This summer, Torsten and Dad hang out on Wednesdays. Although we’ve got a pile of blog entries to add, this one is “one for the memory.” Torsten woke up early (5:40 am! he’s slowly re-adjusting from East Coast time). Matt got up, had some breakfast with Torsten, played cowboys with the lasso, etc. After Carrie got of the shower, Torsten said “I thought today was Dad and Torsten day–what are you doing here?” We have big plans for the day, and we’re excited that Nana and Grandpa Bob get in today for their visit!
Hangin’ with Dad
Matt is in the midst of a semester of too much teaching and mixed in with a chunk of too much travel, so especially treasures family time. As usual, we don’t get pictures of all three of us very often, so here are some Dad and Torsten photos from the last month or so:
Out for a bike ride around the neighborhood, helping dad brew, taking a nap….
Busy times, but we do squeeze in a good amount of family time!
Hike to Chuvena
We drove from Fairbanks (thanks for lending the car and gear, Anne & Don!) to Chuvena. By amazing total-lack-of-coordinating, both the Robinson clan and the Talus-Heavner clan were running exactly the same amount late, and we pulled into the parking area within one minute of each other! After an instant friendship (memory?) in the parking lot:
We had a great hike into the cabin (Harlow and Matt working as camels, seen below).
Then we got to the cabin and all enjoyed saunas, canoeing, catching up, lounging around, etc..
The whole gang got in for a dock picture (that’d be, from left-to-right, Dave, Alice (rear-end), Harlow, Carrie, Eli, Riley, Blair, Shawna, Aspen, Rowan, Gina, Tooth, Carrie, Torsten, and Matt).
The kids all had a blast (enjoy the Sauna here):
And they especially enjoyed jumping over to the round dock–it not only made the mom’s scared, but even the dad’s were a bit worried–that’s how much fun it was! 🙂
As always, check out the whole gallery.
Enjoying the Fairbanks Sun
Matt went up to Fairbanks for a two day NSF grant writing workshop, then Carrie and Torsten came up afterwards to enjoy some of the lovely August Fairbanks sun. It was perfect!!! Thanks to Don and Anne for everything–a place to stay, a car to drive, great hospitality, hosting a good potluck dinner to reconnect with friends, and gear loans! We owe you–come down to Juneau soon! Here’s Carrie enjoying the sun:
A few images from the potluck dinner:
It was especially great to meet Emilie (read her family blog at http://truffer.blogspot.com/ ). Here are a few of our photos of the 4 day old:
A quick photo-nod to all the fun that Torsten and Sonja had in Anne and Don’s awesome new yard and house:
and a link to the whole gallery will wrap up this blog entry.
Birthday Kayaking
Carrie and Matt got birthday kayaks (and Christmas, etc–thanks to all who contributed to the kayak fund!). In the midst of all the house buying and selling craziness, we haven’t gotten to enjoy them as much as we’d like. But we made the effort to get out today and enjoyed tooling around Mendenhall Lake. We saw a few bears after loading the kayaks back up on the car. (And Thanks Chip, Missy, and Adelie for hanging out with Torsten while we went kayaking!)
As usual, a whole (small) gallery is available (with bear pictures).
Wahoo Waylon!
I was down in the Bay Area a few weeks back, to attend the International Symposium on Digital Earth (and present Sensor Webs in IPY, here’s the power point, if you are interested). The conference was really great, and afterwards I got to catch up with Tom, Laura, and Waylon! Waylon and I made funny faces at each other in a yummy restaurant. We mostly tried to make sure we weren’t looking at the camera at the same time–but we missed it once…
At the ISDE (conference), I got to play with the “One Laptop Per Child” prototype–pretty cool:
Sand in Them Thar Hills
I am on a blitz-trip to catch a bit of CEDAR/DASI (Distributed Array of Small Instruments) in Santa Fe and collaborate with folks at NOAA/ESRL (Earth Sciences Research Lab) in Boulder. Thursday night to Monday night, but I still feel like I’m gone too long! On the drive up from Santa Fe to Boulder, I stopped for some hiking at Great Sand Dunes National Park. It is pretty amazing–I recommend it. I only had the cell phone for some goofy self-portraits–sorry. There was a decent thunderstorm kicking up in the mountains behind the dunes and at the visitor’s center they had some fulgurites they’d found in the dunes.
Father’s Day in Haines
After the great bike ride fun (see previous blog entry), we enjoyed the post-race dinner, and then searched out a quiet camping spot. We went out to the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site and found a really great spot. After sleeping in a bit, we woke up, had coffee and hot chocolate, then started packing up. Carrie finished this up while Torsten and Matt went down to the lake to fish and do some father/son bonding on Father’s Day. Carrie came down and joined us after a bit.
We have some great fishing movies, but I still have to compress those for posting. In the meantime, enjoy this still shot (and I’ll post a bunch of movies as a separate blog entry).
We went into Haines and had some “famous” fish and chips for lunch at the Bamboo Room, played at the playground, and went to join in with all the other unique, individualists who drive subarus and bikes, just like us and everyone else. 🙂
As always, check out the whole gallery (includes the bike race and fishing).
Kluane Bike Race
We had an awesome adventure last weekend centered around the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Race. It started out with a beautiful blue sky, flat water, fast ferry ride from Juneau to Haines. Carrie, Torsten, and Matt were on the ferry with Adelie, Chip, Missy, Mark, and Julie. Chip “Dr. Blokus” brought along his favorite game..
After grabbing dinner and some new fishing gear for Torsten, we went on up to Haines Junction (Canada) and camped with a lot of bikers. Here’s the start of the race on Satuday.
Carrie, Chip, and Matt rode as Team US Postal Service, with Missy acting as our team captain. Julie and Mark rode the whole race (150 miles–the race was 148.1, but they rode bikes from the campground to the start of the race). Chip rode legs 1-4 (69.4 miles) of the race, and was a bit wet and cold. Once he got up into the mountains, the skies cleared up and things warmed up, just in time for Matt to hop on to ride legs 5 and 6 (36.3 miles). Carrie got this great shot of Matt heading down the road after the station between legs 5 and 6.
Here’s Chip after Leg 4, escorted by Missy, Adelie, and Torsten:
After thoroughly enjoying Leg 6 (check out the altitude profile of Leg 6!), Matt handed off to Carrie (here she is riding off down the scenic road), who did Leg 7 and went on to do about a third of Leg 8 (the line at Customs to get back into the U.S. was a killer!!). Carrie rode a little over 30 miles.
Chip cleared customs and jumped right back in to join Mark and Julie at about midway through leg 7. So the US Postal Service team “cheated” (by covering parts of legs 7 and 8 twice) to get the red lantern (last to finish). But we had a blast and that was our only goal. Here’s the whole team (along with the “finishers”–Adelie and Torsten).
As usual, the whole gallery is available.
Teaching on the EDGE
Matt went up with the group of EDGE K-12 teachers that Cathy Connor brings to Juneau/UAS for two weeks. The program is intended to connect and inspire K-life teaching and learning by connecting K-12 teachers in June, and then a cohort of Jr and High School students in August with Alaska experiential learning opportunities. We are working to combine EDGE and SEAMONSTER, so I (Matt) gave an EDGE lecture on Monday, then went up for a half day with the teachers to Mendenhall Glacier to describe our mass balance measurements and SEAMONSTER efforts. We measured a (rough estimate!) melt rate of 20 cm per week at the North Star camp. Anyway, check the story (and you can use a login of public with password public if you need).
