#300 Nomad Diary. 18-24 July 2026. Our Summer in Alaska at Week 11. 4th of 5 Weeks in Fairbanks. My Favorite Brownie Recipe.

 

Kate Wattum, at Tanana Farmer's Market in Fairbanks with Her Amazing Alaskan Fibers! Her Business is Coyote Trail Farm and Fiber Mill.

I Purchased These All Alaskan Wool Threads from Kate to Send to My Friend Amber. I'm Pretty Sure that She Will Appreciate It!

I Like This Creative Use of Old License Plates.

Beautiful Screenshot of Granddaughter Esther and Her Smile

Back Again to the Botanical Garden. The Flowers Have Continued to Grow!

Flower Pictures at Botanic Garden. Makes Me Happy.

Peony at Botanic Garden, Fairbanks

A Tiny Flower Close Up Picture

Beautiful Fast Growing Flower Garden at the Botanical Garden, Fairbanks

Saturday. 18. Went to our local farmer’s market today and found some all Alaskan wool yarn!! Made into thread and hand-dyed by this amazing fiber woman, Kate Wattum. I have a friend, Amber, sister to our daughter-in-law, who I want to send some of Kate’s amazing wool to. I selected several colors and skeins to mail to Amber. I took a picture of Kate and she gave me a homemade goat milk ice cream bar before I left. Her business is Coyote Trail Farm and Fiber. This crafty and knowledgeable woman was amazing to me, and the products she was making and selling are amazing, especially at the prices she was asking!! Everything seems so inflated in price from one year ago, food, travel stays, gas, etc, and Kate is selling her beautiful products at very reasonable prices.

Sunday. 19. Friend, William, from church came over to our place for a taco lunch. He moved here from Texas 16-17 years ago so tacos work for him. It’s fairly common to find people here with a Texas connection. 

Monday. 20. We spent our morning travel planning. We had some airline tickets, and airbnb and booking.com properties to decide on for our next three months of travel. Mainly we are working to coordinate some dates and stays in England with our friend Hazel there. She offered to meet up or drive us and travel together for a week in England. We got some of that booked and determined today. We still have some more loose ends and dates and bookings, but we also got loads completed. I mailed a package of Kate’s Alaska wool to Amber and I’m excited for her to get it and see what she thinks. I went to an acupuncture appointment for my infected toes and the doctor didn’t want to treat me. I was disappointed because I love having a nap during an acupuncture appointment, but I left and came back home. I have a podiatrist appointment next week. Meanwhile, I’ll keep treating my toes with over the counter products. After dinner today we drove over to the Botanical garden and took a short walk through the flowers. 

At Fairbanks Dairy Reserve Walk

At Fairbanks Dairy Reserve Walk

At Fairbanks Dairy Reserve Walk

Bird Picture by Darrell at Fairbanks Dairy Reserve Walk

Tuesday. 21. I talked to my sister Linda today. She had recently taken an Alaskan cruise with some of her family and also with our sister, Annette’s family. I got the details about what she did and found out that her souvenir was a pair of whale tail earrings and a wood carving of a tail too.  Enjoyed our online Bible class today. Went out for lunch and to Walmart. Later in the afternoon I was ready to go out for ice cream. This is unlike me, but I figured part of it was the warm weather and other part is my building boredom with hanging out in our cabin. Cabin fever maybe. Darrell is always ready for ice cream and he jumped up to go quick. After we had ice cream at a local place with a long line and patio seating, we went to the Dairy reserve for a walk around there. Then we came back to our cabin and a little later grilled out burgers for dinner. 

Wednesday. 22. We were up and exercising by 7am. There was some nice rain during the night that I enjoyed hearing, and felt the coolness from our open windows. We spent some time after breakfast booking our excursions for our Oceana cruise in November. We were informed that we had a time limit on using our on-board credit and needed to get our tours booked. We selected 3 tours, including a Volcano landscape walk in the Canary Islands, a Rainforest walk on another Canary Island, and also a Rainforest tour in Puerto Rico. 

Thursday. 23. It’s rainy weather and the temperature is dropping from our high of 80 two days ago to 55 today. We think that our 80 degree day was summer! We made soup for lunch. I’m sitting around with a lap blanket. Darrell keeps Sirius radio playing classical music all day as our background. I ordered Esther’s ‘pink’ birthday gifts. Her dad, our son Eric, says that she is all about ‘pink, pink, pink.’ lol. We went grocery shopping today. I wanted to make brownies and I needed some almond butter for my favorite recipe. I also needed a square baking pan. The aluminum pans were $5-7 for 2 or 3. I only wanted one pan, and I thought that was a high price. We walked back into the housewares section and found a glass baking dish for $5. I bought that one. My brownies turned out delicious. My favorite recipe is below and is a slight variation from one I got years ago from elanaspantry.com.

Friday. 24. Today has been a reading day at our cabin. After lunch, I drove over to the visitors center to watch the “Alone in the Wilderness” film about a 50 year old man. In the 1960’s he built a remote cabin in Alaska and documented it on film and narrated it too. I enjoyed watching the whole hour long movie in the theatre. It’s quite amazing to watch him building the log cabin and see his tool and carving skills. He even builds a stone fireplace! There’s also a few frames in the movie of a wolverine playing on a snowy mountain. 

My Favorite Brownies

Nomad Notes. Wow, 300th Saturday! Since selling our house in September 2020. We have earned our Masters degree in nomad living by this time. Many people ask if or when we will settle and where we will settle? So far, we don’t have a plan to settle down. We are considering to slow down to stay one month in each location, but this has also been difficult and inconsistent with us. It depends on our travel goals as to how long we choose to stay in one place. We are processing several questions for our upcoming 2027 year. Where will we stay and for how long? Some of our stays are because of family and friends and some are because of opportunity to stay and see a place we are interested in being like a coastal town for example. For now we are still nomads and still renting furnished places. Darrell looked at some properties for sale around Huntsville and nearby Tennessee, but he wasn’t interested this time. We are considering that we are still in our ‘go-go’ years and enjoying our opportunities for travel and moving around often.

Airbnb Cancellation: On Thursday I got a note through Airbnb that our upcoming August 3rd, 5 night stay in Copper Center had cancelled. The host sent me a message and said that the property had sold and if I wanted to rebook I could do that with the new owner. Two days earlier, Darrell and I were reviewing that property and wondering if we could tolerate a 5 night stay there because it was one room and a bathroom with a small fridge and a microwave in very rural Alaska. All of that for about 180 a night! So we got online and came up with two properties to choose from and abbreviated our 5 nights to 3 nights. We booked again through airbnb with their $25 bonus for our inconvenience, and the host also gives a 10% military discount and accepted Darrell’s veteran status. So we got a place with a kitchen, a separate bedroom and fewer stairs to climb for less money. So we were able to get through our curve ball, and we’ve had several getting to Alaska and dealing with different property glitches and adventures of sorts. With our 3 night stay, we have requested of our Valdez host to arrive 2 days earlier there. 

While Cyndy was here, she told us about an app called furnishedfinder. We began researching and learning about it. I began an account and read a bunch about how it works. It is very different from Airbnb. It is so different that the properties have a minimum of 30 day stays or more. The comparative cost for what we are used to paying is up to $1000 less per month! We are definitely planning to try out using it. I’ve enjoyed learning about it and seeing how the properties are different from airbnb and vrbo. 

My Favorite Brownie Recipe

Close to a recipe from elanaspantry.com that I’ve been making for decades!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray oil into square 8x8 inch baking dish.

In a medium sized bowl, measure and mix together all of the wet ingredients:

1 cup maple syrup

2 eggs

12 ounces smooth roasted almond butter

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Once all of these wet ingredients are mixed well, add in all of the dry ingredients and mix together.

½ cup dark cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

Stir in ¾-1 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Spread batter into pan and top with ¼ cup toasted slivered almonds or any nut you like (optional)

Bake for 30 minutes. Turn off oven and leave the pan in the oven for another 6-10 minutes. Let brownies cool completely if you can wait. Sometimes I cut them while warm and if they need more time in the oven, I put them back in the cooling oven to keep baking slowly for a few more minutes.

I’ve also used this same recipe with a 16 ounce jar of almond butter and a 9x13 pan.

It always turns out delicious, and people enjoy it.