"Funny" Alaska questions. (Anchorage, Bethel: motel, income, work)

[Rance]

Snow crab have fairly smooth exoskeleton/shell. A king crab has thorn like protrusions which make it hard to handle barehanded. As well as king crab being much bigger in size.

[Glitch]

Let's not forget Dungeness crab! It has a bigger body than Snow crab, but much shorter legs. The carapace is also smooth like Snow crab. Like Rance said, if you don't see those "thorns" on the legs, then it isn't King crab.



Now to REALLY confuse your lower-48ers. There are three different types of King crab - Golden, Red, and Blue.

• Golden King crab (lithodes aequispinus) is significantly smaller than Red or Blue King crab, averaging between 5 and 8 pounds, but has a slightly sweeter flavor than either Red or Blue King crab.
• Red King crab (paralithodes camtschaticus) is quite large with a carapace up to a foot across and legs that span up to 6 feet.
• Blue King crab (paralithodes platypus) is the largest of all the species of King crab, that can weigh more than 18 pounds. A lot of stores will sell Blue King crab as Red King crab because they have a very similar flavor.

Where is the butter?

[warptman]

Lost me on the lithodes ignoramous...lol

[Rance]

I might add that the dungee's are mighty ornery. I've had them latch onto my fingers while unloading the boat. They see you coming and they rear up like the one in that picture. They are like a mad dog when cornered! I've lost hide to them a time or two.

[rotorhead]

Ornrey, but delicious. Here's about three or four of them ready to eat!


Five bucks apiece live off the docks here, hardly makes it worth the gas money to go out and get your own...mmmmm....pass the butter

[denverian]

These questions all cracked me up. I've been to Alaska before and loved it. I live in Denver and the funny thing is, I've been asked some similar questions. I find that to be amusing, considering Denver is twice as far from Anchorage than it is from Mexico City!

I've been asked if everyone in Denver drives snowmobiles to work, if you HAVE to drive an SUV, do I ski to work, do I have to cut wood to heat my house...etc. And recently a friend of mine moved here from Hawaii. He said he was talking to his mother in Oregon and she claimed roses wouldn't grow in Denver because it was "too far north and too cold". Now if she'd look at a map, she'd realized that the entire state of Colorado is south of the entire state of Oregon!

American's ignorance of climate and geography ceases to scare me.

[warptman]

I see we're warmer than you at the moment, its 45 above here and windy.

[Rance]

It's windy on the slope today also. Only it's 30 below in this wind. Gnarly.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by warptman

I see we're warmer than you at the moment, its 45 above here and windy.

OK, so maybe Denver IS in the Arctic Circle!

We'll be in the 50s by Monday, 60s Tuesday. Our climate is misunderstood. It's just a crazy roller coaster ride in the winter.

On the "bright" side, we have over 9 hours of sunlight today. Any snow on the ground in Anchorage? None here.

[Glitch]

There was just a few inches of snow in Anchorage, but it has since melted off. We've had winters here that were shorter, warmer and with less snow than Anchorage, Tennessee. If that were widely known Alaska would be flooded with lower-48ers. So help us perpetuate the myth by telling everyone that "Alaska is a frozen wasteland."