Viva Las Vegas!

Memorial Day weekend we left the Arctic for the desert! It was my bachelor party and Paige was meeting up with her mom. This was a nice getaway for many reasons; I got to see my brother for the first time in a year, hang out with some really great friends, and, well, it was a bachelor party in Las Vegas! Additionally it was only the second time Paige or I left the state since moving up last July!

Because of the distance and layovers we had to go through on our way, we left Kotzebue at 9pm mountain time on Friday and landed in Las Vegas at 9am on Saturday. I cannot even begin to describe how amazing it felt to be in Las Vegas. The sun hitting your skin and warming it was in stark contrast to the normal bitter cold wind that it had experienced in Kotzebue. Furthermore, I was once again in a city, surrounded by thousands of people to meet, events to see and places to explore. I was staying at New York New York and Paige at the Monte Carlo.

Once out of the airport I took a shower and started the weekend. Gambling, drinking and socializing. I love meeting new people and I don’t know that there is a better place to do that than Las Vegas, particularly if you are with the group of guys I was with! Later on that night we went to the MGM Grand and watched several UFC fights including the main event between Cain Valascez and Antonio Silva. The remainder of the night was spent socializing, drinking, and playing black jack. Bed came around 6am. 

The master mind behind our trip was Kelly. Kelly, is my younger brother and my best man. We grew up together in Montana, attended the same undergraduate university in Washington and we even both speak Chinese. He has recently graduated from American University with a Master’s degree in Conflict Resolution and works for the State Department. Last time I traveled with Kelly was to visit him in Macedonia while he was completing a Fulbright Scholarship. He is one of the most intelligent people I know and dedicates himself to his work. We are extremely good at feeding off of each other while harassing other members of our family or close friends. Most importantly he knows Paige well, has worked with her and attended the same college. They get along extremely well and has been beyond supportive of our relationship, the perfect choice for a best man.

So, 11am the next day it was up, slowly, for showers, some food and then off to the pool party. Ultimately we landed at Bare Pool at the Mirage. We met a pretty fun group of 9 girls from Florida while at the pool and spent the next seven hours drinking, swimming and socializing in the Nevada sun. My skin was loving the UV attention (and misses it already). Ben set us up with drinks, food and a place to lounge at Bare which ended up providing hours of entertainment that I will not forget. This was a perfect combination of good weather, friends and partying.

Ben was one of the first people I met in college and he might be the busiest person I know. He has run several marathons, including one with me in Denver, works as a Target Account Manager for Lexmark International and is a DJ as well. He has owned a marketing business, lived in France and done countless other things. We were in it thick and thin in college and to this day we make it a point to visit each other several times a year including a “big event.” He traveled with me to Macedonia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Austria. Our big event for 2014 is the World Cup in June. He too knows Paige well and has never let me forget how lucky I am.

After Bare Pool we went to Twin Peaks for some food. On the way there Jon felt like it would be a great idea to swim in a water fountain, and he followed through with that thought. After some dinner we hit a couple “bachelor destinations” and the roller coaster around New York New York. We then made our way back to the hotel at the wee hours of the night. There was no point in going to bed just to wake up and catch a flight in a few hours so we headed to New York New York where we spent the rest of the night at the black jack tables and meeting some interesting people. Jon was my main blackjack buddy. 

Jon has been a close friend of mine as far back as memory serves me. He is close with my parents, my brother and Paige. We did everything growing up together and I consider him as much a brother as a friend. He served in the Marines traveling the world including a deployment in Iraq. He has recently graduated with a degree in Economics and Finance. Unfortunately he landed a sweet job in Denver after I moved away! If there is anyone that has your back, it will be Jon.

Anyway, Jon and I were sitting a blackjack table just the two of us losing our money (I was up several hundred for the weekend). When two girls sat down, one a bachelorette the other a bridesmaid. Our luck had turned and I had made all the money back I had lost at that table and then some (few hundred dollars). After some fun betting and convos, the girls left and we were prepared to cash out too…. The only thing was, this entire weekend I wanted to “put it all in” and “let it roll” (the idea came from a south park episode). So I did. I bet all of my winnings and Jon did too because that is what you do, you go down swinging with the bachelor. I saw my first card, a 6. Dang, I thought. Then my next card a 9. Crap was my next thought, dealer was showing a 10. I had to hit, and so I did. And just like that I lost it all! I am still laughing because I broke even at the end of the night. But defeat hurts. We ended up spending the rest of the evening socializing with some of the groups we met.

One of the funniest things I have ever witnessed was the scene at the Las Vegas airport at 7am. It was filled with silent, cranky, worn down individuals who resembled zombies more than anything. All weekend people were well dressed and groomed, this was not the case on the way out. And to think how energetic everyone was flying into town….Oh Vegas I can’t wait to see you again.

Arctic Flying

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a pilot. But as I went through life one thing led to another and that dream kept getting pushed off. Early this month I started on a path of accomplishing that dream by beginning my ground school, which I have now all but completed. There are a few obstacles to getting your pilots license in Kotzebue, Alaska though. One, they don't have a testing center for your ground school test and two, they don't have an FAA certified doctor with the required equipment to give you the FAA physical. So I will be conducting both of those while we are down in Seattle for our wedding. However I did begin my flight training last week. 

This is a direct representation of Brenden taken from the internet ;) ~Paige

I don't think I have ever been so giddy. When I came home, Paige had dinner and a glass of brandy waiting for me with the movie Top Gun ready to play. Could you ask for more?!?! The answer is no, she is amazing. Needless to say I loved my first flight. It was simple, we went through all of the airplane checks before I drove the plane on the ground for about 15minutes getting used to taxiing. After that my flight instructor called in with our flight plan and told me to taxi to the end of the runway. As I was taxiing out there, he was explaining what I needed to do to take off. Once I got to the end of the runway I turned the plane around and my flight instructor said, "well, lets get going other planes are coming in." So I began my first trip down the runway. As I added pressure to the throttle the plane picked up speed and before I knew it I was pulling back and the plane started to fly. I was a mixture of nervous and ecstatic as I watched the runway disappear below. My first action was to fly along the winding cost to the training zone. So I banked left, with instructions from the instructor and did my best to learn to control the plane as the coast line went in and out. We spent the rest of the time doing ascents and descents, 180 degree turns at a 30 degree rate and 360 degree turns at a 30 degree rate. I continuously wanted to clench the "steering wheel" with both hands and each time I did my instructor would yank my right hand off and say, "Fly only with three fingers (thumb, index and middle finger) on your left hand." All while this was happening I was capable of keeping the aircraft from losing or gaining more than 100ft on my turns and was able to ascend and descend to specified altitudes without over/undershooting them. My flight instructor was impressed with this as it was only my first time flying. As time went I quickly became comfortable with the controls and throttle all while watching the horizon and checking my various gauges telling altitude, airspeed, rate of climb, direction and RPMs. 

At the end of my training I flew the plane back towards the airport, entered the airports flight pattern and began my descent to my first ever landing. I felt surprisingly comfortable approaching the runway and kept a close eye on the center lines and the lights to the side of the runway. "Red over white you are doing all right." As the plane approached the runway my mind started to race, do I need to do this, should I be slower, faster, to the left? But I kept all of this worrying at bay and touched my plane down dead center of the runway, taxied toward our hanger and ended my first flight. It seemed over too fast and all I wanted to do was turn the plane around and head back out. I haven't been able to do much flying since then because of the weather. This will be okay because this weekend Paige and I fly down to Las Vegas for Memorial day weekend (I am meeting up with my groomsmen for a bachelor party and Paige with her mom for a girl's weekend). When we return Paige heads out to a village for week (a perk of both our jobs is village trips to remote Alaska, more on this later) and the weather is supposed to be great. That means I should be able to get a lot of flying time in next week and the week after that before Paige and I head down to Seattle for our wedding and then Greece for our honeymoon! 

Obtaining my pilot license will probably take all summer because there isn't a school up here. The instructor and I both have a full-time jobs and we will have to work with our schedules to get my time in. The good thing is we have 24 hours of sunlight so we should have plenty of time. The down side of 24 hours of sunlight is I have to do an "X" amount of night flying hours and we don't have any night! I will have to fly down to Anchorage or Seattle to meet this criteria, oh well!

This is a picture of the main runway during the summer that I took from the internet.

Arctic Fishing and Snow-Machining

The water surrounding Kotzebue freezes to about five feet thick. Because of this and the fact that we had no snow build-up at this point in time, we were able to take our jeep several miles out onto the ice for some ice fishing.

Here you can see our Jeep in the middle of nowhere on the above mentioned ice.

This is Paige's catch for the day!

Between us we pulled in about 40 fish in three hours. We took one home which was enough to feed us for several days and gave the rest to a local to feed his dog sled team, the same team mentioned below.

The picture above is of Paige before we took off for a 70 mile round trip snow-machine outing. Our goal was to follow a local friend out to meet a dog sled team that was practicing for a 440 mile race. We were bringing supplies for the dogs. The weather started out bad, but quickly cleared up and turned into a gorgeous ride across Alaskan countryside. We made it safely to the location we were supposed to meet the dogs. Unfortunately we were early and waited there as we watched the sun disappear and the weather turn for the worse. When the team finally arrived we fed and watered the dogs and let them relax before allowing them to take off in front of us. By this time the wind had picked up, it was completely dark out and the temperatures had plummeted well below zero. We were both getting nervous when our local friend finally decided it was time to go. There was a lady that accompanied the dog sled team but was now traveling with us. That made three snow-machines, the one I was driving with Paige on the back, the local and this new lady. When we took off our local friend took off first and the lady cut in-between us! We were navigating by these stakes with reflectors every 20 meters or so. The lady who cut in-between us and our friend moved slowly so it didn't take long before our friend was out of sight. This was scary considering we could barely see anything at this point and had no idea who this lady was!

Then the weather went from bad to horrible! The wind was gusting at 40mph across our trail, it was pitch black and even though we were right behind the lady, her snow snow-machine tracks were covered with snow by the time our machine reached them. This was impressive considering we were moving 30-50mph. Twice our friend stopped for us, and each time the lady complained her snow-machine was running out of gas and each time we had to tip our machine over to pour gas out of it in a jug to help her out. This was extremely difficult considering once the machines were turned off you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. At this point, both of us were extremely worried and frustrated with the situation. Everytime we pulled over we gave this lady more of our gas and she thanked us by cutting in-between our local friend and us! We caught up to the dog sled team, which now had an injured dog that we had to unhook and figure out how to safely stow in a sled being pulled behind one of the machines, this was a considerable delay. This was followed by a fourth stop, the third time this lady needed more gas. I was not about to give anymore gas away (I was making sure Paige and I had enough to get home). Our local friend said "no worries, I have plenty of gas!" Which looking back now is funny, at the time it was not so funny. In fact, between being scared of not making it back and handing out free gas to a stranger who should have been better prepared, we were reaching our breaking point. So when we took off again, I hit the gas, cut in front of her and stayed as close behind our local friend as possible (it was the only way to see where he was as this point) leaving the lady far behind. It eased my mind knowing we were right behind our friend, who I trusted, and that if we now broke down or ran out of gas there was someone off behind us who now owed us a hand. After a while longer driving through horrible weather and our tank approaching empty our friend pulls over. The snow machine lights go out and again we can see nothing. We hear him yell "the town is that way, follow the reflectors and DO NOT GET LOST! I am heading to the dog yard." And then he takes off. I turn my machine on and I can't even see the closest reflector because the storm has gotten so bad. Paige and I give each other a quick "okay, lets do it" (thinking to ourselves oh crap, I love you and it has been fun). I start moving forward slowly looking for the first reflector. Eventually its light appears through the blizzard and we continue in that direction. Each time I see a reflector our speed increases until we are cruising right along at 60mph. This was dangerous because we couldn't see very far in front of us and it wouldn't take much to send us flying, but at the same time we needed to get out of the weather which was proving to be more hazardous. After what seemed like forever, I stop and ask Paige if we should have seen the town by now or at least should we be able to see the city lights? Cold, scared and feeling lost we move forward watching our gas gauge blink at us, warning that we were dangerously low. Then when we were less than a 100 feet from the town we saw the first street and house lights appear. We should have been able to see it way off in the distance but because of the storm we had to be on top of the town to know it was there. And what a relief it was! When we finally made it back to a friends house we were several hours later than expected and she informed us that the she had called search and rescue. Luckily they wanted her to hold off a little longer. Our local friend met up with us and invited me to head back out with him to find the dog sled team, I politely declined enjoying the safety of shelter. Everyone made it back safely, but our nerves were tested.

Winter Is Coming

Contrary to The Game of Thrones books, winter here comes quickly. And as it was our first winter we were both excited to see the freeze up process and scared to experience the cold. But hey, we are on an adventure here and as they say 无可奈何!

Even though the weather reached some bitter cold temperatures, we were both surprised to see how long it took to freeze up. I think two factors played a role. First, the polar ice caps melted to a record low in 2012, in fact it melted 297,000 square miles more than the previous record seen in 2007. There are few places that are more affected by climate change than the arctic area. And second, the water in this area has strong and fast moving currents. This tends to break up the ice. The pictures below show what this looks like.

This is a picture of Kotzebue after the freeze up courtesy of kotzpdweb.tripod.com

You can compare this to the photo of Kotzebue in the summer posted earlier. 

As you can see, we get to experience some incredible changes!

Backtracking to The Beginning

After ten months in Kotzebue and several of our friends inquiring about a blog (some more than others...Inger), we have decide to start a blog! I guess we should start at the beginning?

Paige graduated with her Doctorate in Dental Surgery May of 2012 and accepted a job in Kotzebue, Alaska. After Paige's graduation, Brenden's marathon and wisdom teeth extraction, we decided to travel from Denver, Colorado to Missoula, Montana to visit family along the way. We traveled in our brand new 2012 Jeep Compass pulling a U-haul trailer. From Missoula we traveled to Seattle where we stayed with a good friend and dropped all of our belongings, including our car, on a barge to spend the next month traveling to Kotzebue, Alaska at the expense of Paige's new employer. We continued our summer journey down to Brookings, Oregon where we stayed with the other half of the family. It was an incredible summer of travel that led us to Medford, Oregon where we had one way tickets to Kotzebue, Alaska!

Kotzebue, named after a Russian explorer, is a small town of only 3200 people located north of the arctic circle. As the largest city in the Northwest Arctic Borough (Boroughs are the equivalent of a county only much larger) it is the hub for ten other villages. Most of the population of Kotzebue and the villages are natives, many of which speak Inupiaq.

When we landed in Kotzebue July of 2012 we were met by weather in the mid-50s and sun that never set. We also found out what our housing looked like. First, we should mention that as Paige is a dentist she is eligible to receive housing from the hospital which happens to be very nice and fully furnished. Unfortunately there wasn't an opening and we were put in the "29-Unit." We can't find any pictures of this place but lets just say it was less than appealing and neither one of our mothers would have approved.

There were no curtains of any kind in the 29-unit, most of our stuff was still on the barge and the store was closed, so we did the only thing we could do. We used tape from the few boxes we had with us on our plane trip up and used it to tape up our only blanket just so we could block out the sun. We blew up the air mattress we brought up on the plane and slept. That was night one of our adventure.

The following week we waited for Paige's licenses to go through before she started work. We also adjusted to the 24 hours of sun. We would be sitting in our "living room" thinking it was late evening only to look at our cell phones and find out it is 2 in the morning. Needless to say, the sun can be misleading up here.

The rest of the summer was spent getting to know people, the area and adjusting to our new way of life in a "foreign land."Oh and we caught hundreds of fish!