Alaska State Fair!

On Saturday Andy decided to put his hatred of crowds aside and take me to the State Fair in Palmer.  What a nice husband!

We got to the fair early and hit no traffic on our way to Palmer, which is about 45 miles north of Anchorage.  Palmer is really farmy and actually reminds me a lot of the little towns around Salem, just surrounded by giant mountains.

As I have mentioned before on the blog (and as you probably know from general awareness of the world), there's a lot of daylight in the summer in Alaska.  This means that even though the summer is somewhat short, the growing season is awesome.  I have photographic evidence (note, these pictures are from the junior gardeners division, I think they roll out the "pro" vegetables as the fair goes on):

Exhibit A:

This cabbage weighs in at a whopping 89.4 lbs! That's a lot of sauerkraut. 

Exhibit B:

That is a rutabaga.
I had never seen a rutabaga before, let alone a 53.35 lb rutabaga

 Exhibit C:

10+ lbs (x2!) of disgusting zucchini - the only vegetable I hate.

Exhibit D:

Dahlias the size of my head! 

 After checking out the giant veggies and flowers, we moved onto livestock.  First up - chickens.  I really liked the animals because they all had names - even the cattle that they were putting up for the beef auction, which is super creepy.  Almost all of the animals were raised by kids, too, which I loved.  I always wanted to be in 4-H, but that's not something that you can really do in the suburbs.

This was my favorite chicken.  Her name is Becky and she won a fancy ribbon.  Mom and dad - get one of these chickens! (I have no idea what kind she was)

We also saw some GIANT chickens.

 After the chickens, we went to check out the ducks.  Apparently the latest trend in ducks is ducks with afros. I thought that this was just something that someone attached to the duck's head, but it seems to be natural from looking at other ducks.  This means that some horrible person actually took the time to dye this duck's hair purple.  This is sign #1 that PETA has not yet taken notice of Alaska.  Sign #2 comes later.

This duck does not have purple hair, but it still looks ridiculous. 

 After the ducks and chickens, we headed into the main livestock area and were greeted by this monster.  He was not friendly and really scary.  Turkeys are for eating and not for pets.

Pigs! The first pig was called Princess.  The sign on her pen said she is going to have babies at the fair! Much to my dismay she did not have her babies as we were walking by.

These pigs reminded us of our cats.  They are just as lazy and skinny as the pigs.

The fair was full of baby animals.

baby goat!

Baby cows!
(These were petting zoo calves and not the ones that were in the beef auction)

We even saw a goat being a jerk to another goat.  He would not stop kicking his friend in the head.  Then again, it might not be fair to call that goat a jerk, maybe it was payback for something the other goat did.  We'll never know. 

This goat was really fascinated by me.  Isn't it weird how his pupils are square? Is that normal for goats? Why do I have so many questions about goats?

After checking out all the animals, we went out to the outdoor portions to see the various food and junk vendors.  I think the NRA booth was my favorite.  They were raffling off guns.  GUNS!! GUNS!! GUNS!!  America!!!

Then we stumbled upon sign #2 of PETA's absence in Alaska.  This booth is sponsored by the Elks and is called the Rat Race.  It involves gambling so I was instantly attracted.  Andy said this booth had been at the fair at least since he was a little kid.

Me placing my bet.

 So here's the lowdown.  In the middle of the booth is a giant wheel that rotates (not fast, but it definitely spins).  The wheel kind of looks like the one from wheel of fortune and has about 10 different colors all around with a hole in each pie piece.  In the middle is a dome tied to a string.

Everyone gets about a minute to place their bets.  Some colors appear more frequently on the wheel, so the odds are less.  For instance, black pays 1 for 1 because it has the most pie pieces.  I think pink was the rarest and paid out 13 to 1.  Minimum bet is 25 cents, maximum bet is 50 cents.  Everyone is in charge of keeping track of their own quarters.

After the dome lifts, the excitement begins!!  The "rat" (actually a gerbil) is let loose - and everyone cheers for their color.  COME ON BLUE! 

I will remind you that this is spinning, so the poor little gerbil is just spinning around
 and running terrified towards the holes...

 Eventually the rat (gerbil) pics a color and they pay out the bets.

I think this one went white - we didn't win.

 We tried it about 5 rounds and never won anything, but didn't feel too bad about donating a couple bucks to the Elks.  Also, it was really entertaining.  One guy I stood by was winning a LOT - betting 50 cents each time on some high odds colors and winning just about every time.  He said he planned on spending the whole day there, and it's the only place he goes at the fair every year.  The lady at the booth said they only let the gerbils go for 20 minutes at a time and they have a whole bunch in the back of the booth.  The one we bet on was called "Juanita." I am really surprised we never saw anything like this at the Harney County Fair and Rodeo in Burns - this seems like something that might've even been invented in Burns. (Megan, tell your dad about this brilliant moneymaker!).

We walked around and checked out the rides, but didn't ride any...

The weather was beautiful despite the horrible rain forecast and at one point the clouds even parted and the mountains came out!

The last stop at the fair will be no surprise to many of you...

Yes I do think that's a (former) church. Drinking and church do go hand in hand.
As Fr. Art at UP once told me, do you think they were drinking grape juice at the last supper? He's so smart. 

 We grabbed a beer and sat outside to watch the show at the pavilion.  We caught the end of some Alaskan Native dancers' performance, which was really interesting and entertaining.

Enjoying the day.

About as close to church as Andy will ever get. 

Our view from the patio.  Such a beautiful day!

 We also had the opportunity to do some excellent people watching while we sat down.  This person I loved so much, I had to take a picture.  Sadly, I could not get a picture of him from the front, but I will say he had an epic beard (from the front he was more mountain man than hippie) and was also wearing an Obama 2012 bumper sticker on his shirt.  This guy was awesome because you just couldn't peg him by looking at his appearance or his clothes or the drink in his hand (a really nice $12 glass of Oregon Pinot).

He reminds me of my staunch libertarian coworker who makes his living as a bureaucrat.  I think being a living oxymoron is uniquely Alaskan.

Well that was the fair! On the way home, it got really busy and the traffic to the fair stretched for miles. We were glad we got there early and we had a great time.  Can't wait to make this a yearly tradition!

If at first you don't succeed...

First things first - there will be no pictures of the Williwaw Lakes in this post.  Second, this post will be long.  So get comfy and get ready to hear about our crazy weekend.

We started off great.  We were excellent list makers all week and we had all the gear we needed.  The only downside was that I only had a small day pack because my internal frame pack is in our garage...in Salem.  We figured that for one night, I would be okay with the small pack with my sleeping bag and pad strapped to it.  Almost instantly after I put it on, I really wished I had a waist strap to take some of the pressure off my shoulders.  It should have been a sign.

At the trailhead - look how official we look! Even Ripley has his pack on (and he did great with it).

After walking about 2 miles, we were treated with some excellent views of the city.

A bit after this point, we took a turn to the right and headed into the mountains, just as Andy had remembered from high school.  Then, suddenly, the trail forked.  Andy picked the one that seemed right (again, going into the mountains) and we quickly found ourselves in ankle-deep muck.  Stinky, wet, horrible bog just covered the whole trail.  My shoes filled with water and I was instantly miserable.  We kept going but quickly realized there was a horrible problem - the trail just disappeared into the mud.  We figured we must've taken the wrong trail at the fork, so we walked back and continued on.  After a mile or more, we noticed we were heading down the hill and into town - definitely the wrong direction.  We turned back, got lost again, and realized we faced an important decision: either keep on trying or go home.  At this point, my back was killing me with all the weight of my stuff on my shoulders, Andy's feet hurt from not wearing hiking boots for years, Ripley was losing steam and the sun was going down.  We made the executive decision to just go home.  We felt horribly defeated and like we'd been beaten up (physically and emotionally).  Total. Bummer.  

On the way back we decided that, no matter what, we were camping this weekend.  We figured it would be a great time to check out the campgrounds in Portage that we'd seen a few weeks back and we already had all our stuff packed! After we made it back to the car (longest hike ever), we ran to Freddy's, grabbed some campfire-appropriate food (s'mores and brats) for the next day and retired to our comfy bed.  

Side note - I don't know that I've ever heard the two of us complain like we did on Friday night.  Andy's feet, legs, and back were killing him.  My shoulders and back hurt.  At one point, I complained that my back muscles hurt SO BAD that it was painful to breathe (it was - I wasn't exaggerating!).  We were a sorry pair.  I'm sure if Ripley could have complained he would have.  We ended up passing out around 10 pm and slept like rocks.  

We woke up early and headed out to Portage.  Unlike the other two times we'd been there, the weather was clear, beautiful and warm the whole way out, which is amazing.  On the way we even saw a pod of beluga whales in the Cook Inlet! (Ironically swimming right next to Beluga Point).  I tried to take a picture, but they moved really fast.  Here's the scenery though: 

We got to the campsite (first come first served) and we got the BEST spot.  We were closest to the river and farthest from the road.  We were so excited.  We set up camp in no time.  

Our wee tent - excellent purchase from the Columbia outlet a couple years ago!
Just enough room for the three of us.

The campsite was excellent - good spot for the tent, nice picnic table and firepit, and lots of trees for privacy.  

Ripley and I by the table

The river!

Ripley especially loved being steps from the river.  He couldn't stay out of it.

Since the weather was so nice, we decided to walk to Portage Glacier - just about 2 miles or so from our campsite.  Ripley loved running amok on the trails.  

We didn't hit the Williwaw Lakes but we ended up on the Williwaw Creek! Serendipity!

Ripley was extremely happy on the trail. 

The views were amazing and the sky was clear.  It isn't always raining in Portage! 

More scenery highlights:

After a bit of a walk, we ended up at Portage Lake!  When Andy was a kid and came here for field trips, the lake was covered in glacier. Not so much anymore, but it's still super pretty.

Ripley, as with any body of water, loved the lake...

Amazing scenery everywhere you look!

In the crack of those mountains is Portage Glacier.
That's the famous one - it used to cover the lake. 

Glacier chunks on the lake!

Andy with glacier chunks.

Me with glacier chunks.

The one big downside of the campsite was the bugs.  The mosquitoes were generally repelled by our spray, but these flies kept divebombing us at every opportunity.  Andy got fed up and headed to Girdwood (about 20 min away) to look for other bug repellant.  While Andy went on his mission to protect his woman and his dog, Ripley and I snoozed in the tent.

Of COURSE he's on my sleeping bag.

Andy had no luck in Girdwood, but we figured out that the flies were only around during some parts of the day, so we decided to endure.  And take another walk! 

At some point as we walked around the campground, we came across an amazing, and a little bit scary, discovery.

That, my friends, is bear "scat." 

The bear poop was only about 10 yards from our picnic table, and looked really fresh.  I wasn't too excited about it, but Andy had the bear mace and we hoped that the other campers would be enough of a deterrent to keep the bear from coming back to eat us.

On our 3rd walk of the day, we saw salmon!

Can you see them?

There's a huge one! right there! 

We wished we'd had some fishing poles! 

In all, what started out as a disaster weekend ended up being really fun.  We're still a little sad about the Williwaw Lakes defeat, but we had a great time in Portage...until we woke up to Ripley barfing in the tent at 5 am.  I guess he decided that something had to go wrong.  Thankfully that something was not us coming in contact with the bear that pooped by our tent.  

Hope you all had a great weekend!!