Wild Alaska-Day 4 & 5

When we were in college our favorite TV show was "Northern Exposure." (You can hear the theme song on my playlist if you want.) It was a really quirky show about Joel Fleishman, a New York doctor who is contractually bound to practice in remote Cicely, AK (a fictional town) for 4 years to repay his school loan from the state. The show's plot was centered on the differences between Joel's urban neuroses and the eccentricities of the residents of Cicely. I often wondered if Alaska was really like that. From what I could gather, life in Alaska is unique in and of itself. But Fairbanks (and I'm sure Anchorage) is pretty much like any town in the lower 48--Wal Mart, Old Navy, KFC, Taco Bell. However, our visit to Chitina (pronounced Chit-na) confirmed that there really are places like Cicely from "Northern Exposure!" Here are some shots of the local "color."

This building was actually occupied!


You can't really see it, but this truck had a bunch of antlers across the top rack--if you're in the market for Alaska Antler Art, call this guy.

Everyone must REALLY be into coffee in AK, because there are espresso stands everywhere (kinda like Snow Shacks or Rainbo Snow). This van was like an ice cream truck for coffee fanatics. It drove around our campsite several times a day.

My personal favorite . . . as you can see there is a lot of civic pride in this town.

The collapsed building in the background has a ghost painted on it. Dallin said some kids painted ghosts on a lot of the buildings back in the 70s as a practical joke, and many of them are still there. I guess this building hasn't seen a new coat of paint in a while!

This beaut was for rent. I was a little skeptical since the front grill was being held on with bungee cords--upside down.

We headed back to Paul's house on the 4th day (a six hour drive). Tammy was flying in that day at 4:00 pm and Andrew was getting home from Scout camp. What a sight for sore eyes. Civilization! Flush toilets! Running water (if we didn't run out)!

Here is Paul and Elisabeth's home. That big blue cube is one of the tanks they use to haul water to the house. Yep, you read that right. They have to put the tank in the truck, drive to the Water Wagon and fill it up. Then they drive home and pump the water into their holding tank downstairs.

Their place is practically a farm. They sit on 3 acres, have 4 dogs, a gaggle of geese, ducks, chickens and a huge garden.

We hung out on Saturday and went to church on Sunday. After church some of their friends came over for dinner, and we celebrated Andrew's 13th birthday with blueberry-rhubarb pie (and Elisabeth made Dallin a chocolate mousse pie too). Oh, and salmon dip--we just couldn't get enough of that fresh salmon.

Wild Alaska-Day 2

Wow am I behind! I have started a new job, and even though it is only part-time I am trying to adjust to not having as many hours at home to do whatever I want! I hope this job will help me use my time more wisely (yeah right). Since I had so much time to myself, I didn't make the best use of it. Now I have to prioritize what's most important--and scrapbooking is not as high on the list as I would like! Reading isn't as high either, but I still have been doing a bit of both. Gotta keep chipping away... ;) I have discovered that I STILL don't like making dinner, and working just makes it worse. I am so bad at avoidance behavior--like sitting here blogging instead of figuring out what to make my family for dinner.

Here are some more pages from our Alaska trip. The second day we finally arrived at Chitina, set up camp, and Mike and Paul did some fishing. It's really cool that you can be out doing stuff at midnight and not have it be dark. It was a little different not having fireworks on the Fourth though.

You can see the big bluff where the Chitina and Copper Rivers merge. We camped just to the left of that. The wind was crazy there, and that bluff is made of sand and silt, so you can imagine how gritty everything was. Mike and Paul were filthy after fishing in the wind and the ATV ride. I hiked to the tip of that bluff with my nephew Dallin. It was pretty awesome, except the wind and sand wrecked havoc on my contacts!

Mike's goal for our trip was to learn how to gut fish--he'd never really done it before. Well, he got his lesson, as you can see.

Fresh salmon for dinner!