I found this bridge yesterday at Michael’s craft store. It is reminiscent of the one that came with the old Marx Blue and Gray Playset, but I think it’s a good size for 28mm figures.
I placed the first figure I put my hands on in front of the bridge for scale. I think the bridge was about $7. If you are interested, it was where they have all the plastic dragons and other animals.
At Cold Wars I purchased these new figures that are meant to look like the colonial marines from the Alien movies, specifically the second movie, Aliens. The paint job is okay, but didn’t photograph very well on my phone with the flash. In particular the faces look awful in these photos.
I am planning on using the GAMER rules that I’ve been developing with these figures for some sort of science fiction skirmish. I also painted the crew of Serenity, so they’ll get mashed up into the game as well.
Last weekend I began working on some 28mm WWII figures. When I started working on GAMER, I found that I didn’t have the right figures to make correct squads. I had lots of men with submachine guns, because I got them to fight giant ants in a pulp game. So a couple of conventions ago, I purchased a bunch of figures with rifles and BARs.
This morning I put on the finishing touches and flocked them. I wanted to have these done it time for Fall In.
Some months ago, Chris and I made a bunch of fantasy buildings for our 10mm Bear Yourselves Valiantly projects (white and blue building in the foreground). Chris noticed that tops of Tropicana orange juice looked like they might be arenas or larger buildings. I’ve been tinkering with them, but finally finished them this morning.
As my wife and kids are off visiting my mother in law, I invited a few buddies over for a small gaming session. I find that early play testing rules is often better with a smaller group. I am still refining the vehicle rules for GAMER and wanted to test some ideas with just three or four guys. Only two could make it, Chris and Duncan.
I set up another tank-heavy scenario involving a scratch German force attacking an American position. I was hoping to get a couple of close assaults and some bazooka fire. I also wanted another test of the vehicle damage procedure. All seemed to work well, but I still need to think a little about how vehicles interact with cover and vehicle movement speeds.
There Germans started with four tanks, while the Americans just had a Sherman and a Stuart. The Americans also had two infantry squads, each with a bazooka. The Germans had two tank hunter teams, one with a panzer faust and the other with a panzershreck. Even though the Pz. IV fired first, the Sherman knocked out the Pz. IV. The Germans never got much momentum, and the Americans gradually attritted them. In the end, it was a convincing American victory. I just need to clarify a few points with regard to the vehicle hit procedure. Also, I think that vehicles are moving too slowly. I also need to play with indirect fire.
After the WWII game, I cooked some hamburgers on the grill and we talked about game design a bit. In particular we were trying to brainstorm ways to account for the drawbacks of card-based activation without going back to IGO-UGO.
A couple of years ago, Chris, Dave, and I were working on a set of rules for wizard battles. After the WWII game, we pulled out the wizard game again and fiddled with it some more. We came up with some good ideas. When I finish with writing Bear Yourselves Valiantly and G.A.M.E.R., I’d like to resurrect the wizard battle game.
A couple of weeks ago Sammy ran her first convention game at Historicon. She used my Eureka toy soldiers fighting the Eureka teddy bears. That reminded me that I had 12 more toy soldiers in my ready-to-paint box. This morning I knocked them out. These are the last ones I purchased before they stopped updating the line. The others were painted to resemble Britains grenadier guard figures, but for these I decided to vary the colors a bit.
It’s been a while, but I finally had time to do some light painting. I took the opportunity to knock a couple of things off my painting queue. The first was a batch of knights I got in a convention flea market. I have been toying with the idea of a jousting game for some time. I’ve played in several jousting games that have been fun, but they often get boring quickly as the number of decisions is quite small. So, I have some ideas that I’ve been thinking about while pushing a bunch of flab around the streets for an hour in a vain attempt at weight control. I’ve had some ideas for an opposed die roll dice progression mechanic that will be just right for jousting, I think. The problem with dice progression systems (i.e., d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, etc.) is that they break down after d12. Each die adds .5 to the expected value. E(d4) = 2.5. E(d6) = 3.5. E(d8) = 4.5. Etc. But when you get to rolling two dice (say, d6 + d8) instead of a uniform distribution, you get a bell curve. Recently I’ve seen that d14, d16, and d18 are readily available. I think a die progression mechanic with a lot of variance (4-20 instead of 4-12) is finally feasible in a way that I can live with, mathematically.
Some weeks back I posted some pictures of some WWII Americans riding giant eagles and some Eureka Stukasauruses. I traded something to Chris for his unpainted Stukasauruses. After sitting on them for several months, I finally painted them. I have Major Objective (the guys who custom made the Americans for my eagles) working on some Brits to ride on griffins. I will pick them up at Fall In, so watch for a weird world war two game by Cold Wars.
Our last morning, we finished packing all our gear to get ready to turn in the RV. Then we drove back into downtown Anchorage to see the Park Service visitor center. There were some nice displays and a couple of really nice movies, including this one on the Northern Light: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdy8jjc9-TM
On the way out we stopped at this cart to get a reindeer sausage. The sausage was terrific, but the guy was a little brusque, including a sign saying, “Get off your cell phone and complete your private conversations before stepping up to order.” Reindeer sausage was terrific!
We then drove near the RV rental outfit and stopped to fill up the gas tank and the propane tank. We then ate most of the leftovers we had left in the refrigerator — our last vacation meal.
As a sort of recap, here are a couple of neat pictures that didn’t make it into previous posts. You may need to open the panoramic pictures in another view to see them fully.
In this picture Tom moved part way through the picture so that he could be in it twice!
This is a replica of a navigational aid that Alaska natives would build along the trackless tundra to help guide themselves to good hunting grounds, home, etc. This one was set up across from the restaurant at which we had our last dinner in Alaska.
Farewell Alaska…
We had a third beautiful weather day. We drove to Seward and couldn’t believe our weather luck! The sky was mostly clear, the weather was warm, and there was a nice breeze. We began by walking around some of the souvenir shops in “downtown” Seward.
Seward is the southern terminus of the Alaska railroad and a port of debarkation for coal from the interior of Alaska heading to Asia. It is also a port for cruise ships. The winter population is about 5000 people. There were a number nice little stores and cafes in town.
After walking around the town, we made sandwiches in the RV and drove to Exit Glacier. The Harding Ice Field is a huge glacier (sort of a lake of ice in the middle of the Chugach mountains) that feeds several glaciers. One of the first expeditions to try cross the ice field exited at this glacier, hence the name.
We had a chance to take a hike up alongside the glacier for a couple of miles.
As we got closer to the ice, we found that the glacier was creating its own cold breeze. The lower area near the visitor’s center was actually hot, and we were attacked by flies. Once we got up a few feet, it was quite pleasant, perhaps chilly. There is a longer hike (approximately 8 hours) that takes you up to the edge of the ice field, but we didn’t have time for that. We needed to get back for our second cruise.
Before heading out to Exit Glacier, we had signed up for a four-hour cruise out Resurrection Bay into the Gulf of Alaska to look at wildlife. Our hope was to see porpoises, whales, and puffins.
The cruise included an all-you-can eat prime rib and salmon buffet. The food was terrific. On the way back to port, there was an all-you-can eat dessert buffet. Based on prices for food in Alaska, one serving of each would have cost more in most restaurants than we paid for the buffet.
The boat holds up to 200 people, but for whatever reason only 19 were signed up for this cruise. The limited number of passengers enabled the crew to provide more personalized attention and reduced the jockeying for position on the rail to see wildlife.
Again the cruise included a National Park Service Ranger who provided narration throughout the four-hour ride. The ranger told us that these charter cruise companies pay the Park Service to provide these rangers, which in turn allows them to hire more part-time rangers to assist with managing the vast lands controlled by the Department of the Interior.
The porpoises were designated “awesome” by Sammy.
We never got too close to this whale, but he was clearly visible several times. The ranger explained that when whales are sleeping they bob near the surface, coming up from time to time to breathe.
Just kidding… but we did enjoy soft drinks and later some hot chocolate.
We met our objectives of spotting porpoises, whales, and puffins! Tommy was hoping to see a Beluga whale, but we didn’t.
We slept that night in a campground right along the water. When we woke up we were greeted by yet another perfect weather day!
The agenda called for us to visit the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward. Partially funded by Federal money and partially funded by an Exxon Valdez trust fund, this center is involved in aquatic research and the rehabilitation of wounded animals. When the weather was so nice the previous day, we pushed this off a day, fully expecting that the weather would turn bad and it would be good to enjoy an indoor activity.
The Sealife Center was nicely laid out with some innovative exhibits. I thought it was worth the time we spent there. They also had once of the nicest gift shops we’d seen throughout our visit to Alaska.
Sadly our trip is beginning to come to an end. After lunch in Seward, we headed back toward Anchorage for our last night in Alaska. Along the way we pulled off at some scenic overlooks to see some of the sites that were difficult to see because of the rain on our way southward.
Somewhere during our drive, I got an Email from my buddy Sam Fuson who was once stationed at Ft. Richardson. He recommended that we have halibut at the Sourdough Mining Company. The food was terrific and so plentiful that even Tom had trouble finishing his dinner. Most nights there is a singer and storyteller in the evenings, but we happened to get there the one night in 10 years that he was ill.
Well… we get on the plane tomorrow for another 12 hours in the air back to Baltimore with stops in Seattle and Detroit. Ca ca. Another vacation has come to a close.
After our perfect day on Mt. McKinley, the next day was rainy all day. We stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks as we drove south from our campsite, but the rain and fog really limited visibility. We also make a quick stop at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to restock the pantry.
To break up the drive, we stopped at the Indian Creek mine where a character talked to us about the mine and some of the antiques he had collected. We were only able to see the mine entrance, but it was a good way to get off the road for a while. The museum was housed in an old log cabin which had once been pushed all the way onto the river ice by an avalanche. It was moved back and many years later was designated a national historic site, dating past the Alaska gold rush. The owner said that initially the Smithsonian wouldn’t grant historic site designation, because the cabin wasn’t in its original location, but once they found out that natural forces moved it, they relented.
We stopped at another scenic overlook because of the rain. After a few hands of dominoes, the rain subsided. We walked around the overlook. Again, the rain and fog limited visibility, but we found these interesting sculptures of beluga whales.
Near Girdwood we took a 5 mile hike. The attraction here was the hand tram over Glacier Creek. It rained the whole way, but it was a good hike.
The hand tram was really neat. Up to two people could get in this cage and then pull themselves across with the rope. All of us took a turn in the bucket.
After returning from the hike and drying off a bit, we bought a pizza in Girdwood and drove to our campsite for the night. We stayed in the Willawa camp ground, managed by the Forest Service. The campsites were far apart and surrounded by trees, so it didn’t seem very crowded. When we went to bed, we weren’t sure about whether the weather would cooperate for our planned glacier cruise the next day.
We had a lot of low fog the next morning. (This stream was supposed to be full of spawning salmon, but we saw none.) We weren’t sure about the cruise, but there was a little blue poking through the clouds, so after a brief stop at a visitors center for information, we drove through the tunnel to Whittier.
The tunnel is the longest tunnel in the world shared by vehicles and trains. On the half hour traffic is permitted to drive into Whittier. On the hour, traffic comes out of Whittier. In between, trains use the tunnel.
Whittier was built by the US Army during WWII as a supply depot. Supplies would be unloaded in Whittier (on Prince William Sound) and taken inland by train. Today almost the entire population of the town lives in a single high-rise building built to house soldiers and their families.
When we came through the tunnel to Whittier, the weather was beautiful. It was sunny, warm, and blue. We bought our tickets and boarded for our cruise to see 26 glaciers. On board was a ranger from the US Forest Service who provided narration, which was terrific. He also helped spot wildlife.
The first portion of the cruise was just getting out to the interesting stuff. They served us a very nice cod lunch to pass the time. The food was quite good. Eventually we arrived at the sea lion rookery (shown above), where we saw many sea lions. The boat could not get too close to the sea lions to avoid disturbing them.
We saw all 26 glaciers. I was checking them off on the map. There were so many amazing sights that it was difficult not to become jaded.
The ranger told us that there are only about 10 days this nice all Summer on Prince William Sound. After the excellent day on Mt. McKinley and the crappy day the day before, we were amazed at our luck!
Among the wildlife we spotted we saw many sea otters lounging in the water.
The total cruise time was over five hours, getting us back in time to make the on-the-hour train out of Whittier.
The Cook expedition was stopped by ice, so his maps missed an arm of the Sound that led to this glacier. When the Harriman expedition found this arm in a later expedition, they were greeted by this huge glacier, so it is called “Surprise Glacier.” We were hoping to see it calve (a big chunk falling off into the water), but didn’t. The boat loitered here for a while, and we got some amazing views.
After driving back through the long tunnel from Whittier, we headed toward Seward. Candy found a very nice camp ground with full hookups about 20 minutes north of Seward, our destination for the next day.
The campground has its own lake front, and the kids took a turn in one of the paddle boats after dinner.
This was one of our last sights (at 2300 hours) before going to bed. What a place!
After a quick stop in the town outside the national park for some souvenir hunting and lunch, we headed into the Denali National Park. Denali consists of over six million acres, and there is just one road through it, so we took our time driving to the Teklaneeka campground deep inside the park, taking in the sights along the way. The RV did reasonably well on the gravel road.
Before getting on the long road to the campground, however, we took a short hike around Horseshoe lake. We didn’t see any animals, but we saw a beaver dam that was probably 40 yards long. No beaver.
The next morning we got up very early to catch the first bus toward Wonder Lake. Our thought was that we would see more wildlife on the early bus. We did. It started with a pair of moose hanging out near the bus stop. You can see one behind Tommy’s shoulder in this picture.
Soon after departing we encountered another one.
It was a four hour bus ride from our campground to Wonder Lake. Along the way we saw some beautiful scenery and many animals. The only one of the “big” animals we didn’t see was a wolf.
We encountered two golden eagles perched on rocks above the road. This picture is one of them flying away.
Two German girls were on the bus, taking pictures of their own moose at various stops.
The bus driver, Darlene was quite good. She stopped frequently and had lots of good stories.
This picture was taken at a short rest stop along the way.
We saw more moose on this four-hour bus ride than we did during our entire visit to Maine.
Considering its name, Wonder Lake was a bit anti-climactic. From here, however, we took a five mile hike out and back along the McKinley Bar trail, which took us through rocks and woods to the river.
On the way back we encountered three rock ptarmigans, the Alaska state bird. They looked a lot like pheasant or grouse to me. They eventually flew off as we continued our hike.
Another caribou near the bus on our ride back toward camp.
The rest stops along the bus route looked like this. The doors were probably three inches thick and heavily reinforced to keep out bears and other animals. All were very clean!
That night we played rummy and watched a little television before bed.
The next morning we left the campground and headed southward. On our way up, we had tried to get a flight up to a glacier on the slopes of Mt. McKinley. This morning the clouds cleared, and it looked like we might be able to fly, so we packed up and headed back to Talkeetna. During a portion of the drive, the kids worked on their Summer reading.
Then we turned a bend in the road and there was Mt. McKinley. They say only 31% of visitors to Alaska get to see the whole mountain. It was much more impressive than this picture conveys. Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in the Western Hemisphere, at 20k+ feet of elevation.
We stopped several times along the way to get different and better shots of the mountain. The sky got better and better all day.
We were lucky to get a 1430 flight up the mountain for a glacier landing from Talkeetna. Each of us donned a pair of protective over boots so that we could walk around in the snow on the glacier.
There were six of us plus the pilot on this DeHaviland Beaver.
The flight was smooth, and along the way the pilot had a lot of interesting things to point out. I got to sit up front and take lots of pictures.
The glaciers on Mt. McKinley are growing at an average rate of about three feet a day. The guide said that the glaciers act like frozen rivers. They have falls, currents, and even cataracts.
Here you can see where ice has formed, cracked, and fallen. These falls grow at a rate of six or more feet per day and push the glacier down the valley.
Landing on the glacier was interesting. The surface was slushy, so the plane slid around on its skis until it came to a stop. The temperature was about 30 degrees, but it felt much warmer due to the sun and the heat radiating off the snow and rocks.
We spent about 25 minutes on the glacier before returning to Talkeetna. The guide told us that glaciologists come up here to study the McKinley glaciers quite frequently. They have taken deep core samples. Air is trapped in the glaciers, so core samples reveal things about the air 10s of thousands of years ago. For the global warming crowd, the scientists who study these glaciers say that the percent of greenhouse gasses in the air 10,000 years ago is about the same as it is today.
In this picture you can see how the ice cracks as it flows downhill. Also note the light blue patches. The color of the glacial ice is blue. It doesn’t show in most of the pictures, but in person you could see the slightly blue color. The light blue patches in this picture are deep fissures or crevasses that have filled with snow. When the sun is out, the top layers melt a little and turn into these light blue lakes or ponds.
After returning to Talkeetna, we played in the elementary school playground for a few minutes and then headed South to Houston to stop for the night before continuing south past Anchorage.