October Highlights

The past 5 days we have focused on potty training Jackson. I decided we should let him run around naked so that when he pooped or peed we would know it and also so he would learn to recognize the sensation and learn to go on his potty and not the floor. He took to peeing on the potty very well, and by now he poops on it most of the time. This potty training business is a lot of work, but I'd say we've been successful! Now we have to figure out how to transition him to using the potty when we are away from home. Way to go Jackson! We saw this moose in our neighbors front yard on the way to church. Last week 3 were in our yard but I was not able to get a picture. Apparently the colder it gets the more moose you see in the city limits.

I discovered this place called Bouncin Bears. It is a great way to let Jackson burn off some energy and stay warm!

If we won't rock him, I guess he'll rock his own self to sleep. Poor baby.

Arctic Hunting

My friend Buddy and I went up the Dalton Highway (Haul Road) to hunt caribou last weekend. We did not get anything, but it made for a really good story. The Haul Road is the same one you see on Ice Road Truckers. Its not as bad as they make it out on TV, but I'm not hauling 40 tons of cargo either. Needless to say, it was an interesting trip, and it allowed me to check off some of the things I want to do while in Alaska. The picture below is me standing at the arctic circle. There is a turn off and a little rest area as well as a sign and some information about it.

The following pictures were taken as we went along the road. In some of them you can see the Alaska Pipeline which follows the road all the way to the north coast of Alaska.

There is one mountain pass that goes through the Brooks Range. It is called Atigun Pass. As you can see it was covered in snow and ice. It was very cold up there!!

This was on the other side of the pass. The weather was beautiful except the temperatures. It was around 0 degrees F.

This was around where we stopped to hunt and camp. This was about 112 miles south of the north coast. The temp was around 0 to -2. On the Haul Road, you cannot hunt with a rifle within 5 miles of the road. This meant we had to walk off the road 5 miles before we could shoot any caribou. It was a hard hike! Later that night I saw -18F on my truck thermometer.

This was a sunset we saw on the way back to Anchorage.