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5/26/2009, 10:10 a.m.

Alaska is a crazy big place, so different than nearly all the places I have been these past couple years.  In the past month, I have seen a lot of this incredibly big and beautiful state.  The 2nd week of work was spent with Kenji traveling all around the state and helping a bit with his outreach program.  I have mentioned this before, but I really like what Kenji is doing.  The kids really seem to respond to Kenji, Tunnel Man, and what he is doing.  An incredibly lucky opportunity for me.

A couple weeks ago, I took a road trip down to Anchorage to attend the AWRA conference.  I made a quick trip into Denali NP as the weather was unbelievably good – amazing sun and over 20C.  It is really really difficult to beat that hanging out in the park with such fantastic weather.  The conference was good – saw many people I had not seen in a while. Very good for me to re-introduce myself to the community here. It was also great to see Gayle, Alex, Crane, Wendy, and Jer (and a whole bunch of little ones).

Last weekend, I went with Ann, Kat, and Sveta down to Denali for the pre-season bike ride. This is one of my favorite trips I enjoy.  Before the tourists arrive and the buses begin to run, the road is opened up until mile 30 for vehicles.  After that point, the road is closed to vehicles, but bikes and hiking is allowed.  So we biked up to Polychrome Pass and back (50 km total). We saw most all the big animals, except wolves – but we did see tracks.  Great, great day.

Here are the rest of the pictures with Kenji, the road trip, and bike trip into Denali.

My return to Fairbanks has been good.  The transition back into town has been a bit rougher, but not bad, than I was expecting.  I spent a lot of time visiting friends and family and getting logistically set up – bank accounts, car, starting to work again,  etc.  At times it was a little ovewhelming going from Nicaragua to USA. For example, going to Safeway in Boulder was completely overwhelming. I spent much time just wandering around with just so much stuff.  Another example of the strangeness was going from this little village in Sabana Grande where I was walking everyday on dusty dirt roads to driving around in a (almost) new hybrid car.  It just did not seem right.  Alaska is different than many places, but it very much feels like I have been going from extreme to extreme.  I guess this will settle down a bit.

I left Nicaragua with mixed feelings.  It was definitely a great experience. I have been asked if I got out of it what I was hoping.  The answer to this is definitely ‘Yes.’   I think I managed to experience most every emotion – frustration, anger, happiness, being proud, etc.  I did manage to learn much about myself, step back and take a look at what is going on around me, and many other things.  At this point I feel this was a once in a lifetime sort of event for me and I am glad I was able to take advantage of it.

Now that I am back in Fairbanks and things are sort of settling down, I hope to be able to do a better job of keeping up with posting on the blog.

Today is my last day in Nicaragua. The past few days have been a little crazy but fun. After spending a few days in Granda, we decided to head to Corn Island, located in the Carribean Sea. We originally wanted to go there for New Years, but the timing did not work out. This trip was meant to be 4 days, but was shortened to one after we both baked ourselves in the sun (literally and not in a good way). So after 24 hours, we flew back to Managua and then got on a bus up to León. Yesterday, we hiked to the top of 3 volcanos (2 active, 1 not so active). It was a great way to end an amazing journey. Our guide was this amazing man of 60 years that walked up and down the volcanos with no effort at all. He then mentioned that in 10 years of guiding on the volcanos, nobody has ever done 3 in the same day and he thought we were both quite fit. He then guessed our ages – me 26 or 27 and Mareike 23. Pretty funny, but made me feel good (although I was more than quite happy just to be able to keep up with our guide). I look forward to sharing more stories and showing pictures with everyone soon.

This afternoon will be spent travelling back to Managua and I leave early in the morning back to the US. More pictures will be uploaded when I am back.