Celebrating the New Year—Alaska Style!

When we first moved to Anchorage in the spring, I was eager to make friends wherever I went.  One day at the dog park, I started talking to a friendly looking girl, Letty, who’s dog seemed to get along well with Nuptse.  After only a few minutes, I decided she should be my friend and shamelessly asked for her number.  She happens to live in the apartment building right next door, and since then, we’ve spent quite a bit of time together.  When she and her boyfriend, Aaron, invited us to Nancy Lake to celebrate the new year, I was stoked.  (We had an incredibly time when we went canoeing at nearby Red Shirt Lake this past summer, and saw the most colorful aurora display I’ve seen yet!)

On the drive north to the Nancy Lake State Recreation Area (which is about an hour and 15 minutes from Anchorage), we stopped at a firework stand and loaded up on an assortment of sparklers and other fun toys to light up the night.  Then we parked at the canoe launch along the shore of Nancy Lake launch and made the ridiculously short hike across the frozen water to our cabin for the night: the newly renovated Nancy Lake Public Use Cabin #1. It was adorable!

Since the trek in was only about a quarter of a mile, we were able to bring in 5 bundles of firewood.  Within no time, the place was warm and toasty.  The dogs settled right in.

I’ve fallen in love with nearly every public use cabin we’ve stayed at these past six months, but this one was especially nice.  It had a semi-separate back room for sleeping, along with an open loft that overlooked the downstairs living area.

After dinner, we played card games for a few hours and then went for a walk across the lake, admiring some of the private cabins located nearby.  It would be such a wonderful place to have a cabin, particularly in the winter when all of your neighbors would be a quick ski or snowmobile ride away across the frozen lake.

We came back inside to warm up and have a few drinks, and then divided into teams and enjoyed a hilarious game of charades.  As midnight approached, we decided it was time to head back out into the cold for some fireworks.  As soon Aaron got outside, he yelled something that has become music to my ears: the northern lights were out!  Just as on our last trip, the green lady put on an incredible for us.

We stayed outside for hours, watching the fireworks as the auroras dance overhead.  I can’t imagine a better way to welcome in the new year.

Because it was such a late night, we slept in until almost 10 a.m. the next morning.  It was the first time in several months that I’d woken up after sunrise.  And it was glorious.

We were so sad to leave the next morning, but promised ourselves we’d come back again sometime this winter and stay at the cabin for at least a few days.

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