A weekend in Tok Part 2

Renee and I do not get the chance to explore Alaska's interior as much as we'd like to. So we decided to take full advantage of being 6 hours north of Anchorage and looked into finding an interesting and unique destination to visit.

After much deliberation we decided on Chicken Alaska. To get to Chicken one must drive the 66 miles north of Tok on the Taylor highway. The road was in better shape than I expected. I had heard that it was still a dirt road. This was not true. The highway is paved for 64 miles, leaving only the last two miles of it dirt. The drive was beautiful. Miles and miles of nothing. Well no development, anyway. Just a lot of trees and mountains in every direction. Evidence of the forest fires that had caused so much excitement a few years back was everywhere. Thousands of acres of charred burned trees were scattered throughout the drive. Vast forests of these black stumps went on for miles. It was interesting to see how quickly the alders were coming back and revegitating the landscape.

We finally arrived in Chicken after an hour and a half in the truck. The last two miles of dirt road were in good shape. No major issues with the road. Now you may be saying to yourself "Chicken"? How in the world did they come up with the name Chicken, well, let me tell you. Chicken was settled by gold miners in the late 1800s and in 1902 the local post office was established requiring a community name. Due to the prevalence of ptarmigan in the area that name was suggested as the official name for the new community. However, the spelling could not be agreed on and Chicken was used to avoid embarrassment. How's that for a typical Alaskan story?

Now, to be honest, there is not much in Chicken. Part of the reason for going to Chicken, is to say you've been there. It's kind of like Wall Drug in South Dakota. You can't not go there when you are in the area. The place definitely caters to the tourists. While the area used to be dedicated to the mining of gold, the focus is now on the mining of tourists. We did our best to help feed the economy. Zach, Sam and I each got Chicken T-shirts. A few stickers, a bracelet for Z, and hat set us back a few bucks. But, were on vacation!

Here is "down town" Chicken. There is the saloon, gift shop and cafe. In all 30-40 people call this place home in the summer. In the winter it's about 15. I have no idea what one would do in Chicken in the winter. The road is not even maintained from November til sometime in April. It would be like staying at the Overlook Hotel in the book "The Shining", only in Chicken, you would have 14 other people to worry about banging on your door with an ax.

Renee and I of course had to step into the Saloon. This is the hat collection on the ceiling of the bar. I don't think that anyone has counted them in a few years. The bar even had a three legged dog (a real dog), his name is Tucker.

Here Zach is standing in front of a Gold dredge. What is a gold dredge? Well, the basic concepts of retrieving gold has not changed much from the beginnings of the gold rush. The concept is that the gold in sand or soil will settle to the bottom, as it is heavier, and the dirt, sand and rock will wash away. The original method was to perform placer mining involved gold panning, sluice boxes and rockers. Each of these methods involves washing away everything and allowing the gold to settle to the bottom of the pan, or in the riffles of the sluice. The gold dredge is the same concept but on a much larger scale.

Here is another angle of The Pedro Dredge, also known as F.E. Company Dredge No. 4. This dredge was originally owned by the Fairbanks Exploration Company (FE Co.), a subsidiary of the United States Smelting Refining & Mining Co. (USSR&M). It was built by the Yuba Manufacturing Company in California, and was shipped to Pedro Creek north of Fairbanks in 1938. It was assembled there, and operated until 1958.
The following year it was disassembled, trucked to Chicken, Alaska and reassembled. The dredge commenced operations on lower Chicken Creek in September and worked approximately five months every year thereafter until October 1967, when it produced its final cleanup.
In 1998, the 500 ton dredge was moved overland to its current location at the Chicken Gold Camp.
In 2006, the dredge was added to the National Register of Historic Places and was opened to the public.

The sun was just perfect on this day, so I took quit a few pictures of Zach in front of the gold dredge and just running up and down the field. This is one of my favorite pictures of the series. He is right about to fall, but to me it looks like he is doing a funny dance move.

I also took the opportunity to get Sam in on the action. It is hard to get the two of them to smile and look at the camera at the same time. This was the best picture out of about a dozen taken of this pose. It was worth the wait, the picture turned out cute of the both of them. Renee and I were reminiscing about the good ol' days of film cameras. On this trip I took upwards of 250 shots on my new digital camera. The 2gig card holds 488 pictures, and I have two cards. That is almost 1000 pictures. In the old days, a trip like this, I may have shot up a roll of film, two rolls if I was feeling really good. That would have been 48 pictures max. Those pictures would have probably sat in the camera for six months before I got them developed. Then they would have been put in a shoe box, never to be seen again. My how times change. Now I can see the pictures instantaneously on the back of the camera, load them on my computer, send them to my ipod, upload them to my blog and share them with both of the people that read this blog.

Awww . . . A cute picture of the guys. You can tell which one of us was born in Alaska. Sam is even whiter than me!

Sam wants to be a big boy in the worst way. He really looks up to his big brother.

A nice shot of the front of the Pedro Gold dredge.

We stayed in Chicken until around 7:00. We were going to camp in Chicken for the night, but decided to break up the drive a little bit. Sunday would have been tough if we had to drive all 7 and a half hours back to Anchorage. We made the decision to head south until we found somewhere that was interesting to stay the night. We drove around 3 hours and found a great rest area with a great view of some mountains. Everyone was ready to stretch their legs and get something to eat anyway, so we stopped. It wasn't long before we had full bellies and were ready to hit the hay. I got up a couple of times during the night thinking I would hear a few cars or maybe some semi trucks. Nothing. I didn't hear anything all night. This was obviously a very lonely stretch of road.

The next morning we were greeted to blue skies. We had some breakfast and continued to head south. We made it about an hour until we found this nice rest stop with the fireweed in bloom. Of course another opportunity to take some pictures. Zach wasn't too happy of course, he wanted to play catch with a softball we had found in the camper. But, I was able to get them to pose long enough to get a couple nice shots of them.

Well, that's about it. It was a great weekend. We put over 900 miles on the truck, and figure we spent almost 17 hours in the car. That's a lot of togetherness. We got to see a lot of stuff as well. It will probably be next summer before we get back to the Alaskan Interior. We'll have to pick a new destination, and that will almost guarantee we have plenty more stories to tell.

A weekend in Tok Part 1

This weekend we are headed for Tok, Alaska. Tok (which is pronounced with a long o, like "toke") is about a 6 hour drive from Anchorage. The drive was long, but once you get an hour outside of Anchorage, there was no one on the road. In some spots we probably passed 1 or two cars an hour. The kids did great, we made frequent stops and ate lunch in Glennallen. It was rainy when we rolled up to the campground in Tok, but everyone was tired, so we hit the hay early so we would be ready for the big weekend ahead.

The next morning the sun was out, and the rain had subsided. We usually don't drive this far for our weekend adventures, but I had a job to do in Dot Lake, and work was fitting the bill for fuel. I made this a working weekend, a little work, a lot of fun.

First order of business was racing down the short path in the campground. Zach beat me on every race. I don't know where he gets the energy. There is no dimmer switch with him. He is either on or off, there is no in between.

Coffee cake for breakfast. Then, time to go exploring.

Fall seems to be in the air. Zach was complaining that his hands were cold and he wanted to "warm up" in his sleeping bag. I told him that this is just a hint of what is coming in the next few months. I guess it is that Texas blood in him. His brother hopped in the sleeping bag to help accelerate the warming process.

The campground had a few items from yesteryear on display. So on our way to pay the bill for the night, we stopped an played around some of the old "stuff".

Here Renee and Sam are standing next to an old stove. I am glad that we live in an age were gas and electricity have replaced wood. How would you heat a Hot Pocket on that old thing?

This is a piece of the trans Alaskan pipeline Zach is standing in. The 800-mile long Trans Alaska Pipeline System is one of the largest pipeline systems in the world. Starting in Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope, TAPS stretches through rugged and beautiful terrain to Valdez, the northernmost ice-free port in North America. Since pipeline start up in 1977, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, TAPS operator, has successfully transported more than 15 billion barrels of oil.

Here Zach is practicing to be a lineman. Hold on buddy! Actually, this pole was about 4 feet off of the ground. I had to lay down to take this shot.

After checking out of the campground. We went over to the Tok visitors center to get a lay of the land. In the parking lot we saw the guy who has it all. This trailer was being pulled behind a huge diesel pusher motor home from Florida. This trailer contains an SUV, a 4-wheeler, a motorcycle, two jet skis and two mountain bikes. Who says you can't take it with you?

Zach and I were preparing for winter with this pose. The coldest temperature recorded in Tok was -67 deg. Fahrenheit. BBBrrrrrr! Some of the locals claim it has gotten colder than that. Some say -77 deg. Either way, that is cold!

Tok is an interesting community. There are roughly 1393 people currently living in Tok. The town began in 1942 as an Alaska Road Commission camp used for construction and maintenance of the Alaska Highway. So much money was spent in the camp's construction and maintenance that it earned the name "Million Dollar Camp" by those working on the highway.

In one version, the name Tok is derived from the Athabascan word for "peaceful crossing." In another version, the name is derived from the English words "Tokyo camp," although the major war benefit was supporting the transfer of airplanes to the Soviet Union. Another version claims the name was derived from the canine mascot for one of the Engineer units that built the highways.

In the 1940s and 1950s, another highway, the Tok Cut-Off was constructed connecting Tok with the Richardon Highway at Glennallen. It was a "cut-off" because it allowed motor travelers from the lower United States to travel to Valdez and Anchorage in southern Alaska without going further north to Delta Junction and then traveling south on the Richardson Highway.

In July 1990, Tok faced extinction when a lightning-caused forest fire jumped two rivers and the Alaska Highway, putting both residents and buildings in peril. The town was evacuated and even the efforts of over a thousand firefighters could not stop the fire. At the last minute a "miracle wind" (so labeled by Tok's residents) came up, diverting the fire just short of the first building. The fire continued to burn the remainder of the summer, eventually burning more than 100,000 acres.

Now, it wasn't all play this weekend. After all I had a job to do. After a quick bit to eat in Tok, we drove 45 minutes west to the native village of Dot Lake. My job at the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) is an Environmental Specialist with the Solid Waste Department. I help regulate landfills in rural Alaska. Some of my time is spent writing permits and following up on complaints or compliance issues, but a majority of the time is spent in educating the public on how to operate a landfill by following the State's best management practices. Rural Alaskan landfills are about 20 years behind the landfills in the lower 48. There are many problems with open dumping, open burning, litter and so on. One of the solutions to the volume of trash in the rural villages is to burn the garbage. Chris of Tok, Welding has devised an excellent way of burning this trash in an environmentally friendly way with his Tok burn boxes. Chris had two almost identical burn boxes in the Dot Lake landfill for an EPA grant on emerging technologies. Today we are measuring the temperatures of each burn box to see which one burns the trash the hottest. The hotter the trash burns, the less toxins are released into the air and the more complete the combustion. The burn box in the foreground is his original burn box with no modifications. The second burn box has been fitted with additional insulation to keep the burn box from loosing heat. Both burn boxes are fitted with sensors that monitor the heat inside the burning chamber. Chris set up this demonstration so I could see first hand how the two burn boxes worked. I will then take some of this information back to ADEC and use it to help with policies on burning waste in rural Alaska. The study lasts for 6 weeks and then all of the data from the two units will be compiled and analysed to determine which burn box works better, and how hot each unit gets.

The third burn box in the picture (the rusty one) is Dot Lakes original burn box. It was built 15 years ago by Chris's brother. It still does the job, but Chris has made many modifications to the current units. Not only are they easier to operate, but they draw in more air and burn the waste more efficiently. One improvement is the trunnion hinge. You can see it on the first burn box right above the wheels. The trunnion hinge was first used in Civil War cannons. The idea is that the cannon, or in our case the burn box, is always balanced, no matter how much weight is in the chamber. One person can tip the burn box on the hinge with ease. The idea is that once your are finished burning the waste, a person can tip the burn box towards the pit, and with a simple push tool, remove the ash from the chamber. The ash falls into the pit, the burn box is lowered and then ready to receive more waste. See, there is always someone who can build a better mouse trap. This one just holds garbage.

After the demonstration it was back to Tok. One side note, Renee and the boys didn't want to hang out in Tok by them selves. So I took the Burro camper with to the burn box demonstration. I parked the Burro in the landfill while I went to work. Renee and the boys ate some lunch and took a nap while parked at the dump. Anyway, I just thought that was kind of funny.

That's it for now. Tomorrows post will take us to Chicken, Alaska.

PWS weekend pt. 3

Well, this weekend has been a lot of fun so far.  Last day, and lots to do, must get up earlier than yesterday.

We did end up getting up a little earlier.  I wanted to do a bit more exploring in the Zodiac so we rolled out of bed around 8:30.  Zach really enjoyed the bunk bed.  We got the top and that worked out well for keeping warm at night after the cabin heater was turned off for the evening.  

It was the guys turn to cook breakfast.  Here is Karl at the controls of the Coleman stove.  Things were going pretty well until the stove just turned off.  We tried to get it lit again, but just managed to shoot flames about 3 feet above the stove.  Something wasn't working correctly.  It eventually worked itself out, but proved to be only the beginning of our breakfast excitement.

The next bit of excitement came when we were cooking bacon on the grill.  Renee and I typically cook turkey bacon or the pre-cooked low fat stuff.  The bacon we had at the cabin was the real deal.  Of course this means a lot of grease.  We learned the lesson the hard way that bacon grease and an open flame from the grill are a powerful combination.  For a moment the grill resembled the afterburners on an F-14 military aircraft.  We removed the grill from the porch while it was still engulfed in flames, but this only helped spread the fire.  The hot burning grease dripped through the holes in the bottom of the grill and left tiny drips of flames, marking a trail from the porch, down the stairs to the ground.  We also discovered that part of the porch attached to the cabin was on fire!

Quick thinking and some water from Dustin's Camelback helped douse the flames.  Nothing was seriously damaged and we all still had our eyebrows intact.  We even made sure to clean the part of the porch that had burning grease on it.  We didn't want the smell from the grease to attract any bears.  A quick lesson was learned about cooking bacon in the outdoors.  Nothing more to see here . . . move along.

Starfish catching was a very popular activity.  I didn't really partake, but the kids loved it.  I hope for the starfish's sake that the kids were not getting the same exact starfish every time.  I think it is better to spread the love and not freak out any one starfish.  

Same drill as before, catch starfish, look at starfish and give him/her a name, release starfish.  

Packing up took twice as much time as the load in did.  Stuff just seems to spread out, and in some situations, multiply.  We had to be out of the cabin by noon, so we were on a mission.  Zach and the other kids helped out a lot by not helping.  Zach loaded in the kayak and "paddled" to his imaginary destinations while we schlepped the gear to Karl's boat.  

After everything was packed up, we still had some time before we needed to be back to Whittier.  The weather was cooperating so we decided on a bit more exploring and possibly fishing before we headed back to Whittier.  Here Zach and I are in front of Blackstone Glacier.  

The exploring of Blackstone Bay was especially important to me on this trip, because it filled a void left by last years trip to this very destination.  This is a photo from last years trip to the cabin.  Zooming around in the Zodiac was cut short by a tour boat wake as it slammed my boat into a barnacle encrusted cliff during a lunch stop.  That ended the day of fun and cost around $400 to have fixed.  A perfect day of exploring Blackstone bay was cut short.  I felt cheated.  This year, I was extra careful where I anchored the Zodiac and gave the tour boats and extra wide berth.  There were no problems this year and the patch did it's job.   The circle was closed, I finally got to finish exploring Blackstone Bay.

No luck for Dustin catching fish either.  I am glad it's not just me.  Next time we come out, I will be a little more prepared.  I will get some hot fishing spots loaded onto my GPS.  That way we won't just be fishing in the dark.  I have a hard enough time as it is catching fish, a slight advantage could make a big difference. 

We played around Blackstone Bay for an hour or so, and then Kaylee started getting seasick.  We decided it was best to get back to Whittier and try for the 4:00 tunnel.  Everyone had a great weekend.  We'll be back next year.  Only next year I am bringing low fat bacon.

A weekend in PWS Pt. 2

Well, it was a pretty uneventful evening.  I think that everybody was tired after spending time on the water.  Everyone got going the next morning around 9:30.  The kids were kind enough to let everyone sleep in.  We saw from the cabin that the Kayakers were getting ready to leave, so we decided to give them the toddler send off.  It may have been louder than they were used to, but it was definitely one they will remember. 

With the kayakers gone, we decided to check out the tent platforms.  The kids had a ball exploring the woods via the wooden walk ways.  The forest seemed to be straight out of the movie The Return of the Jedi.  I expected to see an Ewok pop out from behind a tree at any moment.  We made it to several of the tent platforms were Zach did his best Power Ranger impression.  We didn't have to worry about bears.  I think that the entire population of bears in Prince William Sound was aware we were there.  

The tide was again low, so the next order of business was collecting starfish.  Everyone was allowed one starfish on the condition that we could look at them for a while and then we would put them back where we found them.  I am sure that this proved quit exciting for the starfish.  

We then headed back to the cabin for a hot breakfast.  Those that chose not to explore had a few extra minutes of piece in which to enjoy a morning coffee.  Because once we returned it was chaos once again.

Here is the set-up with the Coleman stove.  Breakfast was great.  We had eggs with sausage rolled up in a burrito.  The perfect food for a camp out.  The coffee was a welcome addition as well.

Now on most of my camping trips, I try to take advantage of the beautiful scenery and tie in a video contest shoot.  Post-it Notes were to be the featured product for this particular outing, and I tasked everyone with drawing fish for me on about 400 Post-it Notes of varying sizes and colors.  To see the completed contest entry, go to my You Tube site (AlaskaDug) and click on the Post-it entry.  I think that it turned out rather well.  We floated around 300 of the Post-it's with the fish on them in the bay for the commercial.   After I got the shots I needed, I got everyone involved in recovering the water logged notes before they sank.  We recovered 99% of them.  The remaining few got lucky, and will spend their remaining days swimming around in the cove with the real fish.

A common theme throughout many of the camping adventures is throwing rocks.  We didn't throw enough to be a hazard to marine navigation, but there must have been hundreds of rocks thrown, skipped and tossed from the beach into deeper water during our three days at the cabin.  I could save a ton of money on toys at home if I could find a way to get a pile of rocks and a pond to throw them into.

The clouds hung low in the mountains, but this didn't prevent us from thoroughly exploring our surroundings.  We took out the sea kayak, the Zodiac and even put my outboard motor on Karl's little boat that we used to ferry supplies to shore.  Despite the mist and overcast skies, the water remained smooth.  

I used Karl for the "Dad" in my Post-it commercial.  He did a great job with his acting debut.  This shot was taken after we recovered our "fish".  Now with the shoot out of the way, we could continue to explore the cove.

Because my boat was large enough to fit the three kids, and I was willing to take them on an adventure, I was tasked with being the afternoon entertainment.  We had a blast.  Here the kids are practicing their "royalty wave" to the passing tour boats.  After we got the wave down, we motored around in search of; bears, caves, otters and treasure.  While we found otters and caves, we didn't see any bears or treasure.  The kids had fun searching and then screaming at the top of their lungs as I zipped around in the Zodiac.  I would pretend that I couldn't get the motor working and then would punch the throttle on the motor until we were planing at top speed around the cove.  When we got tired of our cove, we explored several other coves.  While we were exploring the next cove over, Mindy, who was at the cabin, could hear the kids screaming with joy at the top of their lungs.  She tried to catch a glimpse of all of the excitement and get a picture of the kids from shore, but we were too fast.  We didn't stay in one place too long.  We had treasure to find after all.

Once the boat rides were over, we decided to do a little more exploring on foot.  I think that this picture turned out great of Zach and myself.  My outfit may need a bit of tweaking for a really great photo however.  The Extra-Tuff boots and camo shorts make for an interesting combo.

My friend Dustin had the fortune to pick up a boat of his own the week before for $800.  While it is defiantly not an ocean boat, I thought that the water was calm enough for him to join us after he got off of work on Saturday.  Dustin had never operated a boat before, let alone a boat on the ocean.  He did just fine, but he later admitted that he had never been more frightened in his entire life.  And this is coming from a guy who Ice Climbs for fun.  Zach and I got in the Zodiac and met him half way.  We communicated with Dustin via Motorola radios.  He wasn't hard to find.  He had a bright yellow jacked and was the only one on the water in a John boat.  He was glad to have the company, and directions to the camp.  I think that he got more comfortable as the weekend went on.  He is now talking about a bigger boat.  The sign of a true boater, always needing a bigger boat.

We enjoyed the extra person at our camp and sat around the fire and watched the kids throw more rocks into the water.  We even had Smores!  The kids eventually started to run out of steam, so the boys decided to take Karl's big boat out and catch a few fish.  We didn't do too well (go figure), we didn't actually catch anything, but had fun driving around in the boat for an hour or so.  We got the boat anchored before it got too dark and sat around the fire for a few more peaceful minutes.  Tomorrow was another big day so we didn't stay out too late.  We had one more day of exploring, boating and fishing.  No time to waste, lights out.

A weekend in PWS Pt. 1

One of my favorite places to go in all of Alaska is Prince William Sound.  Prince William Sound may ring a bell due to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.  An estimated 10.9 million gallons of crude oil were spilled.  You can't see any signs of the oil spill now of course, but the ecological disaster will always be associated with this beautiful area.

Now, I don't have a boat, but I am lucky enough to have a friend with a boat.  So when our friends Laurie and Karl asked us if we wanted to join them for a 3 day weekend at a park service cabin, we said "heck yeah!".  Well in actuality, Renee and Sam didn't go.  Renee thought that it might be a bit much watching Sam in a cabin with no electricity for three days.  They stayed home and enjoyed the relative quiet that comes with having Zach and myself out of the house.  

A friend of Laurie and Karl's, Mindy came along for the weekend.  Mindy also brought her 5 year old daughter Kaylee.  The above picture is Mindy, Kaylee, Zach and my stuff for the weekend.  Gone are the days of travelling light.  Yes, that is my Zodiac in the background, and no, I didn't take it all to the cabin in my boat.

The cabin is about 8 miles away from the Whittier harbor.  The water was good and calm, so Zach and I motored the entire 8 miles in the Zodiac.  The rest of the gang went in Karl's boat, we were always in eyesight, so we were in good shape.  The trip took around 25 minutes and the temperatures despite the grey skies were still in the high 50's.  This weekend was not going to be a perfect blue sky weekend, but it didn't look like it was going to storm too bad either.  

Karl has a small tender that we loaded with our "stuff" and took to shore.  Unfortunately, we arrived a low tide, meaning we tacked on an extra 100 yards to our walk to the cabin.  This doesn't sound bad until you look at the above picture and realize that the boat full of stuff is only one of three boatloads taken to shore that day.  Bringing the kitchen sink definitely comes with a price.

Greeting us on the shore were 12 colorful sea kayaks from a outdoor program in Montana.  There were 17 kayakers perched on the tent platforms nestled in the woods.  As we were coming ashore we were met by their trip leader.  He assured us that the large group would be quiet and we wouldn't even notice they were there.  We then warned him that we had 3 children under the age of 5 with us and that their quiet outdoor experience may have to wait for later in their trip.  

The cabin we were fortunate enough to get for this weekend was the Squirrel Cove Cabin.  Our group is no stranger to this cabin.  Four of us rented this spot 4th of July of last year.  We had a blast so we decided to come back for more.  We like the cabin because it is relatively new, has easy access and is on the doorstep to one of the most beautiful places in the world.

The ground is very mushy so the park service built boardwalks to the important spots in the woods.  There are boardwalks that go to the cabin, to the outhouse, to the tent platforms and to the beach across the lagoon.  There must have been quit a lot of man hours spent at this location.  The boardwalks are everywhere.  

The cabin is a one room cabin.  Anyone can reserve it, you just have to go to the Alaska State Parks public use cabins website and see what days are available for the cabin.  There are hundreds of cabins throughout the state set-up like this.  This is our favorite one for summer, but we have those that we like to rent in the winter as well.  Anyway, one room for the cabin, there is a small diesel stove in the cabin for heat.  There are two bunk beds that sleep a total of 8 people and on the porch is a cooking counter.  You have to provide your own Coleman stove, but the cooking area is off the ground and protected from the weather.  

Here is the outhouse.  It was built sometime last year.  When we rented it for the 4th in 07, it had only been used a couple of times.  A year has past and it still looks new.  Not that I would hang out and eat dinner in there, but it was nice and convenient for doing ones duty.   Zach found the whole experience unique, although at first he was afraid he might fall in.  I was smart when I was packing however, and I brought his toddler seat insert for the toilet.  All the kids seemed to benefit from this, and we didn't loose a one to the bottomless pit.

After we all got settled in, Karl and I took a short boat ride to Surprise Cove.  The cove was one of Renee and my favorite spots to anchor and spend the night when we had a sailboat that we kept in Whittier.  The water was perfectly calm, and there were several boats tucked away enjoying the evening.  It has been 6 years since we last sailed here, so it was good to be back.