Hi Honey, I'm Homer...

... and it's Caesar Salad for dinner!

We drove down to Homer, a popular seaside town about 240 miles south-east of Anchorage, for a long weekend. The hanger was a cooking and wine-tasting course put on by Van Hale, a top chef in Anchorage. He is famous for his Caesar Salads, and we learnt how best to toss romaine in his delicious (now-not-so-) secret dressing.

During the course we had tasting sessions of varieties of the individual ingredients: ten different balsamic vinegars, ten olive oils, ten parmesan cheeses, six types of anchovies, and four kinds of croutons. It was very cleverly arranged and we learnt a lot about how to combine ingredients.

The weekend also included welcome appetizers on Friday night, a four-course dinner on Saturday night, and Sunday brunch. The best part of the weekend was the fabulous wine-tasting. We sampled eleven different wines from Spain, New Zealand, Argentina, France and America, and we came away laden with a few bottles and many happy memories.

Snow-machining

A friend of ours has a condo up at Big Lake, about an hour north of Anchorage, and she invited us up for a day of snow-machining (snow-mobiling to the rest of the world). Wearing three layers of trousers, five layers of vests, jerseys and jackets, thick socks with toe-warmers, balaclavas, and hand-warmers in our gloves, we set off for an epic day of snow-machining. Daniel rode his own machine, and I hopped around from person to person and rode double.

We literally climbed onto the machines in the driveway at the house and set off over lakes and roads and through trails and woods. The more experienced members of our party reached speeds of 80 or 90 miles per hour over the lakes!

We stopped frequently to rest and to admire the beautiful Alaskan wild, and of course, to share a few beers! Our longest stop was along the Iditarod trail where we watched the mushers coming past after the official re-start in Willow. It was quite fun to send them off on their two-week adventure with loud cheers from the sidelines.

Snow-maching is a deceptively physical sport, and the trails are very bumpy. Daniel and I had a couple of close calls, but fortunately the machines are pretty robust. We did manage to veer off the path into some trees at one stage, and had a real challenge pulling the machine out while thigh-deep in snow!

It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day to be out, and we got to see some truly amazing Alaskan scenery on our ride. We felt again just what a privilege it is to be here. The Alaskans are so generous and friendly and they really want to show off their state. We were tired and aching at the end of our nine-hour ride, but we enjoyed every single second!

Iditarod

This is an extract from the official Iditarod website (www.iditarod.com):

The Last Great Race on Earth.

A race over 1150 miles of the roughest, most beautiful terrain Mother Nature has to offer. She throws jagged mountain ranges, frozen rivers, dense forest, desolate tundra and miles of windswept coast at the mushers and their dog teams. Add to that temperatures far below zero, winds that can cause a complete loss of visibility, the hazards of overflow, long hours of darkness and treacherous climbs and side hills, and you have the Iditarod. A race extraordinaire, a race only possible in Alaska.

There are two official starts to the Iditarod: the ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage and the actual start in Willow. The finish is in Nome.

Teams from all over the world (i.e. Alaska and Canada) come to participate in the Iditarod, and this year's contestants include a Scot, a Belgian and a Jamaican!

We watched the mushers and their teams of sixteen dogs set off from the city centre, and then raced to the airstrip where the ceremonial route ends. We cheered the mushers in while snowflakes danced all around us. It was quite surreal, and we felt thoroughly Alaskan!

Snow Golf Challenge

Some crazy Alaskan decided to start a Fur Rondy golf day, and Daniel spent Friday afternoon "on a course" with the Anglo team. The layout was like a mashie course, but the venue was a frozen lake. The snow around the tee boxes and putting 'whites' had been flattened, but the three-balls had to carry around with them a piece of astroturf to hit the ball from.

Armed with five woods and an iron, the Anglo Albatrosses and two faithful caddies/ groupies set off through the slush to the first hole. Daniel teed off first and coped beautifully with the pressure.

We soon discovered the challenges of locating bright blue golf balls in deep snow, and of keeping the mat from slipping on the ice during every shot. The holes were inflatable green tubes with a flag in the middle, and just hitting the ring constituted holing the ball.

Two of the holes posed an extra challenge as the golfers had to putt "native-style". At hole three they were obliged to wear 'snow goggles' when they reached the green, and at hole seven it was a pair of seal-fur gloves... This just added to the fun, but since the golf was hard enough already, it didn't really seem to affect their game!

The Anglo Albatrosses went round in an honest and admirable 21, but still lost out to some ringers who shot 18...!

Snow Sculptures

Fur Rondy is the forum for a lot of wacky events and competitions, among them the GCI Snow Sculpting Contest. Have a look at some of this year's entries (including a 'real' snow angel).

Running with the Reindeer

This great Fur Rondy event is Alaska's answer to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, only it's a lot more stupid! All the locals dressed up in ridiculous and skimpy costumes as they hustled their goose-bumped flesh down fourth avenue.

We were too chicken to remove our parkas in the -10 degree chill, but I tied a South African flag around me like a cape.

Unfortunately I had a twisted ankle, so our run with the reindeer was more of a hobble with lots of squealing as the reindeer raced by.

Helicopter Ride over Anchorage

We share this belief that it's a good idea to go on a helicopter ride over your city just for fun, and to get a bird's eye view of where you live. So we took a spin in this dinky chopper along the coast of Anchorage.

We flew over the icy sea and the frozen river mouth, and were tickled by the 30-foot deep 'beach', all covered in snow!

We felt like giving ourselves code names with all this headgear on... Deputy Dan and Major Walker, over and out!

The Fur at the Rondy

It doesn't get more Alaskan than this...

Fur Rondy

Fur Rondy is the biggest festival in Alaska and is held in the week building up to the start of the Iditarod. The spectrum of events includes everything from dog-sledding to blanket-tossing to stamp-collecting, and the week is filled with fun and mayhem as everyone shakes off any cabin-fever symptoms.

The opening ceremony of Fur Rondy boasts a spectacular Grand Parade, and Daniel and I rushed into Downtown to be a part of this truly American display of pomp and circumstance. We think, however, (very diplomatically, of course) that the pomp might have been popped by the weather, as the crowds were meagre in the -10 degree chill. The Parade turned out to be a fizzle of Girl Scouts and insurance companies handing out free sweets, but we tried to imagine some spirit.

We also rushed down to the waterfront to watch the Big Air Demo, and were quite surprised when not a single plane flew overhead. The Big Air Demo turned out to be snowboarders flying down a ramp and doing tricks in the air! Not quite what we expected, but brave nonetheless.

Just behind the flying snowboarders was the Rondy Central Carnival. Finally, we thought, a chance to relish the American spirit: candy floss, big wheels, root beer floats, and stuffed teddies to be won at stalls. We made it as far as the Big Wheel, from which we could see, for the first time, Anchorage's beautiful waterfront and beaches.

The evening finished off with a fireworks display over the sea, and then we took our numb feet home.

The Frozen Oosik

According to the oracle that is Wikipedia, an 'oosik' is a"baculum used for copulation". The one we are referring to is the three-foot long penis bone of a walrus, and it is the trophy for the annual winter rugby match.

Rugby in Alaska is a summer sport, but once a year a few hardcore Pacific Islanders, the occasional lost Frenchman, and lots of local Alaskans who happened to learn the rules of rugby, engage in a match in knee-deep snow. Since the inaugural match a few years ago the scoreline has been 0-0 every single year, and this year was no different.

And so, at the end of a tough hour of running in snow without spilling their beers, the players kiss the trophy (???) and call it an honorable draw. And then head to the pub...

Some rugby players in action

Scrum down: the call was for everyone to go to the front row!

The ref holding the 'trophy'