Tag: drive

A Day That Won’t Be Forgotten

Saturday, October 20th, was our second anniversary.  David tells me last week, “I have a 3 day weekend. Do you want to go camping for our anniversary? ” I reply, “Hell Yes!”  Please excuse my language but I was that excited.

We usually have snow by now and the camping is over for the year.  The weather has been so nice we decided to head out.  David wanted to talk to a blacksmith in Palmer about a fire tool he wanted him to make.  We found his place but he was gone for the day.  We decided to drive around to look for some place to have a nice dinner on Saturday night. Continue reading “A Day That Won’t Be Forgotten”

How Did Turnagain Arm, Alaska Get Its Name

Turnagain Arm is a waterway into the northwestern part of the Gulf of Alaska. It is one of two narrow branches at the north end of Cook Inlet, the other being Knik Arm. Turnagain is subject to climate extremes and large tide ranges.

Turnagain Arm was named by William Bligh of HMS Bounty fame. Bligh served as Cook’s Sailing Master on his 3rd and final voyage, the aim of which was discovery of the Northwest Passage. Upon reaching the head of Cook Inlet in 1778, Bligh was of the opinion that both Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm were the mouths of rivers and not the opening to the Northwest Passage. Under Cook’s orders Bligh organized a party to travel up Knik Arm, which quickly returned to report Knik Arm indeed led only to a river.
Afterwards a second party was dispatched up Turnagain Arm and it too returned to report only a river lay ahead. As a result of this frustration the second body of water was given the disingenuous name “Turn Again”. Early maps label Turnagain Arm as the “Turnagain River”.

Enough of the history of Turnagain Arm and back to why I am writing this.  I was driving to Sterling yesterday, which is about a 2 1/2 hour trip, to pick up Dusty’s kids for a visit. I was just making a quick run down grab the kids and come back.  Not a big deal because I used to live in Sterling and have made this day trip many times.  The winter time used to get a little dicey but the roads are a lot better now. I had to stop though because driving along the Arm the clouds were amazing.  Actually, the kids and I kept remarking on how wonderful they were all the way back to Anchorage. Going over the pass it was really great.  We even checked out where we are going camping next weekend, Bertha Creek. Well here are a some photos I took.

 

Turnagain Arm is always different. I can never seems to take enough photos of it.

HOPE YOU ENJOY THE PHOTOS OF MY BEAUTIFUL STATE!

 

 

Checking Away

Well I followed my checklist and only two more to do to complete it. One of which is to blog today, so as I wait for David to get home from donating blood I write.

Maybe I made my list too easy but I have to admit I seemed to get a lot more done. As I checked things off my list I kept by my side. I even added to it at times. I will start putting harder things that I need to finish.

Well camper all packed and ready to go. We are going to camp by a river we camped at last fall and we picked high bush cranberries. I am sure I will go back to pick this fall. I got the camper cleaned good. Took snacks we can eat.

Well I am planning on having a great weekend. I hope ya’ll are.

Babies and Trailer

Well today I went out to help Dan to pick up their 17′ travel trailer. They were supposed to pick it up yesterday but they didn’t have the stuff it get the van ready, so they asked if they had the stuff to get the truck ready. They said yes and to bring the truck in today. Then since that was only going to take an hour and half we could drop the van off when it was done. It had to be fixed at another shop and they would fix it tomorrow. This means the kids could still go camping this weekend. This was our plan for the day.

Now what happened today went a little different. I drove out to Eagle River where Heather and Dan live. I watched the girls while Dan worked on truck. I got there at 10. While I played with the girls Dan got the hitch put back on the truck, I am not just talking about the ball.

Next we loaded the girls in the van around 12:30 to drop the truck off. I drove my old van to town while Dan drove his truck.

We dropped the truck off and figured we would go to lunch. After lunch we still didn’t hear from ABC RV, so decided to go garage selling. Grandma needed toys for the girls when they were at her house. I only found one toy. It was a wooden logging truck. What little girl wouldn’t want a logging truck.

Dan and I found a toy for us but Heather said no. It was Unimog. I didn’t no what it was but I thought it looked really cool. I wanted to drive it. I used to love to drive our skidder.

Anyway now it is 5 and the girls were hungry, so we headed back to check on the truck. They still didn’t have the truck ready. We got the girls feed but still haven’t got the van dropped off. I told Dan that we would do it tomorrow for them, so they could still go camping. Finally they said it was ready. I took the van to our place and Dan came to pick me up, so I could get my car at their place. When I got home Dan called to say the truck still wasn’t ready but would be soon. He finally made it with trailer in tow.

Dan and Dusty went to put the car seats in the back seat. Now his truck is a 1987 and if you can remember how small the backseats are in them. They had to move the seat all the way up and still couldn’t quite get the back of the seat all the way back. Then you put a 6’2 man behind the steering wheel and it is pretty funny. Dan looks like he is driving some little car with his knees under his chin.

We arrive at their house and I go in to talk with Heather. Dan walks in and tells her you need to see something. He shows her how close the seat is to the steering wheel and her reply was you want me to drive. With her only being 5′, we don’t really think she is that tall, she thought the seat looked just right. We headed home leaving them to pack their trailer and head out. I am not sure who drove.

As for our 5th day of Keto it went good. Had a shake for breakfast and at lunch I ate brisket, collard green, and coleslaw. That was my first time eating out and it was easy to find food I could eat.

I came home and what I had planned to cook was Beef Storganof with cabbage instead of noodles. It was supposed to be cooked in the slow cooker which I had forgot. When I get home I was trying to figure out what to cook. Then I think why can’t I cook it in my express pot. Well I found out I could.

It was really good and I will make this again.

Iceland Day 1

We started off this morning heading to the Golden Circle when we hit Route 1 we turned left.  After a while we noticed the water was on the left side not the right side where it should be.  We then found an information board and with our map in hand we figured out that we had turned the wrong way on Route 1.  We had gone too far to turn around so we decided to carry on.  Oh by the way, we were not lost just sightseeing.  We had a wonderful day looking at waterfalls, rivers, fishermen, mountains, sheep, and tons of lupines.  We had never seen so many lupines in Alaska.  We even stopped to watch the sheep get herded across the road. We went to the end of one road and in Arkanes found two light houses. At one point we kept seeing this weird looking building which we decided must have something to do with some type of pipeline. We took a tunnel under a fjord.  It rained off and on all day but we didn’t care.  We were just enjoying the scenery and each other.  We love road trips.  We read somewhere that Iceland is the third windiest country in the world and that the first two no one lives on.  We do believe this now!

 

After we got back to our apartment we took it easy for a while and figured out where we went wrong today.  We did some research for breweries online.  Then decided to walk downtown to Skuli’s which were told was where the locals go for a nice craft beer.  The bartender, Liljar, said that the place was named after a local hero named Skuli Magnusson.  He was the first and only sheriff of Reykjavik.  The other bartender, Alyson, was a brewer from Colorado.  We ordered some dinner from their food truck.  We ordered pulled pork and a fried cod buns with French fries cooked by Scott, yet another American from Memphis, Tennessee. After we were done we walked back home.

It was a wonderful day.  Tomorrow we will see if we make it to the Golden Circle or if we go on another impromptu sightseeing trip.

Trip to Scotland

Before anyone notices that we went North, back South to go North there is a reason.  I had bought my tickets to fly to Glasgow long before I had the dates when we could visit Anna and William.  So just to let you know that I do know what I did.  I know sometimes it looks like I don’t.

I wanted to take David to meet my really good friends Andrew better known as Fred & his wife M.  Fred told me to fly into Glasgow and then we could drive along the Lochs back to Kiltarlity.  Fred said there were some great places for photos.  I was thinking that I had been on a sight seeing trip with you before and I knew how you would do this.  You drive 70 miles per hour and say this is a Loch, this is a castle and just keep driving.  If I needed to pee I would tell Fred and sooner or later he would pull over by a bush.  He said, “Oh no, I will stop”.  So enjoy these photos that I took while driving down the road.  I didn’t get any photos of the Lochs because I was sitting on the wrong side of the car and did not feel like rolling all over the back seat to take photos of the Lochs.

 

 

Fred told us we would stop at Fort Williams for some fish and chips. I asked if he knew where one was.  He told me that he looked it up on the internet and all he could find were Chinese and Indian take outs.  When we arrived there he had to ask a local where one was.  We found it.  I did take a pee at the pub across from it, so I didn’t have to stop at a bush. There was a table in the shop, but would he seat there, no we sat in the car.

 

We made it to the Byre, http://inchbrakie.tripod.com/the-byre

It was great to make it back to a place which feels like home to me.  When I lived in England and I would need to get away from all the people we would go here.  It is hard for a girl from a little town in Alaska to be in a big town like London.

David and Fred seemed to hit it off, so I was happy!