The Great Alaska Snow Machine
Sarah Palin unknowingly brought attention to the existing communication gap in a speech when referring to her husband. Her husband is a champion of one. My friends in the "lower 48" constantly ask me, "What is it?". It's a snow machine.
Is it a machine that makes snow? Like those contraptions at ski resorts that help us hit the slopes before Mother Nature would normally let us? No.
Is it what you use to clear off your driveway when there's been a big snowstorm? Wrong again.
No, for whatever reason, Alaskans (and as a resident of Alaska for five years I still don't really know why) refer to what the rest of the United States calls "snow mobiles" as "snow machines".
In a state that is dominated by winter, and with 75% of it's 660,000 square miles not accessible by road, the snow machine is more than just a recreational vehicle in the Great Land. For many, it is their primary mode of transportation.
But for this video blog, we get to use the snow machine in it's most glorious capacity: winter bliss. This video takes us to the gigantic Spencer Glacier with "Glacier City Snow Mobile Tours" (www.snowtours.net). By the name alone, if you've been paying attention, you should be able to figure out who the lion's share of their clientele is (hint: lower 48'ers).
With folks from Texas, Michigan, Alaska and everywhere in between, we took a 25 mile ride of a lifetime on a sunny Alaska winter day to Spencer Glacier which, through its advancing behavior (insert obscure Monty Python reference here), has created one of the most intense snow caves you will ever see.
The deep blues are created by the refraction of light that occurs due to the intense forces at work that literally weed out all colors within the light spectrum, except the blue. And oh baby, was it blue (see jacket I'm wearing to make comparison).
Now in watching this video, you are putting my life in jeopardy. Todd Palin is a champion snow machiner in Alaska and at one point in this video I make a threat against him, so press play knowing you are putting my life in great peril:
So did you watch the video? Thanks a lot. Now the Secret Service is probably on their way to my home. Guess I better make a getaway . . . on a snow machine . . . or mobile, or, well you get the idea.
Until we rub noses again!
Follow Technorati