http://davekrnavek.com/index.php Copyright 2008, dave krnavek dave krnavek en-US SPHPBLOG 0.4.8 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry081006-115554

View Larger Map

ocracoke is part of the "outer banks," the series of barrier islands along the north carolina coast. we drove to cedar island and then took a 2 hour ferry ride out to ocracoke.





as you can see, we caught the sunset on the ferry, so we had to make camp in the dark. we cooked some dinner and had a nice evening watching the fire, drinking some beer, and staring at the stars.

in the morning, we hopped across a sand dune to the beach. we picked up a little screened canopy which came in handy due to the ridiculous amount of mosquitoes that came out in the daytime heat. i got quite a few bites, but laura was eaten alive...







in the afternoon, we drove to the north end of the island, where we hopped onto another ferry for hatteras island. we drove out to the lighthouse ("america's lighthouse") and had some ice cream before heading back to camp.



here's a few time-lapse photos we took with a flaming log... :)





we packed up and headed home on sunday, stopping for a bit at atlantic beach, which is also amazingly beautiful. we're really enjoying our time here in north carolina... :)



--dave

p.s. there's more photos in my facebook album]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry081006-115554 dave krnavek Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:55:54 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=10&entry=entry081006-115554 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry081001-143721
just wanted to throw some photos up here to make walter jealous...





--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry081001-143721 dave krnavek Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:37:21 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=10&entry=entry081001-143721 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080929-103404








--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080929-103404 dave krnavek Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:34:04 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=09&entry=entry080929-103404 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080915-091345


after the farmer's market, we headed downtown to the museum of natural sciences, which was excellent. it was also free, except for a dead sea scrolls exhibit that we'll have to check out another time. they have all kinds of info about animals from the state, including a complete acrocanthasaurus skeleton (NOT a t-rex...). evidently, this guy lived 45 million years before the t-rex and is called "the terror of the south."



nick ended up overnighting in raleigh, so we picked him up and walked around downtown. we had a few beers and then a nice dinner at a carribean restaurant (laura approves). for some reason, this is the only photo we took together, of him serving me some water (doing what he does best)...



--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080915-091345 dave krnavek Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:13:45 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=09&entry=entry080915-091345 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080828-152305


then there's the living room set: sofa, loveseat, accent chair, two end tables, and lamps. there's also a coffee table, but for some reason it's on backorder until sometime in october. they're all really comfortable, although we're not sure where to place everything. it all works fine now, but when the larger TV comes in, we'll probably have to reshuffle (need more wii space, too... ;)





--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080828-152305 dave krnavek Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:23:05 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080828-152305 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080828-151736
this photo's of us on the curb in front of the house. you can see we've got quite a few trees around us...



here's the final shot of the odometer. it hasn't been reset since we left fairbanks, so you'll need to add a 4 in front of the reading: 4,921 miles (not too shabby).



the car's still running, although it's kinda sputtering here and there when idling. we'll take him in for a tune up in the next few days, the poor little guy... :)

--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080828-151736 dave krnavek Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:17:36 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080828-151736 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-215106
we drove into st. louis around 10:00 but couldn't find anywhere to park. we drove around the arch area for about 20 minutes and saw a few garages, but we didn't want to pay $5 to just walk out and see the arch. so we rolled with drive-by photos from the car. :)







we finally made it east of the mississippi! we drove a stretch of illinois and kentucky and made it into nashville and finally knoxville tennessee. we'll probably call it an early night so we can get a good start for tomorrow's drive. we'll be heading through smoky mountain national park and then it's a straight shot to durham.

only 350 miles to go...

--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-215106 dave krnavek Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:51:06 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080823-215106 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-213827


by some weird coincidence, the same town had a cabelas. since my dad would disown me if we passed it up, we walked around for about half an hour. laura managed to find a replacement leatherman juice (her old one is somewhere at the bottom of the chena river).



the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. we went through omaha and kansas city and stopped for the day in columbia, about halfway between kansas city and st. louis. we ended up finding a great barbecue place and had a little walk around town and into the college (mizzou). the downtown area had a great ambiance and the campus was very beautiful. it felt kinda funny walking around the campus along with a bunch of returning students, though... :)

--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-213827 dave krnavek Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:38:27 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080823-213827 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-213111 the rest of the drive was a piece of cake...



--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-213111 dave krnavek Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:31:11 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080823-213111 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-212315
we had a great time with my parents, my sister lauren, and our dog shiloh. not really any pictures of us together for some reason. i guess we were just too busy eating, drinking, and soaking in the hot tub.

on monday dad took us fly fishing on the bighorn river. it was a beautiful day (a bit hot, if anything), and we were just wading in our shorts. i ended up catching two brown trout and a rainbow and laura caught her first rainbow trout on the fly rod (which kept making weird barking noises). it was a bit slow, but we ended up having a great time nonetheless.







we ended up taking the car in for an alignment since it was making some crazy vibration at highway speeds and the guy told us that the tires were way too worn. we had steel belt showing on a couple of tires. i guess it was all those gravel patches on the alaska highway. ;)

we got the tires changed out easy enough and were on our way...

--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-212315 dave krnavek Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:23:15 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080823-212315 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-211704
day four was wonderful; definitely the highlight of the trip so far. we drove from jasper national park through lake louise and banff national park, all the way to lethbridge, alberta. we were originally going to stay in calgary, but figured going all the way to lethbridge would give us an easy day in to billings the next day.

here's a few photos from jasper and banff:











--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080823-211704 dave krnavek Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:17:04 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080823-211704 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080815-002704
the drive from ft. nelson was very nice. it was sunny and almost too hot, if anything. we turned on the AC to remind us of alaska. we'd lucked into getting a hotel with an internet connection, so we were able to reserve a place in jasper wednesday night. so all we really had to do was drive into the park and the little town of jasper.

the drive from ft. nelson to dawson city was pretty uneventful -- hence the lack of photos. we saw a few moose here and there, but the scenery, while still very pretty, wasn't anything really spectacular. the trip from grande prairie was a little nicer, following a nice glacier river and some mountains. but when we made it to the park entrance of jasper, we were blown away.

it's simply gorgeous out here. everywhere you look, you run into awesome jagged mountain peaks. i can't capture it with the photos, sadly.





we'll be driving a bit more in this park and then head down into banff and finally calgary. we've only got a 250 mile drive tomorrow, so we'll probably be spending a lot more time taking photos and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

so until tomorrow... :)

--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080815-002704 dave krnavek Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:27:04 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080815-002704 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080815-002348
we finally got everything cleaned out of the house, the car packed, and had the car fueled up at around 10:30am on tuesday morning. it was a bit later than we'd hoped, but we figured we still had plenty of time to make it to whitehorse, YT (600 miles away).




the drive went smoothly, and we made it into whitehorse sometime around 9:30pm (which, incidentally, is 10:30pm whitehorse time). we stopped at a random hotel to check in for the night, but they were all booked. so we went to another, but they were booked. turns out every hotel in whitehorse filled up about an hour before we rolled into town. some sort of yukon olympics or something. we drove about 25 miles down the road to a last-ditch motel, but they had all the lights turned off for the night. so we pulled into a boat launch area and slept in the car for the night.



after a rather unpleasant night of sleep, we woke up around 4:30, which turned out to be 5:30, and rolled onward towards ft. nelson, BC. we ended up having plenty of time, so we ended up stopping at liard hot springs for an hour-long soak. which was nice. we ended up seeing just about every type of animal you can see, not from the side of the road, but right in it. we ran into a pack of bison, three black bears, some rock sheep, a couple of caribou, a moose, and a deer. i thought i was getting a great shot of the first bear and her cub, but i had twisted the zoom the wrong way -- it was pre-coffee. but we got a few shots of the other animals:





anyways, we made it to ft. nelson pretty easily. we already took some showers, so we're going to get a good meal and a good night's sleep and head off for jasper, AB tomorrow morning. so until then... :)


(here's us at muncho lake...)

--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080815-002348 dave krnavek Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:23:48 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080815-002348 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080726-194805







--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080726-194805 dave krnavek Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:48:05 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=07&entry=entry080726-194805 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080720-183447

the photos are going to be forthcoming, i promise. i just got back from hanging out with the family on the kenai peninsula and laura just finished up with her thesis defense (she passed!). so we're slowly getting back to normal, at least for the next few weeks before we have to start packing up stuff and looking forward to north carolina.

there's a few albums up on facebook that you can check out here, here, and here.

also, if anybody wants the monster DVD of 1,500+ photos, just let me know and i'll burn you a copy (comes with lauren's awesome powerpoint presentation, too).

--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080720-183447 dave krnavek Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:34:47 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=07&entry=entry080720-183447 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080625-220101


--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080625-220101 dave krnavek Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:01:01 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080625-220101 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080617-182245


things started off pretty rough, actually. the chatanika has a lot more bends than the chena, which we're used to paddling. so we started off a bit unprepared and got caught in the current and pushed into a sweeper. laura's and my canoe flipped on the very first bend. luckily, pretty much everything was in dry bags and fairly well tied to the canoe. sadly, the case of budweiser kept on floating downstream without us.

here's walter and carrie maneuvering down the section where we flipped (a bit more prepared, as well)...



we managed to find about 15 beers on our way down the river, so the trip wasn't a total waste. ;) the weather was awesome the whole time, even though there were thunderstorms threatening us all day on sunday.



and here's the group -- myself, walter, and laura in front; alex, carrie, and michael in the back.



--dave
]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080617-182245 dave krnavek Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:22:45 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080617-182245 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080617-181407


after a bit of adjusting, it rides pretty nice. it's still a little cool outside (and we don't get any sun on our back porch), so it'll have to wait a bit for some serious use.



also since i'm the housewife, i went ahead and baked some cookies the other day... ;)



--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080617-181407 dave krnavek Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:14:07 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080617-181407 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080522-154055 wii fit, a fitness "game" for the wii. it comes with its own balance board, which has sensors that can tell which way you are leaning (forward, backward, side to side). it's really sensitive, and it's used to run through different exercises -- from yoga and pushups to mini-games like hula-hooping and skiing. you can set up your own exercise program and it tracks your results for you.




of course, the balance board also works as a scale, which lets your wii tell you that you're fat (notice how chubby my mii is in the left picture... ;)



--dave]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080522-154055 dave krnavek Thu, 22 May 2008 19:40:55 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080522-154055 http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080508-230420
]]> http://davekrnavek.com/index.php?entry=entry080508-230420 dave krnavek Fri, 09 May 2008 03:04:20 GMT http://davekrnavek.com/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080508-230420