Leaving Dillon - At Last

After a day and a half of preparation we have finally departed! We
have 1000 miles before we arrive at Burning Man. Everyone has their
tickets, a good thing at 300 dollars a person. We have more than
enough food to feed a small army, 40 gallons o drinking water and
another 40 as backup. We do need to stop for beer and tequila though.
Fabulous views as we drive past Vail.

Burning Man 2009

This years adventure is a trip to an event in the Nevada desert called Burning Man. It's a bit difficult to explain what Burning Man is, and even after all the research and discussions we have done, we are not really sure what to expect. First, about 30 - 40,000 people get together on an area in the Black Rock desert also called the Playa.

For a week everyone lives in a community which is based on radical self reliance, radical self expression and temporary community. You have to take everything needed to survive for a week, there is no electricity, food, water, or the ability to purchase anything. (Although it is possible to buy ice and coffee!) Thousands of people create amazing art structures in the desert, and theme camps for things like solar power, recycling, and all sorts of different artistic expression.

For more information here is the main Web site:    http://www.burningman.com/ ,  it really explains everything well. For such a radical event, there sure are a lot of rules!

We have planning this trip for over two years, and as the months have gone by preparation has got more and more hectic. We have a group of close friends joining us for this adventure, Phil from Colorado, Jim and Janet our skydiving friends, and David from Dallas. We've all gathered our costumes, (apparently very important), built a camp shower with evaporation pond, and the critical shade structure.

After a 14 hour drive from Dallas, with a fully loaded van, we find ourselves in Colorado at Phil's house. We spent all day unloading the van and preparing the rv, checking our bikes etc. The RV is full of food, clothing, camping equipment, clothing to deal with temperature ranges of 40F to 100F, everything we need to be self reliant! Jim is here from Dallas, and tomorrow we start the 1000 mile drive to Black Rock City, the temporary city created for Burning Man.

We are looking forward to some great experiences, seeing some amazing art and generally having a fantastic time.  We are staying with the Burning Sky camp, which is for skydivers. A plane is being brought in, and Janet plans on making some jumps.

We will try to send updates when we can, we probably won't have any Internet access on the Playa, but plan to write everyday and just update when we get back out. We'll be at Burning Man probably from Wed 2nd until Monday 7th.

This may be an epic adventure for all of us, stay tuned.

Vacation List

Here is a list of the vacations on this blog

Alaska 2009
Australia/New Zealand 2006

Alaska Photos

Alaska Bears 

Kenai Peninsula

Denali National Park 

Alaska Highways

Haines 

End of Vacation 

Back in Dallas and final thoughts on our Alaskan Adventure

Wow, what a trip!! The Alaskan license plate on their cars says “ Alaska- the last frontier” and that just about sums it up. Everywhere you go in Alaska you are surrounded by beautiful mountains. There is wildlife everywhere but not always immediately visible. Alaska is so big that the wildlife has plenty of room to move around; however, it is everywhere. We saw some beautiful moose right in a forested part of Anchorage. 

Alaska is a total outdoor environment. That is why people live there. They love the outdoors. If you are into cities that is not the state to move to. When we were in Anchorage we went to REI ( an outdoor gear store ) and that particular day REI was having a sale and the entire parking lot was full. The hunting and gun culture is alive and well in Alaska. The tip off was seeing trucks full with dead animals and antlers sticking out. We also noticed as we were driving around that practically all the road signs had bullet holes in them. Sara asks me “what’s up with that” and my reply was “the road signs make good target practice”. 

Driving around was actually pretty easy. There are only several roads and the driving distances were not that great. The vast majority of Alaska is remote and can only be accessed by bush plane. We found the people to be very friendly and helpful. You can tell that they have a definite toughness. The winters in Alaska can be severe. You have to be somewhat rugged to handle that type of environment. 

Some parts of Alaska can get down to forty and fifty degrees below zero. Lodging and food was pretty expensive but we finally realized they have from May to September to make their living. The rest of the year a lot of places are closed for the winter. Plus Alaska is a good distance from the rest of the country. 

It took us as long to get to Alaska as it takes us to get to Europe. I shot 7000-8000 digital pictures. Many of them were the same picture but with different exposures which can be blended together to capture a wider tone range. Alaska is definitely a photographer’s paradise. You do have to know where to go and at what time of the year. We were very pleased with our selection of places and time of year. 

Sara did a fabulous job of arranging the flights and accommodations. I keep telling her she could be a tour director in another life. As usual our total travel weight was about 250 -300 lbs. The majority of that was camera gear and camping equipment. I actually built my own rolling carry on bag which I managed to get down to 3 ½ lbs but still we had a load. 

 Here is our last photo album: End of Vacation 

To sum our trip up - we accomplished our goals which were not to get mauled by any bears, don’t need a medi-evac or rescue, and see beautiful Alaska and take good pictures. 

We hope you enjoyed our commentary and pictures. This was Sara’s first blog and I think she did a great job with it and I know she had fun with it.

Bears and Eagles in Haines

We reached Haines late Monday evening after a relaxing four hour ferry ride. We got up early on Tuesday morning and met with Ron Horn who is a minister in Haines and also is a superb photographer. Ron spent the morning showing us around Haines and pointing out all the hot spots for photography. 

Haines is famous for their eagle populations especially in November when the chum salmon make their final run up the Chilkat River. What we did not know was all the other photo opportunities in Haines. They have a very good bear population and the scenics are fabulous when the weather is good. So we were lucky enough to see quite a few eagles and bears. Unfortunately, the weather was somewhat cloudy, windy and rainy during our visit so there were no scenic opportunities. However we found plenty to do. 

Haines is a cool town. It has a permanent population of around 1,600, a little more in the summer. It is only 39 miles from the Canadian border, and Tuesday we took a drive up to Canada to check out the views which were quite impressive. We went by a Native American center on Wednesday and saw an actual totem being carved. It was quite impressive and takes an extraordinary amount of time and work. 

Here is the latest slideshow: Haines 

We are now back in Juneau arranging our luggage for the trip home. Hopefully Hurricane Ike will not prevent us getting back to Dallas, otherwise we will probably be stuck in Chicago over the weekend. Hopefully all our friends in Houston will be safe.

Juneau Float Planes

We had problems uploading these photos of the float planes we saw in Juneau, so here they are now.