Where Things Stand

The dog is banished to her dog pen for urinary transgressions.

The cat is recovering well from his eye surgery and face lift.

Alicia May had her toenails painted pink today for the very first time. This was performed by her personal nanny, a.k.a. "Sissy".

Tess is banned from the internet and TV for another few days and thus has little better to do than to paint toddler toenails and improve her child care providing technique. Flag football practice and tryouts start next week. She's decided to do this instead of cheerleading this year.

Donald resigned from the child care profession a couple weeks ago due to irreconcilable differences with his sibling colleague. He is supposedly seeking employment outside the home, as yet to no avail.

I am preparing for my 3rd day in the Willow Sub-basin tomorrow doing field review. Our 4th day will be on or around August 15th and will involve 2-3 hours in a floatplane operated by Rust's Flying Service. I'll be sure to take good photos...

Stephen was feeling under the weather yesterday, during which time he was most productive in straightening the house. I'm thinking he may need to be ill more often! He's better today and whipped up some steaks on the grill for dinner.

We have out of town guests coming in later this week. What better reason to do some more exploration of our beautiful state?

Willow Creek and Hatcher Pass

Another successful day doing Field Review. Today we drove up past Willow into Kashwitna. Then we backtracked a little and took the Willow Fishhook Road across to Hatcher Pass and eventually over to the Glenn Highway and back home through Palmer.

Hatcher Pass is very scenic. The road through there is considerably slower, unpaved and full of switchbacks as you make your way up and over the pass. It provides some great photographic opportunities.

For lunch, we had all packed our own and we stopped to eat on the banks of Willow Creek near its confluence with Deception Creek. As we ate we saw some salmon making their way up stream.

As we looked at several state land parcels we came across lots of wild blueberries. They seem a little early this year, but that didn't stop us from foraging. Yum! In addition there were salmonberries and crowberries. Hopefully we'll get a nice supply this year! Looks and tastes good so far. On Monday, we'd come across wild raspberries too.

Flowers and The Bush

More gorgeous Anchorage flowers. I took a few more photos on my lunch time stroll today. There are just so many flowers in that Town Square Park!



We went to a nursery and bought some flowers to plant near the end of the driveway over the weekend. There are a couple of garden spots surrounded by rocks that were previously just full of weeds and grass.

Tess and I swung by the nursery in Eagle River on our way home from church and bought 84 little plants to liven up the driveway. It was raining on Sunday so the ground was nice and moist. We spent the hour and a half nap-time of Alicia May to turbo-plant all 84 flowers into the little gardens.

Tomorrow I'm headed back to The Bush. This time we'll be in the Willow Area scoping out more state land to possibly be classified as settlement lands.

Big Lake & Houston

I did my first field review today. We spent 8 hours tromping around state lands seeing what might work well for settlement land. Needless to say, we found some beautiful sites.

Today's trip focused on the Big Lake and Houston areas. Both are about an hour drive north of Anchorage up the Parks Highway.

Houston was named after Sam Houston (as was that other Houston, I believe). Big Lake was named for... well... the big lake that's there. :o)

We'll be going out again on Thursday to look around the Willow area. That's just to the north of where we were today. Depending on accessibility, we may take ATV's or more than likely, just do the truck and hoof-it mode of transport. I think DNR only has 3 ATV's to use for this type of excursion and 5 of us are doing these reviews.

6 Years and Counting

Yesterday was our 6th anniversary. We spent the afternoon yard saling... just the two of us. Awwww.... so romantic!

But honestly, it was relaxing and fun.

After that, we had reservations for dinner at Simon & Seafort's in Anchorage which is a little fancy and serves great seafood. Our reservation was at 8pm in hopes of seeing the sun drop at least a little lower over the Cook Inlet. We saw a barge or two drift by as we enjoyed our seafood brochette and crab & macadamia nut stuffed halibut.

Both before and after dinner we strolled around downtown Anchorage. All in all it was a very pleasant anniversary.

Bear in the Bush

Our teens have an endless list of excuses for why they can't do their assigned chores. It's either "the lawn mower's out of gas" or "there's a bear in the bushes". Whatever!

Okay, so we had one little black bear in the bushes. It's not like he wasn't preoccupied with our sack of garbage. He probably wouldn't even have noticed Tess cleaning out the van. Slackers, I tell you!

Well, the bear finally lost interest in our trash and moved on to smellier pastures. Our trash barrel now sports a bear tooth puncture wound. Other than that, it's just one more wildlife story to add to our repertoire.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a good photo. All I could see were two black pointy ears bobbing up and down above our bushes as he ripped away at the trash bag. At to be honest, at the time, I was more concerned with getting the baby and pets into the house than with augmenting the scrapbook... Sorry.

Anchorage in Bloom

Anchorage is full of blossoms in the summer time. The city really goes all out to fill the public spaces with colorful flowers. These flowers are all in Town Square Park which is in downtown Anchorage, just a block from my office building. [Does this new camera I got for Mommy's Day take awesome photos or what??]

At lunch time, the park is generally full of people either taking a break from work or relaxing on their Alaskan vacation. I like to breeze through there on my lunch hour walk to mingle with travelers and see what’s going on.

Yesterday there was a big crowd in the park as they kicked off the World Eskimo Indian Olympics (WEIO). They had demonstrations of some of the events and also the contestants for this year’s Miss WEIO. The Olympics are being held in the Sullivan Arena for the next 4 days. You can read more about it at www.adn.com/weio.

Fishing and Fast Wheels

There’s lots going on in Alaska these days… Where to begin? Last week, Donald spent 4 days dip netting for salmon down on the Kenai Peninsula with his friend Rick and Rick’s dad (also named Rick). The Ricks live down the street from us. Both Donald and the younger Rick are computer game junkies. But apparently they’re not averse to the occasional fishing trip. They returned on Saturday, at which time the older Rick invited Stephen to join him Sunday for a subsequent fishing trip. This one would use his ocean-going fishing boat out of Seward. They left around 5am Sunday morning and Stephen crawled into bed at 1:30am this morning. He had a splendid time.




He took my camera with him and captured some great scenery and interesting fish specimens. Our freezer is now stocked with salmon, red snapper, rockfish, and halibut. Apparently he missed getting a photo of the giant cod which was attempting to eat the bass he was in the process of reeling in. It was at that same moment that the fish police showed up and began harassing them about catching too many red snappers, etc…. But he seems to enjoy retelling the “cod-that-got-away” story…

In other news, the Sadler’s Ultra Challenge is underway. This is the longest wheelchair race anywhere. Wheeled competitors race from Fairbanks to Anchorage. They started this weekend and should arrive in Anchorage by next Saturday I think… This is like the Iditarod of the wheelchair world. Why it’s in Alaska, I’m not sure. Maybe because we have good summer temps (no heat wave!), lots of daylight and fairly uncrowded roads which are easy to commandeer.

I believe you can follow the racers at http://www.challengealaska.org/.

Bear Paw Festival

We started off the day with the Grande Parade. This year's Bear Paw Festival theme was Pirates of the Bear-a-bean. So the parade was full of pirates...

Later we watched the Slippery Salmon Olympics. Two-person teams race to maneuver an obstacle course while carrying a salmon and a tray with a cup of soda on it... Things get pretty messy quick!


Alicia May had a great time on the pony ride. Her steed was named Ringo. She had a nice 5 minute ride around the pony wheel.



After consuming lots of fair food including a burger, funnel cake, corn fritters and an ice cream bar, Tess took some chances at dunking one of our State reps in the dunking booth. No luck, but I got a good photo!

The weather was iffy all day... it rained on and off. But for the most part, it wasn't too bad, and it didn't seem to deter the crowds!

Bear Paw & the Cat's Eye

The Bear Paw Festival is taking place in Eagle River this weekend. We went to the carnival briefly this evening with Alicia May. She enjoyed a couple of rides and then we partook of the "free ride" in the neighboring playground.

There's a Grande Parade on Saturday followed in the afternoon by a Slippery Salmon Olympics... or something like that.

We'll be back in Eagle River for the festivities on the weekend.

Tomorrow afternoon we'll be bringing the kitty back to the eye specialist for a recheck. He's doing pretty well. His eye looks MUCH better and he seems back to normal for the most part.

Moving?

We've had a pretty productive weekend. Instead of going down to Girdwood for the Forest Fair, we decided to tackle the boxes in our room which have been there since we moved in a year ago.

We started with 14 unpacked boxes in our room. I think there are about 4 left which have not been sorted into: keep, donate, trash. The "keep" stuff is being further sorted into: storage & use now. We brought several large garbage bags full of stuff to the thrift store yesterday. We've also come up with lots of "trash" to get rid of.

We've also been putting some thought into where we'll be residing this coming year. Our 12-month lease is up on August 1. Our landlords want either a renewed 12-month lease or for us to find some place else to live.

We've checked out some rentals in Eagle River as well as some houses for sale. We found one today that is for sale and is in our price range. The trick would be to work with the home equity in our Virginia house to come up with a down payment here. Either that, or refinance the Virginia house with a conventional loan so we could use our VA-loan on this Alaska house.

Our plan is to call a lending agent tomorrow to see what she can work up for us. I'll keep you posted.

4th of July

Happy Independence Day!

We've been whipping up these star sugar cookies for the last couple of days. I took a batch into work yesterday. The rest we've been munching on ourselves.

We went to the Independence Day celebration in Eagle River last night. I guess it's the biggest event in Eagle River all year. It's held on the 3rd of July because it doesn't get dark enough to shoot off fireworks until after midnight. So they have a carnival with games, live bands, food and a beer garden all evening and then do the fireworks just as the 4th of July begins. It works out great.

There were tons of people at the Lions Park in Eagle River for the celebration. I think every teen in town was roaming around with their pack of buddies. It's a nice way for them to all get together during the summer as well.

Stephen, Alicia, and I strolled around while Alicia played some of the kiddie games. We listened to the bands and checked out the historic military vehicles. All the while we were dodging pre-teens with cans of silly string shooting each other...

We stopped and bought our own can of silly string to douse our teens with when we located them. Each was told to pose for a photo while Stephen got into position with the silly string tucked up his shirt sleeve. On the count of 3, I snapped the photo while Stephen zapped them with the string.

Good, clean, family fun... :o)

Red Shirt Lake

We spent Friday evening packing our backpacks in preparation for the 3-mile hike the next day.

Woke up Saturday morning... Crap, it's raining!

I knew I forgot to check something.

Plan B: Unpack bags and repack with rain in mind. This essentially meant ditching the swimsuits and sunscreen and replacing them with towels, rain ponchos, and large black garbage bags. And off we went!

As it turned out, it stopped raining before we got to the Nancy Lakes Recreation Area, about 45 minutes from the house. It was raining when we woke up this morning, but again, it stopped just before we started the return canoe trip and didn't start up again until our return hike was completed. Perfect!

The hike each way was actually pretty pleasant. We were each laden down, but not ridiculously so. And upon further thought, we figured we'd brought pretty much what we needed without much extra or deficit.

The trail takes an up-and-down path through the woods with some nice vistas of distant lakes and hills.


The canoe journey across the lake was nice. It took us a little while to find the cabin on the far shore. But we had our GPS unit with us and after a while, remembered we had the coordinates for the cabin as well. So we did eventually find it!

It's a beautiful, peaceful spot. Absolutely no sign of other human life except the occasional small airplane flying over. Red Shirt Lake is large enough for floatplanes to use for landing and taking-off. There are a few private cabins on the lake along with the 4 public use cabins. There are also a few islands in the middle of the lake. Two of the PUC's are on islands. So if you want to feel like you have your own private island, you might rent one of those!


We roasted some marshmallows in the evening and played some cards. Then we went to bed around 10:30, after tacking up towels over some of the windows to block out the midnight sun. I got up around 12:20am to close the window and snapped a photo of a beautiful red sunset.

I'll add some additional photos to our Dropshots page which you can get to via the link on the side there.