Since the moose hunt, we caught up on a lot of around the house stuff that we have been putting off since the weather was nice. Work continues to dominate my time and I have to work many weekends now which does not leave much time for shared adventures.
We finally got the bear rug back. It looks amazing! We have it hanging on our wall next to the stairs. We are now debating about what we will do when we get another. If it isn't a giant or it doesn't have any special coloring or anything, we will probably just tan it and give it a away. We have already had a couple people express interest in hide. It's weird because black bears are considered a nuisance in a lot of areas up here and there are many people that toss the hides... not us! Our next problem we thought of is where in the world would we put a grizzly bear if that ever became a reality. I tried convincing Danielle we should get a life size mount of if on it's hind legs and we can just have it stand in the living room where we put our Christmas tree; but she didn't like that idea. We might have a naked wall big enough for it... we'll see.
This is one of our favorite things to do on a good day after some fresh snow.... back country snowboarding. It's a great workout to hike the mountain and you get a smooth ride on virgin powder. Tundra loves to come too, but he gets a hell of a workout having to jump through the deep snow the entire way (we have snowshoes on of course). He like to chase us as we fly down the mountain, but he hasn't learned to keep his distance yet.
There are ptarmigan EVERYWHERE at this one valley we backcountry board in close to the house. I'm not even joking when I say there are probably thousands. Tundra likes to track them down and chase them, but he doesn't get anywhere close to them before they spook because of the snow. Hunting isn't allowed in that area either. Tundra did find a dead one and he acted like he caught it himself.
Down the valley trying not to hit the pup.
The snowboarding master.
We went back to Iowa for Christmas. We had a blast hanging-out, being lazy, and gorging ourselves. It was a busy time driving back and forth between families and friends. This is our nephew Kane in his bear hat we him. He is finally old enough to remember and miss us!!
Group hug with the nieces. Is it actually a group hug if I'm the only one hugging and they are all screaming and trying to get away?
Little Emma hugging the Alaska puzzle we got here and sporting a very stylish moose hat.
My new best bud and I heading out to the creek to explore.
The creek was frozen over in areas and that was where the minows and chubs were hiding. We spoked them out and scoped them up.
And what's a long day of exploring and being outdoors without hay bale jumping? Little super man looks good in his bear hat!
We got to go to Tuesday night roping with Brandon (Danielles' brother) and Deanna (Brandon's wife). It was an awesome time. It's just a small group of about 10 people that get together at this guys farm and have a good time drinking, roping calves, and barrel racing. They always have a yummy potluck afterward too. This is Danielle on their massive horse.
Blurry shot due to poor lighting, but that's Danielle chasing a calf out of the gate.
Brandon was easily the best roper there. He was very impressive and his horse was very well trained. This is him in the middle of flipping the calf.
Brandon at the gate.
An annual thing a lot of Alaskans do is head somewhere warm for a vacation sometime during the cold months. We decided take our vacation the second week of January. Initially, we were going to go to Hawaii, but after looking at what a Hawaii vacation would cost us compared to what we could get out of Mexico, we decided to head to Puerto Vallarta. I was shocked to find out that an all inclusive resort (food and alcohol) and airfare was about the same as airfare and a rental car in Hawaii; and that didn't include a hotel, food, and drink!! And we don't regret our decision! The flight was not bad at all. It was actually shorter to fly to Puerto Vallarta from Anchorage, than to fly home to Des Moines!! By the way, it was warmer than 80 degrees every day and only partially cloudy one day... beautiful. The picture above is me staring in the window of our bathroom. The picture above is of the resort from our sea kayak. You can't really see it the best, but it consisted of 6 different housing buildings, 5 pools, 7 restaurants, and 6 bars.
This was probably the only negative thing about the resort, who puts a curtainless window in the bathroom to the outside walking area? Granted, not everyone is 6'8" and can see in them, especially the locals.
We didn't have an ocean front, but we could see the ocean in the white of this picture. We were in the adults only block, so it was fairly quite. We weren't around this pool very much since we were mostly beach brats.
Danielle showing off her new tat.
This picture was taken for Danielle's dad Dennis. See Dennis, even Puerto Vallarta cops have charges to help enforce the law. Time to jump on the band wagon.
Daily naps were a must after long days in the sun, bottomless alcohol, and most nights lasting past 3AM.
The resort had many daily activities. This is waterpolo; of course I was the goalie. They also had different contests, water volley ball, sand volleyball (which we played for hours every day), yoga, watersports, and the list goes on and on.
Our base camp area for the day. It was a blast sweating out last nights alcohol and getting a little sun exercise. The court wasn't in the best shape tho. It had random cement patches under the sand and anything out of bounds to the north was dangerous since there was very little sand on top of concrete. Never the less, we left there with some cuts and bruises all over us that will easily leave scars.
Iguanas were everywhere. They were mostly in the trees but they came down to feed from time to time. We also found out it was mating season. We thought they were all mean lizards chasing each other all the time until we saw this guy take her buy surprise by doing a flying squirrel, jumping on her back, and latching on with his mouth to the back of her neck. Horny lizards
The sunsets were AMAZING! Being on the west coast of Mexico, the sunsets were directly into the ocean. The first night we were there, we watched the sun set and noticed something jumping out of the water. After watching closer, we could tell they were whales!!! Yes, humpback whales were putting on a jumping clinic. They were going nuts for about an hour. Unfortunately, didn't have our camera at that time and we figured we would see them again... we didn't only once more time... briefly and too far away for a picture. It was kind of comical knowing those same whales are all over up here in the summer yet we have never seen them jumping, and then we visit Mexico for a day and see them leaving like crazy.
We actually weren't staying directly in Puerto Vallarta. Our resort was closer to a place called Bucerias. Down town Bucerias was about a mile walk up the beach. This is a picture of the market in the town. It's a very fascinating place to visit and great place to get souvenirs. It's a little overwhelming however since all the 100 little shop owners are pretty much selling the same thing and want your business. We frequently here, "Want silver? Come in, take a look? I don't charge to look? Necklace? Cigars? Dress?" The cool thing about this place is there are no price tags. You go in to a shop, find something you like, and you barter.
We were recommended to go to this one local restaurant in town by a couple of ladies that frequent the resort we were at. Boy are we glad we listened to them!! It was a place called Miguel Angelo. It's a seafood restaurant that serves locally caught seafood. Fisherman bring their catches in, and they cook them up for their customers. We ordered the most expensive thing on the menu... the seafood combo platter. It included 3 lobster, 4 giant grilled prawns, octopus tentacles, mahi tuna steak, shrimp, and of some kind of unidentified fish split down the middle and cooked. There was also a few cooked vegetables and rice. This was the perfect amount for both me and Danielle and it was only 500 pesos or 42 bucks! My mouth is watering thinking about it right now.
They also had this little bird that was really friendly and would perch on your arm or shoulder. I was a little nervous since he liked to nibble...
Everyone in town is trying to make money. Those with little kids use the cuteness factor and have them run around trying to sell stuff as well. You can bet the cuteness factor worked on Danielle. This little girl was awesome. She was selling chiclets... little packs or 5 pieces of gum. She would sprint up to anyone she saw walking buy and say, "CHICKLETS??" She was selling them for 1 peso, or a little more than 8 cents. We were sitting on this red bench together and all of a sudden, she came up from behind us and squeezed her way between us asking us to buy chicklets. She was very funny because she had a tendancy to put everything in her mouth. She first cam up to us sucking on a whole pack of chicklets. She then brought over little magnets she was selling too... and after everyone she showed us, she would suck on it before the next magnets turn to go in her mouth.
This was actually the first little cutie that we encountered. He was with his big brother who was probably 5. After his brother asked us to buy chicklets, this little guy stayed around. He didn't talk, but he was a stinker. He sat next to Danielle and just roared at her. He then started placing with his gum... which started to get everywhere on his hands. Danielle was giggling at her and he turned his attention to her. For some reason, his goal was then get Danielle to eat the gum that was on his fingers. He kept trying to shove it in her mouth :)
Yes, a Mexican pharmacy. I went in and took a gander at their inventory. They had many things we do, and some things I didn't recognize. The shop owner there didn't speak much English, so it was hard to ask him questions about how getting medicine worked. Many medication you didn't need a prescription for tho.
We found this dead lobster on the beach.
View to the South from our resort.
View to the North from our resort.
Live muscles found all over the beach.
This was a beach jelly fish... it was pretty massive.
Found this dead eel on the beach too. This was actually the second dead eel we saw too. And speaking of eel, we saw an eel snake in the water one day when the tide was out. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It was about two feet long, looked like a snake without eyes, and had red stripes all over it. We didn't know at the time that it wasn't poisonous, but it made a bee line for my feet and I had to jump skyward to avoid it running in to me.
More sealife... a Mexican Olive
The sand in the water was very interesting. It looked like it had gold flakes everywhere. We kept joking that they were going to make a reality show about mining the coast of Puerto Vallarta.
A sand angel for mom!
The night life was a blast at this resort. They had different, nightly shows that were extremely entertaining (They could have easily charged 20 bucks admission for each show) and a discotech that was open past 3AM. This is a couple we met that were really cool. They were from Canada (which by the way 95% of the people there were from).
These two old guys were from Quebec. They speak French in quebec and their English was horrible. I seriously could only understand 1 out of every 40 words that were said. The weird thing is I think their culture deems is appropriate for them to take pictures of anything they can see with their eyes... because they were taking random pictures of people at the bars, on the beach, and in the resort that they didn't even know. TOTALLY WEIRD. That guy on the left was 60 something and he took more shots than anyone at the bar. He kept saying, "Tequilla bang bang." And they would serve him up... about every 5 minutes. Needless to say he turned incoherent (even more than the 1/40 English word ratio) and they stumbled off to their room.
This is Shirley... or Tanya. I'm still not sure what her name was. She was a crazy, old drunk that blacked out every night.... and never remembered us in the morning. We even had to make sure she made it safely home one night.
Every night they would allow approved vendors to set up tables around the pools. This guy was amazing. He sculpted out of melted/ stretched glass. He made lizards most of the time while people viewed and bought his other items. However, one night a lady requested he make her a dog. I was skeptical since he didn't have any on display, but he melted that glass and whipped up an amazing looking dog in no time... with incredible detail too that I could have sworn I never saw him attempt to do.
There was a Mexican Fiesta themed night across the resort. It was pretty cool with a Mariachi band and many Mexican traditional games being played.
They even had a bull for people to pet and ride that night.
Gecko's everywhere at night.
Our plane ride home was pretty eventful. We got to pheonix and had to circle the airport 3 times since a couple runways were not open. Once we got on the ground, we had to taxi forever. Once we got to our gate, we had to wait on the plane for a while until the line to customs got shorter. Once we de-boarded, we had to wait in a massive line before we talked to a customs agent. After talking to the customs agent, we had pick up our checked bags. After that, we had to go to the front counter and check back in to our US flight to check our bags again. We then had to go back through security before we could finally head off to our next flight. Oh, and just so you know, we only had a 45 minute layover from the scheduled arrival time. Well believe it or not, we still had 1 minute left before the departure of our next flight to Anchorage. Well, we were hoping the flight would wait for us so we took off on a sprint. Little did we know that it was on the furthest concourse away from the security check point. We ran through so many of those horzontal walking treadmill things. Well, by the time we got to our gate, their was absolutely nobody there. Dissapointed, out of breathe, and sweating, we checked the monitor. We then found out our tickets had the wrong gate on them. The correct gate was closer to the security check area!! Next to our correct gate, it showed that the flight had departed. Dissapointed and knowing it would take forever to get flights back to Anchorage, we went over to customer service to wait in line. We talked to the gal there and she called someone at the other gate. She told us the plane is still there and to hurry over before it takes off. Soooo, off we sprinted again! We got there only to find out the plane was not allowing anyone else on the plane. In fact, about 3/4 of the passengers had already boarded when a "security issue" came up. This issue resulted in the remaining passengers not being allowed to board, and all passengers currently on the plane would have to all go back through the security check. I'm not sure what this issue was they were talking about, but I have never seen anything like it (and by the way, we were pissed the customer service rep made us sprint back there). Well they slowly came off the plane and in groups of seven were escorted by all the TSA and police officers they could find in the airport. About 2 hours after the scheduled departure, the plane headed home.... with us on it!! We were probably the only ones on the plane that were grateful for the late departure.Claimed to be the best roper in Mexico. We thought... ya right when he initially came out
Claimed to be the littlest roper in Mexico... too cute
Wild critters of the ocean
This is from when we were home for Christmas. Danielle and I went for a walk and decided to pick up ears of fallen corn in the fields for the horses. Well it turned in to a competition to see who could bring the most home. I more than doubled her amount with 96 to her 47. As you can see, I ran out of room to store the corn and opted for the pants leg... via the crotch. EDIT - Not sure what is wrong with the video, but it is supposed to show us emptying out all the corn.
Some recent things that have happened (not pictured above):
- I have to have surgery on my shoulder from a snowboarding accident I had last February 2011. Of course I scheduled it after the March snagging trip, and 8 weeks before a planned bear hunt so I can heal up in time :)
- We now own a couple snow machines (known as snowmobiles by everyone else). For some reason if you call them snowmobiles up here, you get made fun of. Personally, I'm not a fan of the snow machine designation... those are the things that cover the snowboarding moles hills of Iowa when weather doesn't cooperate. Anyway, we have had them out once since owning them and are looking forward to going out many more times before the snow melts. We also got some icefishing gear that we are excited about using as well. January is the coldest month, and ice fishing is usually best right at ice over and close to thaw out.
- We also got a 4 wheeler now (looking for a second). This will come in very handy for hunting and exploring more of what Alaska has to offer.
- Daylight is slowly returning. I actually got home from work today at about 5:30 and it wasn't completely dark yet. We are exactly one month post the shortest day of the year.
- Saw the northern lights last night from our back deck. It was negative 10 out so I couldn't stay our there long enough or hold still long enough, to take a good picture.
Love the sand angel, the live sea critters, and the roaper was awesome. Wow! Looks like a great time. Good for you!
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