Interesting reading

I’ve been enjoying the writings of Andrew Schwab as of late. He has written a few books including two that I have read, but recently I’ve been reading the articles that he writes for Relevant Magazine. I have a strange relationship with Relevant. I remember when it came out my last year of college. It was the cool hip Christian magazine for 20 somethings. Not that there is anything wrong with that really, but it just wasn’t really my cup o’ tea for the most part. Occasionally though, there will be an article in it that catches my attention. Relevant is nice enough to put their entire magazine up online to read for free which is pretty nice.

Anyway, back to Andrew Schwab. He is the lead singer for the band Project 86 which has been one of my favorites since way back in high school. Sure, not every album is amazing, but overall they have written some great songs and always put on a great live show. I remember when I saw them at a big festival one year where it had rained all day. As they were playing their encore Andrew yelled to the crowd “it’s so nice of you to not throw any mud at us.” Before you knew it hundreds of kids were throwing handfuls of mud up on stage at the band. It was quite a sight. Unfortunately the festival was not too happy with the idea of their stage and equipment getting covered in mud so they cut them off in the middle of the song. It was one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen.

After a couple albums with the band Andrew started writing and released a book writings and poetry called We Caught You Plotting Murder. I remember getting this little self published book while I was in college and pouring over the pages. It was very creative and weird which is the kind of stuff I love. Later on he wrote a book about life on the road while touring in Project 86 called It’s All Downhill From Here. This one was quite entertaining and made me laugh out loud a lot as I was reading it. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to go on tour as a band, this is a must read.

Lately though, Andrew Schwab has been writing a lot for Relevant and I think some of them his articles are definitely worth checking out. Here’s a couple of my favorites:

Church Shopping

I Fear I’m Ordinary, Just Like Everyone…

A Perfect Life, Part I

The Agenda-less Faith

More

The Wolf Lamp

I have the coolest lamp in the world sitting on my desk at work. I’m not sure where it came from because it was on my desk when I started here. All I know is that it is the coolest lamp that I have ever seen in my life. Not only does it provide light, it has a flippin’ wolf howling on it!

Can you think of anything more lamp worthy than a wolf standing on a rock howling at the moon? I know I can’t. You see when it comes to animals, wolfs are pretty much as awesome as they get. They are mysterious, they are mean, they hunt in packs, and they kill people whenever they feel like it. I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have the worlds coolest lamp to light up my desk whenever I need it.

The Final Drive

Yesterday was my last drive to Anchorage for the summer (for work at least). Besides all the very vital computer work that I do here at the lodge, I have also been given a couple other odd jobs to fill in my time. I’ve led orientation for new employees which consisted of playing videos that explained how to not hurt your back when lifting a heavy box and what to do when you inevitably spray that extremely dangerous chemical into your eyes. I also have been putting together the employee newsletter which sounded like a lot of fun at first, but lately since things have been extremely busy, it has taken a back seat to all the other things that I am trying to get finished before I leave for the season.

My favorite random job, though, has been driving the employee shuttle to Anchorage. Anchorage is the biggest city in Alaska, and believe it or not is actually the biggest city in North America (geographically at least). It’s a thriving metropolis of restaurants that aren’t the employee cafeteria, movie theaters, and stores that have all the essentials that you don’t really think about until you have no store within 90 miles to buy them. I’m lucky enough to be the driver on this magical journey for employees every Friday.

Sometimes, one of my friends will come with me and ride shotgun for the 2.5 hours of driving each way. Those are the best days because besides removing the danger of me getting tired behind the wheel, I also get to have those special conversations that only happen when you spend 5 hours with someone with nothing else to do and no way to leave. Not to say that I make people want to leave or anything, but you start talking about random things that you wouldn’t on a normal day or outing with someone.

It’s also nice to wander around stores and people watch. At the beginning of the summer I went to REI a lot because I was slowly purchasing more and more camping gear as I needed it. I was always fascinated when I saw the mountain climbers come in with their red chapped faces except for the perfect goggle lines around their eyes talking in some foreign language. I doubt I would really enjoy the actually climbing part of mountain climbing, but at the same time there is just something cool about rolling back into town with that huge pack on your back after you’ve reached the summit of McKinley. I’m sure all the girls notice the goggle lines and would be easily impressed as you told them of the nights spent in sub-zero temperatures and the days of climbing in ultra thin air. Yes, mountain climbers are cool.

Sometimes I would go to Best Buy which is one of those cool Best Buys that has a music store in it. I would jam on the electronic drum set and try out all the cheapo beginner guitar amps that they have there. It sure was nice to have the opportunity to play drums. That’s one of the things that miss a lot from home. My crappy $200 drum set and amazing $300 double kick pedals. There is also something about rocking out in a music store. It’s like you are up on a little stage or something. Sure your audience may just be that 13 year old kid with his mom that is begging for a guitar for his birthday, but to that kid you are a rock star if you can play a couple power chords and the pentatonic scale. It’s quite a sense of accomplishment.

The last 2 weeks of driving the shuttle I was starting to get bored with shopping and such so I started going to the movies. Last week was District 9 which I thoroughly enjoyed. It had amazing special effects and cool action scenes. Not the most amazing movie ever, but still pretty  good. Yesterday I got to see Star Trek finally because Anchorage is cool enough to have a cheap theater where they play older movies and all shows are just $3. Star Trek was great by the way, but I’m sure everyone reading this saw it 3 or 4 months ago, so I won’t go into detail on that one.

I will miss going to Anchorage every week. I have said all summer that if I was going to stay in Alaska for the winter it would have to be in Anchorage. I love being out in the middle of nowhere and all, but when it’s -20 degrees and dark all day long, I need the escape of a trendy restaurant or a movie. Sure compared to all the other bigger cities around the US, Anchorage is probably right around the bottom of the barrel, but up here it’s the place where all your big city dreams come true.

I’m going to have a little over a month in isolation at the lodge now before I leave. How crazy is that? What am I going to do next week with no Anchorage trip?

The photo crashing squirrel

This picture made me laugh so hard! And believe it or not, it’s not photoshopped. This couple was hiking in Banff National Park in Canada and setup their camera on a little tripod to take some self portraits. They had a remote shutter release so that they could do a couple different poses. After a couple shots this squirrel decided to hop over and crash their photo session so the fired away.

Watch the couple tell their story on the today show

So sorry

I want to take this post to apologize to those of you that read this blog (if there are any of you left). I have completely neglected twentyfivetolife this summer. I was so excited about this Alaska experience and all the amazing things I would get to do while sharing these experiences on my blog not just for others to read, but for me to have a nice little record of everything that I did.

Unfortunately, my busy job, crappy internet connection, and the fact that I was always out doing things when I wasn’t working made it extremely hard to keep this thing updated on a regular basis. At the same time, it was overwhelming to even sit down and write a short post because I wanted to go back and write about the things that happened 2 or 3 weeks ago.

So right now, I have a little more than a month left here and I want to finish this summer out with lots of stories and pictures shared on here. I am going to make a commitment to write on here at least every two days, even if it’s just something short and pointless. So please stay tuned. There is so many amazing things I want to share.

I know posts are always boring without a photo, so here is one of me on my hiking trip last weekend. Yes, I know I look like I am 12 years old.

That’s one smart protest sign

It’s good to know that during all this health care reform business, there is at least one issue that all Americans can agree on together. This one protester hits it right on the money.

The summer soundtrack

I thought it was about time to share with you what I’ve been listening to this summer. Below are some of my favorites from this summer.

First up is my favorite album of the summer and one I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. Owl City is an electronic pop project from Adam Young. It’s the kind of music that makes you want to smile, dance, and drive to all at the same time. It’s cheesy pop songs at their guilty pleasure best. Check out the video for Fireflies below.

Next up is the new self titled album from Killswitch Engage. I have always loved how these can combine brutal chugging metal with catchy melodies and epic sounding vocals. This may not be their best effort to date (I think “The End of Heartache” is still my fave) but it sure is a great album.

This one has actually been out for a while, but it is a new discovery for me. Protest the Hero is from Canada and have quite an interesting progressive metal sound. The singer can hit some crazy notes, and the guitar player shreds like no tomorrow. Think of it as Between the Buried and Me with more singing and less growling.

I’ll list some more good music as I come across it.

The Denali Trip – part 1

Two weekends ago I went to Denali National Park for two days. A group of six of us drove up Saturday night from the McKinley Lodge that we work at to the Denali Lodge that is right next to the entrance to Denali. There wasn’t enough room for us all to stay in the lodge so Stephen, Tonya, and I decided to camp out Saturday night somewhere. Tonya called up her friend that works at the Denali Lodge Riley and he was nice enough to show us spot to camp. When Tonya called him about a camping spot, he asked what kind of car we had and said that it had to be 4 wheel drive. You know a camping spot has to be good if you need a car with 4 wheel drive to get to it.

We followed Riley on this little road in Healey (the town a couple miles north of the park entrance). The road went from paved to gravel to just plain sketchy. We weaved our way up this hill and went over a couple hairy parts that no regular car could have made it passed without a good foot and a half of ground clearance. I was afraid Nancy (my RAV4) was going to scrape in a couple spots. A huge moose also ran out in front of us as we were driving up. I nice little reminder that we were in the wilderness. We turned off at one point on the road to this little trail that was so narrow that branches were rubbing the car on both sides. As we made it to the end, we found a beautiful little camping spot right on a lake overlooking the mountains. It was extremely remote feeling. We excitedly got out of the car to look around, and then Stephen noticed a hissing coming from one of my tires. Not the kind of sound you want to hear when you are in the middle of nowhere. Our worst fears were confirmed as we pulled the tire off and found some kind of metal scrap stuck in the tire. And of course the thing that I had been meaning to check since I got my car, the spare tire, was flat as well. Luckily Riley was with us and offered to take my spare tire down to the lodge’s bus shop to try to put some air in it. Me and Stephen clear a nice spot for the tent and gathered firewood while Riley and Tonya went to get air. I feared the worst as cleared our campsite, but after 30 minutes or so, Riley returned with my spare inflated and perfectly functional. What a relief. He also said that the bus shop could probably repair the hole in my tire and told me who to talk to about it.

We setup my brand new tent (which is awesome by the way) and made a little camp fire to roast some smores on. Tonya introduced me to the roasted Reece’s peanut butter cup which I put on my smores instead of plain chocolate. It was amazing. You must try this. The wind was blowing crazy off the lake we were next to so we had to keep our fire really small and low. The last thing we wanted to do was start another wildfire. There has been so many of them this season already.

Unfortunately the wind didn’t die down at all when we went to sleep so we were serenaded by the rain fly flapping violently all night. And I just happened to be laying on the edge of the tent on the wall the wind was blowing on. Every time the wind gusted it felt like I was pushed over by a huge log. It wasn’t the best night of sleep I’ve ever had for sure, but I survived.

We got up early to pack everything up and drive back to the Denali lodge to meet up with the people that spent the night in the hotel. Some of use were taking the bus into Denali on an 11 hour round trip to Wonder Lake. I’ll tell you all about Denali next time.

My weapons of choice

Throughout the summer I have slowly been investing in camping/hiking gear. It started right when I got here with a pair of boots, and is finally drawing to a close with my pack that will be here soon. I thought I would share just what I bought and how I like it so far.

Merrell Outland Mid Waterproof Boots – $125 from REI

Still not sure about these. They are durable for sure and the waterproofing works really well. I have stood in 4+ inches of water in these without a drop getting inside. They still are not the most comfortable shoe, but it is hard to decide for sure because when I first got them, I got a half size too small which I didn’t realize till I took them for a 6 mile hike. By the end of it my toes were just killing me and ended up turning all black and nasty and still haven’t fully recovered after a few months now. Luckily REI has a great return policy, so I switched them out for a half size larger which felt much better. They still aren’t the most comfortable shoes to wear, but I’m not sure if it’s these or if it’s because my toes haven’t healed. If I stand in any shoes for a while my toes still hurt. So overall, these are good boots that will keep you dry in mud and rain. Just make sure you get the right size.

Kelty Teton 4 Tent – $160 from Campmor

I’ve only used this once but so far I really like it. I was only going to get a 2 person tent, but I figured the majority of the time I was going to be camping with more people than that and it is nice to have room for all your gear in the tent with 2 people. The night I used it, we had tons of wind and this thing held strong like a champ. It assembles in less than 5 minutes and is fairly light at 7 pounds for a 4 person tent.

Big Agnes Insulated Air Core Mummy Pad – $70 from Campmor

This thing is amazing. It gives you a super comfy 2.5 inches of pad while packing up way smaller than most self inflating pads. It only weighs in at 21 ounces too. The only drawback to the space and weight savings is that you have to blow it up. It takes maybe 3 minutes of blowing big breaths in it to fully inflate. Sure that’s a pain, but worth it too me. This is the most comfortable pad I have ever slept on. I could lay on my side without my hips and shoulders digging into the hard ground.

Kelty Light Year 20 Down Sleeping Bag- $130 from Campmor

Talk about compact. This things compresses down to about the size of a football and weighs in at under 2.5 pounds. I haven’t pushed the temperature ratings on this thing since the only night I have used it, it was probably 55 degrees outside, but I was toasty warm to the point I didn’t zip it up or have it on my upper body.

Platypus Hoser 3 Liter Hydration Bladder – $23 from REI

I just ordered this, but I haven’t gotten it yet, so I can’t comment on this one.

REI Ridgeline 65 Pack – $150 (on sale) from REI

This one and the Flash 65 both fit me like a glove when I tried them on in the store. The Flash was $50 cheaper so I was going to go with that one, but the next day after trying them on I got a coupon from REI for 25% off the Ridgeline making it the same price. The Ridgeline has a couple more features that I like, like the padded belt and the bottom zipper that lets you into the main compartment easily. I haven’t gotten this one yet either, but I can’t wait to use it.

So yeah, that’s about it. A lot of money, but hopefully I now have some quality gear that will last me for years to come and I will have no excuse now to not get out and camp or backpack.

I’m a winner!

This arrived in the mail today. This piece of paper is my own personal golden ticket to get into Denali National Park and drive my own car as far as I want on the park road (up to 90 miles back to the end). Usually you can only go 15 miles in. After that point they only allow buses. Every year in September they have a lottery where they draw names and lucky people get a pass to drive on the park road. Someone else who works up here in AK said that he has tried the last seven years and never gotten it. I feel so lucky! I can’t wait to experience Denali one last time before I leave Alaska at the end of September.

Also, I went into the park for the first time last weekend and took the bus tour 85 miles in on the park road. I have a ton of pictures and stories that I will share on here soon.