What do you do…when there is notin’ to do?

OK, so I knew what to expect on this trip to Alaska, having traveled here nearly 2 years ago.  I tried to prepare Heidi on what to expect.  “What, the mall is 90 miles away?  How do you buy what you need?”  Typical girls’ response to living in the wild! 

“Well, dear, there is the PX on post and an IGA in town”, I told her.  This is not a shopper’s paradise; by any stretch of the imagination.  But you know what?   She has found out, that even doing nothing can be exhausting.  There are the spectacular views of the whitecaps of the Alaska Range Mountains, and the pure Alaska air makes you sleep like a baby, even though the sun never sets this time of year.  More on that later!  We can go on the quad runner for miles and miles and not see a sole.  A simple walk around the block of Rob & Erin’s neighborhood is a mile trek, some of which is through a wilderness trail to get fully around the “block”.   

We have forgotten what it was like to have a baby around the house.   We are getting to know our nearly 1 year old grandchild, I call him “Kodiak Jack”, his Mother would prefer I just call him Jack!  Either way, he is a livewire, and we love the little cutie dearly! 

You have to eat!  So we spent an entire day making one of Rob’s favorite childhood meals, meatloaf & scalloped potatoes.  All day to prepare, 12 minutes to devour!  Oh, and there is wood to stack.  Seems there is a pile of wood in everyone’s yard here in Alaska.  With home heating oil priced at over $4 a gallon, and in the dead of winter they use between 100 – 150 gallons a month to heat the house; it makes sense to supplement the home heating with a wood burning stove in the living room. My back is killing me, and I estimated that we still have another 7 trailer loads to stack so they can get through the first part of this coming winter!   

We visited Donnelly Dome in the evening.  Wild life galore and the Aleyaska Pipeline stretches right through it.  A good chance for us to get a perspective of the size of the pipeline, and to see it up front and personal, along wild bison and moose with babies, along the way!  The beauty of nature in this wilderness is impressive!   

And, back to that “daylight a nighttime” thing.  Now that takes some getting used to!  At midnight, your body says “go to bed!” …your mind says, “You can have another drink before the sun goes down!”   

Wow, we have done so much on our Alaska Trip already, and our time has just begun.  What to do next?  I might need to have another drink and think about it!