Hope – Day 1

19 Jul 2010 1 Comment

by Ingies in Stories about life in Alaska Tags: , ,

I’ve been promising to upload the pictures from our 4th of July trek out to Hope for – well – What day is it today? – twelve days. I’m finally getting started. Part of the challenge was that I took 285 pictures during that 48 hour trip. Really. 285 pictures. I’ll try to spare you the delight torture of having to view them all.

This trip to Hope had been planned since forever ago by my friend J who had the brains to plan ahead and reserve a cabin for the holiday weekend some time last winter.

We like to camp with J and her family because their kids are the same ages as ours. (Read: totally understand meltdowns, insane numbers of pit stops, a reasonable bedtime, time outs, quiet time, etc., etc.) You might remember J’s son G from the post about the wedding.

After meeting up at the Ranger Station on the edge of town and making sure we were all really going the same place we loaded up and headed on down the road.

I took this picture about 5 minutes into our drive. Our destination is across this water there at the base of the mountains.  

 

See those itty bitty white dots on the far shoreline in this picture? Probably not. Trust me, they are there. Those dots are buildings in Hope. It would be a quick 10 minute jaunt over the bridge from town if there were one. But there isn’t. Of course, Hope wouldn’t be Hope if it were just a quick 10 minute jaunt over the bridge. It would lose its . . . uh . . . um . . . unique Alaska charm . . . and become a suburb of Anchorage.

Anyway, so it isn’t a quick ten minute jaunt. It is more like an 80 mile 1.5 hour drive or something like that. We have to drive up around all this water . . .   


and back down the other side.

So we did.

The scenery was beautiful. You’ll have to trust me on that. I had to cut something. If you want to look at great pictures of Turnagain Arm I guarantee you that you can find better ones out there than those I took.

We eventually arrived at our destination . . .

. . . this charming little cabin in a neighborhood in Hope. I use the word neighborhood loosely. Picture an assortment of dwellings in various stages of development built from every imaginable type of material (building and otherwise) scattered through the woods and connected by gravel roads.

We then fed the starving little children. (Our good deed for the day.)

Then we strolled.

I have to say strolled because look at our footwear. If I told people we were hiking we’d get accused of being naïve unprepared tourists.

 

See what I mean?

Generally speaking I don’t recommend strolling through the woods in Alaska in flip-flops (or Crocs™ or Tevas® for that matter). But as they say, you can take the boy off of the Gulf of Texas but you can’t take his flip-flops from him

It was a beautiful evening for a hike stroll . .

Lush and green.

And very, very prickly.

This stuff is wicked. It’s called Devil’s Club by those of us who don’t know our Latin from our genus. Devil’s Club is everywhere and there is no bushwhacking here because it is evil. It’s covered in thorns that don’t just poke you. They can make you itch and blister.

We saw cool stuff on our stroll . . .

and made a new friend . . .

I don’t know where this sweet little thing lives . . . if any place specific. She was so skinny her hip bones were protruding from her body. She followed us back to the cabin and spent the evening coveting (and sharing) our food. She was dear and gentle and trained (which makes me think someone is lovin’ on her somewhere . . . I hope). And it took all of my self-control and some threatening words from my husband to keep me from taking her home with me.

That evening we hung out at the cabin. Some of us quite literally.

“I’m done now,” says the cute little redhead.

We smoked out all the mosquitos.

Ate S’mores.

Some of us gave in to the pressure of being out of touch for nine whole hours and checked our email.

We put the kids to bed.

 And I have to stop now. I’ve reached my self-imposed per post picture limit.

We’ll chat about day two later this week.

Cheers,
D

The Outbacks

01 Jul 2010 Leave a comment

by Ingies in Stories about life in Alaska Tags: ,

That is not a typo.
  
We are not discussing Australia or restaurant chains.
  
We’re here to chat about this:
  
 
This is a Subaru Outback®.
 
In the city in which I reside people drive vehicles falling into one of four categories:
 
1) Trucks (of various shapes, sizes and horsepower)
2) SUVs
3) Subaru Outbacks®
4) Everything else
 
Of those Subaru Outbacks® at least half of them are some shade of green. Based on my sound scientific research and clever mathematical analysis this means that there are probably around 40,000 green Subaru Outbacks® in this lovely little town.
 
Give or take a few.
 
The only time they are outnumbered by anything besides people is between May and September when the geese visit and leave little presents on every square inch of green public use space they can find.
 
But I digress . . .
 
This is what happens when you live in a town with 40,000 green Subaru Outbacks® . . .
 
When you decide to meet friends in the parking lot after work to head out for 5 o’clock hors d’oeuvres and a glass of wine they say to you, “I’ll meet you at my car – just look for the Outback®.” They don’t even have to say Subaru™ because when the word “outback” is spoken here no one has visions of kangaroos and koala bears just all-wheel drive and bike racks.
 
“Gee, that’s helpful,” you think. Narrows it down to slightly less than 100 cars in a parking lot that holds 375.
 
Being aware themselves that there are tens of thousands of Outbacks® in town they considerately add, “It’s a green one.”
 
Really? Well that narrows it down to about fifty. Shouldn’t take much more than an hour to locate your friend. By then you’ll need more than a glass of wine.
 
All of this being said, it wasn’t surprising to me when I discovered the parents of my daughter’s new-found kindergarten friend drive a (drumroll, please) . . . green Subaru Outback®.
 
Ah . . . but little did I know.
 
This green Subaru Outback® would be easy to spot in a parking lot – or on the highway – or anywhere.
 
 
Do you see what I see?
 
Notice the charming window decorations?
 
I have to admit . . .  I was tickled to see little stickers plastered all over those windows. Not only would I forever be able to find our new friends on the road and wave madly across six lanes of traffic, I was pretty sure we’d get along just fine.
 
Not only do we both have small children.
 
Not only do we both have pediatricians who hand out stickers.
 
But our outlook on life is strikingly similar . . . at least from the back seat of our respective vehicle.
 
See . . .
 
Their view:
 
Their window
 
Our view:
 
 
 
These are the things on which friendships are built.
 
Never prone to exaggeration,
D

Salad Boat

30 Jun 2010 Leave a comment

by Ingies in Stories about life in Alaska

 

This boat . . . not fit for a moat,
better a salad bar for a goat.
Broccoli, chard, peas & kale . . .
it’ll be awhile ‘for it sees a whale.
But in the yard so pretty and neat
it’s filled with yummy things to eat.

 

This garden resides in my neighbor’s yard.

Yummy and lush, isn’t it?

My neighbors are very creative people. Here is the view from a bit farther away.

The lady of the house is from the coast of Alaska. I think this is their tribute to her hometown . . .  or they were looking for an excuse to avoid having to refurbish this cute little water craft.

Either way it is lovely.

And fun.

And we have a yard with a really cool view thanks to these creative people.

Happy Gardening,
D

P.S. Grannie Pie, I think we’ve found the solution to your gopher problem. You don’t need giant plastic drums. You need a boat.

Ironing Money

14 Jun 2010 7 Comments

by Ingies in Stories about life in Alaska, Stories about living in the bushes Tags:

Like the picture? It has nothing to do with the post but a post without a picture is terribly dull. It also would probably be better if I would learn to use editing software. It's on the list.

My mother used to iron her money. 

It’s true. I’m serious. 

I learned this interesting fact about my compulsively organized bookkeeper mother a few months ago. This is the same woman whose greatest joy in life is polishing the copper bottoms of her Revere® Ware pans. 

When my mother first mentioned this fact in passing during casual conversation – in what context I cannot even recall – I roared – tears rolled down my eyes. Who irons their money?!? 

Visions of  my brother and me playing contentedly at my mother’s feet while she toiled away at the ironing board tidying up the day’s take ran through my head . . . babysitter leaves . . . Mom whips out the ironing board. 

Now, lest I make my very generous mother sound like either a close relative of dear old Ebenezer or a candidate for pharmaceutical intervention her explanation goes something like this: 

Crumpled money is very difficult to stack. 

We lived in the middle (smack dab in the middle) of nowhere . . . a long way from somewhere and even further from anywhere. 

My parents owned and operated a variety of businesses in this minute town in the middle of nowhere. Evidently, once paper and coin money found its way to this exotic locale it never got to leave. The bills were simply passed around and around and around and got really, really used going from hand to hand to hand to hand before finding their way to a bank.  

It was wadded up in pockets . . .   

stuffed in mukluks . . .   

used for insulation at 45 below during the cold and dark of winter . . .  

occasionally used to buy groceries and pay utility bills . . .  

My mother swears she spent hours taping together torn pieces of bills trying to make serial numbers match so she could mail (yes that would be USPS) giant wads of cash to town for deposit once she declared them unfit for circulation. (This was prior to the glorious invention of the debit card – arch-enemy of Dave Ramsey.) 

According to my mother 25 crumpled up ones can make a stack eighteen inches high. Not very tidy for sending to First National. Doesn’t work for my compulsively organized mother at all. 

So she ironed them. 

Apparently there is just enough cotton rag in Uncle Sam’s paper blend to make them iron up quite nicely. 

Who knew? 

Giggling, 
D 

Epilogue:
Evidently Snoop Dog knows all about this. Posters of him ironing money are available on-line. Do you supposed he is compulsively tidy, too? I’m thinking his motive may lie elsewhere.

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