-
ICMag with help from Phlizon, Landrace Warden and The Vault is running a NEW contest for Christmas! You can check it here. Prizes are: full spectrum led light, seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!
TOTALLY RANDOM POST II
- Thread starter minds_I
- Start date
Photo taken at Eureka Lodge off the Glenn Highway. Not my photo, and not extremely unusual at several different gas stations on both the Glenn and the Parks Highways.
Yeah, I could do that..... 
Bwahahahahahahahhaa!!
OK, probably not. Certainly not anytime in the last 25 or more years.
(*Not my picture).
Bwahahahahahahahhaa!!
OK, probably not. Certainly not anytime in the last 25 or more years.
(*Not my picture).
Been waiting 6 weeks to get this framed for herself, get back to the house and find the perfect spot for hanging it.. After calling out to her to come and have a look at this (surprise surprise)
she notices a wave on the print, my eyesight is not the may west and didn’t notice it in the gallery when paying for the framing. Incompetent imbeciles, heads will roll on Monday.. She she’s the funny side of it…The dimpling was already on it as its rather old..
she notices a wave on the print, my eyesight is not the may west and didn’t notice it in the gallery when paying for the framing. Incompetent imbeciles, heads will roll on Monday.. She she’s the funny side of it…The dimpling was already on it as its rather old..
Last edited:
CharlesU Farley
Well-known member
Just got back online after almost 2 months. Don't know where to start, eventually there'll be a typical CharlesU Farley Wall 'o Words post but can't do it right now. 
... a fucking _hurricane_ in the mountains...
I'll let this speak for me now:
... a fucking _hurricane_ in the mountains...
I'll let this speak for me now:
Last edited:
Grow44DE
Well-known member
Welcome back @CharlesU Farley sounds like you had a hard time?
CharlesU Farley
Well-known member
I Survived A Hurricane In The Mountains
This is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever written/posted in my almost 70 years of existence. I have not posted here on ICM in over 2 months because Harley and I survived a fucking _hurricane_ in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Unfortunately, my growing companion for the last 5.5...
www.icmag.com
FV Wind Walker capsized in remote SE Alaska. Search by Coast Guard and others has been suspended for the 5 missing crew, including the skipper, after covering 125 square miles.
Last transmission was that the crew were attempting to crawl into the lifeboat, but since then there's been no sighting or transmission from anyone.
Families of the crew are distraught but clinging to the hope that no spotting of a lifeboat means that it's maybe made it to shore someplace... But...
And the news that the search has been suspended has been taken pretty hard by the missing men's families.
*Not my photo.
Last transmission was that the crew were attempting to crawl into the lifeboat, but since then there's been no sighting or transmission from anyone.
Families of the crew are distraught but clinging to the hope that no spotting of a lifeboat means that it's maybe made it to shore someplace... But...
And the news that the search has been suspended has been taken pretty hard by the missing men's families.
*Not my photo.
Made my way to Los Anchorage on Monday, did the deal for rims and tires on Tuesday afternoon, and got out of town about an hour earlier than planned. Cool..
I knew there was a likelihood of freezing rain coming into the Mat-Su Valley and Anchorage bowl areas by 3 PM, but then NOAA moved that up to noon, before I left town, and I was apprehensive.
The freezing rain wasn't supposed to be a thing for much further north than Talkeetna Jct.
I knew if the pavement surface was warmer, like in the Anchorage area, then the icing would be minimal, and I could make decent time. A mere 350 miles to go, knowing the Sun would be setting between 3:30 PM and 4 PM.
Freezing rain stayed minimal from Anchor-town almost to Willow, and was still pretty light, but where I thought I had good grip on the road with my Blizzaks, I found when stopping from 70+ mph to zero for a school bus on the main highway just north of Willow, that even with my Blizzaks on the truck, sliding was definitely on the agenda. Stopped in plenty of time, but listening to my anti-lock brakes chattering at me in morse code that I'm sure said, "YOU'RE A FUCKING IDIOT!!"
Rain increased and was sticking a bit but still relatively warm when I reached Talkeetna Junction.
As I pulled into the gas station there, I pulled up next to a trucker hauling a double trailer rig, and his truck was pointed south so I presumed he was heading south. I inquired and he stated he was "trying to do that". I noted he had the slip-on cleats over his boots with the studs in them to keep from slipping when walking on ice, but he was slipping anyway.
I asked him how far up the road the conditions sucked, and he said that when he (slowly) came through, it was maybe 35 miles to the north that is was a mess, but that by the time I got up there, that might've all changed.
I hadn't brought any fuel jugs as I normally would've, and knew that if things got really snotty, I would possibly need to idle through the night sleeping in the cab (in which case I NEVER sleep well or comfortably), and/or sleep in the bed of the truck or under the truck on the two 3-inch foam mattresses I'd brought for just such an occasion, but that with conditions worsening, stopping someplace to snooze, only to wake up and find my truck glaciated wouldn't be cool at all.
As I passed through Trapper Creek the freezing rain was turning to falling slush it seemed, the highway was slick enough that even tickling the gas pedal sent the ass of the truck sideways unless in 4-wheel drive, and I pulled into a familiar snowmobile trail pullout ~8 miles north of Trapper Creek and popped a hard seltzer to take the edge off. It was dark by then and raining cats and dogs with that falling freezing slushy shit.. I had a vaporizer loaded with Super Lemon Haze and a joint of the same rolled up in a cannister, as well as a couple varieties of prescription amphetamines, but I didn't need the speed yet, the weed was out of the question, I was in a heavy moose zone (though thankfully moose typically bed down in shitty weather, unlike us stupid human folks), and I needed to keep my wits sharp without driving down my energy with the stress of the adrenaline, and the ONE hard seltzer did just that. Took the edge off and got me back into the game.
Shortly thereafter it was heavy rain mixing with large snowflakes getting more and more thick. A few miles up the road it was a literal whiteout. I spent the next (about) 70+ miles using the low beam LEDS headlights to watch the snow berm to the right to know I was mostly on the highway, with only a couple close calls.
My wife dialed up NOAA on the laptop at home and they didn't say a goddamned word about heavy snow, let alone a blizzard with whiteout conditions. I asked about Cantwell up at Mile 209, and NOAA said NOTHING about snow there.
By now I was in it to win it. There could be no stopping, so I varied my speed, sometimes in 4x4, sometimes not, between 40 and 50 mph for what seemed an eternity. The few trucks passing going the other way putting up plumes that had me bracing to keep the wheel straight, hoping the road didn't curve while I was blinded, and counting to about 3 to 4 seconds before I could see again. High beams were out of the question as the amount of snow coming down made them completely useless, whether the LED headlight high beams or the Light Force 7" overheads. Worthless other than for maybe pretending I was in a Star Trek episode at warp speed and the snow was a serious congestion of stars whizzing by.
Not a lot of distance to the visibility at that point, maybe 10-50 ft. variable.
Snow lightened up a bit just north of Cantwell but didn't really come even close to ceasing until I got into Healy, north of Denali Nat'l Park's main entrance, and even there, snowflakes were falling. Got some cold cocktail shrimp in the store there with some cocktail sauce and took my time to get the ice off the back of the truck so folks could at least see my taillights. Raised the hood to check the oil and had snow deposited in places in the engine compartment that I'd never seen before.
Got out a beer and a regular seltzer water, made sure I could find my headlamps in the dark in a pinch, and considered that maybe up by Bear Creek there'd be a moment for a puff or three. But once I departed Healy and the snow had let up a bit, I was doing 70-74 mph, and about a half-mile behind me a trucker with larger and brighter overheads than mine was gaining on me!!
My wife told me over the cell phone that it was, by then, snowing pretty good at our house south of Fairbanks toward Nenana. FUCK!!! I couldn't get out of this Twilight Zone episode!!!
Did I mention that in all of this, my wife and I were fighting regularly on the phone, and my youngest and oldest adult children were again doing their pre-adolescent butt-hurt ego shit again? Well, we were, and they are.
Made it over the bowl rim between Nenana and Fairbanks, past a couple of broke down semis, and made it home at about 9:50 PM Alaska Time.
Wednesday morning, I looked under my truck and the frame rails were iced with about 1" on three sides of clear ice. never seen shit like that before.
Good quality weather service reporting is mandatory here. Don't let anyone tell you different. No word of a blizzard or whiteouts anywhere in anything we looked at that day and night.
Now I need to make another trip to Los Anchorage in just over a week or so to see a new-to-me oncologist. They offered up an appt on Friday the 13th and I said, "No thanks." Now they've moved it to an earlier appt in the AM on a Monday, so I can try and get home from that trip, by road again, before being eaten by the Abominable Snowman.
This shit might drive me to drug use.
I knew there was a likelihood of freezing rain coming into the Mat-Su Valley and Anchorage bowl areas by 3 PM, but then NOAA moved that up to noon, before I left town, and I was apprehensive.
The freezing rain wasn't supposed to be a thing for much further north than Talkeetna Jct.
I knew if the pavement surface was warmer, like in the Anchorage area, then the icing would be minimal, and I could make decent time. A mere 350 miles to go, knowing the Sun would be setting between 3:30 PM and 4 PM.
Freezing rain stayed minimal from Anchor-town almost to Willow, and was still pretty light, but where I thought I had good grip on the road with my Blizzaks, I found when stopping from 70+ mph to zero for a school bus on the main highway just north of Willow, that even with my Blizzaks on the truck, sliding was definitely on the agenda. Stopped in plenty of time, but listening to my anti-lock brakes chattering at me in morse code that I'm sure said, "YOU'RE A FUCKING IDIOT!!"
Rain increased and was sticking a bit but still relatively warm when I reached Talkeetna Junction.
As I pulled into the gas station there, I pulled up next to a trucker hauling a double trailer rig, and his truck was pointed south so I presumed he was heading south. I inquired and he stated he was "trying to do that". I noted he had the slip-on cleats over his boots with the studs in them to keep from slipping when walking on ice, but he was slipping anyway.
I asked him how far up the road the conditions sucked, and he said that when he (slowly) came through, it was maybe 35 miles to the north that is was a mess, but that by the time I got up there, that might've all changed.
I hadn't brought any fuel jugs as I normally would've, and knew that if things got really snotty, I would possibly need to idle through the night sleeping in the cab (in which case I NEVER sleep well or comfortably), and/or sleep in the bed of the truck or under the truck on the two 3-inch foam mattresses I'd brought for just such an occasion, but that with conditions worsening, stopping someplace to snooze, only to wake up and find my truck glaciated wouldn't be cool at all.
As I passed through Trapper Creek the freezing rain was turning to falling slush it seemed, the highway was slick enough that even tickling the gas pedal sent the ass of the truck sideways unless in 4-wheel drive, and I pulled into a familiar snowmobile trail pullout ~8 miles north of Trapper Creek and popped a hard seltzer to take the edge off. It was dark by then and raining cats and dogs with that falling freezing slushy shit.. I had a vaporizer loaded with Super Lemon Haze and a joint of the same rolled up in a cannister, as well as a couple varieties of prescription amphetamines, but I didn't need the speed yet, the weed was out of the question, I was in a heavy moose zone (though thankfully moose typically bed down in shitty weather, unlike us stupid human folks), and I needed to keep my wits sharp without driving down my energy with the stress of the adrenaline, and the ONE hard seltzer did just that. Took the edge off and got me back into the game.
Shortly thereafter it was heavy rain mixing with large snowflakes getting more and more thick. A few miles up the road it was a literal whiteout. I spent the next (about) 70+ miles using the low beam LEDS headlights to watch the snow berm to the right to know I was mostly on the highway, with only a couple close calls.
My wife dialed up NOAA on the laptop at home and they didn't say a goddamned word about heavy snow, let alone a blizzard with whiteout conditions. I asked about Cantwell up at Mile 209, and NOAA said NOTHING about snow there.
By now I was in it to win it. There could be no stopping, so I varied my speed, sometimes in 4x4, sometimes not, between 40 and 50 mph for what seemed an eternity. The few trucks passing going the other way putting up plumes that had me bracing to keep the wheel straight, hoping the road didn't curve while I was blinded, and counting to about 3 to 4 seconds before I could see again. High beams were out of the question as the amount of snow coming down made them completely useless, whether the LED headlight high beams or the Light Force 7" overheads. Worthless other than for maybe pretending I was in a Star Trek episode at warp speed and the snow was a serious congestion of stars whizzing by.
Not a lot of distance to the visibility at that point, maybe 10-50 ft. variable.
Snow lightened up a bit just north of Cantwell but didn't really come even close to ceasing until I got into Healy, north of Denali Nat'l Park's main entrance, and even there, snowflakes were falling. Got some cold cocktail shrimp in the store there with some cocktail sauce and took my time to get the ice off the back of the truck so folks could at least see my taillights. Raised the hood to check the oil and had snow deposited in places in the engine compartment that I'd never seen before.
Got out a beer and a regular seltzer water, made sure I could find my headlamps in the dark in a pinch, and considered that maybe up by Bear Creek there'd be a moment for a puff or three. But once I departed Healy and the snow had let up a bit, I was doing 70-74 mph, and about a half-mile behind me a trucker with larger and brighter overheads than mine was gaining on me!!
My wife told me over the cell phone that it was, by then, snowing pretty good at our house south of Fairbanks toward Nenana. FUCK!!! I couldn't get out of this Twilight Zone episode!!!
Did I mention that in all of this, my wife and I were fighting regularly on the phone, and my youngest and oldest adult children were again doing their pre-adolescent butt-hurt ego shit again? Well, we were, and they are.
Made it over the bowl rim between Nenana and Fairbanks, past a couple of broke down semis, and made it home at about 9:50 PM Alaska Time.
Wednesday morning, I looked under my truck and the frame rails were iced with about 1" on three sides of clear ice. never seen shit like that before.
Good quality weather service reporting is mandatory here. Don't let anyone tell you different. No word of a blizzard or whiteouts anywhere in anything we looked at that day and night.
Now I need to make another trip to Los Anchorage in just over a week or so to see a new-to-me oncologist. They offered up an appt on Friday the 13th and I said, "No thanks." Now they've moved it to an earlier appt in the AM on a Monday, so I can try and get home from that trip, by road again, before being eaten by the Abominable Snowman.
This shit might drive me to drug use.
Last edited:
I was a road warrior in Ontario for a couple of decades before I started flying to the bastards, so I have lived your tale far, far too many times. I remember whiteout driving by centering myself between the utility polls on the sides of the road . . . And as for wildlife . . . moose I only saw in the far north of my territory, so typically deer and drunks were my nighttime hazards . . .
In this case, the poles to either side were invisible.
The wetness of the snow, and especially the freezing rain, left accumulations of ice like I've never driven through, and I calculate that I've got over 2 million road miles under me, with many moments of freezing rain in the past..
We were -35 F on the front porch at my home on Thanksgiving. Then up and down like a rollercoaster.
This coming week we're currently slated to have one day at +34 F and another at +31 F for highs, at which point our (local) very cold pavement will ice the shit out of the moisture in the air, leaving a sheen of what I often refer to as Kodiak ice on the roads..
This last summer was similar. Up into the +90s at one moment, then soon after, down into lows in the +40s and highs in the +50s. Shittiest growing summer for gardening I've seen in 46 years here.
And this winter is showing itself to be a similar rollercoaster ride temperature-wise.
Once we're in the notable negative temps and the ground's had time to freeze hard, the colder weather has the feature I refer to as sticky ice, notwithstanding limited exceptions for black ice.
But even with Blizzaks, when there's a sheen of moisture on top of ice, or especially glazed/polished ice resulting from the folks who erroneously believe the answer to slipping on take-off is more throttle, then either REALLY fresh studs or chains are the only answer, and it's been YEARS since I was compelled to chain up, and that was more often than not in slick deep mud.
Last edited:
Archaeological remains in Alaska show humans and dogs bonded 12,000 years ago
"Chemical analyses of both bones (see article for a description) found substantial contributions from salmon proteins, meaning the canine had regularly eaten the fish. This was not typical of canines in the area during that time, as they hunted land animals almost exclusively. The most likely explanation for salmon showing up in the animal's diet? Dependence on humans.
"This is the smoking gun because they're not really going after salmon in the wild," said study co-author Ben Potter, an archaeologist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks."
"Chemical analyses of both bones (see article for a description) found substantial contributions from salmon proteins, meaning the canine had regularly eaten the fish. This was not typical of canines in the area during that time, as they hunted land animals almost exclusively. The most likely explanation for salmon showing up in the animal's diet? Dependence on humans.
"This is the smoking gun because they're not really going after salmon in the wild," said study co-author Ben Potter, an archaeologist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks."
Yep, many villages on the river systems still maintain sled dogs and other pups with subsistence gathered or netted salmon, though the Yukon River's harvests for some species have been in sometimes catastrophic declines. (*A recent study directly links aspects of climate change).
I've rarely been so decadent as to feed my dogs much salmon, and I've owned a variety of breeds, including Norwegian elkhounds, German shepherds (currently), giant malamute, and many others.
I will certainly attest to them making far superior friends and neighbors than many humans.
The traditional original Giant malamutes (up to 185 lbs. or more) in the NW Coast areas were stated to have been babysitters/child attendants for young children if or when mom and dad had to head out on the ice to find food, etc. Gentle giants, really.
Ruffy, now deceased. Lived to be about 13 if I recall correctly and was 127 lbs. as a healthy malamute and a pup from a local fellow who used malamutes as freight dogs on contract to the Nat'l Park Service into Denali Nat'l Park in the 1970s (back then known as McKinley) Nat'l Park.
Ruffy was a very good dog, but when in pain resulting from 'hot spots' could become aggressive... though I was the one most apt to be moving him when he was hurting, so I got the honors of doing the bared teeth waltz at midnight in the middle of the driveway when my family couldn't hear me yelling for help. and he was a strong guy, lemme tell ya'.
I figure that I have topped 1 million behind a steering wheel and about 3/4 of a million in the air. I know my Air Canada miles were around 667K before I got pissed with them and started flying a bunch of others. Air France was my bestie over the last year . . .
Edit: That would be my last year of travel . . . 2019.
Last edited:
I dont know to laugh or to cry, im gonna write something about play ground here, neighbour of mine (driving white a5) going out every time i go, you know couple times can be just coincidence but when its every time its intentional operations, and when im going back by foot or by car its the same, not only this guy playing with me, others also, its like you living in constant reality show, when every move you make is watched, how its possible. today my tire was slashed on closed private property, before that side mirror was destroy, in the evening im closing car, when i go in the morning lock its open, how this is happend. there is more cases in that intentional game. its all the time something going on.
