Going Postal

Had a day off today and decided to run around town a bit and get some fresh air. I've been pulling a Cliff Clavin the last few weeks working at airport facility for the United States Postal Service during the holiday rush. It's pretty physically demanding (basically a warehouse job) and, um, interesting work - "neither logic, nor efficiency, nor innovation, nor dark of night stays me from swift completion of my appointed rounds!" Word to the wise - pack well, very well, forget about "This end up", and know that "Fragile: Handle with care" is cute, but wishful thinking! Though the "please" and "thank you" parcels do get some love, at least from me.

I ran out to the coastal trail on Cook Inlet today to grab a couple of pics on a nice but quite cold day (we're seeing some single digit highs and negative lows, though that's more the exception than the rule, with sunrise after 10:00 am and sunset about 3:30 pm). ALL the snow that fell in November in Anchorage (not in the mountains) melted in a very odd warm up around T-giving, then it was bone dry for a few weeks, now we have a bit of snow back and cold, cold days and nights.

So I went a bit down the trail to grab a couple pics of Anchorage proper as promised, but upon finding a good spot was given pause by this sign.

But then again, isn't there a rule about signs not counting if they're covered up? Sounds about right to me, so I pressed on to my chosen spot, but not too close to the cliffside over the icy cold Inlet and its resident ice flows, sign be damned!

So this is downtown Anchorage, nestled between the Cook Inlet and the Chugach Range:

You can click it for a larger image, and see it zoomed here, bathed by the intense 3:00 sun:

There is plenty of ice along the shorelines and floating free in the Cook Inlet, but I guess it avoids freezing over due to the extreme tides. On the way back in I saw a moose laying down a bit off the trail through a thicket of Alders- can you see her? She could most certainly see me, with her ears perked up in curious mode and her calf snacking about 30 feet to the left:

We have very short days now but unusually long dawn and dusk periods due to our severe angle to the sun, making for some really nice sunrise/sunsets, which I'll hopefully be able to share soon. I think the Turnagain Arm seems like a nice spot for that - maybe I can hit that up on Friday (weather pending) when I have another day off. Happy Holidays!