Sarah in Wonderland

Whoa!

Writing the previous post caused me to experience post-traumatic stress syndrome!  I am still amazingly embarrassed that I allowed myself to, essentially, journal on-line.  This reaction has really surprised me since, as anyone who has met me knows, I am brutally honest - with myself, in particular.  I don't seem to keep many secrets and come across as open and revealing.  As I've discovered, however, much of the openness is a smokescreen and even I don't know what is behind it.  Years and years and years of journaling, counseling and introspection haven't provided answers and I've pretty much stopped looking.  I have dealt with depression most of my life, as have all of my siblings, and now I choose to stop talking and start drugging.  I expect to drug right up to the end and that's OK!  Anyway, as far as soul-baring confessions are concerned, that is probably the last of it, for awhile anyway. 

So, anyway, I want to finish up my travels in 2009.  As amazingly spectacular as the spring and summer were in Denali, they fade in comparison to the very short (about a week and a half!) autumn.  The entire world turns red, fuscia, orange, burgundy and every color between...the tundra is on fire!  I took well over 1000 photos in just that week or so.  My heart is beating faster just thinking about how beautiful it was.  Truly...being in Alaska for four months last summer was a peak experience, truly mystical.  I've never been surrounded by such majesty and, if I were even 10 or 15 years younger, I would have stayed!  I could be very happy in Anchorage, which is the perfect city!  Not too big but big enough to have everything a civilized person needs to be happy.  With "Met at the Movies", one can live just about anywhere now and feed her soul!  So, add a perfect roommate and you have the perfect summer (ok, ok, there were some problems but they fade with time and only the wonderfulness of it remains).  I subscribe to the adage that "you can't go back", though, so I won't be returning...at least not any time soon.  I'm still struggling with what to do this summer, though I'm pretty sure I'll be staying in Denver.  I'd like to work for the Rockies (MLB), but may not be able to since I'll be gone much of March and April (in China/Tibet) and then all of May (in Phoenix).  My Denali roommate and I are talking about working at Shenandoah in the autumn.  With the China trip looming, I've just not been able to plan any further out.

I got home from Denali in mid-September, unpacked and then, the first week of October, left on a one-week road trip to the Black Hills with a dear friend and neighbor.  We went first to Devil's Tower in eastern Wyoming...what an amazing site.  Again, tons and tons of photos, which I'll post along with Denali autumn.  The colors of the prairie grasses filled my heart...shades of yellow, gold, brown, orange...just gorgeous!  We stayed in a little town in northern South Dakota called Belle Fourche, as it turns out, the geographic center of the United States.  (Seems they figured out the point at which the 50 states would balance exactly if suspended from a (very large!!!) cable).  Who'd guess?  We stayed in a funky little 50's motel and loved it!  From there we day-tripped to Badlands National Park, Custer State Park (lots of herds of buffalo), Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial and Jewel Caves National Monument.  We had a lovely, laid back time and thoroughly enjoyed it.

OK, that catches me up on travel.  And, hopefully, my trip to sanity is also completed!

Changes

So, there I was in beautiful Denali, AK, having the time of my life...and then the postings just stopped.  Seems I was on another, dreaded though familiar journey.  Back into a depression I've known for most of my life and battled pretty much constantly off and on for the past 30 plus years.  When I get depressed, I pull in rather severely.  I don't want anyone to know that there is any weakness in me, so I remain relatively sunny on the outside but totally shutdown. 

Because my life is so wonderful and I have, really, no worries at all, I couldn't recognize it as depression. Always before, I'd had something to blame it on.  But, here it was, in all it's glory, just standing there alone demanding my attention.  This was much harder to recognize.  I blamed it on boredom and planned a week and half in AZ with my daughters and then three weeks in Houston with my son.  But still it persisted and finally, finally! I recognized it and called it by name and asked for help. 

I'd been on anti-depressants before but always stopped taking them when the crisis of the time had passed.  For the past ten years, I had relied on St. John's Wart and then set myself free of even it.  Free at last, free at last...uh oh!  Now I recognize that nothing hurts like depression and there is a pill that takes the worst of the pain away.  I've done enough talk therapy to help a small village but still there it is and I now accept that I need the little pills.  So, I'm back!

In the meantime, I spent a great week in Mesa with my daughter, including Thanksgiving at my other daughter's, an overnight with my sister, and visits with a very new friend and a very old friend.  It was a busy and fun time.  My 39 year old daughter is expecting her first baby following a tube reversal last spring.  We were all surprised that she was then so easily pregnant!  Just meant to be, I guess.  It will be a girl in May.

Then I was home for two weeks (and got my prescription!) before leaving for my first trip ever to Texas.  My son and his family had lived for over three years in Vancouver, B.C. and I was looking forward to spending Christmas with them there.  However, just a month earlier, he had been transferred to Houston to take over the downtown restaurant there.  I've just never been a fan of Texas or the Texas attitude, as I interpreted it, and I had no desire to EVER go there in this lifetime.  OK, a bit extreme, but that's how I am on some issues.  But, here I was, going to Texas for Christmas!

You know, it wasn't half bad!  Downtown Houston is quite lovely, the sprawl looks like sprawl anywhere and the people were quite pleasant.  The kids live in a great house, large but not obnoxiously so and each of the kids has his own room (or did till I got there; Lily had to relinquish her room for the duration).  A couple days after I got there, my daughter-in-law took off for work in California and I had all three kids (boys,11 and 9, girl, 4) all to myself for four days.  Exhaustion aside, it was wonderful and I had very special times with each of the children. 

When my daughter-in-law returned, I discovered what all the duplicity of the past years had been about...she is one of the top "mommy" bloggers in the country.  I'm not sure why, but for five years she had done all she could to be sure I didn't discover this nugget; big giant secret, but only from me.  I don't pretend to understand though it makes me feel a bit dirty somehow, like there's something very terrible about me that would screw things up for her.  But, the truth is out and hopefully there is now no more cause for lies between us.  I always knew they were lies but pretended to believe them just to keep things on a even keel.

What all this has done is propel me to attempt to be more personal and more constant with my blog.  I've kind of changed it around a bit, trying to get into the change myself.  The blog started as a Peace Corps blog for my time in South Africa.  I then extended it to cover my travels.  I now think of it as covering that biggest trip of all...life! 

My first REAL wilderness experience

I know, considering where I've been the last five years, it's hard to believe, but I just returned from encountering my first wild animals in the wild, face to face.  It was amazing.  I was on a walk that I've taken dozens of times, winding along the Nenana River.  The circuit is about a mile and a half and is my "fallback" walk on those days I don't take a "real" walk.  I had just arrived at the beach at a bend in the river and became aware of a presence.  I looked off to my right and into the eyes of a large female moose with her baby.  They were probably 30 yards away, eating their way toward me.  I sat on the beach, keeping totally still, for about 45 minutes as they slowly approached.  I was trying hard to remember how to react safely to moose as they chewed their way to within 15 yards of me.

Just as I was thinking I should perhaps get out of there, a raft full of people came by, shutters clicking madly away.  The moose and I quickly melded into the taiga...the moose more quickly than I, in my fuscia shirt.  And...of course, I didn't have my camera.  But the memory will be indelible.  Another reminder that zoo animals don't even look like the same species.  Animals in the wild are healthy and stong and magnificent...or dead!  Zoo animals are like people...kept alive at all cost and looking it!

Happy to be healthy!

No sooner had I reveled in my foot being back to 100%,  I managed to get a cold/asthma/sinusy thing.  I was pretty sick for awhile and struggled with getting an "emergency inhaler", albuteral.  Because I had absolutely NO asthma problems while in Africa, I didn't come as prepared as I thought.  I had a canister of albuteral but didn't bring an inhaler sleeve for it, thinking it would fit into the sleeveI use for my other inhaled drug.  Anyway, after nearly two weeks of struggling with coughing and difficulty breathing, my Denver doctor called in a prescription to a Fairbanks pharmacy (2 1/2 hours away) and my dear roomie drove up to get it for me.  Two days later, the three months supply I had ordered at the beginning of the entire ordeal, came in.  It was a good three weeks of feeling like shit, but I am good now and loving it.  I imagine I've written this before since I believe it so strongly, but I think being sick is about learning to appreciate NOT being sick.  I get so accustomed to feeling good that I take it for granted...now I am fully appreciative and determined to remain aware and appreciative so I don't need another reminder.

Nancy and I went to Fairbanks for two days last week to celebrate her 77th birthday.  We had a lovely, laid back time.  We took a riverboat cruise to a living Alaskan Native museum.  The cruise was beautiful and the museum was quite interesting.  We stayed "downtown" (Fairbanks is a really small town" and walked around, had a nice birthday dinner at an Italian restaurant and watched some TV...a treat for Nancy.  The following day, Nancy did some shopping and got her hair cut while I lounged at Barnes and Noble and had a couple cups of tea.  Following our attendance at a fabric art show at a gallery, where we got the unexpected and out of the blue news of Sarah Palin's resignation, we had lunch and headed back.  It is just good to get "off the reservation" as we are very isolated here at the lodge.  Even taking the shuttle buses, there's no where to go but the park and the commercial area, which is a couple more lodges, souvenir shops and adventure booking offices.

I'm on the second day of my "weekend" again.  Yesterday, Nancy and I walked about 6-7 miles...it was a beautiful day.  We had had five days of dense smoke from many forest fires in the area and had just had a good nights rain the night before.  So, though it was overcast, the air was clear and it was a cool, lovely day.  We went to the park for a bowl of their great vegetarian chili for lunch and then just walked and knocked around til dinner time.  It's fun just being with someone so compatible.  We then came back to our lodge for dinner in our dining room (NOT the employee dining room but the real one)...having heard that their vegetarian pizza is to die for.  And it was...it is large, four cheese and filled with slow roasted veges...yum!!!  I also had my bi-annual beer and a hangover today.  I KNEW I would but I HOPED I wouldn't!  Damn, I wish I could drink...that beer tasted sooooooo good!

I heard from a Denver friend, Germaine, that she will be in Denali in early August.  We are trying to arrange a get-together, which shouldn't be too difficult.  Although the park is 6 million acres, it is nearly all wilderness with a very small commercial area...so I'm looking forward to seeing her.  Later, in September, I'm hoping my dear friend, Jo Lynda, will come up.  Roomie Nancy is leaving at the end of August, so I'll have an extra bed and we've been tossing around the idea of her coming up and then leaving with me on the 19th.  I found a really cheap ticket directly from Anchorage to Denver and snapped it up, totally deleting my plan to go back to Vancouver and then taking the train through the Canadian Rockies to Calgary and then home.  I have to save my money now...Nancy and I are planning a month long trip to China and Tibet in the spring and it will take some change.  That suddenly changed my thought of this summer as an experience in itself, paying only for itself, into a way to earn some bucks for the big one!  I also plan a road trip to New Mexico over Thanksgiving with my friend, Linda, and Christmas in Vancouver, so it will be a busy year.  I'm thinking, from here, that I might enjoy spending next summer in Denver.  I miss so much of the fun being away then, Kirsten's garden, the music and movies in the park, seminars in Vermont (!), watching tennis and golf tournaments...lots of stuff I haven't done for a long time.  We'll see.  By the way, I posted a new photo album of wildflowers.  Check it out!

Up the Nenana

Another terrific day off, hiking the park, dinner in "The Canyon" (also called "Glitter Gulch"...the commercial area of the park with hotels and shops) looking out over the mountains and the river, capped off by a jet boat trip far up the Nenana.  The Nenana is the major river system here in the park and adjacent areas.  It is glacial runoff, colder than whatever and filled with moraine (dirtpicked up by the glacier and deposited in the river).  It flows fast and hard but is very shallow at the upper end.  It flows in what are called braided rivers as it comes off the glacier...shallow, very broad and forming criss-crossing temporary river beds, looking as if they are braided, thus, the name.  The area we explored last night (remember, because it just doesn't get dark here, we can do most anything at anytime), was a little more familiarly river-like, though there were many islands and shoals and it was very shallow in places, though flowing very rapidly.

The scenery was, again, spectacular.  It has dawned on me that I am running out of superlatives to use to describe this place.  It is so big and so open and so lush on many levels and so beautiful it is hard to adequately describe, thus all the photos.  We were surrounded by spruce, many extending horizontally over the river, an aftereffect of the river ice as it broke up and undercut the riverbank.  We didn't see any fall but many have and many more will before the season ends.  We did see many signs of beaver...my they are busy little things...and even one very large beaver (my first ever outside of a zoo).  Many of the mountains in this area of the river are large piles of boulders while others are sharp granite outcroppings above lovely green tundra, which tops forests of spruce and aspen/birch.  The tree line here is only 2000 ft.  It had been heavily overcast all day, and the sun broke through in several places, creating what I call "god light" (from depictions of god in my catechism book when I was a child), where the sun breaks through and illuminates a defined area.  Love it!

We went up the river about ten miles and then got out at a trappers cabin while he acted as apologist for the trappers of Alaska.  We then "panned" for gold in raised boxes that had been salted with small amounts of gold.  Everyone found a little bit...I gave mine away...but it was really over-the-top corny.  The ride, though, ah, the ride!  I'll do it again, hopefully, in the fall when the tundra has turned red and the aspen yellow.  AND...I'll remember my camera!

Today, my second day off, is a lazy rainy day and I'm doing as little as possible.  And, by the way, I got my wish...I am working late afternoons and evenings everyday, Sat - Wed.  I really like it so far and hope it doesn't become a classic "be careful what you wish for".  Since it is never dark here, it really doesn't matter when you get off or go to bed; circadian rhythms seem to mean nothing here!

It really IS "the land of the midnight sun"!

In fact, I haven't seen ANY night at all since I arrived a month ago and guess I won't while I'm here.  It sure makes getting off work at 10:30 or 11:00 at night easier when it is still daylight.  It initially made it really hard to sleep, but I've learned.  We have black-out draperies, which help a lot.  I still get a little punch-drunk at work late at night but my body is slowly, slowly adjusting to a schedule of working mid-afternoon to late night.  Fortunately, my newest schedule doesn't require me to get up for 6:15AM shifts anymore.  I'm hopeful those days of getting off late at night to be back at it less than 8 hours later are over...that was killer for me and I really didn't know if I could deal with it.  So, I'm hopeful that this is our final schedule (it's been changed every week so far).  We are mostly old ladies working the gift shop, who like early bed, so no one is fighting me for my schedule.  Also, most of the gals are intimidated by the close out process and it doesn't bother me.  The only downside for me is that I don't use even half of the time alloted to close out and end up shorting myself by nearly an hour a day, which affects my measly paycheck. 

I spent my last two days off in the park.  On Thursday, Nancy and I went for a three mile hike from the postoffice in the park to the area of hotels called "glitter gulch".  It was a beautiful sunny day and the wildflowers were in bloom in a profusion of colors and forms.  After being trapped in my room with my bum foot from nearly the first day here, it was wonderful being in the "great outdoors" surrounded by all that beauty.  I just kept exclaiming over the beauty of the day and the place and apologized to Nancy for being so vocal with my excitement.  We treated ourselves to a night out that evening with dinner at the Grande Lodge, which is situated VERY high up a mountain with an unbelievable view.  The lodge has seen better days but the restaurant is wonderful and the view can't be beat.  We had fish and chips...HALIBUT fish and chips!  Oh, my god, it was wonderul, fresh and flaky. 

On Friday, I got up early to get the shuttle to the park entrance where I took a park shuttle to Eilson Visitor's Center, 55 miles into the park.  Denali is 6 million acres, yet has only one small ribbon of unpaved road going about 90 miles into the park to Wonder Lake.  That particular ride is over 13 hours long, so I opted to go a bit more than half way in 8 hours round trip.  The day was overcast and I enjoyed the muted beauty of the weather.  We saw enough animals to keep the tourists happy...and, yes, I enjoyed them, too.  But I seem to enjoy the flora and vista more than the fauna, wherever I am.  And this place is so beautiful it can break your heart!  Even ziplining paled in comparison to the abject fear I felt going over Polychrome Pass, though.  I was in the very back of the converted school bus as it rounded the hairpin curves, thousands of feet up, around the mountain.  I tried to enjoy the unobstructed scenery but found I had to close my eyes just to keep my breakfast down.  Now THAT'S a ride!!!  Maybe if I were driving and in control it wouldn't be so frightening but, for the first time, I understood my friend's fear driving on a winding road without guardrails in the snow.  OK, Gloria, I get it!  Anyway, it was a great ride and I was able to appreciate the park so much more.

I am looking forward to doing as little as possible my next days off...let my foot rest up a little.  It was pretty good for a couple days but by last evening, I knew I had overdone it...yet again.  I've learned to tolerate a certain level of pain as long as I know I'm doing no further harm.  Then...I seem to pass over that level and it's time to back off a bit.  It's a learning process and I'm learning. 

Denver to Denali...and beyond!

My feet never touched the ground the first three days I was in B.C.  I arrived in Vancouver early afternoon on Saturday, May 2, to be met at the airport by my daughter-in-law and wonderful, beautiful grandchildren, Brendan, 11, Tristan, 9, and Lily, 3.  We were then met by my son, freshly recovering from his vasectomy the previous day, for a nice late lunch.  When we got back to their place in Burnaby, they laid out my schedule and it was a doozy!  I picked a very good week to visit! 

On Sunday morning, we got up early to go down to central Vancouver for the Vancouver Marathon.  The boys were running, along with Shannon (my daughter-in-law), in the kids portion of the race.  It was great fun, though I chose to wait for everyone at the finish rather than take part, especially since I could still barely walk without limping following my stress fracture five weeks before.  (The foot, by the way, is continuing to give me a good deal of trouble and I've even gotten a walking stick.)  There was a "kid's place" set up nearby and we stayed and played for awhile.  Josh, my son, then disappeared and reappeared with a van to take us all to Whistler for an overnight.

I swear, everytime we go somewhere here I think I've never seen anything so beautiful.  The ride to Whistler, venue for the skiing portions of the 2010 Winter Olympics, was unbelievable!  The road, being expanded to four lanes for the extravaganza, is spectacular, hugging the shoreline through beautiful, heavily treed mountains.  And Whistler itself, a ski area in it's greenery season, was wonderful.  We had a great time playing tourists and my boys and I even went on the zipline.  Now, THAT was thrilling.  As I stood anticipating stepping into the precipice, I wasn't sure I could do it.  I am so happy I did...I loved it, though I have now crossed it off my list of things to do and probably won't feel compelled to do it again.  The rest of the week was nearly as crazy, attending an all-day track meet for Brendan and the spring fling at the kids' grade school.  We also went to China Town and the Chinese Park, since Shannon and the boys had not been there, though Josh and I had taken Lily during my previous visit.

I boarded the ship on Sunday for my cruise to Alaska.  It was every bit as spectacular as I'd heard and I had very enjoyable stops in Ketchikan, where I hiked through parts of the Tongass National Forest, Juneau, where I visited the Mendenhall glacier and took a whale watching boat trip (saw a couple), and Skagway, where I hiked a portion of the Chilkoot Trail and then rafted back down the river.  Saw grizzlies on the shore and eagles overhead.  Simply beautiful.  And, of course, Glacier Bay and College Fiord are as amazing as everyone says.

I got to Anchorage the following Sunday about mid-morning, left my luggage at the tourist center and walked down to their outdoor market.  After a couple hours and a salmon quesedilla, I walked up to the museum...a good wallk...only to find it closed, which was disappointing.  Back to the tourist center to pick up my bags and then I walked over to the home of the daughter of my best friend from high school (Joan McLaughlin's daughter, Patty) and spent the evening and night with them.  What a great family; it was absolutely delightful.  The next morning, early, I boarded a bus to Denali...and here I am at McKinley Village Lodge!  It was a crystal clear day and we were able to enjoy the excitement of seeing Mt. McKinley appear and grow larger as we drove.  Since it is often cloudy and she is not "out" very often, we felt blessed.  In fact, only 30% of the visiters to the park get to see her.

Our first ten days were spent setting up the beautiful new gift shop, while rearranging the old one.  We have two here, now, with totally different merchandise in each.  The lodge gift shop has Native art and other higher end stuff, while the other shop has keychains, magnets, books, snacks and toiletries...that sort of stuff.  We shift off between the two and work really early and late hours.  Unfortunately, we all have varied shifts and work late one night, several times a week, and get up early the following morning.  It's killing me!!!  The manager said, in my earshot, that she wished someone would close every night and I immediately volunteered.  If I could know I could sleep in every morning, I could easily adjust to working til 11PM.  We'll see.

I've been into the park, though not far yet as the roads are still closed into the interior.  I've seen most of the accessible wildlife, including several moose moms with new calves, cariboo, arctic hare (there are millions of them, which will be followed by an explosion in the lynx population).  We were just given tickets to allow us, on a space available basis, to go on the various tours offered into the park.  I hope/plan to take one during my next days off.  This week, my roommate, who is perfect as a roomie, and I rented another employee's car and drove to Fairbanks onour joint day off, yesterday.  Gorgeous drive and we had a great time.  We spent time, first, at Fred Meyer's and got everything on our lists (though, we discoved, we had forgotten to put a couple things ON the lists!) and then went to the museum at the university.  It is filled with history, natural history, and native arts.  We then treated ourselves to dinner at a cafe overlooking the river and mountains.  It was my favorite day since I got here...the perfect companion, spectacular scenery, a wonderful museum and the sense of being "sprung free".  As beautiful as it is here, it feels like we are on a tiny island, far from anything else and unable to get away, for the most part, except for a shuttle bus to the park.  Along with the structure of assigned hours of work, I was feeling a bit constricted and hemmed in.  Thank god many times over for my absolutely wonderful roommate, Nancy.

Next time, I'll tell you about her.  She has lived a really fascinating life.

Counting Down

I don't have much to say but I hope to very soon.  It's only 10 more days til I leave for Vancouver and then on to Alaska.  Everything is in order from my ride to the airport to my shore excursions on the cruise to my lodging in Anchorage.  Amazingly, my sisters, Jane and Julie, are leaving within 5 minutes of my flight for the same destination...Seattle...but on a different airline.  Thankfully, I'm able to grab a ride out to the airport with them.  They are going to Seattle to visit our brother, Jack, for the weekend while I am connecting with a flight to Vancouver to visit my son, Josh, his wife and children.  By the way, that's pretty much all the "J's" in our extended family, except for my daughter, Jennifer.  In Anchorage, I'll have the pleasure of staying overnight with Patty, the daughter of my best friend in high school, Joan McLaughling.  Patty was also in the Peace Corps in Africa!

I managed to stress fracture my left foot about 3-4 weeks ago and have been pretty hobbled ever since.  The good part is that doing nothing makes me NOT hungry at all and I have been able to lose 6 lbs. of the 15 lbs. I picked up in Africa.  Another 5 - 10 and I'll be happy camper.  I decided that it was the extra weight that caused the fracture...very unlikely but the motivation I needed to take it off!  The foot is still sore and touchy but I have every hope that it will be fine by the cruise.  It has to be.  All my shore excursions are hikes!!!

I just got an e-mail from my employer-to-be in Alaska.  We take a chartered bus from Anchorage to our lodge site, a 6-7 hour trip (sort of like going from Mafikeng to Pretoria but with a whole seat to myself and nothing wedged under my feet or on my lap!).  We will be stopping at Wal Mart in Wasilla (how Sarah Palin is THAT!?!) to get things we need.  That frees up space in luggage since I can pick up a blanket, towels, toiletries, etc., there and not have to pack them along.  I had to laugh at the Wasilla stop, though, as I had thought I would have to make a special trip there just to say I'd been there.  Now...consider it done!

More from the cruise...my first!

Synchronicities

I have been noticing lately the remarkable synchronicities in life.  I suppose they happen all the time to everyone, but I've been much more aware of them lately.  Mostly they have been involvingbooks...which make up a great deal of my life at present.  The first one I noticed involved Christianity in India.  I read a book "The Kolkans", the protagonist of which was descended from a group of Indians tortured into Catholicism by Vasco de Gama and "St Francis" (how can a torturer be a saint?  only the Catholic Church can say).  The very next book I read was "Cutting for Stone".  One of it's protagonist was from a group of Christians in India, converted by Thomas the Apostle and just "down the road" from de Gama's group in Goa!

Next I read "Wordy Shipmates" by Sarah Vowell, which is about the pilgrims.  I knew nothing real about them beyond Thanksgiving myths, so it was a real eye-opener for me and fun to read thrown into the bargain.  That very weekend, I attended a concert at a United Church of Christ church and picked up the hymnal to look through...very interesting selection of hymns from every variant of the Christian ideology.  And even more interesting to me was that the Order of Service read like a Catholic Mass!  When I got home I googled United Church of Christ and discovered it is the current permutation of the Congregationalist Church...the church of the Massachusetts pilgrims who were trying to change the Anglican Church from within...thus the near Mass of their liturgy.  All new info for me and exciting to learn.

My most recent synchronicity is reading, for the first time, a book loaned by a friend by the author, Carl Hiaasen.  I'd never heard of him so was surprised to get a call from a friend asking me to attend a lecture by...you got it...Carl Hiaasen!  Too amazing!

My interpretation is that life is going well and as it should.  I guess another would be to keep reading!

I will be working in Alaska this summer.  I'll be a gift shop clerk at the McKinley Village Lodge just outside the entrance to Denali National Park from mid-May to mid-September.  In all, I'll be gone for five months (yea...I'll miss the Denver summer...too hot for me!).  I'll leave here the first of May for a week with the kids in Vancouver, then I'm taking a 7-day cruise to Anchorage.  I'll get there just in time to report in to the office for a ride to Denali the morning of the 18th.  My plan coming home is to stop again in Vancouver and then take the train through the Canadian Rockies, Lake Louise, Banff, etc. to Calgary and then fly or bus home.  Hopefully, that will satiate my travel bug until the following summer.  Originally, my plan was to work all summer to fund travel in the winter but the cruise and the train trip will pretty much tap me out for travel...maybe.  I'll be able to travel to see friends but not go abroad...I think.  I'm hoping my next big trip will be to Southern India and that may involve saving for a couple years, not something I'm particularly good at doing.

I've added some photos of the lovely park just behind my apt. building taken during our last snow.  We've had very little so it was a real treat to have an opportunity to walk during a snowfall.  I LOVE it and miss it now that we have global warming.  I must say, though, that Denver has not had any of the extreme weather events that have plagued the rest of the country this winter and that's not all bad.  Not having a car or having to go anywhere, though, I wouldn't mind some extreme weather.  Maybe I'll get it in Alaska (where I won't have to go anywhere further than from the lodge to my housing).

Happy New Year

I suppose my life is just as interesting here as it was in South Africa but, somehow, being in a foreign land made it all seem more exciting.  So that's my excuse for not keeping up, such as it is!

I am so settled in and so loving my life here.  I have a very, very dear friend living across the street and another with whom I go out pretty much every weekend.  I eat four full-course, noon time  "dinners" a week in the retirement building  across the street (where my friend, JoLynda, lives) for the grand sum of $55-60/mo and have more than enough to bring home for dinner, too.  It pretty much totally relieves me of cooking unless I want to, since I go out for meals most Saturdays and eat a noon meal at church following Sunday service.  Another up-side is that it is my social fix most days and keeps me from total hermit-hood.

I am very centrally located and can walk pretty much everywhere I want or take a bus when I don't want to or can't walk.  I'm only a block from two different bus routes that run very frequently.  These often empty buses show me just how much sense the system in South Africa of waiting for a full bus before taking off makes.  It is sure more economically efficient, though inconvenient.  There is a shopping bus that comes every Friday morning to take us to the big supermarket...I'm loving this being in a retirement place for these conveniences.  Aside from that, I pretty much ignore the whole "community" thing but can see myself aging here safely and comfortably.  My apartment is all I could want or need.  I love pulling out the trundle at night and making the room into a bedroom and then pushing it back in the morning and, lo and behold, no sign of bedroom...just living space.  I can't see myself needing more space and wonder why I ever thought I did.

I had a phone interview last Monday for a job in Denali National Park in Alaska this summer.  I'll be clerking in the gift shops at Mt. McKinley Village Lodge from mid-May to mid-Sept and I am so excited I could spit butterscotch!  The Lodge has two gift shops, one for transients with mostly souvenirs and books and pamphlets, etc. and the other for guests with the high end stuff.  I chose this assignment because I'll be able to switch off between the shops and meet so many more types of people.  After the frequent loneliness of my time in Africa, this will be a welcome switch.  They use a lot of retired people as employees, so I'm hoping to find some like-hearted fellow-travelers to trek around with on our off time.  I've spent a lot of time online checking out the park and cannot believe the spectacular nature of the beauty there.

Till then, I'm thinking of maybe making a shot trip to visit some far-flung friends but need to get back on my feet from the flu/sinus infection thing I've been battling since Christmas.  Felt good enough today to clean my bathroom!!!  That's progress.  Speaking of Christmas, spent the day, itself, alone but then, on Boxer Day went to my nephew's home and spent the day with my sisters, three nieces, a nephew, their spouses and children.  There were a total of 19 of us, I think.  Anyway, a whole bunch of relatives and it was great fun.  However, as much fun as it was, I've resolved to spend my Christmases from now on with my grandkids in Vancouver.  From the time the children were born, they lived within a mile of me until they moved to Vancouver, shortly before I moved to South Africa.  It was our tradition that they would call me first thing Christmas morning and I would go over before the kids began unwrapping gifts.  I LOVED it and find that I missed it very much.  So, from now on, I'll fly up, if only for a short stay.  It just wasn't Christmas without them.