No Power

Sunday all day trucks were arriving in Houston from all over the country to help in the clean up and power restoration efforts. We met crews from NY and N. Carolina. On the road I've seen trucks from Los Angeles FD, utility trucks and tree services from Ohio, etc. Thank you all for helping put our city back together!

No power for 5 days for us. And we were lucky to get it back that soon. The transformer that serves our house was fixed by a crew from NY - on their down time while waiting for directives for their assigned job. Thanks Asplundh - and the guys from Syracuse.

Some have had power restored recently - 2 weeks later. Others have promises of power returning a week to 10 days from now - Oct 4 to 11!

Assessing the damage - Saturday PM

No power. No house damage. Trees down. Green pool. Piles of leaves.

Radio news. 90% of the city without power. Yes, 90%! The largest power outage in the history of Houston. Water and wind damage are spread city wide. Curfews are in effect.

Galveston Island is under water. Fires, extensive flooding and some neighborhoods completely washed out, nothing standing.

Hurricane Ike - Fri/Sat, September 12-13.

Hurricane Ike is now a reality for us. We lost power for a few seconds a couple of times between 10 and 11pm. At around midnight, power was out for good.

Hard rain started falling around 10pm and the wind picked up considearably. K, D, and I set camp in the small bathroom below the staircase - marshmallows and all - with L close by in the dining room.

Oh, no! Where are the marshmallows?

Just after lunch L tells K that there is a big storm coming and that we're camping downstairs in the evening. K gets excited and immediately wants to know where the smarshmallows are.

We don't have any marshmallows, K. Let's camp without marshmallows today.

No, Mommy. We need smarshmallows. I want smarshmallows, pleeease...

OK, lets see if the cornerstore is still open. We take the Babbyjogger and set out on the search for marshmallows. It's 1:30pm and a beautiful day. Hard to believe the reports that the coastal areas are already flooding due to the tidal surge ahead of the hurricane. The rain clouds have not even shown up yet in our corner of the city.

The cornerstore is already closed. We try the nearby supermarket. They have just closed, the last customers are leaving. The Walgreens next door - still open. Marshmallows? Yes! We grab a couple of bags and run home. The clouds are starting to come in quite fast. We are going from a bright sun shiny day to a gloomy rainy day pretty fast. We get home just as it starts to sprinkle. The real storm is still a good 9 to 10 hours away but these are the some of the rain bands associated with the storm.

In any case, it was nice to see K so, so happy with her smarshmallows. Camping started that afternoon!

Friday Run - September 12

I squeeze in time for a last run on Friday morning before the storm. The city is quiet. Most gas stations are dry and have plastic bags tied around their pumps. A Chevron and a Shell still with gas have a constant 5-car line on each working pump.

I set out on a short leg of the River Oaks Run. Not many runners out there - this route is usually pretty busy on a Saturday morning. On my way back, to my surprise I spot a white tail bunny and just a few steps later a snake. It was a coral snake with black and red bands separated by a thin yellow stripe. Mind you, River Oaks is in the heart of the city. Many lots however are extremely large (and the most expensive in town...) and there is a lot of greenery and water around.

Better head back home after a few miles... still have a few things to get ready before the rain and wind start to pound us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_snakes


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Ike 6:15am Saturday

The hurricane is over Houston with winds reaching 110mph...millions are without power and countless in the coast have their homes flooded or completely destroyed.

Ike update 6:20am Friday

No rain, yet. But the satellite images are impressive.

Didn't set my alarm, missed the 5am run...

yikes Ike!

The city is in high alert as Ike comes closer. The hurricane is very, very large. Right now it covers most of the Gulf of Mexico!

Friday and Saturday are going to be loooong days for Houston and those around us in the Texas Gulf Coast...

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GIFS/GULFIR.JPG

Anchorage - Rocks by the Sea

A couple of hours went by as the kids played with the rocks on the beach in Anchorage. I took pictures & L videotaped. We each had out "toy".

At one point K's pants got so heavy from the rocks in her pockets that she declared: "My pants are falling!!! (giggles, giggles,...)"

I managed to find two empty grocery bags and handed them to K and D. They proceeded immediately to filling them with their favorites. K soon realized that she couldn't have the whole beach as "favorite". "It's too heavy, Mommy!"

You need to choose your favorites only, Sweety.

"But Mommy, I like them all!!!"

Cordova

A beautiful day to take the ferry from Valdez to Cordova.

The Denali Highway

The Alaskan Range...

Denali

One out of three days you get to see the mountain, says the statistics...we didn't see it. We were in Denali National Park for two days with good weather for late August, early September but Denali, "the big one" in native Athabaskan language, remained cloud covered.

A family from Boston with 12 year-old triplets! yes, two boys and a girl! were awed by Denali for 2 days in a row a week before us from Wonder lake in Kantishna. I guess it's the luck of the draw! Plus it gives everyone a very, very good excuse to come back to Alaska.

Great pictures at Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denali_National_Park_and_Preserve

In the Kenai Fjords

The first Alaskan bald eagle.

Lost Lake Run - 15.6mi in Alaska

My first day in Alaska was spent running the 15.6 miles of the Lost Lake trail. An incredibly beautiful and challenging run, specially if you come from "flat" Houston. The first 6 miles is an 2100ft uphill climb (yes, my legs did complain quite a bit...) then there is a section of about 3 to 4 miles in a plateau by the lake, followed by the last 6 miles or so downhill (yes!).

The race benefits the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The mile markers along the course honors someone with the disease in Alaska.