The Visit 3: Further from Home

Family outing to Russian Falls, probably the only day with blue skies.

Nova's fantastic rack

A little heads up at Alyeska, no biggieAll of us posing at Exit Glacier. Let's see, can we guess who spent a winter in Alaska?



























The bar in Moose Pass. Where I fall out of my chair completely sober
and my friends laugh at me. What else would they do?
And they have interesting reminders above the bar.












More Russian Falls...

More Glaciers...


















And the best of all.... "You're TALL!" I swear I'm standing up hill!


















I don't have photos of the debauchery that was our 4th of July in Homer and that is a damn shame (maybe not) but we were all over the place and had a great time. Someday I'll post about the Portage mishap, still haven't talked about the halibut trip or the Alaska Tobacco Fest. Soon.

PO Box 843 is Empty

Yes, I am still working on the last installment of the friends visit. Posting that many pictures is painful. However, I have something to address in the meantime. On my birthday (Aug. 2nd for those of you who might have forgotten) I got all the requisite family birthday calls and was assured more than once that my package was in the mail. Here it is August 24th and I'm still staring into the depressing depths of an empty mailbox. Day after day, empty and mocking. Just wanted to throw that out there. Like you have lives or other things on your minds or something...

Shout out to The Brother, for keepin it real and not getting my hopes up in the first place.

Detox

Last night while silver fishing I told my friend I was going to start a detox diet today. This morning I was taking the last bite of my sweet and salty "granola bar" before I even realized I was eating it.

I eat pretty healthily regularly and I definitely don't want to loose weight but I would like to cut out all the processed crap and see if I feel any better. More energy, blah,blah,blah.

I know I have been a terrible blogger lately but I'm staying at a place with much faster tubes now so things should get better. (click here to understand the tubes reference Thank you, Ted!) Also, this morning I was inspired by this blog to be more positive and take another look at the simple things. Plus, Anonymom says I curse too much so I'll try to detox here as well and be more ladylike but we all know that's never been my thing.

Visit 2: Close to Home

Cute, independent "Enchanted Forrest" Tea Shop that big sister would die over.

Or maybe I've been in Alaska too long?

They had hats and tea for "ladies and pirates".
My split personalities like the tea.



Pull Tabs!! Alaska's (and Washington's) answer to gambling. Really not fun at all, except when you're with J-Lo and Nova.









Training the dogs with their "bird". It's covered in duck piss and they go ape shit for it.






Hip waders were a fascinating novelty for the girls. We do look hot in them.


















This Mama and her three babies were hanging out in the neighborhood. Made dog walking interesting.













These (and much more) are all in the house and kinda freaked the girls out a bit. Not sure what the origin of the Deborah the Zeborah joke was, all I know is that the zebra photo shoot was made mandatory.

Next post- The Visit 3: Further From Home, Out in Nature and
How Not to End a Perfect Vacation.

Happy Birthday To Me

1 year old (i think) covered in chocolate frosting and earning my nickname. I don't think I've ever liked a big fuss for my birthday, too much attention. I'm not sure, Anonamom or the sibs could prove me wrong. But here are the last few of my way bitchin' birthdays:
29 in Yosemite with family. For years I spent Aug. 2 in Maine and this year it felt good to be with my family. (But I heart my Maine family too!) There had been a big fire but it cleared just for my birthday.30- had a huge party (aka-big fuss! but it was ok because I didn't have to organize it AND I was leaving for a long time) Packed up the car and left for Alaska, celebrated Aug.2 in Oregon with my birthdaymate.











Today I am 31. I didn't plan or announce and still, my birthday turned out perfectly. Sunshine for the first time in weeks, fishing for salmon, gathering fireweed for jelly and lunch with my lady friends. Tomorrow I get to celebrate all over again with dinner and cake made just for me and later in the week, probably a fancy going-out dinner. I may be far from home but my birthday is still being celebrated by good friends and is still a reminder of another awesome year. People think birthdays after 29 are scary but when you actually like your life the only thing to say is still:

Visit 1

I can't post anything because the internet is so fucking slow that I get halfway through it and need to be somewhere. So, here are some photos from the first day. There are more and text to go with them but I'm meeting some friends to gather fireweed for jelly and possibly go fishing.

Now that I'm done whining and gathering fireweed, I will elaborate. I was going to try to do a day to day narrative of all the stuff we did but I really can't keep the days straight. I know the first day we had breakfast at Snow City and walked on the Coastal Trail in Anchorage. Then we had an epic REI visit where I bought my new Aethos 70 Osprey BadAss Backpack. Then...

We rode the tram to the top of the Alyeska ski range where you can see something like 7 glaciers and can actually pay $295 to paraglide down. None of us had that kind of money but....
J-lo has that kind of balls. She really wanted to and ended up regretting not doing it but she was in Peru weeks later probably happy to have the 300 bucks.

You can see these pools from the tram. They were left after the glacier moved through and are up to 30ft deep. Really makes me wonder what could be living in there.

This sign is posted and the end of the tram were all the skiers would gather and it cracks me up.

There was also a little museum/visitor center up there with some gold panning exhibit. After Alyeska we went into the town of Girdwood were they were having the North Forrest Fair. It was a hippie paradise with all handcrafted goods, two entertainment stages, local beer and delicious food, all tucked into a lush green forrest. Very cool but kind of a hippie overload. Then...
We drove to lovely Hope were we saw the sights (there's about 2) and had some really good food and pie at Tito's. I'm not really sure why I love Hope but I still love it.Maybe it's the scenery. Ok, off to go fishing again.