevin and Craig Farnell.  Originally both from California, Kevin now lives in Texas, while Craig still lives in Cali.  I met them at Walmart haha, but they knew some other people that I did so they weren't complete strangers. We had a great time; no fish though.  Later, we hiked to Thunderbird Falls in Chugach Park (click to view).  Their aunt was actually with us as well and she had a Canon (actually the same model I was shooting with before) that she let me borrow.  It was nice to be able to get that feeling again.  You photographers know what I'm talking about! When you get into that "mode" that you feel you're in your own world, everything else disappears except you, the camera and nature...

*Shakes Head* Whoh! Sorry about that, I started day dreaming!

Anyways I know you're all here to see the pictures anyways so here are some of them!  I took a lot of random pictures this time. Some of scenery, but like I said I got in the mode so I was just taking pictures of everything.

This is looking out from over the ledge.  What ledge you may ask? Well... had I had a camera with less "zoom" I would have been able to capture it, but it is the ledge over the stream. It was a long ways down. And this was an amazing view!

All along the way I took photos on and off the trail. Here are some of those:

Here are some pictures of the trail itself:

There it is! Thunder Falls:

And some shrooms. Alaska has some super poisonous/deadly mushrooms up here. The bright red ones are very dangerous to dogs, we get dogs in all the time that eat things like this. Mostly Labs... go figure.

I did think these were quite pretty though, so I took a couple shots.

And that was really all I've got today. Hope you enjoy the pictures and the rest of the day! I'm going to go enjoy the nice weather.  Haven't slept yet (been up since 12 last night). I'll probably hit the sack around 4 today. Why waste away the day?

That's what I'll be saying in about 5 minutes. Sorry it took so long
to get these up! These are from last Friday when I went fishing on the
Keani River. Hopefully today will be a little bit more successfull as
I didn't catch anything last week. We're fishing for Red Salmon so
wish me luck.

Cheers!

Drifter, a vet's black lab, plays with a balloon and then finds out what happens when he eats it.

On Friday, I went out with someone to Portage.  From Anchorage, you go past Girdwood to get to Portage.  I did see my first glacier.  Not that it was super exciting, but it was definitely better than being cooped up in the clinic.  It was nice to get out of Anchorage and see some sights a bit, although it wasn't much.  Below is a picture I took with my phone. Yes, my phone.  Sorry folks, the Canon DOS Digital Rebel XT is no longer in my possession, as it currently resides in Estes Park, CO.  The next picture is of the route from Anchorage to Girdwood and Portage.  The one following that is of a trek that I am probably on as you're reading this.  I'm going down to Sterling which is about 3.5 hours from Anchorage.  I am really looking forward to seeing some more sights there and the guy I'm going with is going to let me borrow his digital camera and I'll just swap out memory cards.  I probably won't get extremely detailed pictures, but it's better than nothing, so watch for those.  I also have some more pictures taken with someone's phone, but they haven't been sent to my computer yet.

I hope you aren't all mad at me for posting this.  It contains a semi-derogatory word, but I thought it was so funny I had to share.  When I saw this I pointed and said to one of the techs "What does that say?" She read it and immediately burst out laughing.  Come to find out the head technician misspelled "pens" as "penls" (with an lowercase L - don't ask me how) and one of the vets walked by and simply dotted the "l" haha.  I snapped a picture before it got erased the next day.

I think this was punishment for not erasing the board.  It was barely sprinkling as I set off on my bike to retrieve some food from the grocery store 15 minutes away.  When I walked out of the store it was raining.  Fifteen minutes later I got back, soaked to the bone... literally. I had to change my bones!

Here are some pictures of some of the patients we have seen this week. The first is a dog that eats absolutely everything.  The second is a cat getting a blood sample drawn from the jugular.  The third is what looks like a moose foot imprinted on a dog's side.  The trauma is unknown.  Could have been a car, could have been a moose, or it could have been a car with a moose foot mounted on it's license plate. WHO KNOWS!  The fourth picture is "Happy".  She's not looking too happy... and lastly we've got an Eastern Box Turtle being operated on!

If this girl can't cheer you up, nothing can! Skully is the sweetest thing. I was fortunate to work with her twice.  She came in on my shift one day and left the next day on my shift (as I had hoped).  I'd love to see her again, just not at the ER.  And then there is this random grouse we got in. Doesn't it make you SMILE!? :D Kind of a cool looking bird actually... I think it's still in it's cage as we're trying to find a home for it! Anyone want a grouse!? I'll stick it in my carry on... they'll never know!

And this picture is the answer to all life's problems - spilled coffee.

I attempted to ride my bike back to the clinic from a coffee shop a couple weeks back and it turned into an absolute disaster.  My coffee spilled on my hands and pants every time I hit a bump, I almost wrecked and by the time I got back my coffee was not only cold, but half gone... So what did I do? It's quite obvious... I shoved a napkin in the hole. The hole responsible for all my life's scars (well I suppose it was a different hole, but still...)  This actually worked though! I didn't spill a single bit. Sure it still leaked, but the napkin soaked up all of it.  Try this next time you get in your car with a coffee!  But, this is the best part... it was free!  Yup, that's right. It doesn't ever hurt to ask "Hey what do you guys do with your left over coffee? Oh really? Well would it be okay if I just got some of the leftovers before I go?"  And that's all my friends.  Have a great day!

...oh I got some free Skull Candy headphones given to me too by the same guy, he just found them while cleaning and was like "Here, want some headphones?" Sure. Why not? Don't worry, I cleaned them.

Note: Sorry again about the poor quality of pictures. I actually spent time editing and cropping, but for some reason none of it was saved and I didn't realize it until after uploading and organizing them.  I'm not too worried, but they may be a little fuzzy.

Straight from the Anchorage Daily News:

"City officials say there is 'a high probability of encountering a brown bear on this trail' and are urging people to 'avoid using Rover's Run under any circumstances'."

...hmmm sounds like a good place to be!

They went on to say, "The majority of the trail users are bicyclists who are more likely to encounter a bear because they move quickly and quietly."

First real bear I saw in Alaska! Up close and personal...

...talk about a breathtaking and spine chilling experience!

Although all of you may not realize it, deep down inside you have a burning desire to find out what I have been up to this week that has kept me so busy.  Don't deny it, you know it's true.  Well, I will try my best not to let you down. 

The week mainly consisted of two things (with a couple minor changes): work and sleep.  As you may know I have worked 4pm-12am in the past week and a half or so, this results in an interesting sleep pattern.  See, I'm not tired after midnight when my shift is over so I end up finally falling asleep by four.  I don't have anything planned the next day before I start work at four PM so I don't set my alarm and wake up anywhere between one and three-thirty.  I somehow have a mental alarm that gets me up, but I don't know how I sleep that long, I just do.  So it's a vicious cycle of work and sleep. I hate that schedule, I would take any other schedule over that one.  The other schedules are midnight to 8am and 8am to 4pm.  I don't mind working some evenings, but when I do work the 4-12 shift it feels like I don't have as much time even though it's the same amount of hours.  I guess it's just how my body works.  I'm trying to train myself to wake up earlier, but now it's about breaking that habit. 

There have been some pretty fun events that have gone on this week, even though I have been busy.  Of course, earlier this week I saw a moose bathing in our sprinklers in front of the clinic.  I have taken quite a few pictures of the staff's pets in the clinic and some of patients in surgery and just around the clinic.  Here's just a small collection of what I took.

And yes, the Boston Terrier only has one eye. These are some of the patients that we've had in this week and I will forewarn you some pictures may be "less than appetizing".

My day off this week was Thursday so I hung out with Travis Dennison and went biking around Anchorage on the coastal trail.  We rode to an airfield where floatplanes were landing and taking off on a private, airplane-only lake.  It was pretty neat!  We took a break, ate at "The Sub" and then took a roundabout way back to his truck.

On the way back to his place we bought some discs for Frisbee golf and then later on, you guessed it, we played Frisbee Golf with Brandon Church (well maybe you didn't guess the 'Brandon Church' part).  It was a fun-filled day and definitely a nice change to my "cabin fever schedule".  Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but I needed a break. 

This upcoming week I get two days off so I'm planning on not coming back for at least one night.  I'm not sure where I'm staying, but I'll sleep in a tent somewhere if I have to.  I need to get away and get up in some mountains!  Also, just as an FYI, I am only borrowing the camera taking these awesome photos and will need to send it back within this next week, so hopefully I can take as many pictures as I can before I send it away to it's home.  I might buy a cheap disposable camera and scan them in... you know, what we used to do in the 90's.

...And if you're trying to figure out what the title has to do with my post, absolutely nothing! "W.A.A.G." stands for "Week At A Glance", but other than that, there is no relativity. The "Your Tail" part came to me later on, don't ask how I thought that one up.  Hope all is well with you guys and have an awesome, exciting, fabulous, phenomenal week!