Sunday. 2. I woke up around 5am. The morning routine begins with DDP Yoga’s simplest ‘Energy’ routine that we do 2 times a week. On our other mornings, we do a longer, more intense DDP routine. Have breakfast. This morning we topped our pancakes with our homemade rhubarb, haskap (honeyberry), and strawberry compote! Yum! The morning is a bit overcast, but the forecast is to get into the 70’s today. It is bittersweet for us to say ‘goodbye’ to our church friends that we have been with for 6 Sundays. This is a regular part of our nomad way of life. We make friends in the short term and we enjoy our times of worship, our times of meals and get-togethers, learning about each other's lives, then we move on. I keep a list of contacts and names. I share my blog diary url. I remember the kindness that has been shown and exchanged between us.
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| Our Massive Pancake Breakfast with Rhubarb-Haskap-Strawberry Compote |
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| Moving Day After 5 Weeks at this Fairbanks Airbnb Cabin |
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| Moving Day from this Fairbanks Cabin to Gakona, Alaska |
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| Lunch Stop in North Pole at Saigon Garden. Darrell's Lunch of Tender Pork. |
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| My Lunch at Saigon Garden, North Pole, Alaska. The Chicken Bowl. Very Good. |
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| The Owner's Housemade Pepper Condiment. We Both Loved It! |
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| Clean and Enjoyable at Saigon Garden at North Pole, Alaska |
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| Beautiful Mountain View on this Cloudy, Rainy Day From Fairbanks to Gakona, Alaska |
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| A Most Beautiful Drive Between Fairbanks and Gakona with A Rainy Day |
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| Our Moving Day. South to Gakona, Alaska. |
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| Rainbow Mountain Pull-off. South of Delta Junction, Alaska |
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| Our Rainbow Mountain Picture Stop. South of Delta Junction, Alaska |
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| Grey Skies While Driving Around this Large Lake. South of Rainbow Mountain, Alaska on Hwy 4. |
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| Hwy 4 Construction Zone |
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| Hwy 4 Construction Zone with a Snowy Mountain Ahead |
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| Views on a Clearer Day from Tok Hwy not far from Hwy 4, and Close to Our Airbnb |
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| Views of Wrangell Mountains Near Our Gakona Airbnb Cabin |
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| Cabin #5 is Very Nice. |
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| You Will Enjoy Your Stay Here! We Stayed 3 Nights. |
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Moved Into Our Gakona Cabin.
Monday. 3. Checked out at the conclusion of our 5 week Fairbanks stay. I said good-bye to my friends from this place at the church we attended. I have sadness for leaving friends and our beautiful memories together here. I also have happiness to go forward into our next adventure. Today the weather is rainy. Darrell made pancakes. We cleaned up our place, packed our things, Darrell packed our items into the back of our rental RAV. Eric called and we chatted for about 20 minutes with Him and our grandchildren Owen and Esther. Esther is having her 3rd birthday at the end of this week. Her theme is ‘Rapunzel’ and Eric was explaining his art project of pin the hairbraid onto the tower game. When we checked out of our airbnb, we drove about 15 minutes to Walmart and got some groceries to last us through Thursday morning at our Gakona cabin. Then we drove about another 20 minutes east to North Pole, Alaska. We gassed up and went to lunch at Saigon Garden next to the Safeway grocery store. Lunch was fantastic! The owner cooked amazing meals and had his housemade crushed peppers in a dish on each table. For my personal heat tolerance, this pepper was smokey flavor and a light medium heat. Darrell and I both used it as a flavorful condiment. We got on the road for our drive to Gakona. We made a stop at Delta Junction for a coffee break. On our drive of about 240 miles east and then south on Highway 4 towards Valdez, the weather cleared some, but there were a lot of clouds covering most of the gorgeous, snowy mountain ranges we were driving past and through. Once we left Delta Junction, there were no more service stations or places to stop. There were scenic pull-offs sometimes. We may have shared this road with 50 other vehicles. We drove through a construction zone guided by a leader car. Darrell got a quick couple of pictures as we drove by the newer and improved NWTC, Northern Warfare Training Center, where he did a month of wilderness training at age 20. We arrived to our cabin around 5:30, unpacked and cooked some hamburgers for our dinner. We were pretty tired through the rest of our evening, and decided that the lingering and ongoing smell of gas from the old stove was not good for us. Darrell messaged our host who said that we could sleep in cabin #2. We showered and got ready for bed and walked over to our bedroom cabin. Immediately we liked the clean air smell and went to sleep.
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| Clear Sunny Skies in Gakona, Alaska for Viewing the Wrangell Mountains. |
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| Selfie with Elating Mountain View Near Our Gakona, Alaska Cabin |
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| Mountain Views Like This are Amazing, and Make Us Want More. |
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| Gakona, Alaska Historical Information. |
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| Taxidermy Wolverine at the Glennallen Visitor Center |
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| Taxidermy Lynx at the Glennallen Visitor Center. We Saw Two of These Wildcats When we were at Denali Park on Our Bus Tour |
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| Cute Carvings at Our Gakona Cabins |
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| Down By the River Behind a Gakona Campground |
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Jerry, Our Cabin Host, Brought Us a Sample of His Salmon from the River. He Uses a Salmon Wheel to Collect 500 Fish, His Limit Each Year. The Brown Salmon, He Smoked.
Tuesday. 4. In the morning we came back to our cabin, exercised, had breakfast and spent our morning doing our regular things. I had a call with my sister Linda and then we went online for our e-Bible class with our English church friends. Our hosts are going to come check our smelling gas issue sometime. We are tired even though we would like to go driving around to see some of our views. We had our gas oven turned off in our cabin. The air cleared quickly with our open windows and the breeze. We have an electric skillet that we can cook in as well as a microwave and an outside grill. Our host, Jerry, told us about their campground just up the road that is next to the river. He has a fish catching wheel and he gets a catch limit of 500 fish!! I was astonished and said, ‘you don’t eat 500 fish’? Darrell was asking if he was commercial and sold them? No, it’s some Alaska rule about how you catch and maybe where your property is, etc that sets your limit. With all of Jerry’s extra fish, he gives them to friends. He asked if we like salmon and we do, then he said he would bring us some caught this year for us to grill out. He also brought us some smoked salmon. We drove down to Glenallen and walked through their visitor center and learned more about Valdez and the Wrangle-St. Elias National Park close to here. We went back to our cabin and made dinner. Then we took a walk to Jerry’s campground and down close to the river.
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| Darrell Cutting Our Grilled Salmon |
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| We Feasted on Salmon! |
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| Behind Jerry and Melodye's Campground Which is Down the Road from Their Cabins, There is a Place to Cross Some Side Streams and Get to the River Bank. This is Me Coming Back from Our River Exploring. |
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| We Forded Two Streams, Followed the Truck Tires and Came to the River. We Never Saw Jerry's Salmon Wheel. But We Had a Nice Barefoot Walk! |
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| Putting Socks and Shoes Back On for the Walk Back to Our Cabin |
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| Wildflowers Often |
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| Tiny and Delicious Wild Raspberries |
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| Driving Day to Valdez. This is an Overview South of Glennallen, Alaska. We Parked at a Pullout and Walked Back a Short Way from Hwy 4. |
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| This is Past a Barricaded Road to Keep Cars Out. Obviously, This Used to Be a Road That Has Washed Down the Mountain. View of Wrangell Mountains on this Clear Day. |
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| Visitor Center for Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. There's a Parking Lot, Restroom, Gift Shop, a Movie to Watch, a View of the Mountains, and a Couple of Other Buildings with Displays. |
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| Info About Our View |
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| View From the Princess Copper Center Lodge Where We Ate Lunch |
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| View of Alaska Route 10 Going to Chitina, Alaska. This Road and This View!!! Wow! It Went on For Several Miles with Some Pullouts for Pictures. This is Mt Wrangell. |
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| Mt Wrangell Closer |
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| Valley View Pullout on Rt 10 to Chitina, Alaska |
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| Mt Wrangell Scene on Our Return Drive from Chitina on Rt 10. We Did See a Black Bear Crossing the Road on Rt 10. |
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| Pullout View on Hwy 4 Driving to Valdez. |
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| Pullout View of Worthington Glacier Next to Hwy 4 on the Drive to Valdez. |
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| Worthington Glacier View From Hwy 4 in Alaska |
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| Thompson Pass Hwy 4 on the Way to Valdez |
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| View at Thompson Pass. Hwy 4 Alaska |
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| One of Several Waterfalls on the Drive into Valdez, Alaska |
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| Blue Roof is Our B&B in Valdez, Alaska |
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| Our Suite in Valdez |
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| Views from Our Valdez Room |
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| Common Area at Our B&B |
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View from Our B&B Patio. The Road is Temporary this Year.
Wednesday. 5. Today we stayed in our cabin all morning. We did our morning exercise routine, had breakfast, read, etc. We grilled our gifted salmon for our lunch. The weather is sunny, and warm in the 60’s. Thursday. 6. Drive to Valdez. Pack up and check out of our cabin. Stop at any sights along our 140 mile drive to Valdez.
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| Walking Downtown Valdez, Alaska |
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| Marina in Valdez, Alaska |
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| Marina in Valdez Alaska |
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| Enjoyed Cooking Our Lunch of Salmon Tacos at Our BnB and Eating on the Covered Patio. |
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| View Enlarged of Waterfalls on the Mountainside from Our BnB Patio |
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| A Hill With a View in Valdez, Alaska |
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| Circa 1960 'Chris the Swiss' Doll Made After the Town Mascot at the Time. |
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| Beautiful Afternoon in Valdez, Alaska |
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| On of the Amazing Sculptures at Valdez Port. Made for a Competition in 2018 by an Australian. This Won Third Place. |
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| Valdez, Alaska |
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| Talking on a Call with Our Grandson Quinn (5yrs 11mos) and our Third Son, Jeremy, Daughter-in-law, Andrea is Off-screen. |
Friday. 7. Yesterday we arrived in Valdez. We slept great in this large BnB house, sharing the kitchen and common areas. We are here for 6 nights total. We are so glad we are here. Yesterday was a beautiful clear day to see all the mountains on our drive down, including an added scenic drive- 34miles East and then 34 miles back to Hwy 4. Other stops on the last 20-30 miles into Valdez were a glacier, Thompson Mountain Pass and 2-3 waterfalls beside the highway. The day and the views ranked as one of our most beautiful drives ever! Also very few vehicles sharing the road! We arrived at Valdez around 4pm. The sun stays up late-- after I'm asleep by 10pm. Valdez is surrounded by mountains, and all were in clear view yesterday evening. We left our upstairs screened window open all night with the fresh, cool air. Woke up around 6am and it was silent, cool, no breeze coming down from the cloud covered mountains (yet), and it was wonderful! No road noise or town noises happening. Today in Valdez, it's expected to get to 61 degrees. There's a slight breeze around noon, and it cool enough for me to wear a wool sweater. The cloud cover is lifting with bright blue skies and sunshine. We walked a few blocks to the marina. This weather in this place is quite a treat! The history for weather here is a dry June and July then August begins raining often. It will be interesting to see how the weather is during our week here. Valdez claims the highest snowfall for the US. It is close to Wrangle-St. Elias National Park. On our way here yesterday we stopped at the visitor center and learned that the park is bigger than the country of Switzerland with higher mountains. It also has the greatest concentration of glaciers in North America! Cool. We had beautiful views of some of the most prominent mountains there.
Our day in Valdez was so amazing! We walked into town before lunch and then again after lunch. We spent time in the Old Town Valdez museum and enjoyed the history of the town through a movie and displays. The clouds lifted all through the day with the mountaintops coming out clearly. The closest place I’ve ever been to the way I feel here is the German Alps. It’s sunny, surrounded by mountains, about 60 degrees. In the museum, I discovered that in 1960 the town mascot was Chris the Swiss. I suppose that is because it feels quite like the Swiss Alps here. Wow, I am loving this small town, the scenery and the quiet surroundings. I’m pretty glad that we are late into our Alaskan summer for our time here. The weather is amazing, and this month’s seasonal rain hasn’t yet begun. It could rain while we are here for several days, but today it’s perfect! Our B&B host put our items to fix our own breakfast. We ate what he put out with some of our greek yogurt added for protein. For lunch, we came back to the house and fixed salmon tacos using our left over grilled salmon from our last airbnb host. Dinner was a small salad and sauteed chicken livers. I also had some brownies for dessert from our stash of what I had made while in Fairbanks. We had ice cream in town today too! I thoroughly enjoyed my Chai spiced milkshake!
Nomad Notes: Our last two nights in Fairbanks after a 5 week stay causes some reflections. I have enjoyed the long, long sunshining days! We’ve had more sun than clouds and rain. The weather has added to our enjoyment of getting outside often and enjoying local walks and hikes. We’ve both enjoyed staying in one place for a while. We’ve really enjoyed getting to know the people we attend church with, and becoming familiar with their faces and families. We’ve used some of our sitting still time to plan our upcoming weeks of nomad living and to dream and think about further possibilities. We have nothing particular in mind for our 2027 travels, but we booked a 50 day cruise that begins in January 2028. We’ve discussed our annual budget as well as our tax strategies that we are trying to understand and enact over the next few years as Darrell gets closer to 70, and I’m a few years behind him. This year he is 66 and I will be 62 in Oct. We are ready to move to our next Alaska stay and see what we will see there. I have a lot of gratitude for the friends we have made here and for their encouragement in the faith of God.
Our current breakfast is composed of a higher percentage of protein which has been our focus for almost 2 years now. We’ve gotten into an enjoyable ‘rut’ for breakfast that sets us up for feeling satisfied for several hours. Darrell loves pancakes and has made pancakes for his entire adult life. Our pancake history has changed based on different ingredients and frequency of how often we eat them. For now we eat these every morning that we can.
Saying Goodbye Often. It is bittersweet for us to say ‘goodbye’ to our church friends that we have been with for 6 Sundays. This is a regular part of our nomad way of life. We make friends in the short term and we enjoy our times of worship, our times of meals and get-togethers, learning about each other's lives, then we move on. I keep a list of contacts and names. I share my blog diary url. I remember the kindness that has been shown and exchanged between us. I keep a monthly prayer list that includes the people we meet as we are with them. I’ve only just begun to keep an electronic prayer list by month or by two months. It helps me to know the names of the people that I meet and to think about them and to pray for them and their needs. I am also able to learn and be encouraged by them. This is easier to keep track of when we are with people for more than one week. Often we are only with a church group or meeting others for a short time. I usually want more from my meet-ups with people wherever I am. There are many times, while here in Alaska, people are engaging in conversation with us and asking us where we came from. We are obviously non-locals as we are wearing sweaters and socks. We enjoy conversation but then it ends, and I wanted so much more. I wanted their name, their history of why and how they came here. Then I want to meet their family, etc… We had a couple of very short conversations with local women around the Fairbanks visitors center. I missed learning their names or sharing our names with them, but we enjoyed their volunteer helpfulness to us. We learned a bit more about the woman who owned a bakery we went to more than once. That she went to the Philippines for a family vacation and why she would do that, etc. Turns out her mother is Philippino, and that’s just the beginning of her life and getting to know her more. On our final visit to Marlo’s Bakery we said our goodbyes and thanks for her wonderful pastries.
Bible Reading Stand Out this Week: Both Titus 2 and Titus 3 have 3 times in each chapter reminding believers to do good, teach what is good, or to do good works.
Titus 2:
2 But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God may not be reviled…
7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, …waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works…
Titus 3:
3 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, …
5 He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, …
7 So that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people…
14 And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help in cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful…
What an amazing week. This is our 4th month of driving and touring Alaska. It has been driving south of Glennallen that my senses have peaked and elated more than any other time while in Alaska. Both Darrell and I are enjoying the scenery which began on Hwy 4 south of Copper Center and led into Valdez. Valdez has agreed with us. We’ve had a couple of sunny days with amazing mountain views, quiet, cool small-town mornings, and plenty of small-town museums and shops to explore. Our comfortable B&B with our open window and mountain view totally agrees with what we enjoy. I am trying to take in all of this beauty and welcomeness of Valdez and the people here in the moments I’m here.
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