I Got Mail!

I Got Mail! It’s amazing how much something so small, can mean so much. The end of last week was pretty dull around here. On Thursday I begrudgingly trudged to the mailbox and when I got there, I had the most wonderful surprise. Mail! From both of my grandmas. I could hardly waddle through the mud puddles fast enough to get back and read them. It was a score to get one letter, but two was a boon!! Thank you Grandma Adeline & Grandma Blanche!

Friday evening we had dinner with Brad & Rose. They are friends of Brent’s from work, and the owners of our little Willie. They had us over to thank us for taking care of their little bundle of fur while they were on Safari. They made us the most wonderful dinner of steak from Delta Meat & Sausage, King crab legs, baked pototo, fresh homemade bread, veggies, and for dessert the most delicious blueberry pie made with berries that they picked themselves last summer. Heavenly. We ate like kings. Literally.

Saturday we made a quickish trip to Fairbanks. At dinner on Friday Rose told me about this great little store, If Only, that we checked out. I will definitely be revisiting that little slice of heaven, it was a so much fun to browse through all of their wares. I highly recommend you check it out.

This first photo is nothing exciting. Well, the most exciting thing about it is that it was taken on Saturday evening on our regular drive down Tanana Loop at 10:15 p.m. Yes. P.M. people. Isn’t it delightful? I think so.

So, Sunday a.m. we packed a picnic lunch, some ammunition, a couple of firearms, the dog, and away we went. We headed to Delta, and stopped off to shoot off a couple of rounds. Brent decided that I should know how to shoot his .40 cal pistol, and the new gun that he bought for animal protection, so away we went. I was hesitant at first, I have watched way too many You Tube videos about silly girls that knock themselves out, literally, shooting assorted guns. So, you can imagine my hesitance.

After Brent got that out of his system we headed East towards Canada to see what we could find to explore. We stumbled upon many trails, but most of them were still a little too covered in snow quite yet, so we stopped off to check out the Tanana River East of Delta.

On our way, by foot, down the hill we stumbled upon some moose prints. As you can tell, this was a pretty large guy, the one print is his, the others is Brent’s. My friends, that’s one big moose, and I was happy to not have stumbled upon him on our exploration.

As you can see, the river at this point is still frozen (we’re standing on it) and has a little bit of snow. LOL. In this photo Ches was showing Brent how to climb the big drift and get to the fun part of the river. And below you can see that she also managed to bribe me into getting up on top of the world too!

Next we headed back towards town to get a better view of the Granite Mountains. We stopped at the Gerstle River to explore, and explore we did. We wandered the river bed for a couple of hours, collecting rocks, getting some exercise and letting Ches just run around like Dora the Explorer.

It’s hard to explain just how cold the water is. It’s like I’m standing next to the glacier letting the water drip, drip, drip into my palm Cold. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. During our meandering we picked up rocks, which is something that we’ve done since our days in Colorado. I cannot even begin to tell you how many rocks are sitting in storage in Minnesota. Anyway, we collected as many unusual usual Alaska rocks as our pockets could carry, and then wandered some more. Did you know on the Gerstle River that the sand actually shimmers? It’s beautiful. The sand under the water actually has a pearlescent quality to it. You should check it sometime.

I’m off to ice my sore shoulder. Have a happy day!

Weekend Roundup

Delta Junction had a snow-filled weekend. And while it snowed the majority of Friday and Saturday we don't have a huge amount of snow on the ground. It was pretty and stayed fairly warm, in the low 20's I guess.

Saturday we spent most of the day in town. We went to the DMV and both managed to get our Alaska drivers licenses. So that's done...check! Once that was over we decided to do a little celebrating by shopping. Okay, so there's not a lot of shopping but we went to Granite View Sports. I needed some storage for dog food, and didn't want some average Rubbermaid container, so I found a really cute set of vintage inspired metal storage. Perfection. One for food, one for treats, and one for my flour. Awesome.

This morning we set out to explore the area a little more. We headed out down Tanana Loop (above) because it's always such a pretty drive and there was a trail that we wanted to see and walk. However, it was just a little too remote and snow-filled for us to attempt it. I guess that trail will have to wait for spring or summer.
The Tanana River is huge and remains open, as you can see, so we wanted to capture some pictures and check it out near the pipeline on the Richardson Highway. Usually we just cruise by, but today we pulled in to get a view from a different angle. We actually took quite a few pictures, but I'm only posting the one above and below. Chances are we'll be back here again.

Alaska Pipeline crossing the Tanana River.

After leaving the Tanana River we headed to Quartz Lake State Recreation Area. Above is the photo of the lake. It's beautiful, and frozen solid. I cannot wait to see what the area looks like in summer. But I'm guessing it's just as pretty this time of year. While many of the paths in the park are closed for the season, we were able to drive with ease right to the lake's edge, and could have followed the many, many vehicles that continued right onto the lake. However, we parked and walked to give us, and Ches, a little exercise.

We found this to an interesting shot. It's where the pipeline ducks under the roadway entering the park. As soon as it clears the roadway it pops back up on the other side.

As the day passed today the skies went from bright and clear to hazy and gray right before our eyes. I happened to capture the sun as it was transitioning. We decided to save our next adventure for a day that will hopefully be slightly warmer, and crashed on the couch to veg and prepare for the week ahead.

Have a happy day!