Jim and I are currently in Whitehorse, Canada, 946 miles from Homer, AK where we started. It is 1:00am here, and we are parked next to a little motel leaching their wifi. Both of us are typing blogs right now while we wait for the engine to cool off enough so we can change the oil. It hasn’t been changed in 17,000 miles! We started smelling a weird burning smell and decided that now was the time we should do this as opposed to after the engine locked up.

We have had no hold ups, and very little traffic. When we crossed into Canada, they didn’t stamp my passport! I didnt even think about it until after we pulled away, but I am kinda upset about it. Canada has been interesting. It looks a lot like Alaska, but the people speak just a little different. Still haven’t heard an “Eh” in its natural habitat, but I am anxiously awaiting the debut. We are going to power on through the night, alternating shifts and see if we cant make Vancouver soon.

We have been listening to comedy on the ipod, discussing the aspects of the collective, and generally mocking the great country of Canada because that is what you do when you come here. (No offense to any Canadian friends I may have – it is simply an ingrained thing I have had in me since childhood.)

That’s all for now, I am going to go change some oil in the rain.

-Ben

I had previously considered my blog a travel blog. It held the thoughts that came to mind after every unique experience I had while traveling in Asia.I had to quickly write them down or I would forget them when the next amazing thing smashed into my brain. Now that I am actually working in Alaska, living in a small town that is totally devoid of creative inspiration, I find blogging about my daily life to be monotonous. My weekend excursions are fun, but they are just that – excursions. The life of daily adventure is no longer mine. I leave here in 12 days to drive down to San Francisco, and from there to Burning Man once again. I am looking forward to this change because I feel that SF will be a much better place to once again start writing. (SCUBA Diving the California coast anyone?)

Lets see, weekend before last I jumped onboard a small plane and flew around Mount McKinley in Denali National Park, landed on a glacier and had a shirtless snowball fight. This was followed by a reindeer burger  (I ate Rudolph) and beers before a sunset over the river. I slept on the floor of a cabin with six other people in a camp with 35 sled dogs that run the Iditarod Trail every winter.

This past weekend I helped throw a party that turned into a sunset to sunrise event which led directly into whitewater rafting three canyons of class four and five rapids.

That’s the short and sweet of it. Fun weekends, adrenaline rushes, working weeks, looking forward to a big city again.

(Front: Seb, Back: Cam, Me, Rachel, Jeff, Susy, Casey, Lara, Cyril, Carlos)

The ice water was so blue

Goodbye planet Earth…

When you depend on something so entirely that your life would be drastically different without it, do you tend to ignore the fact you depend on it? Take fuel as an example. It wasn’t until the recent (in terms of years) gas price increase that the average Joe realized how dependant he was on a thing he had no control over.

Technology is one of those things for me. The Internet, Computers, GPS, Cell Phones, Digital Cameras, all of these devices and applications have become so integral to my life, lifestyle, earnings and communication methods that I have completely pushed the fact the I depend on them for survival out of my mind.

How often you think about the fact you are using a relativity new technology to accomplish everyday tasks? Fellow blogger Laura McNamara of Giramonda.com and I have put together a list of questions to help stimulate your (and our) brains.

Please don’t answer them all, but if you feel like some of them are pertinent to your life, please comment on them. At the very least, consider how much digital technology has transformed your life… and what that could mean. Full list below the jump.

What is your profession?

How long do you spend on a computer a week?

How do you check your email?

How do you contact others?

How do you manage your finances?

How do you track your productivity?

How do you keep on top of tasks?

How do you get your news?

How do you find doctors/dentists/etc in your area?

If you’re single, how do you look for potential dates?

If you’re married, how do you find information on marriage?

How do you buy hard to find items?

How do you buy electronics?

…Click here to read more

When we woke up the next morning it was raining, so we stayed in our tents and drifted off to sleep again. We were worn out from the day before, and the rain just gave us an excuse to sleep a little more. Our 8:30 am wake up turned into 11:00 am. As we were getting ready, we realized that our water situation was critical. I had less than one liter left, and most of us had less than that. The water that was flowing near us was gray with glacial silt (rocks that got turned to dust by the power of the ice) and we didn’t really want to drink it. We decided to postpone breakfast until we found some cleaner water.

30-40 minutes of hiking brought us to Thunder Falls, a fast moving stream coming out of a gorge to our right. The water here was still silty, but not nearly as bad. At this point, we would have drank anything, more because we were nervous about not having water than because we were dehydrated or even close to it. We set up my stove and boiled the water for a while before adding in our oatmeal. Casey had some iodine pills and we used a few of them for six liters or so of water before moving on.

   
Looking Back (Photo by C. Fenton)

…Click here to read more

Just in case you didn’t notice, I changed the way that my site looks. The other one was good, but this is much cleaner, and I like the fact that I drew all of the elements myself. The idea behind the redesign was to get rid of all extra junk I felt was detracting from the writing.

I am still trying to decide what should go in the white space on the left of the header. Any ideas?