Palmer

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It was wonderful to wake up and hear Rowan’s little cute voice in our camper. He came up to our bed right away! After breakfast, we made a plan for the next three days. We started out by going to Target to get rowan’s supplies for the week. It was easier to buy them here than to haul everything on the plane. We brought his carseat from Carson. Then we went to visit Uncle Dick. Daisy was cold riding in the back of the truck in her kennel, so we went back to Target to get her a jacket - size 2T fit her pretty well. Vivian wanted to see a salmon, so we went to Ship Creek to see if there were any running yet. No luck. Our next stop was Palmer to look up old haunts and to take Rowan fishing. We had lunch at an inn with a bear in the lobby. Rowan kept checking with us to make sure it wasn’t a real bear. “It’s not scary. Right?” We regaled them with our stories of the AlCan, of converting kilometers to miles and liters to gallons, and everything being in two languages, including the words on food boxes and cans. It was interesting not being able to find American products, and the ones we did find weren’t quite the same. For example, Rich liked a cereal we found called Shreddies, but we couldn’t find Hershey’s kisses anywhere.
After lunch, we drove out to Bodenburg Butte to find our old property. The road looked pretty much the same, but now there’s a nice log house up the hill where our trailer used to be. (Rich called it our beer can in the woods.) No one was home, but we got a good look from the truck. Then we tried to find the big field up the road where we used to find wild raspberries and currants for jam, and where we drove our 3-dog team a few times in the winter. There were too many newer roads. We did find an old abandoned trailer in a weed patch not far from our old place. It looked about the same outside and had blown-on insulation like ours. The floor plan was a little different inside, so it probably wasn’t ours, but we thought it was a hoot anyway. On the way back to the highway, we stopped at the bridge over the creek so that Rowan could try to catch his first fish in the exact same spot where Seth caught his first fish. No luck, but he was very cute trying! Then we tried to find the trailer park where we lived while we were getting out land ready. Now it’s an RV park. While we were looking, we finally saw a moose! Then we drove out around the Butte to look at the homesteads and the reindeer farm. We laughed about the time Seth wanted to enter a race up the Butte when he was five. Rich went with him and could hardly walk for three days, while Seth was dancing around at he top. He got a ribbon for his age group! Ha! Ha! There wasn’t anybody else entered under 15, I don’t think. It was a lovely drive, with lots of memories, and it was so very beautiful!
On the way back to Anchorage, we stopped at a fishing hole we had noticed on the way out. Rich and Rowan tried again and he got his first fish - about six inches long! Oh, we were all so excited!
On the way back to Aunt Jean's, we stopped at Target to get some soup for dinner. Rowan said, "What? Are we stopping at Target , AGAIN?"
It was a terrific day!

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Comments

[Barbra J]

Talkeetna?
Will you be going to Talkeetna? It's at the base of Denali. If you do, be sure to stop at the post office and say hello to the post-mistress, Charlotte. She's real nice...and she's Travis' sister! She would be thrilled to chat with someone from the "lower 48".