Eureka Alaska - The Fall colors are beautiful and ATV/UTV adventures are Great!

Dave and I took the ATV's and the Toy Hauler and headed up to Eureka, Alaska out to Bellanger Pass area it is about 2 hours NE of Palmer (80 miles) and on your way to Glennallen (due west about 60 miles).  It has some beautiful scenery and 100's of trails to explore on an ATV/UTV or Moose buggy.  In the winter it is awesome snow machining/snowmobiling but in the fall the colors are breath taking.

We went out with friends and brought the gun along since Moose, Bear, Caribou and Wolf hunting was open.  There are some nice moose, black bear, grizzly bear, caribou and wolves out there if you have the patience and time to hunt them.  You can road hunt some of them but the best hunting is to use the ATV/UTV to get back in there and then take a walk and bring the spotting scope.  If you wait you can see the whole Alaska animal kingdom go bye, it is truly amazing.

We headed out with some friends to find some adventure, did some mudding, some rock climbing, fossil hunting, and yep a little pushing of the ATV's.  We went on some trails that I would NEVER recommend to a novice and would only recommend to some experienced ATV'ers and make sure you have a buddy.  You may need a push or a pull at times.  There are some great trails for kids and adults alike it just depends on what kind of ATVing you want to do. If you like mud and creek crossings and like to ride the ridge lines this is definitely the place for you.  It was myself, my husband and a couple of his buddies, and let me tell you ladies, don't ever let a man tell you it is too difficult, it just depends on your determination. If your a mud loving woman, who is tough as nails then you will be fine.  If you think shopping at the mall and getting a pedi is a rough day then you had best just stay back at camp lol.

So off we went, I think the guys were rather impressed that I didn't wimp out and even though I needed a little nudge every now and then, I didn't give up and kept up with them.  The only reason I needed help was because I am on a 2000 Arctic Cat and the clearance is not nearly as high as their 2007 Arctic Cat, 2010 Polaris and even the 2003 Suzuki King Quad.  I have the sport suspension so the ride is softer but it also makes me drag bottom in some of the more rutted out areas.

We explored an old mining site, saw some pretty interesting relics of the past and just some beautiful scenery. You can find some pretty neat fossils in some of the areas, which always manages to amaze me that life must have been so different here in Alaska 1000's of years ago.

We went about 18 miles and that is when we ran into a minor problem or major problem depending on how you look at it.  We had stopped at the top of a hill over looking a valley deciding which trail to choose, we picked one and headed out.  About half way into the trail I started to notice this little line in the dirt.  I started looking ahead and noticed some liquid coming out of the 2007 Arctic Cat, it took me a few minutes to realize "holy crap" that is OIL, not water !! We caught up to our buddy, he shut off the machine and then WHAM all the oil came out, NOT GOOD!  We discovered that he lost his oil plug. After cleaning up the oil from the ground with a portable spill kit, we thought, hmmm I wonder if we can find that plug.  So as you could imagine it would be like looking for a needle in a hay stack, but with a little luck we found it.  We discovered that the threads on the oil pan itself was stripped and we were amazed that it hadn't come out sooner.  So we let the machine cool down and with a little suggestion from the "woman" of the group we used a zip lock bag, wrapped it around the plug and put the plug back in there and it held tight.  We didn't have enough oil on us so we had to tow our buddy back.  Now here is the funny part.... earlier in the adventure the Arctic Cat owners were joking we better bring a tow strap with a Polaris in the party as we would probably have to tow him home.  So the jokes on us, the Arctic Cat was pulled 18 miles home through hills, valleys, streams and mud by, yep the Polaris lol.  Here are some pictures from the trip.  Even with the minor incident we still had a good time.

Hint, click on the pictures they are much better in a larger view. :o)

Last camp trip of the season

Well Dave and I went out with Tracy and Mike and did some ATVing, some BBQing and relaxing. The colors are beautiful but the temps are really starting to drop. It is getting down to about 35 at night, thank goodness for the heater. 

Here are some pictures. 

Anniversary camp trip

Jen and I finally got a chance for a camping trip. It worked out nicely with our anniversary. I am lucky to have such a great wife, that likes to go camping on our anniversary!

We only had a couple of nights so we headed out Friday evening and made it to our spot by 9:30 pm. We just pick a spot to boondock, as we are not much for campgrounds. It had been raining back in Palmer so we were delighted to see the partly cloudy skies. No aurora, but still a nice evening.

Overnight a few rain showers moved in and made for some nice sleeping conditions. Saturday morning we awoke to a little light drizzle and some fog. It wasn't too bad so we took a small atv ride to explore some new country. Here is a map and some pictures of the loop we rode.

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=2262564

There was an abandon mining sled along the trail. I can only can imagine where it has been. The area has a lot of old mining trails to explore. It is very easy from here to access the Belanger Pass, Squaw Lake and the Alfred creek trail.

By afternoon the fog lifted and the rain had stopped. We gathered some firewood for a fire and headed back to camp.

The old faithful suzuki 300 with over 5k miles ran well. I was worried as it has been through a few tough times here lately. Last fall it ran well over 20 miles on little to no oil mixed with water. Tough little machines.

The blue berries were out in full force. Everywhere you looked there were plenty of berries. Lots of people pick blue berries in Alaska, and this weekend was no different. We saw a lot picking berries close to the road.

I threw some steaks on the grill. Jen made a few items to go with them. As you can see by the picture she overloaded our plates (no complaints here). Not sure either one of us was able to finish a quarter of our meal. The Henry Weinhards went down smooth though.

Sunday morning was another beautiful morning in this great state of Alaska. We hiked up to take a few pictures of the scenery. It's always hard to believe that so many people spend so much money to visit Alaska, and I live here everyday.

Time for a catch-up chat - Summer events 2012

Well I can't believe I let almost a year go by since my last update, man I suck!!  So let's see a run down of the family happenings.

Jen pretty much has had no life outside of WORK, that god awful four letter word!! I spent ALL of May in Houston Texas, for of course WORK, that turned out to be the best month of the year for motorcycle riding, of course Dave made sure he shared it with me by sending text messages and pictures, isn't he sweet.  So May turned out be the driest month for the summer of 2012 as June, July and August were followed with more rain than normal, so my motorcycle season for Alaska riding was pretty much nil and of course filled with 16-20 hour days of WORK.  I believe we are seeing a pattern.  The project I have been on has definitely not allowed for much if any family time this last summer.  

See I was very hard at work!!!  While in Houston Dave entered my bike in a car and bike show and I won first place!!  Krista and I did get to do some Mommy Daughter bonding when we rode in the 4th of July parade.  We brought a TON of candy and ran out half way through the parade route.

Bob and Marlene came up I believe I got a couple of days with them luckily Dave had the whole time off while they were here.  They fished until they couldn't fish anymore, then took a break and took a drive over the Denali Highway, and fished some more lol.  They fished the Kenai River, they went to Captain Cook state park and it has "spirit stones"  
here is a link to some of the rocks and where it is located: 
http://cookinletconcretions.com/Kenai%20Article.htm

 

 

I really wish I could've gone it is one of the places in Alaska I really wanted to see.  Maybe some day.  

Dave also did some camp up the Denali Highway over 4th of July weekend, of course I had to work, those were the 20 hour days for several weeks, I think Dave started to think he didn't have a wife anymore.  Of course he had is trusty companion Kodiak the Bear killing dog, or should say the dog who is scared of her own shadow.  

So yes they are using their "survival blanket" as a sled.  At least one of us got to have some fun last summer.

Krista like me pretty much just worked all summer so like me her summer was pretty uneventful.  Krista was working at Chili's over the summer until the owner suddenly closed all the stores, turned out he went bankrupt so Krista had to find a new job.  She tried her hand at Carl's Junior and decided that fast food was NOT what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.  She got a job at a place called Bouncing Bears, which is actually a pretty cool place if you have young kids.  It is an indoor play round full of inflatable toys, if only adults could play on them too!!  she really seems to like the job and her hours are good.  She had her first prom in April which of course she looked beautiful.  Tristen her guy friend went with her and the girls, so we called him Charlie and these were his not so very Angels lol.  They all had a really good time.

 

 


Ashley was hanging out being Ashley at her base in Clovis New Mexico.  She has made quite a few friends there so has gotten out a bunch.  She has even taken up cliff jumping.  I know who would've thought little me by the book would cliff jump! Then she got herself tattoo'd.

At this point the Air Force must of thought she was one brave chica because her commander took her up for a few plane rides and some base visits.  She was doing really well at making the flights and not throwing up UNTIL..... CV22 (a-spray) then they took bets on how long she would last before she puked.  Lets just say whoever had the shortest time pretty much won the bet.

Well I think that is pretty much the summer..... I will write more about the fall and winter in my next installment.

Sorry it has taken me so long to post something.