Where's Luke?

Back to Alaska!

-After a three year delay I made it back to beautiful Alaska to see my close friends and enjoy some of its awesomeness. Anchorage from Earthquake Park.


-Not that I didn't have to be careful....there are a lot of dangerous people up there....


-Like this guy...


-I was blessed to be able to see Mt. McKinley...though it was from 300 miles away...it was still amazing.


-Last Saturday night Josh, Jess, Eric, and Josh's Grandparents had a cook-out at a park in Anchorage. We had Halibut, Salmon, and some chewy Moose.


-Josh's grandparents, the Louwerse, made the drive up to see them and as much of Alaska as they could in a few weeks. A very cool trip I must say...how long until retirement again?


-Visser and I made our way up to Lake Eklutna in Chugach State Park to do some backpacking the next Monday.


-This is our view from the campsite....not too bad...lakeside.





-After we got done hiking we went up to Jim Creek, near Alaska Raceway, and did some off roading in his truck.

This past Friday I was also able to go to the Downtown soup kitchen and do some work with Jlo (He's the top chef on Friday's). Since it was my first time they put me at the serving window where I got to see all of the 500 folks coming in. I very cool experience which I hope comes back with me to Denver.

http://www.downtownsoupkitchen.org/

Right after the soup kitchen Jlo and I took off for Homer with Dave Van Berkel, the associate pastor at Crosspoint, and Mandy. It was a very long day, but we made it to Fred's in Ninilchik by 11 and got a little sleep in.


-In the morning we drove to Homer, about 2 hours, near the tip of the Kenai Peninsula. Shown...Mandy (a friend of the Louwerse from church) jess and josh.


-We hung out on the Homer Spit until we got to go Halibut fishing at 4.


-You can see josh and jess in the bottom corner.






-This crab boat is on "Deadliest Catch" on the Discovery Channel. Its named Time Bandit.


-Some Scenery from the boat. Just a little farther down from this spot is Soldovia...which sounds like its a pretty amazing little community that you have to fly or boat to.


-I got shut out fishing...but JLO caught a 46 ibs Halibut...which is good because he needed to have fish for his churches Fish Fry the following week.


-VERY AMAZING to see great friends again and be able to see a glimpse of life in Alaska. I also realized that I must be getting older when I haven't seen close friends in two years...I am finding more and more that when you are really good friends you pretty much pick up right where you left off. God Bless.

Summers Almost over already? REALLY!?

I just realized this morning that I haven't blogged in almost two months...so I figured a little update wouldn't hurt. June was crazy...with all the volunteers coming in we were able to paint about 50 houses and log around 6500 volunteer hours (the average summer month is about 4000-4500). July didn't slow down either because whenever we had a break from groups we had to work on Hazmat removal, and I scheduled the Paint-A-Thon. Now we are in the second big week of the Paint-A-Thon and the media highlighted painting day on Saturday. Check it out Brothersredevelopment.org We have around 18 project scheduled so its not as crazy as it could have been, but a good amount of work either way. Ohh yes, Also, I am going to Alaska next week. Peace

Twin Sister 09

This past Friday KP (in CO for a visit), Ben, Joe, and myself decided to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park and hike the Twin Sisters (one of my personal favorites to take people to as well). Twin sisters is right on the Eastern Edge of Rocky Mountain NP and has tremendous views of the first range of mountains and the plains to the East. We had a great time hiking...and there was a significant amount of joking around...as the pictures suggest.


-Beginning























-End

The Loop

Yesterday Ben, Tim, Joe, Nate, and myself, took a trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park to do some hiking. We were not sure which hike we wanted to do so we decided to start at Bear Lake Trail Head and see how far we got. As it turns out dudes in their early 20's do not shy away from challenges...thus 11.4 miles later we got back to Bear Lake Trail Head after completing the loop. That might not sound like a lot in miles, but when two of the guys came from low elevation and the others are not in high elevation shape..its still a pretty tiring stint. I have hiked all of the terrain before, but never did the whole loop in one day (usually I like to go down after going up for so long instead of going up at the end of the hike as well). We ran out of water about 7 miles in, but no one passed out or got sick, so that is a plus. Yet, still frustrating, because I am usually very careful about that sort of thing. Here are some pictures of the trip and a video of Tim being the man. Enjoy.


-We figured since Joe is only 20 we had better give him a helmet, lest he hurt himself.


-Nate's 25 in a couple weeks...no helmet required.




-Lake Helene


-Joe doing some snow ledge hiking.


-Ben and Tim


-My favorite part of the hike (past Lake Helene but before Odessa Lake)...Nate is in there somewhere.


-Ben by Odessa Lake.


-The fellas.


-Fern Falls.




-Tim Walstra is the man. I definitely tried a front flip...tried being the key word...luckily we only got a video of this one.

FYI Ben started a blog. bendirksen.blogspot.com

St Mary's Glacier 09

The yearly staff orientation trip to St Mary's Glacier continued this year and fun was had by all.