Alaska According to Marie

This last weekend was the Howling Huskies Festival 2008. It was very nice to spend my weekend there. It was sunny even! I had some good fried bread, some fish chowder and a navajo taco!! Good food. And Gary Simple and the Jacksons were there again. I really like this song that the Jacksons do called "19 months". If I could find it online I would have used it as the musical background for this slide show, but I couldn't find it. If I ever do, I'll come back and add it to the slide show. Gary was the funnest to listen to. I think he listens to a lot of Elvis or just plain ol' southern gospel. He sounded great. He did "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" and really made his guitar sing with it. I recorded that on my phone and if I can find a way to get that to my computer maybe I can add that song for music on the slide show. It's such a fun festival cause its so laid back and you can just tell that everyone is having a good time. We have had it every year up on Lazy Mountain, but this year we had it over at the Willis' place (out Knik-Goose Bay Rd.) in the hangar. I thought the set up was much better.

I have been going back to the Little Su every now and then, determined to get at least one fish out of there before this summer is over. It was a beautiful morning on Saturday and Chris and Karla and the kids went out there with me for a while.

And we went blueberry picking! I have some blueberries in my freezer and am thinking that tonight I might try a new dessert recipe that I've been looking at in the new Alaska cookbook Karla got for me. It looks scrumptious. mmm. It rained on us while we were picking berries. The boys did a great job but there near the end I could tell that they were trying really hard not to get grumpy about being wet and a little cold. Raegan didn't try at all. I'm sure she scared all the bears away for miles and miles, or else she was calling all the bears to us!

Matthew hadn't been out of the valley much since he got here so I thought it would be fun to take a little roadtrip down to Valdez. We stopped and spent some time at Worthington Glacier and took in the scenery at Thompson Pass and Keystone Canyon. It was pretty good weather for the trip and we had a very nice time.

It was the first time Matthew walked around on a glacier, so he was able to mark one off his list.

"I'll just hover around over the ground wondering where I will sit." -A Little Black Raincloud a.k.a Winnie-the-Pooh

The weather and schedules have not been completely accommodating for summer vacation time. It's hard to plan. Most of the things I have done over the past month have been the result of a spontaneous decision to just go play in spite of the weather. Or if the sun breaks through and there are no immediate deadlines, I'll head out and try get a little Vitamin D.

I have been fishing a lot the past couple weeks, waiting for that elusive silver to bite my hook.

Matthew took me on a cool ride up on the Willow side of Hatcher's. The view was fantastic and we had the whole place to ourselves. The only time we passed anyone was right before we left the trail and got back onto the Willow Fishook road. And we were grateful to see people then, because we were really hoping that we were close to the road. The trail was so fun and we saw some really cool stuff, but those swamps took a toll on us when we got down into the lower elevations and we were soaked and running close to empty by the time we saw them. We were so happy to be assured that we weren't lost.

My garden has been fruitful, or rather... veggie-ful. My most recent harvest included a very nice sized head of iceberg lettuce. My poor peas fell prey to some little critters and my cabbage made a nice snack for a passer0by moose (I saw the tracks). My spinach was eaten down to the nubs but that wasn't so heart-breaking since I had just about picked over those completely. So, I have learned a lot about my garden and am making plans for a fortified barrier around the vegetables next year.

Here are a few pictures from the past couple of weeks, with a little musical accompaniment by Lovin' Spooful.