Anchorage to Fairbanks on the Denali Star

Anchorage to Fairbanks on the Denali Star

Here’s a bunch of photos I took on the trip compressed in photoshop, then again by uploading to Youtube. If you see one you like pause it quick because each lasts a second or so. Also if you have the bandwidth click on the Youtube icon to blow this out of frame and watch from the Youtube site where you can click the HD button and see much more detail.

Honduran Coup

Honduran Coup

There’s been a coup this morning in Honduras against one of Hugo Chavez’s allies, President Zelaya. Normally I don’t care for military coups, but this one appears to be enforcing current court decisions and their constitution over a Chavez style referendum to rewrite said constitution. The best coverage and round up of the ongoing change is found at Fausta’s Blog.

Cap and Tax Under Hot Debate

Cap and Tax Under Hot Debate

Update: The bill passed 219-212

The Waxman-Markey Cap and Tax bill is under hot debate on the house floor right now, the bill will introduce a huge hidden energy tax to middle class americans, and do pretty much nothing to stop emissions. It’s turned into a huge patronage deal with massive pollution credits going to Dems in coal states to gain their votes. Here’s Representative Dave Camp, MI speaking on the effects of the bill:

The quickest way to stall the world economy that I know of is to introduce more draconian regs like this. The diesel regulations in Europe directly contributed to the recession we are trying to come out of now.

With the coming regulation of shipping diesel fuels, the future is looking pretty grim.

More from Representative Ryan:

What’s New

midnight-sun

What’s New

We’ve just returned from a family reunion in Fairbanks, Alaska — the get together was great and seeing all of my family again was wonderful. We had planned to hit the Midnight Sun Game, but we talked too long into the bright night and missed it. Time can be deceptive when the sun doesn’t go down except to kiss the horizon near midnight. [click on the thumbnail to the left, this was taken 11:56 PM Fairbanks time on 6/17 four days before actual Solstice. Taken from the Steese Highway near the Chena Hot Springs cut off.]

Between the Sony and the Canon I took about 3,000 photos and will be posting some more of them over the next few weeks.

The trip back was pretty grueling, the plane’s flight computer went out, and the back up computer would only allow us to fly within Radar range – that turned out to be a cancelation since they are conducting military air excercises and we didn’t have enough fuel to establish a route around those that would stay within range of radar. So 36 hours later we got home, still in the same clothes. Waiting on the rebooked red eye flight did give us a bit more time for family however so we all hit the Alaska Salmon Bake.

Glacier Overflight

Glacier Overflight

While flying up to Alaska we saw quite a few signs of past glaciation in the Rockies, everything from hanging cirques, to tarns, to moraines in the plains leading to the mountains. It wasn’t until we got further north that we saw actual glaciers however. This series of photos were snapped while my aisle mate went to the restroom and I was able to get to the window. Just judging from the flight plan and the poor resolution pics of the areas in Google Earth, I believe most of these were snapped South of the Kluane icefield, with some of the mountains on the Canada side of the border, and some South on the Alaska side. I’m sure someone on the right side of the plane got to see Mt. Logan, but I did not.

Here’s hoping you enjoy the gallery below, the last two were taken through the fisheye lens in the exit door of the plane so there is some color shift and distortion in them:

Trumpeter Swans

Trumpeter Swans

Trumpeter-Swans-Enroute-to-

Here’s a pair of Trumpeter swans I photographed from the Alaska RR train enroute to Mt. McKinley (AKA Mt. Denali) As always, click on the thumbnail for more detail, more photos from our journey to come this week.