It's About That TIme of Year

Clumps of yellow leaves are showing up all over town. Well, actually sort of brownish-yellow clumps. These are just some in our yard. There are a lot more at higher elevations. I'm getting some riding in after what I think may be the last trip to Barrow for this field season. I brought back one ActionPacker (just under 50 lbs) of gear from Barrow including a couple of laptops, some tools, several external drives, the Raspberry Pi-3s and some food that will probably go stale. I also brought back my old riding gear. The Kilimanjaro jacket got a lot of use after I removed the protective padding. It is a still a great breathable, waterproof jacket.

The Ural is almost at 50k km so I'm getting ready to do a "major" service i.e. what is specified for 10k km. The owners manual doesn't go beyond something like 32.5k km. Maybe they're not expected to last that long. Rather than deal with the list of compatible spin-on oil filters, I searched on Amazon for the factory filter, a Mann 75/3, and found several listings. I picked the one listed as "Prime" for free shipping. I just cleaned the air cleaner element in my Home Depot PVC fence post air cleaner aka Leftka 3. It was pretty filthy after only being used since Spring. Maybe there was some improvement in airflow from cleaning but probably not as the Moto Guzzi filter element has substantially more surface area than the stock filter. The inside of the filter housing itself was pretty grimy complete with leaves, sand and gravel. I need to hack up some sort of dirt/water trap for the filter housing intake.

I've been averaging 32 mpg since the beginning of May (after the engine had been broken in). Quite an improvement from my road trip last summer when I opted to use the stock filter housing. I'm still considering increasing the size of the main jets one more step as there is a minor flat spot at full throttle. There is actually more power at 80% throttle. In the last 2500 km, I've added no oil so I'll be switching to synthetic in the engine. The transmission and final drive has been running synthetic as long as I've owned the rig.

Today, I'm headed to Anchorage for the day to attend a meeting. I thought about riding down but the non-refundable airline ticket was already purchased. It would've been a great end of summer trip.

This pano was taken in Barrow last Saturday morning. There were a number of barges on the water and I was just curious if any of them were part of the fiber optic cable project. The one on the far left is in the area where the cable is landing but I couldn't tell what it was doing (besides floating).

Something New in Barrow

Another afternoon spent on the BEO (Barrow Environmental Observatory) to check on instrumentation at one location and to get a new tower up on the network at another. I've seen contractors working on the tower for most of the spring and summer and passed these signs frequently. I guess they don't want anyone messing around with their stuff.

This is the tower site. I believe the intent is to locate the actual data collection instrumentation on the tower itself and house all of the support equipment in the really nice prefab structure with the ramps. I'm told that this is the only site that they've ever installed that needed to be built up on piers. The raised structure is supposed to help minimize drifting as the snow can simply blow under the building.

I was tempted to climb the tower but there were all sorts of signs such as "hard hat zone", "authorized personnel only", etc. I, of course, always obey the signs. I'm told that the tower needs to be higher than the surrounding canopy but that easy here. The tallest vegetation in the area is maybe a foot and that's being generous. I'm not really sure what they will be measuring.

The support building has these nice ramps. Instead of the standard expanded metal or steel grate, this is covered with some sort of green material with embedded traction enhancing material. Given the challenge of walking out here over the tundra even with the plastic walkways, I don't think the ramps are for ADA access. Maybe to help install heavy equipment such as large battery banks in the support building.

The staff member for the project was provided with someone to help haul equipment from the road and I noticed that he carried a 12 gauge. I asked if there were recent bear sightings. He showed me some pictures of a large polar bear that was found washed up on the beach just a little ways from here. So they must be around. I guess I don't warrant a bear guard when I go wandering out on the BEO. Maybe it depends who has sufficient funding for such frills.

From this angle, the tower kind of looks like it's part of a prison. It's actually pretty fancy for an instrument tower. It has stairs and not simply a ladder tied to the side. Anyway, no problems at all getting the tower connected to the network. 

Nights Are Getting Longer

I spend Tuesday afternoon out on the BEO again. I was told that there was a network problem as one of the groups was having difficulty connecting to their experiment. It turned out to be more of a power problem in both the Control Shed and their tower. The network was fine. There is a lot more water out here now than earlier in the summer. This section of the plastic walkway is actually floating on the wooden walkway underneath and it feels pretty treacherous. Kind of like walking on a boat. The knee high rubber boots almost seem to be a little short walking along the trail.

I think that there will be at least a couple more walks out here over the next couple of days. On Tuesday, I was out there for about 5 hours. On Thursday, I suspect that I'll be out there even longer. The yellow cable is power for the new tower. I think that I've already missed the "peak" for color on the tundra. No more flowers.

It's only 11:05pm and it's already after sunset. This is the view from the living room window of the hut I'm staying in this week. The quonset hut across the street is typical of where I usually stay. But this week, it's a nice two bedroom frame house. I just thought the view was interesting. 

Heading North Again

Hitch installed in spite of some rainy weather. My son and I did manage to get two cars hauled out of the yard and now I just need to pare down the pile of tires that seems to have built up beside the garage. I still have some other tasks for the truck while it's still not snowing. I need to install a trailer connector inside of the bed teeing off the connector already installed on the rear bumper. Install a toolbox at the front of the bed. And then I can make the wooden frame to hold the bags of gravel in the rear of the bed that I use for ballast when the snow plow is attached. Due to the weight of the diesel engine and the plow on the front of the truck, the plow manufacturer recommends at least 600# of ballast. The wooden frame will hold the bags of gravel against the tailgate. Last year, we tied the together using rope. The wooden frame would be braced against the front of the bed or the tool box.

But no more playing around with the truck as I'm in Barrow again for the week. I know that I have at least two trips out on the BEO. One to the Control Shed and one to a new instrument tower that was constructed over the last couple of months. This is the Fairbanks airport this morning. After the flight to Deadhorse, and a 4 hour wait, I arrived in Barrow at 6:00pm.

I tried the son tofu at Osaka's. It was very similar to the spicy breakfast soup that I had at the Korean restaurant in Los Angeles last December. A slightly spicy flavor including the addition of a raw egg cracked into soup that was still boiling when brought to the table. This version wasn't anywhere near as spicy but was very tasty and served with a bowl of rice. Unfortunately, no banchan.

I'm not sure how many more trips to Barrow after this one. I don't think that I have any scheduled but did leave enough budget in case another trip is needed.