CPR and Parachutes

Below are the links to my final two articles in the Anchorage Daily News:

http://www.adn.com/life/health/story/483273.html (A story about a man who saves his daughter’s life by administering CPR)

http://www.adn.com/life/story/492107.html (A story about the 5-year-old Parachutes Teen Center, a teen hangout in an Anchorage mall)

Enjoy!

Struggling young adults and orphaned critters

Here are two articles I wrote that came out after my last day of work:

http://www.adn.com/anchorage/story/482022.html

http://www.adn.com/anchorage/story/482577.html

One is about the large number of young adults in Anchorage who are homeless and struggling to make ends meet. The other is about the Alaska Zoo, which is unique in that more than half of its animals were orphaned or injured.

All great adventures must come to an end

Today was my last day of work. Tomorrow at 6:30 a.m. I’ll be on a flight back home to KC.

I’ve had an awesome summer. As I told someone earlier today, I’ve learned a lot about journalism, the great state of Alaska, and in many ways, myself.

I was blessed to have two couples at the paper reach out to me and provide me with a car to drive and a guest room to stay in.

The family I stayed with was great. They were a ton of fun and introduced me to experiences and ideas I might have never discovered had I lived on my own.

I mastered the stick shift… which was no easy feat. I definitely was humbled as a driver. Six years driving an automatic means little when you get behind a stick. 

I had a chance to work with an amazing group of reporters, photographers and editors up here who really know their stuff and were always willing to give me good advice and support. To top it off, I was in a buzzing newsroom when some huge political stories broke up here.

I got to see a humpback whale, tons of moose, sea lions, sea otters, puffins, bald eagles and salmon — all in their natural habitats.

I’ll miss the people, who all are especially friendly, the 20 hours of sunlight, nearly non-existant humidity (at least compared to what I’m used to), the gorgeous mountains and of course, the fabulous FRESH salmon and halibut.

I would like to give shouts out to … ha ha. I’m just kidding. But seriously, thanks to everyone who has stopped by my lil’ ol’ blog and shared in this experience with me. I hope you’ve learned a few things about Alaska along the way.

I do want to apologize if you see a few posts that have some pictures that don’t fit the captions. In the last few days, something funky has been going on with the blog or my computer and it’s switching around some of the photos.. Very odd. I’ll try my best to get them back to normal.

I still have some more photos left to post and a few more articles that will be printed in the next several days, so check back.

TO BE CONTINUED…

God bless.

Only in Alaska (Part 2)

Here are a few other things I ran across today that are unique to this state…

This bus is advertising a special burger only available up here — the McKinley Mac, named after Alaska’s Mount McKinley or Denali, the highest mountain peak in North America. They’re really large burgers.

A 24-hour drive-thru coffee spot… This probably really comes in handy in the winter months.

This license plate signifies a Native group that is from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

Salmon in a box. You can find it at any grocery store, Wal-Mart or gift shop up here! It makes a great Christmas gift.

This is the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, which serves as a medical center to Natives, as well as a medical supply distributor, a professional recruiting agency, a health research organization and a public health and advocacy agency, among other things.

Only in Alaska

Here are a few things I’ve stumbled across in the past nine weeks that you usually don’t see in other parts of the U.S. …

Look at this gorgeous sky today. It’s surreal, isn’t it? The clouds appear smeared. This is common for Anchorage, locals told me.

Moose crossing signs!  I pass a few of these every day as I’m driving to work and coming back home.

Unleaded gas at $4.44.

FedEx Kinko’s proudly ships fish in Anchorage!

Okay, so this is something you probably see more often than we do up here, but I had to get a picture of this… yesterday was the first day in probably a week that it was sunny outside. Everyone was elated!

Praise God for the sun. This unexpected surprise really brightened up my day.

Big story of the day in AK

You may have heard about this already, but just in case you haven’t, one of the Alaskan senators was indicted by a federal grand jury today. This is HUGE up here. He’s a big name in the area. The Anchorage International Airport is even named after him.

Here’s the story: http://www.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/stevens/story/478349.html

Anchorage doctor bikes around the country – literally

Here’s a story I wrote in yesterday’s paper about a local doctor who is riding (he’s finishing up Thursday) around the periphery of the country to raise money and awareness for cancer: http://www.adn.com/life/health/story/476455.html. 

12,000 miles in 120 days. And he’s 62. Impressive, right?  I’m 41 years his junior and I know I’m not even close to being in that kind of shape.

The fishing trip

We woke up around six and drove about two hours to a town named Sterling, where we met up with a couple and their three kids (friends of my host mom) to take a spin in their boat around the Kenai River and do some fishing for that good stuff — the fresh sockeye salmon.  

We all packed on layers and layers of clothes because it can get cold in the river and most people (like we did) actually stand out in there in the river and fish, rather than just cast a line out from the boat.

Unfortunately, no one in our group was able to catch any fish, but there were many people fishing in our area that were successful.

Hundreds of people actually live right on the edge of the Kenai River and have prime fishing spots. If you look closely, you can see two men standing out in the water in front of their homes.

Many people just bring their boats out, tie it up to a tree or something stable, and walk out into the water.

There were hundreds of sea birds out to greet us on the cloudy afternoon.

All bundled up. I felt like I was about to go skiing…

Note to Mom and all other concerned parent figures in my life: This was a floater jacket, which triples as a life jacket, warm coat and raincoat.

I was trying… hard. ha ha.

You like those glasses? The family loaned me those to protect my eyes from hooks that sometimes were flying through the air. I was told that people have been known to lose their eyes from hook accidents. I have to make it back to KC and NC with my eyeballs intact.

‘A’ for effort.

Here’s my host mom, Pam, doin’ her thing. She’s a tough cookie. She drove back to the Kenai River a few hours after dropping me off in Anchorage and is fishing out there today for king salmon. They started at 5 a.m. 

I had to get a picture of this. This duck probably had close to 30 offspring trailing her. Whew. That’s a strong female right there. 30 kids!?!

After a couple of hours, it started raining.. and pouring.. It rained like I’d never seen it rain before. We were freezing cold and wet. Lots of ’true Alaskans’ stuck it out and kept fishing as if it was 75 degrees and sunny. After a while of braving the weather and seeing that it wasn’t going to clear up anytime soon, we decided to call it a day.

Goin’ fishin’

Yay! Tomorrow, I’m going salmon fishing with my host mom a few hours away from Anchorage. I’ve never been fishing before, let alone in Alaskan waters, so this should be quite an experience.

Today, my camera wasn’t working… That concerns me. Very much. Don’t worry. I’ll figure out a way to get some pics, folks! Keep hope alive!!

God bless.

A marine mystery

Photo by Cy St-Amand, North Gulf Oceanic Society

Three dead humpbacks in Alaskan waters. A pod of 11 killer whales are suspected.

Read here for more: http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife/marine/story/472527.html

This story took me back to my days when I dreamed of being a marine biologist…