Friday, July 30, 2010

Happy Birthday Don (Under)

Every day at work since 7/27 I have remembered Don's birthday as I write the date on something. I finally remembered when I was at home. It is easy to remember because it is exactly one month after Becky's.
Sorry we will miss you before you go down under. I envy you that trip. You really must take photos, and hold the camera upside down so the pictures will be right side up when they get here.
Karin, look for fabric. Peggie will send money.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Salmon Are Running!

And that means: eagles, bear(s), people (and their dogs) and bugs! Bill goes bear "hunting" over in Dyea pretty frequently. We both worked late yesterday and took the night off. We decided to drive over tonight and we were rewarded with salmon, a whole bunch of eagles and a grizzly bear. He entertained us for quite a while. We watched an eagle family too--mama, papa and two babies. While the babies looked very big their coloring was quite mottled and their heads were mostly brown with a few white highlights. As we were leaving we saw an eagle perched on a stump by the water and one up in a tree (probably the closest we've seen) and they were calling back and forth. We didn't get to see their babies but I'll bet they were close by.

We've had a few great weather days and are expecting a few more so it will be a while before we get more pictures posted. We're too busy playing while the sun shines and will wait for the next cloudy day to upload albums. It will probably be this weekend.

Here's a sample from tonight:




Monday, July 26, 2010

Return from Haines.

Frequent readers are by now used to our plans changing. We intended to ferry back last night, but enjoyed the drive over so much, we decided to drive back. So we left at about noon and got home around seven thirty. The drive is beautiful in both directions, and not hard to do. The section of Alaska Highway between Whitehorse and Haines Junction is as rough as any we remember from the '95 trip. But the road to Haines is in excellent condition, even the ten miles currently being improved. Blogger is balking at uploading photos right now, so we will try again later.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Happy Anniversary to Us!


We're taking off first thing in the morning (notice I didn't say 'first light') and driving over to Haines. It's 359 miles by road, most of which we haven't driven and then 15 miles on the ferry coming home Sunday night. We're staying at a hotel that used to be the Fort Seward Officer quarters. The weather is expected to be cloudy and rainy but that's okay--It's A Road Trip!

Rain but no wind!

The wind was howling yesterday afternoon and evening but sometime during the night the rain came. This is what I found this morning:



It's pretty rare to have so little or no wind.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

FAQs Vol. 1

This is the first in a series of Frequently Asked Questions blog entries.
Q. What do you do in the evenings?
A. Tonight we wasted two hours trying to get pictures from wherever they are stored, into a place where I could put them into an album to post on the blog. I began the process innocently enough, believing that we had downloaded the photos into an easily accessible folder. When I got frustrated, Peggie took over. Peggie clicked here and there, opening and closing windows, moving photos on and off of a flash drive trying to get them into an easily accessible folder. Maybe she succeeded. I lost interest as soon as I realized this was not going to be a simple process. I still have a fear of doing anything on a computer that I haven't done before. So now Peggie has gone to the library and I am left with the computer, but now I am too tired to create a photo album from photos that may or may not be in an easily accessible folder. So you all will have to wait to see all the interesting photos we have stored somewhere on the computer. Perhaps when we return from our 40th anniversary trip to Haines this weekend, we will have time to try again. We will have even more interesting photos by then.
By the way, we are going to drive the 359 miles to Haines, then catch the ferry for the 15 mile return trip by water. But we heard today that the ferry dock in Haines is damaged. So maybe we will have to drive both ways. Hope not.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

'cause it's a small town


Hello, you've reached the Carcross Volunteer Fire Department.
Our mission is to assist you in all your emergency situations.
All of our volunteers are either assisting in another emergency, or are at their regular jobs.
Your call is important to us and may be monitored for quality control purposes.
Please listen closely to the following menu, as our options have recently changed.
If you are calling for assistance in a medical emergency, please press 1.
If you are calling to report a fire, please press 2.
If you need to speak to an operator, please run over to Henry's house and pound hard on the door.
Or, you could just run around town shouting "FIRE!" as loudly as you can.
Thank you for calling the Carcross Volunteer Fire Department