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| A Hike in DNP |
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| Flowers in Denali |
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| Denali Bloom |
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| Denali Flowers |
Saturday. 27. We had a cool, but not cold night in the camper with no auxillary heating needed. We slept until about 7am and got up from the warm bed easily into the fairly warm camper. It had started raining, and we both have a raincoat handy to go in and out to the outhouse. We had dressed and finished breakfast by 8am. We are into a bit of a routine that’s working for us. It’s about the same time to do all this in a regular living place where we have our organization in place. The big difference is that Darrell has been cooking pancakes more often since we don’t have a microwave for reheating leftovers. We have had a portion of cooked pancakes left so after two days of cooking, we had enough left over pancakes to reheat them in a skillet one at a time for our big breakfast meal. We’ve spent a lot of time reading here. I started reading another book left in the camper by our host. It’s called: Alaska Women Write. It’s the 2003 edition of unique short stories of living in Alaska. Some of the stories have made me laugh and also consider and learn more about this odd frontier. Around 10am we left for the little tourist town of Denali. We went to the Black Bear Coffee cafe. The weather is overcast and sprinkled a little on us on the way. It was raining at the coffee shop and noone was sitting outside. We ordered coffees and each picked a pastry. Darrell got the pecan coffee cake square and I got a thick slice of sweet potato ginger cake. We were lucky to get a table and sat enjoying our sweet brunch with wifi. I got a couple of Denali tees for our grandsons. We drove out to mile 15 at the Savage River, but there were no parking spaces so we did a quick walk at Savage Cabin and then back to Denali for lunch. After lunch, we saw a short film at the Bus depot which we walked into by mistake. We had gone back there to the Depot gift shop for Darrell to decide on a tee shirt he’d looked at a few days before. He bought it and then we went to do a trail around Horseshoe lake. Once we walked that trail where we saw beaver dams and a moose in the lake, we headed back to Denali for another snack before heading the 30 minutes back to our camper. The weather remained mild in the 60’s today and mostly cloudy. We’re making a package of dry soup mix for dinner with toasted cheese sandwiches.
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| Road North to Fairbanks through Nenana |
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| Roadwork on the High Mountain Ridge about 30 minutes from Fairbanks |
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| The Road to the Church in West Fairbanks, near to the airport. Google took us the long way around because it had not yet acknowledged completed roadworks! Ugh! lol. |
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| Arrived to Chena Small Tracks church |
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| Inside the church we met many new friends. |
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| Picture from the Car and Mountain Ridge Where the Roadwork is a Slowdown Getting in and Out of Fairbanks to Denali and Anchorage. |
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| Nice Clouds today! |
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| Stormy in Our Driving South Toward Our Healy Camper. |
Sunday. 28. Drove a couple hours to Fairbanks for morning worship. Met with Chena Tracks church of Christ. Really good sermon and class. We enjoyed meeting with the group with all of their many children! We went out for lunch and ended up at a Japanese Steakhouse. We had an excellent meal! Mine was really good salmon. Not every salmon meal during our stay in Alaska has been recommended unfortuately. We drove 2 hours back to our camper for our lst night. We are so happy that our roughing it adventure is coming to an end! Lol.
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| One More DNP Hike Before We Make Our Move to Fairbanks on Monday. |
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| Savage River Loop was Cold Today! and Wet. |
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| We Were With Many Others on the Trail Today. |
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| Savage River DNP |
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| Arrive to Our Fairbanks Airbnb/Cabin |
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| We Are All Moved In Quickly |
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| Back Porch. |
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| Roomy Bathroom on First Floor |
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| One of Two Identical Bedrooms on the Second Floor. |
Monday. 29. Enjoyed our regular breakfast in our camper and packing up to leave. We were pulling out by 9am. We went to Denali park for another hike. The weather is cold and raining. We stopped and had a cup of coffee at Black Bear coffee cafe. Next we drove to the visitors center and waited for the Savage River bus to take us to mile 15 and the walk by the river there. Today there were a lot of people coming for this hike, even though it was quite cold and raining. We were all passing each other on the trail and stepping through muddy straits. We got back to our car at the parking lot after a couple of hours. We went to the tourist town for a lunch of a chili dog and a burger. Next we took off for Fairbanks on our two hour drive. Once in that place, we had to wait until 5pm for our airbnb which is a later than usual 3 or 4pm checkin. We went shopping at Fred Meyer, another name for Kroger. Arrived to our two bedroom cabin airbnb at 5pm, moved in. Made chicken soup for dinner with some crackers and cheese. We slept great. Both of us were exhausted.
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| Bird Refuge with Walking Trails. Darrell's Picture. |
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| Darrell's Picture of a Migratory Bird at the Old Dairy Sanctuary in Fairbanks. |
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| I Got a Good Chuckle and Bought this Sticker |
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| Talking to Quinn in Moscow with Our Son Jeremy, and Momma Off-Screen |
Tuesday. 30. Back to our regular exercise routine. It’s ab day. Then we made our regular big breakfast. 10 am is our online class with Tunbridge Wells church in England. Darrell is teaching this class in 2 weeks on his rotation. We had some internet connectivity issues but were able to use a phone for connection. Darrell texted our host about our issues. Later in the day he came by with a Starlink portable connection for us. It’s improved. His hope is to get the wifi company out to fix their problems and quit telling him that there’s nothing wrong with it.
Wednesday. 1. Around 11am we went to the local farmer’s market for lunch. It is a beautiful day. The prices are still seeming so high to us. We ate at the market. The food was very good quality but lunch was about $40 for both of us. We went to a nature preserve to walk the paths and see the small museum in an old house of a former dairy farm. We discussed our issues about our perceptions on prices. At 7pm we were at the church for mid-week Bible class. We met more people than on Sunday and I added some names and stories to my notes and prayers.
Thursday. 2. Today Darrell called Celebrity cruise lines about our failed cruise in May and if we could get our full ticket refund as promised at the dock with a printed letter from the shore team. We were on the phone for about 2 hours and the conclusion was no, they had paid all that they were going to pay and our cruise fare was forfeited or covered by the insurance policy that we had purchased through our agent, not through Celebrity. Darrell asked for documentation to be sent with the information that we had gone over. This is so tedious, but now he’s taking the current documentation and going back to our insurance policy and applying again. If this works to recover our $2500 cruise tickets, then great! If not, then he’s going to apply to our credit card travel insurance for coverage. After this, I think it will be the end and a loss. Through this legal goblety-gook we have decided to book direct with companies and to use their offered insurance. After all this, Darrell just wanted to chill, think and read. I went to a health food store to find a few things for my toenail fungus that is improving, but promised to be a long haul of 6-12 months! After dinner and reading time: Popcorn and continuing on with the current HomeTown ‘We’re in this Together’, with the big investment in Laurel, Mississippi and following that story! Makes our stuff look small and manageable. Lol.
Friday. 3. Morning phone call with my friend Laura. Some texts back and forth with daughter-in-law, Andrea in Moscow. Pictures of our grandson Quinn at their zoo and their neighborhood’s free carousel! After lunch we went to Costco and bought big amounts of a few items that we will be eating regularly at really great prices. Pork tenderloin, lean ground beef, greek yogurt, frozen mixed berries, bananas, and Tillamook cheese block, Then we stopped and finished off our list at Fred Meyer otherwise known as Kroger. Thawing meat to grill out hamburgers tonight is our dinner plan. Probably popcorn and more Home Town tonight. Catch up with our kids on a call to Moscow via Whatsapp and see what’s up with Quinn, and his parents Jeremy and Andrea.
Nomad Notes:
More conversations now about Alaska and our time here being a challenge for us. 1. It’s not enamoring us. We each have a different perspective on our less than stellar response to Alaska. We are here for the length and the trip we have planned. We are good with living together and enjoying what we can. We have definitely had some highlights while here. I sort of feel wrong to not be all excited and ‘rah-rah’ about this, but I am where I am. I’m learning to be ok when I’m less than ok. I’ve had to accept that Darrell has his own discontent from his perspective. So some of my conclusions are that my life is overall content and having this discontent is survivable! lol. I carry on with the banners of we are so well and it’s a wow to just be here and have this opportunity. The scenery, the people and the place is great, even amazing! I’m grateful, and yet I come across as ungrateful to myself when I know that I do not belong here, especially in the winter. I’ve been on 3 previous cruises, a soft way to travel and a shorter investment in time. I’ve come far away from what is familiar to me in our ‘triangle driving’ between our family east of the Mississippi in Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee, then leading past the Mississippi to Texas, and more. I’ve had a lot of thinking time. I’m working to show up and be thankful in all things. I’m truly grateful for everyday and remembering my spiritual focus and practice daily.
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