Friday, January 30, 2009

VOLCANO!!!!!!

Yeah. Mount Redoubt, 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, is gonna blow.

sunny snowfall_3569_edited-1

Probably. It's been very seismically active since last weekend, and they are thinking this is significant.

But Alaska has ten percent of the world's active volcanoes -- that pesky Ring of Fire. No, not the Johnny Cash song...



but the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Anyhow. Alaska has ten percent of the world's active volcanoes, so this is not a surprise. People are buying dust masks and air filters for their cars and furnace filters for their homes. We are not going to go anywhere if we have ashfall, so I won't worry about the cars, and I will be rooting around in the garage to find the dust masks we have for painting and fabric dyeing. I have to go out anyway, so I will buy some too, if there are any left in the stores.

We have a freezer pretty well stocked with meat and frozen veggies and pizza and egg rolls, plus several dozen cans of veggies (they had a great sale on them, so I stocked up. Turns out I was planning ahead instead of being cheap.) And Costco quantities of rice, and four or five brownie mixes, so the food is covered.

We will have to cover the computers and tvs and stuff with garbage bags, so ash doesn't get into them and wreck em, and not turn them on, because the fans will suck the volcanic dust into them. whoops.

So I might have something interesting to blog about, but I won't be able to turn on my computer. We have forced air heat, so there is potential for ash to get into the house that way, even if we stay inside. Plus we will have to let the dogs out occasionally.

But the ash can't last forever, and my camera card holds at least 5,000 photos. So sooner or later, if this thing blows, I will be telling you all about it.

For the Daily Alaska...
Today is snowy, but with a very bright spot in the sky...

This isn't a great photo, but you get the idea. The little white specks are not dust on my lens, but teeny little snowflakes, and the bright spot is the sun almost burning through the clouds. It was bright enough you couldn't look at it directly, anyway.

Behind those power lines, usually, I can see the Chugach Mountains. Except today there are a whole bunch of snowflakes and clouds between me and them. Okay by me. I like snow. And as a plus, I really don't think there are any active volcanoes in them. whew.

sunny snowfall_3563_edited-2

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:52 PM

    You get to see some pretty cool stuff as a military kid.

    But I miss all the really cool stuff! Volcanoes? How do I move just before that?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey, Zeke. Move to Washington state...then you too will be part of the ring of fire. (But not til your sophomore year of college. hint hint.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:40 PM

    Julie - I am such an idiot. I knew the video was going to be Ring of Fire, and still I pushed the button, and now I will have that STINKIN song in my head for the rest of the night. Just for that.. (don't read the rest of this comment).

    Zachary, I would like to second your mother's suggestion about moving to Washington. I'll even take you to Mt. St. Helen's, so you can see a post-eruption scene 29 years later. But why wait until you're a sophomore?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I meant of course until AFTER your sophomore year! Silly me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous9:05 PM

    Goddammit. There are always volcanoes exploding in places where I'm NOT. The park that I worked at in New Zealand had really active volcanoes, one of which was very boring while I was there but exploded about three months after I left. And when St. Helen's was being all active a few years ago I dragged my sorry butt up to Camp Muir to get some good views of the steam, and that was the one day that there was NOTHING.

    My volcano luck sucks.

    ReplyDelete

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