My Old Work Van and Trailer Along the Nabesna Road in Alaska

Hello Everyone! This is the last post for January, which is hard for me to believe. The time really is going quickly here. I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that my political opinions won’t be making an appearance today. It’s been a rough couple of months, and being in Washington it’s hard to escape it, but I’m sure going to try. I have enough things to focus on without getting mired down in something I have very little control over.

The most exciting thing that happened this week is that my folks got their first vaccine shot. This is wonderful news and we’re very grateful to the folks at Howard University for making it happen. I’m really hoping the federal government will ramp up the vaccination as promised and that we can all have ours before the summer.

Downtown McCarthy Alaska

Young Mason continues to make me smile with his good humor and big smile. Last week we were sitting at breakfast and we were discussing each other’s shirts, which is a common occurrence over his morning meal. I had on a shirt from the amazing total solar eclipse I got to lead a trip to see in Wyoming a few years ago. He pointed out what looked like the moon to him, but was actually the sun so I explained what the eclipse was and how it worked and what it was like to see it. Once I was done explaining it, he hopped up and went and got one of his books about space and we looked at the sun and the moon together. It was pretty cool.

On one of our walks this week we were out in one of the parks in his neighborhood which has a grove of bamboo in it. He always points out the bamboo, and I ask if he sees any pandas around which he never does (but growing up in Washington, I know he will see them often at the National Zoo). A few minutes later he picked up a huge log and told me it was a panda and carried it all the way home. The next day we took his panda to “the lake”, which is really just a small pool along one of the creeks we visit, and he hurled it in. He really loves throwing things in the water, even things he seems to really like. I definitely don’t understand everything he does or says, and he would probably tell you the same about me, but we sure do have interesting adventures together.

Bernie and I

Last Thursday I got caught up in the Bernie Sanders’ mittens memes which was a welcome break from all the challenges we face. I’m usually months and months behind on anything that’s happening in popular culture, but this time I got in on the ground floor. It felt nice to be able to make people smile for a second and forget their troubles for a moment. Of course someone always has to ruin other people’s fun when it comes to, well anything really. I put up a picture of me and my van and Bernie on the Coach House (the brand of my van) Facebook group. Someone got all worked up that there wasn’t supposed to be any politics in the group so not only was my post taken down, but I was booted out of the group entirely. It was just an innocent, humorous picture which is literally all over the internet, but someone had to take it to an extreme level. What a shame.

Carnivale Celebration

Friday night we had a wonderful basement party celebrating the Carnivale of Venice which would be happening soon in a normal year. We had some antipasto, some ravioli and sausage and a delightful Migliaccio which is a lemon ricotta cake traditionally eaten in Naples for Carnivale. There was good Italian music, wine, masks and a great game of dominoes as well. It was a fun evening. This week we’re going to head to Scotland to celebrate the Viking Festival Up Helly Aa. 10 months later, it’s still fun to have a nice celebration to look forward to at the end of the week. We’ve traveled to some great places through food, drink and music without leaving the safety of our home. It’s been awesome and I appreciate my folks humoring me every week and helping to make it happen. Another few months and hopefully I'll be back to the real thing.

Saturday was a beautiful day, but barely got over freezing here in Washington. We took a cold and windy drive out to Monocacy National Battlefield just to get out of the city for a little bit. In the afternoon I went over to hang out with Mason and his parents and enjoy a meal and some social time together. After Mason went to sleep, we got to work solving the world’s problems and just about got through all of them. Then afterwards I hopped on a call with my very good friends Dustin and Yuki who lived right up the street from me when I lived in Japan. It’s always good to catch up with them and a few of our mutual friends joined in as well.

Cracker Lake in Glacier N.P.

Sunday was quiet and Monday was vaccine day which was very exciting, but not much to write about. I have started getting to more of my National Park photos which I’ve been promising to do for months now but haven’t found the time or motivation for a while. I like editing and publishing photos and still try and get out and take some around here every week, but the short days and cloudy conditions haven’t been very inspirational lately. You’ll obviously notice that most of the photos in this week’s post are not from this week, but I thought you’d enjoy them more than barren trees in front of clouds.  

Along the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park

We got rain Monday night into Tuesday morning with a little bit of snow thrown in for good measure. It wasn’t awful, but left some slippery sidewalks around the neighborhood so Mason and I had an indoor day. It’s not my favorite kind of day because I think the exercise and stimulation outside provides us is good for Mason, and I know it’s good for me. But he and I took an imaginary adventure to our favorite hangout by the creek without leaving his house. We walked about 15 times around the first floor, stopping to look at some of our favorite things along the way. The kitchen knobs became mushrooms, the hallway was a road where we had to look both ways before crossing, the couch was the log we sit on every day to practice counting and his little dog, Charlie, became one of the stone lions we stop to visit every day. When we got to the “creek”, we sat and through some “rocks” (books) into the water for a while. It was actually a wonderful way to spend an hour and his imagination seemed to carry us through. When I arrived this morning, he wanted to go on another walk so we marched a few times around the house before heading out to the actual destination to throw real rocks into a real creek.

Reflections in the Grand Tetons

Today I brought my van back to the shop and hopefully for the last time for a while. While they had done a great job with it, my heater blower had stopped working while it was there. It is very frustrating when one thing gets fixed and another stops working and while I don’t want to accuse anyone, this seems to happen more than not around here. They were great about getting me back in and took a look immediately at the issue. They found the problem and showed me how it was not something they had been anywhere near when they were working on it last week, and because it was a minor issue they were going to fix it for free. I think in so doing they may have earned my business for the foreseeable future. It’s a nice feeling to believe I may have actually found a decent mechanic in the area. I’ve got plenty of work to do myself when I get it back, starting with the brakes, but it’ll be good to know I have somewhere to take it when something inevitably goes wrong.

And that’s about what’s been happening this week. When I finish up this post I’m going to cook us up a nice meal for this week’s Dinner and a Movie featuring Slumdog Millionaire. Tomorrow I’m going to hopefully pick up my van and then it’ll be the home-stretch to the weekend and February. We’ll be ramping up our Mardi Gras celebrations for the next two weeks before the big day on the 16th. If the weather is nice, maybe we will be able to get out again this weekend since our travel plans for this week have been nixed by doctor appointments and van repairs. I do hope to get some writing done, continue editing old photos and play some more fiddle tunes on my violin! I hope y’all are keeping well out there wherever you are and I will look forward to seeing you right back here next week. Have a good week everyone and stay safe out there – there’s a light at the end of the tunnel!

-Mike

Along the Nabesna Road in Alaska

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