September Newsletter Part 1

A Bit about Life

Oh, my!! I just looked at my blog and I am WAY behind! A few things have happened since I last wrote. I have been on quite a road trip. I left August 16th for the longest trip of my life! My daughter and family (yes, the grandkids went too!) moved to Ft. Greely, Alaska from Boise, Idaho. I flew over to Boise to help them move out of there home. Then we started on our trek of 2800 miles over the Alaska Hiway.

I drove Eric's truck as far as Tacoma, Washington where it was put on a ferry bound for Alaska. Then I got in Amber's car to help with the kids. While we were in Tacoma, Caleb and his family came from Portland to spend the day with us. After a half a day trying to find a parking spot for a HUGE UHAUL Truck and trailer, we got to spend some time at Fisherman's Warf with Caleb, Bonnie and Bonnie's girls. Here is a nice picture of them. It was fun to finally get to meet them.

The drive was beautiful especially through the Yukon Territory. Here is a picture of the sign I took when we FINALLY left the Yukon Territory.

While we were driving, we came across this unusal forest. It is called the Sign Post Forest. I am wondering where they got all of these signs. Did they steal them? Is that not a Federal Offense? Just wondering? Anyway, it was very interesting to see SO many road signs!!! This picture doesn't even show HALF of them. It is literally a FOREST of them!!

There were a ton of beautiful lakes along the road while driving through the Yukon Territory. Here is one of them. The picture really doesn't do it justice. The view was AWE inspiring to say the least!

After 7 days of driving, we FINALLY made it to Alaska and back to the good ole' USA! It was so good to see a road sign that read 55 MPH instead of 100 KPH!! My brain was a bit confused with the metric measurments. And then there were the LOONEY'S (I'm probably spelling it wrong...) Anyway, a Looney, Luni, Luney? is a brass colored coin that the Canadians use for a dollar. Again, I was confused!

Here is Jonathan and Shandeigh indicating we have reached Alaska!!! Oh happy day!!!

We drove into Ft Greely late at night and stayed in lodging there on the base. Eric's "sponsor" had arranged breakfast foods, milk and drinking water for us for the next morning. I was impressed! We spent the next couple of nights in this lodging while Amber and Eric found a home on base. Then the moving in began. There was a group of seven men from their branch that came to help. Again, I was so thankful for good people who would give of their time to help!!

After getting them settled somewhat.... it was time to go to Fairbanks where I would catch the plane that would fly me all night to Salt Lake City, Utah. Before going to Fairbanks, we drove to North Pole, Alaska, the home of Santa Claus. Here are a few pictures of our visit with Santa. Here is Shandeigh reaching into Santa's mailbox to see what the other kids of the world wanted to tell Santa.

Here is a picture of Shandeigh with Santa. He treated her so special. I always knew that Santa was a kind and jolly elf. I was really able to see his generosity first hand! The boys were too shy to go sit on Santa's lap.

Here was one of Santa's Reindeer. The kids thought maybe he was Rudolph!

And here I am at the doorstep to Eric and Amber's home saying goodbye to the Shandeigh, Jonathan, Paden and Quinn. Thank goodness for cell phones, email and web cams!!!

After flying all night from Fairbanks, Alaska to Salt Lake City, UT. I met my long, lost husband, Roger at about 9:30 in the morning. He picked me up and we drove (again!) to Farmington, New Mexico. We picked up 7 boxes of roasted $chili peppers and bagged and froze them. We stayed 2 nights with Roger's parents and then got back in the car (AGAIN!) and drove home on labor day. All in all I figured road trip miles (not including flight miles) was close to 4400 miles!! Wow, what a trip!!!