Temperature Update: 40 degrees F when I got up this morning.

We spent Saturday going to yard sales. We need a few things to tide us over until our belongings arrive. So we made a list. Some things on the list included: cups, cooking pots, an answering machine, silverware, etc. We were able to locate and obtain most of the items we sought with the exception of baby gates. Seems like you see all sorts of baby gates and baby clothes at yard sales unless you’re actually looking for baby gates or baby clothes. Oh well. We’ll just have to continue to keep an eye on the baby around the split level stairways and continue to be thankful for the wall to wall carpeting throughout the house.

Yard sales in Alaska are similar to those in other states. Except on occasion you’ll run into a Moving Sale of people who are leaving the state. These folks will have just about every item they own strewn out on their driveway with Make An Offer posted somewhere. It’s so expensive to ship things to and from Alaska, we’ve been warned not to accumulate much we’d feel bad about abandoning when/if we leave Alaska. The fact that about 95% of our possessions originally belonged to someone else makes this somewhat of a moot point. But we’ll keep it in mind.

In addition to yard sales, Tess had a sports physical Saturday afternoon. Cheerleading tryouts start Monday. She has to have all her paperwork in before she can participate.

We spent much of Sunday doing 5 loads of laundry at the local Laundromat. It’ll be good to get our washer and dryer back. We spend a lot of money on laundry otherwise. It is nice to get all the laundry done at once. But I still prefer to do it at home while I’m doing other things. In the meantime, we need to convince Donald to quit wearing 2 t-shirts at once every day, and have folks where things more than once if they can.

After the Laundromat, we hit the grocery store. Stephen definitely has to get some income soon. We can’t afford to eat in Alaska and pay our rent! The Little Debbie’s cakes have a special sticker over the pre-printed price… The sticker says: In Alaska $2.29. Hmmmm. You know it says $1.09 under that sticker! What gives? It’s not like the Cosmic Brownies have suffered any on their extended boat trip to our shores. They don’t have a shelf life that I’m aware of, so why not ship them via the slow boat and cut the cost of making and applying the special sticker!

Here are a few pictures of the rental house. It is a split level with 3 good size bedrooms upstairs and a small (very) bedroom downstairs off the family room. We’ve decided to use the downstairs bedroom for a playroom for Alicia and have everyone sleep upstairs. Alicia will sleep in our room for the coming year. The two older kids have good size rooms across the hall from ours. There is also a master bath and a main bathroom. Then downstairs there is a ½ bath.

In the family room there is a bar and a fireplace. There is another stone fireplace in the very large living/dining room upstairs. The kitchen with its breakfast bar is adjacent to the dining area. A large wraparound deck is accessed via a sliding door off the dining area in the back of the house. In the kitchen are a dishwasher, trash compactor, built-in microwave and traditional oven, and a gas stovetop with a built-in grill and downdraft exhaust. The kids are particularly happy about the dishwasher.

The house also has an oversized, heated 2-car garage which Stephen is particularly pleased with. I’m happy with the large kitchen and just the overall space in the house and its layout. Oh, the downstairs also has a laundry/utility room that’s a good size.

The house meets all of our requirements which were as follows:
--Sufficient bedrooms and at least 2 full baths.
--Separate family room
--Ample space for pets (the house is on 1.25 acres with a dog pen)
--Chugiak High School district
--Garage of some sort, preferably 2-car

FYI: If folks come for a visit, we can easily turn the downstairs bedroom into guest quarters for the duration of your stay! We are now the proud owners of 3 queen size airmattresses…. Plus the fold out couch will be right there in the family room.

This is the upstairs living room.

I was shaken off the airmattress by our first Alaska earthquake this morning. 4.6 on the Richter scale, centered about 20 miles north of our home. Approximately 5:17am. Might as well get up!

I got into the office and folks were saying things like, "gee, was that as strong as the one on Sunday?"....

Suffice to say, we'll be feeling a lot of earthquakes.

On another note, I took the bus in today. Not a bad ride. Cheaper than gas. And maybe Donald can use the bus to get into Eagle River to get a job... Something to look into. He's desperate to earn money (presumably to buy a plane ticket to the east coast!).

Alicia May is 18 months old today! Yay!

I've been back at work today with the State of Alaska Dept of Natural Resources. Lots of internal meetings and paperwork. Still making arrangements for the upcoming San Diego trip to the user conference. That'll be in a week and a half.

I strolled around the 5th Avenue Mall here in downtown Anchorage on my lunch 1/2 hour. That was pleasant. This is a nice little city really. The weather's great today. Blue skies with a few wispy clouds. Highs around 63. Very nice.

Since we're working with only one vehicle until our Stuff arrives, Stephen drove me in to work today and he'll be picking me up at 3pm. I work 7-3. I may start taking the bus from our neighborhood. At least until we have two vehicles. It's $1.75 per ride and takes just under an hour to get here. The car ride is 1/2 hour. The bus would be cheaper than gas, just a little less convenient.... We'll see!

The Alaska Highway

The Alaska Highway can be categorized as a series of 40-, 50-, 60-, or 70-mph bumps. There really are no 70-mph bumps. But sometimes you might hit a 40-mph bump at 70-mph. And when this happens, it’s not pretty. We had kids and pets bouncing around the back of that van like pinballs. Donald probably took the brunt of it, his head being only 2” from the ceiling to begin with.

Sometimes they’d post signs saying “Rough Road” or “Bump”. More often, they’d stick some orange flags along the shoulder to indicate a dip of some sort. The dips seemed to be clumped together not unlike rapids on a river. If you were alert enough to spot the flags, you had just enough time to slow down to below 50-mph. If you were not quite this alert, chances are you were soon to be airborne and the Kid/Pet Pinball game would ensue. Surprisingly enough, we made it through about 800 miles of Alaskan highways without either throwing Stephen’s back out or sustaining any concussions.


We have arrived in the vicinity of Anchorage, AK. For the next month, we’ll be camping out in our rental house. We went to Sam’s Club in Anchorage and purchased 3 air mattresses. So now we’re all set! We also have the laptop on which we can watch DVD’s. Tonight we watched Season 2 of Survivor on DVD. This was the season in The Outback….

We're at the Juneau port this morning. It's about 5:45am. We arrived here at 4:45am. The kids both hopped up to bid their new friends who were departing in Juneau a good-bye. They're now back in the stateroom with the sleeping Alicia May. I tossed two loads of laundry into the ship machines. I figure it'll be a bigger hassle to do laundry from here on out.

We'll be disembarking in Haines at 11:30am today. Then we'll high-tail it north, through far western Canada and back into Alaska hopefully making it as far as Tok (pronounced "toke").

The ferry ride has been fun. Sometimes it got a little boring when the fog concealed any scenery. The southeast part of Alaska is very rainy, foggy... wet! I think I read that it gets around 132" of rain a year, all of it in the form of sprinkling mist.

Stephen has enjoyed being back on a boat again. Reminds him a little of his Navy days I think. I've been drugged up on motion sickness pills, so I've been able to enjoy the ride as well. And the kids have made lots of buddies on board. So all have enjoyed the experience.

This morning we'll be reloading the van and praying it doesn't smell too much like PET. We have about 800 miles to drive from Haines to Anchorage. And since I need to be back at the office on Wednesday... We'll be finishing up this road trip tomorrow!

The necklace...


The onboard recliner lounge.


Driving on board... finally!


Our pet lodging....

The world's most picturesque campground. The scenery changes all the time!


Our lodging!


House on the coast of British Columbia.



We were able to get online here in the Ketchikan Ferry Terminal.... Just enough time to upload some pics!

Not sure when I’ll get to post this, but I figure I’ll put some thoughts in print before they slip away.

July 21st was our 5th wedding anniversary. While I was in the shower in the hotel in Moses Lake, WA, Stephen wrapped my gifts in various travel maps and leftover wrapping paper from the kids’ state line presents. Oh, and duct tape. He gave me a cookie jar I’d picked out in Keystone, SD and a lovely necklace of Black Hills gold and heat-treated topaz. The necklace was wrapped inside the cookie jar.

I didn’t get anything for him as of yet. The 5th anniversary is apparently, the wood anniversary, so I’m keeping a lookout for something appropriate (and preferably free!).

We arrived at the Ferry Terminal in Bellingham, WA just before 2pm. We were supposed to be there to board our vehicle no later than 3pm. The ferry was scheduled to depart at 6pm. We checked in and were told to park our van in a line and remain with it until we drove it onto the ferry. The ferry would begin loading at 3:30pm. In an attempt to avoid having the pets sit in a hot van for any longer than necessary, we drove back into town to grab some lunch and walk the dog before parking in line. We arrived back at the line just before 3pm. We sat in that exact same spot with the a/c running on and off for the next 2 hours before they boarded us. Because we were going the furthest on the ferry, we boarded last.

We finally got all we thought we’d need (and we could carry!) unloaded from the van and hauled up one deck to our stateroom. We took a tour of the ferry and found where we would have pitched our tent, the recliner lounge where they show movies, several observation decks and lounges, the laundry room (which we used immediately), the gift shop, the arcade, the snack bar and the dining room. All in all, it’s a great boat. It’s called the MV Columbia and is the largest of the Alaska Ferry System fleet. It can hold 931 passengers. Our stateroom has 2 sets of bunkbeds (pretty comfy), a sink area, a private shower & toilet room. It’s nice to have a permanent place to go with a little privacy. Especially when the seas get a little rough and those of us prone to motion sickness just want to lie down in the dark.

We’ve been on the ferry for a day now. Tess and I have played some card games. We brought some groceries on board along with a cooler. So we’ve just been buying dinner at the snack bar (which is considerably cheaper than the dining room). We have yet to stop at our first port. That will be Ketchikan, AK tomorrow morning (July 23) at 7am. We get to go down to the car deck and check on the animals for 15 minutes at a time a few times a day. So far they’re doing as well as can be expected. It’s a little loud down there, and I worried a little about them during the rough seas (two stints). But they’re managing. We’ve got the van cleared out and lots of plastic sheeting under blankets and towels for them to sprawl out on. Plus there’s a kitty box in there for Elmo. Little Bit gets walked around the car decks on our 15 minute visits.

Note to self: Next time on ferry… bring binoculars. Lots of lovely scenery along the shores.

Yesterday we crossed the Continental Divide just before arriving in Butte. Forgot to mention that!

Today we traveled west from Butte through Missoula and on through Idaho to Washington state. We are staying at a nice family-run hotel in Moses Lake, WA. It's so interesting to see how the landscape changes so dramatically in such a relatively short distance.

South Dakota is flat as a board in the east, then turns to the Badlands and Black Hills in the west. Wyoming and Montana are then rolling, dry hills in the east rising to green, steep sided Rockies by the time you hit Idaho. We were only in Idaho for an hour, but we didn't see a single spud. What gives? The part of the state we saw was mountains, evergreens, and a giant lake.

Washington state, the eastern part anyway, is incredibly dry and empty. And I mean EMPTY. No offense, but I don't see why someone would choose to live here given any other option. From the looks of it, not many people do! Of course, we're in the middle of the state right now. Supposedly the other part of the state is considerably wetter... No indication of that from this vantage point.

Tomorrow we board the ferry. Not sure what sort of online connection capability I'll have. So if you don't see many posts for a while.... That'd be why.

Tonight we're going bowling at the alley next door, owned by the same owner as this hotel.

We had to view Mount Rushmore in shifts so we wouldn't have to leave the pets in a super hot minivan. The temperatures were near record highs close to 100.


After Mount Rushmore, Tess and Donald went down the alpine slide in Keystone, SD.




We drove to Sturgis and Deadwood and then ended up at the base of Devil's Tower in Wyoming at a KOA for the night.

Today we drove from WY to Butte, Montana. We're at a nice Best Western. We just ordered in room service from the attached Perkins restaurant. Now we're all stuffed and we have lots of leftover food... Hmmmm. Our gastrointestinal health could be better on this trip. Generally we eat a meal and then sit in the van for a long time. Not the best digestive scenario....

We did get word today (after persistent telephone hounding) that we have a stateroom on the 3-day ferry. So that's a load off my mind. After this long of a road trip, I really wasn't looking forward to living on a deck in a tent with 3 kids....

Also, I never mentioned it before, but we did get that rental we were hoping to get up in Peter's Creek, AK. So now we have a house to go to when we get up there...

Took this a few days ago after we crossed the Mississippi....


We spent a few hours at the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet, SD. This was the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the basis for many of her Little House books. I absolutely love this place. If you go to their website (www.ingallshomestead.com) you'll see Tess when she was 5 petting a newborn calf.


Hey, look! It's Calamity Jane!



We've settled into a routine of driving a good distance and then attempting to get to our lodging in time to make use of the pool. Some pool situations are better than others. But to Tess, almost any pool is a good pool.


Donald tries to get a date at Wall Drug in Wall, SD.

We are constantly amazed by the diversity and beauty of our country. I know lots of you have had the opportunity to explore it by way of the road trip. But if you haven't, you should! Sometimes we get so caught up in our own little world... we get lulled into thinking that's all there is. If you have time, or even if you don't... make some and drive across a state completely different from the one you're in. Even with a vanload of pets and kids, concerns take on a new perspective. It seems trivial to worry about the cat pee under my gas pedal when I'm driving past wide open (and I mean WIDE OPEN) vistas where buffalo once roamed, where native americans once traveled, where covered wagons plied forth toward their dreams....

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies,
















For amber waves of grain....




















For purple mountains majesty,



















above the fruited plain.....








America, America....
God shed His grace on Thee.

And crown thy good with brotherhood,
from sea to shining sea.

We're at a Holiday Inn in Fairmont, MN. Nice hotel. Wish we'd have arrived earlier to take advantage of all the amenities of this hotel. Tess and Alicia did get in the pool (and baby pool) for about 45 minutes before it closed at 10pm. Donald played a few games in the arcade. There's also a fitness room, sauna, and hot tub spa. We've tossed a load of laundry into the guest laundry machines. That's a great thing to have.

Today was pretty much all driving once we departed Chicago at 12:40pm. It took us a half hour to get out of the city in bumper to bumper traffic. Lots of construction on I-90 there if anyone's interested...

Tomorrow will be a long day. Lots of driving and lots of stopping and sightseeing. We'll be going to Laura Ingalls Wilder sites in both MN and SD. Not sure if I'll get a post in but I'll try.

The temperatures up here are HOT. Chicago had a heat index of only 105. That's down from the 114 it's been recently. Loving the A/C in the minivan at this point!

Today's state line gifts (aka bribes):
Wisconsin: pack of pencils and relatively easy Sudoku book
Minnesota: hard Sudoku book ;o)

We drove about 8 hours today. But still arrived in Chicago in 7 thanks to the hour time change. :o)

This morning we shipped a couple of boxes of things from Ohio to Alaska to free up some space in the van. We also gave away a few non-shippable items like flammable liquids (think lotions, spray starch, lip balm, nail polish...). So that also freed up a little space. Then we swapped the softsided car topper for a hard sided version which was in my sister's garage. It holds a little more than the softsided one and is more water resistant.

Today's state line gifts were as follows:
Indiana: portable DVD player to share
Illinois: reading material
[We take pics at every "Welcome To..." sign at state lines. For the record, we didn't see one at Illinois... just a Welcome to Chicago sign. So I guess Chicago thinks it's a state!]

Stephen and Tess watched The Ringer in the last couple hours of today's journey.

The roads we travelled today went through endless flat cornfields. Corn as far as the eye could see. I don't think about Indiana that way, but there you have it. And flat as a board. We'll see more of that before the lumpy terrain picks up again.... It's the exact opposite of where we're headed! Our new home is as lumpy as it gets while still remaining on this continent!

We're in Chicago now visiting our cousins. We just got back from dinner where we had some Chicago pizza.... They live in a nice, medium sized house in a quaint family neighborhood in Chicago. One of the blocks on their street was blocked off for a Block Party when we arrived. Folks have sprinklers going and the cars are parallel parked on the street. The backs of the houses are on an alley on the other side of the street. Our cousins have a great backyard with lovely landscaping that Barb played a large role in orchestrating. All in all, it's really a great space. I could live in a city if it was in a nice neighborhood like this. Of course, we are moving to Anchorage.... almost the same.

Here's me almost ready to travel 5300 miles in this minivan with 2 adults, 2 teens, a baby, a dog and a cat.


And here are the kids loaded up with pets and the bags of trash!


Farewell our old Virginia home... We've hit the state line!


The kids get a surprise at every state line we cross... When we got to West Virginia, Tess got some headphones and Donald got a new CD player. (They each already had working counterparts to their gifts.) At Ohio they both got journal supplies to document their journey.


The family gang in Ohio at the farewell BBQ. They even serenaded us with a lovely sound recording of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing Happy Trails.

Whew... we're on our way! The movers were so optimistic about finishing in one day, we got our hopes up. We thought surely we'd get out early on day two.... but alas, not the case!

The movers finally finished packing the house at about 5:30pm. The big truck finally got wrenched from the mud at about 5:35pm. They brought in a big tow truck from a local wrecker company and winched it up the driveway.

I finally finished signing the paperwork associated with the movers at about 6:15pm. By then we had no energy left to clean the house and drive to Ohio. So we camped out in the empty house and did the cleaning today.

The toilet in the main bathroom was having persistent problems ever since Stephen and Donald put it back together after installing the flooring. Stephen must have driven to Lowe's and back 4 times getting another part that might solve the leaking problem! I think in the end it finally started working properly.

We didn't get to leave until about 2:20pm for Ohio. The house was clean, the keys had been delivered to the property management company, and the pickup truck had been dropped off at the transport company. This latter item presented the issue of how we were going to get all our last minute trash to the dumpster with only the minivan for transport. When we left the house for the last time we had all of us, all of our stuff, the pets, and three giant bags of garbage crammed into that van. Good thing we got the "extended" variety!

We dropped the garbage at the dumpster 10 miles down the road and that freed up lots of space!

We made it to Ohio only 1.5 hours late for our farewell bbq at Susan's house. It was pooring rain. We ate super hotdogs and potato salad around the firepit under umbrellas! :o)

Just as I suspected, those movers swarmed into our house and made quick work of packing up our things. I now know why we never had any big get-togethers at this house... Any more than three people in any given room is way too many.
When you've got 5 people trying to haul away furniture and pack endless boxes, and then another 5 people just standing around being thankful that they don't have to do any real hard labor... that's chaos. Pure and simple.
When they showed up, they said they hoped to get us out of there in one day. One day?! Well dang! Guess I should hurry up and finish baking these cookies to use up butter. And our final laundry loads should probably be done sooner than later! One day?! Aaaahhhhh.
I think they would have done it too, had it not been for basic algebra. Here's how I see it:

1 half loaded moving truck + 1 TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR =

Sunk up to the axle in good old Virginia mud. :o)

Add to this the fact that when the downpour hit, one of the movers fell and hurt his ankle on one of the loading ramps. So the movers called it a day at about 5:30pm and are supposedly sending a wrecker over today to pull the truck out of the mud and finish the packing.

Breaking News: They're here! Yay!

For your additional viewing pleasure, here's a picture of Alicia helping Daddy install the bathroom flooring. She's checking to make sure it's level. :o)

It's moving day! (Okay... Moving Day, Part I of III.) The movers have been delayed "for a number of reasons"... ? They are now expected to arrive between 10:30am and 11:30am. This is probably a good thing. I'm concerned that they'll dive right in packing up everything in sight before I have a chance to say, "Wait! I'm going to need those van keys to get to Alaska!"

Stephen is off making one of the many trash runs he'll be making before they haul his truck off tomorrow... Not sure what we'll do with that last minute trash on Friday. Take it in the minivan I suppose.

He's also buying a paper to find a fridge to put in this house to rent it so we can take our big lovely jumbo fridge with us!

Last night he and Donald replaced the floor in the main bathroom. Tess and Donald ripped the old floor out while we went to Lowe's to get new linoleum. It looks great in there now. We keep asking ourselves why we wait until we're trying to move out of a place to make it look livable?! Such is life, I guess.

Side note: That job in Charleston just called to set up an interview! Aaarrrggghhhh..... Once again, such is life. Might as well live it up!

We've got the back deck painted gray and half of the front porch railings installed. So not much more to do outdoors. We have some painting to do indoors and replacing the main bathroom flooring.

Kate and Rebecca are here for a couple days visit. They head back south tomorrow. We've been watching movies and playing board games a lot. Tomorrow, assuming none of the forecasted "isolated thunderstorms" hit our area, we'll grill out for lunch before they head out.

We're in the process of setting aside things we want to cart with us in the van so the movers don't pack it away in the big truck. Spare clothes, some kitchen supplies, etc. A few things to live with for the next 6 weeks before we see our 40' container of goods again. We've got a soft sided car topper and we'll be picking up a hard sided topper in Ohio on our way through. We're hoping these both fit on top of the van.

We're back in Virginia. We got into Syracuse on schedule yesterday morning. We thought to leave there at noon, but had a 3 hour delay while we searched for the kitty who had disappeared into the woods. Cat and dog in the van, we drove home to VA from 3pm to midnight.

We were so whooped we stopped every hour to swap drivers. We still made good time despite this. We made it home at midnight and slept for 10 hours. Once the sleep-deprived, jet lagged bags under our eyes shrink enough so we can see straight, we'll start working on the house. We've got a few things to do before we rent it out. Stephen's made lots of progress already, before we left for Alaska. But he seems to think we still have LOTS to do. Sigh.

My sisters, Kate and Rebecca will be up this evening toting a bucket of chicken. It'll be nice to have one last visit before we move to The Great Land. It may be a while before we see them again.

Well, we've got an hour before we board the plane back to Syracuse. We got to the airport early just in case the wait was super long. But it wasn't too bad once we got all our junk out of the rental car...

We've found a really cool room at the Anchorage airport in Terminal B. It's a nursery with two super comfy couches and a baby slide and some other toys. It has a nice view of airplanes outside and a private family bathroom. Perfect! We plan on sitting in here for as long as possible before putting Baby on the 5 hour flight to Chicago. All airports should have a room like this. Maybe they do, but I've never noticed one.

This is our last day in Anchorage for this time around. We fly out at 8pm. I'll be working my 7-3 schedule, then we'll drop off a few resumes of Stephen's and head for the airport.

I've signed up for Alaska Airlines frequent flyer program in hopes of acquiring free travel back to the lower 48 at some point. They're partnered up with lots of other businesses through which I can earn miles. So for instance, if we fill up the rental car at a Tesoro gas station, I earn miles. Not very many miles... but every little bit counts. I also earn miles for shopping at Safeway/Carrs grocery stores. :o) In addition to Alaska Airlines, I can also fly their partner airlines like Delta, etc.... so I can fly to places Alaska Airlines doesn't necessarily go. I'm flying AK Air down to San Diego of course... More miles... Yeah. Maybe I can book a flight via Hawaii or something. Hmmm.

Well, I'm off to work.

This photo was taken at 11:00pm near Talkeetna. This is the cabin we stayed in on the 3rd of July. Because it doesn't get dark until very late, they seem to shoot off fireworks at midnight on the 3rd/4th... So just barely into the 4th of July! We were watching some fireworks when this picture was taken. Not exactly dark, but pretty late at night.


This was taken in downtown Talkeetna. Just after we watched the big parade! There are LOTS of dogs in Alaska. I think Alicia has patted about 95% of them so far.



We used up the majority of our food per diem on this meal at the Glacier Brewhouse in Anchorage last night. I had some fresh king crab and Stephen had pepper encrusted salmon, also fresh. Both meals were fabulous! And since we've barely eaten a normal meal since we arrived, I figure we were entitled!


And for dessert... peanut butter pie with chocolate ganache! Yum....

I've been at work today, mostly finalizing plans to attend the San Diego conference and get reimbursed for this "premove" trip as well as the actual moving expenses. We're racking up big bucks on the credit card with last minute airfares and giant ferry fees. So the quicker we can get reimbursed for these the better!

It's overcast in Anchorage today. So it feels just as good to be sitting in the office. There's no pining to be outdoors at this point. I'd say the temps are in the low 60s.

From my office (cubicle) I have a view of the Cook Inlet which leads out to the Pacific Ocean. Due to lots of earthquakes, most structures in Anchorage are not very tall. But our building does have 19 floors. I'm on the 6th floor. And I've been told that the building is on rollers of some sort so that it actually sways with any tremors to prevent collapse. That's a load off my mind, let me just say. :o)

We drove up to Talkeetna yesterday evening and spent a night in a beautiful little log cabin perched on the edge of a tall precipice overlooking the Alaska Range. Around 11pm we saw some fireworks being shot off in the village of Talkeetna. They were backdropped by Mt. McKinley, so appeared rather underwhelming given the circumstances! The view from there was absolutely spectacular! We drove about 5 miles over back gravel roads to get to the cabin. (I guess that's almost remote, by Alaska standards.)

We're back in Anchorage right now staying in the Summer Guest Housing on the campus of the University of Alaska-Anchorage. This is the student housing during the school year... They rent it out during the summer. We'll be here for 2 nights then back to our original lakeside B&B.

We spent today in Talkeetna before driving back to the city. That's a cute, if not completely tourist-ridden, town. We saw the great 4th of July parade which consisted of a VFW marching group, a float carrying about 6 older women dressed in red white & blue and handing out flags, a fire truck, an ambulance, and a guy dressed like Uncle Sam walking on stilts. The parade started at noon and was over about 30 seconds later. :0)

This is a lovely creek we passed on the way to Matanuska Glacier.

This type of landscape is so large and empty... it looks prehistoric. I wait for a cave person or a dinosaur to stroll around the bend....

We put in an application to rent this house. It's on 1.25 acres in a neighborhood in Peters Creek. That's about a 1/2 hour commute north of the City of Anchorage. But it is technically still in the Municipality of Anchorage. The kids will go to Chugiak High School if we end up living in this house. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

This is the Matanuska Glacier. You can't get much closer than this without a lot of hiking and the fending off of moose.... Stephen took this shot from the Glenn Highway.

We had lunch at this place, overlooking the glacier. This little setting was over the entrance. Inside they had tons of trophy mounts and taxidermy.... A moose, musk ox, bobcat, several bears.... True Alaska decor....