The Adventures of Scotty, Sue and Dan Aboard Narnia (and other adventures)
The Adventures of Scotty, Sue and Dan Aboard Narnia (and other adventures)
Today was the Ceremonial Start to the 50th Iditarod! We woke up early and made our way at 7:30AM to the check-in point to collect our armbands that would identify us as Dog Handlers for the event. The snow started falling in large fluffy flakes making for a picture perfect backdrop to this uniquely Alaska […]
Sue and I certified as Iditarod Dog Handlers in 2018, but as luck would have it we forgot to bring our credentials with us on this trip so we had to “recertify” for 2022. We Uber’d over to the Lakefront Hotel early in the morning. Since we were entering the Iditarod Covid Bubble we had […]
We decided to skip the organized bus tour to the Alyeska Ski Resort and take the opportunity walk down the icy hill toward the Alaska Railroad Station to view the Alaska State Snow Sculpture Championship Exhibit. While today was icy and well below freezing, the recent wave of unseasonably warm weather had melted away some […]
We had a blast at Martin Buser’s Happy Trails Kennel on Wednesday! The day began with an early morning 1.5 hour bus ride to Big Lake, Alaska where Martin maintains his kennel and training site for his sled dog team. There were several other current and former Iditarod mushers there today working their teams, including […]
Ah, the 1st day of March. Today started with an icy walk to one of our favorite downtown Anchorage coffee shops, Dark Horse Coffee. We indulged in a bagel and breakfast burrito washed down with dark roast coffee. We followed-up with shopping for “cold weather/snow gear” at the local outlet shop and more exploring of […]
Our day started out with breakfast at our traditional Anchorage breakfast spot: Snow City Café. Their portions are huge and the food is good (Biscuits and Gravy for Sue, Cluck Norris for Dan) . Thankfully calories don’t count on vacation :-). After breakfast we had our traditional stroll along the waterfront to Resolution Park and […]
Absolutely gorgeous approach and landing at Anchorage Airport. The fun is just beginning!
Made it to Seattle. The second half of the quick 1 hour 40 minute flight was very bumpy. We were on an Embraer ERJ 175, cute small plane. We now have a 4 hour layover in Seattle before flight to Anchorage (we used frequent flyer points and saved quite a few points having a longer […]
All checked in. 1st flight leaves at 7am. Let the adventure begin!
Even though we had 5:10 pm and 5:20 pm appointments for C-19 PCR testing tonight at local CVS drive through for our upcoming trip, we got there 10 minutes early and long line . Mr. Scotty went with us and got a nice walk while we waited..
Tuesday night happenings: Knee deep in Alaska travel planning and Iditarod C-19 testing requirements to be volunteer dog handlers for ceremonial start and real race restart the next day. We will proactively PCR test this Thursday evening before flying out early Sunday morning then we have to to do another PCR test in Anchorage 72 […]
Friday night happenings: I love paper maps, marking up our Alaska Iditarod trip (maybe in a past or future life I was/will be a navigator .LOL). Dan is knee deep in programming so that we all can track him via SV Narnia’s website on his sailing adventure from Panama to Nuku Hiva (French Polynesia) via […]
Prepping for being volunteer dog handlers for the Iditarod ceremonial start in Anchorage next month and real race start in Willow Alaska. In 2018, the last time we volunteered, we had two “non sponsored” mushers that we helped with handing their dogs and not enough leashes. We will be prepared to use these if the […]
44 Day Adventure from Bangkok, Thailand to Athens, Greece As mentioned in <This Post>, we are now planning our 2023 travel. The Itinerary for the 1st few months is firming up with a 44 day trek from Bangkok Thailand to Athens, Greece via the Suez Canal. This will check 8 more countries off of our […]
Nice 8 mile Paddle Around the Delta. I flipped the Kayak and went for an unintentional swim at mile 6 while taking the new “shortcut” from Hill Slough to Duck Slough. It was a cold/wet paddle home. Today’s tide was VERY strong and fast moving. This made for “rapids” on the delta and I got […]
As mentioned before, there was a new tidal wetland created just across from our land home that is accessible from our dock at higher tides. Today the tide and timing were perfect for a quick paddle out to visit the Pelicans, Egrets, Ducks, Cormorant and other birds the have moved into this area. I set […]
An amazing January day for a paddle around the delta. The fog burned off, the tide was high and the wind was light. I set my camera to take a photo every 60 seconds and put the pictures to music. This is about a 2 mile loop from our land home. Retired life is good.
Something to research this weekend, changes to Covid testing for our volunteer Alaska Iditarod dog handler role for ceremonial start and restart… More to follow! Lots of details to sort out!!
For our family and friends that have been following the West Coast Tsunami impacts and reaching out by phone, email, text and message, please know that Narnia and crew are doing fine. Dan was staying overnight on Narnia and was on board when the Tsunami news hit. The marina staff was proactive in checking on […]
As many of you know, we have a “Bucket List” goal to travel to as many countries/protectorates as possible. To date we have managed to check 80 countries off the 218 country list. For 2023 we had planned to travel to 11 countries, 8 of them, primarily located in South Africa, East Africa, and the […]
