Month: December 2022

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends and thank you all for following along on our journey this past year.  We hope you have had a great Christmas season and remember the reason for the celebration.  We have had a quiet but unusually cold Christmas in Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, AL.  While it’s been warmer than north Alabama and way warmer than our family and friends farther north, but it’s still been very cold for here.  One night was a low of 18 and we have had pretty icicles at our water hydrants since we were told to leave the water dripping beginning last Thursday.  We are glad the forecast for this week is a little warmer.

Our last entry left off with our return to Alabama from our Polar Bear Photography trip.  The next morning we headed back to Johnston, South Carolina to Randy and Debra’s house.  We did a quick change out from Beyond Blessed (van), back into Fred (Class A) and on Saturday drove to Gaffney, SC to Freightliner for Fred’s annual service.  Fortunately, all the work was routine and no problems were found so we were back in Johnston Monday afternoon.  We had a great Thanksgiving week with Randy, Debra and their family.  It was also great to see nieces and nephews and their children who were able to come visit while we were there.  We made a quick trip back to Red Bay, AL to get other work done to Fred and then returned to Johnston to begin a deck project. Randy and Debra have a large deck on the back of their house and we helped them get started on rebuilding it with Trex.  We had several “weather days” when we couldn’t work outside so we had time for some games, puzzles, cooking, and just enjoying our time together. We also celebrated Anne’s birthday with Randy and Debra and of course it included some yummy ice cream.

We have now been in Gulf Shores for a week.  After getting settled in here we finally got out our Christmas decorations.  They may have to stay up later this year since we just got them up.  We have enjoyed the many trails in the park when the weather allowed.  We spotted an alligator at one of the usual places they hang out and went to a good raptor presentation by one of the naturalists. The past three days we have been inside a lot due to the strong winds and cold temps.  Next week will hopefully be better and we can get our bikes out.  We will let you know.  Stay safe and warm everyone!

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Wednesday morning (November 16th) we awoke in Churchill to a heavy overnight snow.  It was cold and windy.  Very cold and very windy.  When we met Barry and Donna in the lobby for breakfast we met some local construction workers who were working on our hotel roof.  We don’t know how they were up on that roof in the extreme temperatures.  When Max said something to one of the men he said, “It’s ok.  We have gloves.”  When we looked up on the tin roof when we returned from breakfast – he didn’t have any gloves on his hands.  The people of Churchill are certainly hardier than the two of us.

The schedule for our last day was busy.  We toured a little more of the town, first visiting Churchill Rocket Research Range.  While no longer active this was the location from which rockets were launched to study the upper atmosphere off and on from 1954 to 1985, including studies of the aurora. It is now a National Historic Site of Canada.

We also visited the Itsanitaq Museum, a museum dedicated to the Inuit culture.  It was very well done and very informative on the people, animals, region and culture. It’s in a small space but is packed with displays and information.  We weren’t expecting to see wildlife this day but saw another fox perched on a large pile of snow.  Next we went to the Parks Canada Visitor’s Center where there were other great displays.  We were also very glad to find two geocaches located at the Visitor’s center.  The multicache was buried in the snow outside the visitor’s center.  The ranger offered us a snow shovel and then went outside with us and dug it out for us.  He was so excited we were looking for the cache because he had hidden it.  We had a good conversation with the young ranger.  We asked him about working in such a remote and isolated place.  He had only been assigned to Churchill a few months but said it was his dream location.  He was so excited to be there. 

Our big event for the way was dog sledding.  We visited the kennels, got to pet the dogs and then go sledding – so much fun and a very different experience sledding out through the woods.  Very different from the tundra and ice. 

We had lunch and time for a little souvenir shopping and then were supposed to head to the airport for our flight back to Winnipeg.  However, the weather took over and changed our plans.  It began snowing very hard during lunch.  Our original flight was cancelled and we had a later charter flight which meant we remained in Churchill for supper.  The snow was very heavy when we finally arrived at the airport.  It took a long time to deice the plane and then we headed to Winnipeg.  It probably wasn’t a blizzard but it sure was to these Alabama natives.  It was still snowing when we landed in Winnipeg a few hours later.  We turned in all our -40° gear, got a good night’s sleep and returned to Birmingham on Thursday.  The polar bear photography tour was a wonderful, exciting, beautiful experience.  A once in a lifetime adventure that we feel so blessed to have been able to experience. 

Friday, December 2, 2022

The continuing saga of our experiences on the tundra north of Churchill, Manitoba.  In case you are interested, today, 12/2/2022, at 7:30pm EST, it is -19 degrees with a wind chill of -39 in Churchill.  Weather Bug cautions that it is “very cold”.  So glad we had the opportunity to visit this almost magical place, but very, very glad we do not live there.

Now back to our story of this cold far north area.  We forgot to mention in our last post, for Sunday, that the northern lights were out again late Sunday night.  The sky was not as bright as Saturday and there was some cloud cover but you could definitely see the lights. We were so blessed to see them both nights because the rest of our nights we had lots of clouds.

Monday and Tuesday began as Sunday with another great breakfast and then a full day on the tundra.  After the spectacular viewing day Sunday, we really didn’t know what to expect.  The next two days, we did have time to get to know our fellow travelers better.  As we quit totally concentrating on wildlife, we began to appreciate all the different cultures and backgrounds in our buggy – people from Canada, USA, Germany, Holland, and Japan and maybe elsewhere.  We also learned more about the tundra, the environmental concerns with the melting of the polar ice, and we noticed more of the plant life in the tundra, and the smaller things we had missed on Sunday.  We met Tundra Buggy One while we were roaming the tundra Monday and Tuesday.  It is the research vehicle our tour company (Frontiers North Adventures) provides to the Polar Bear Institute for their research.  Buggy 1 is equipped with some great camera gear and web cams anyone can watch.  The look and feel of our surroundings became more real as we spent more time there and began to take more in than just the wildlife.  Not that we were not still looking for and photographing wildlife both days.  But we began to notice other things too.  We saw more bears, fox, ptarmigan, and seals, but the big thrill for the day Monday was spotting an arctic hare – a rare find.  Our guide has only photographed one arctic hare in all his time on the tundra.  The hare is so beautiful and so very fast.  Most of the time all you get is pictures from behind as they run away.  They are very difficult to spot because they blend in perfectly with the snow, as do the arctic fox and ptarmigan.  Until they move, they go unnoticed even when they are right in view.   We had a gorgeous sunset Monday and then a very peaceful evening drive back to the lodge for another amazing dinner – our last dinner at the lodge.  Tuesday was another wonderful sunset but instead of heading to the lodge we went back to the buggy dock for our bus ride back to Churchill and our own hotel room and bathroom.  The lodge was actually very nice but it’s been a long time since we slept in bunk beds like at church camp and shared 3 bath rooms, 2 with showers, for 20 people.  We really enjoyed our long hot showers back in Churchill. Check back in for our final day of this adventure.  There was lots of fun on the final day.