Work and Play

First order of business: I'm now officially a park ranger. Uniform arrived yesterday in all its oddly-proportioned glory. Apparently female park rangers are expected to have ginormous butts and 3-inch waists, according to the size trousers I received, but alas, it'll have to work over the summer. Go ahead, have your laughs. :)

Fellow park ranger and I, ready to serve America

On to other news: we've had the strangest (and best!) weather in Nome this week, with temperatures sky rocketing into the upper 80s over the weekend! I took advantage of the sun and spent Sunday birding around the area and taking photos of the fog rolling in off the Bering Sea.

Fog on the harbor

Despite the heat, sea ice blew in from the south and fastened itself to shore for a couple days. It was extremely eerie, and very strange to be hopping around out on the ice wearing short sleeves and sweating in the hot air!

Fog over Nome

Cool ice formations

A coworker caught me birding on the sly

Grey-cheeked thrush

I didn't see any "special" birds but I got a couple good pictures nonetheless. One of my favorite finds for the afternoon was a grey-cheeked thrush, which I had only heard before then. It was fun to finally see what it looked like!

Hoary Redpoll

Yellow Warbler

Spotted Seal

I also got out to explore a new part of the harbor I'd never been to before, and was delighted to find a spotted seal cruising around under the glassy surface! Once it saw us, it disappeared, but I got an adequate snapshot before it hightailed away.

Biking to Glacier Creek

One Monday it was even warmer and sunnier, so two of my roommates and I went out for a bike ride in the early afternoon. I didn't expect it to be more than a couple hours, but we ended up going 24 miles in 6 hours! All I can say is: OOOOWWWW. My legs have never been so sore in my life! Three days later, they still hurt.

Dorky self shot with the GoPro

Despite the difficulty of the ride, it was a blast. Lots of hills, and a lot of the road was washed out, so it made for some fun and challenging mountain biking and I ended up covered in mud and dust.  We took a couple breaks along the way to play in the streams and nap on the tundra.

Underwater in the stream

It's been a busy week, and work and play continue to keep me occupied. I'll try to post more updates soon.