Don't Worry, Be Happy

I'm hanging out at Scribbit today, and hope you'll pop over to read my guest post. NO. I'm not hoping. I'm begging. Her readers are a serious bunch who issue stern reprimands when I try to joke about things. Come save me, my light-hearted peeps!




Dinner last night: chili dogs (I know, I know)

Exactly two years ago:

Birthday Gift

Critters

On our recent road trip to Valdez, we spied quite a few animals. I missed my opportunity to photograph a rabbit, and I absolutely refuse to post another picture of a moose, but here are a couple shots of some of the other wildlife we came across:

I've been working on a post for Scribbit about how

I'm the only Alaskan who's never seen a swan in the wild,

and then I happened upon this couple with their 3 signets.

Now I'm seeing them everywhere!

The idea of a porcupine is cute. The reality, not so much.

We came across these furry little rodents and decided to keep them as pets.

Dinner last night: chicken enchilada soup, green salad

Exactly one year ago:

The Year of the Funky

Exactly two years ago:

Let Your Freak Flag Fly

Pronounced Val-deez

If you're like me, Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer vacation. It's the first weekend that we take the kids on an official family trip somewhere. We chose this year not to camp at a river, since that's where the rest of Alaska seems to go, and, frankly, if I don't enjoy standing in line at the post office, why in the world would I want to line up elbow-to-elbow along a river bank only to catch a fishing hook in my ear? So, this holiday, we headed to Valdez.

It has been years since I last visited this beautiful little town where I lived for a time during my youth, and I forgot about the ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS drive to get there.

You toodle through the mountains . . .

. . . past a couple of glaciers . . .

. . . over Thompson Pass . . . STOP. I have to quiz you. Any idea what those angled rods are for? I can tell you from firsthand experience, because my family once got caught in a nasty blizzard as we were returning home to Valdez one winter.

Those guides are lifesavers for people driving through blinding, white-out conditions where the snow is drifting and covering tracks of any cars that may have gone before you, when you can no longer see where the road ends or begins. Keep your vehicle between those two rows of markers (you can't tell in this daylight shot, but the top bars hanging across the road are actually reflectors that shine like a beacon in the dark) and they'll guide you out of the Pass. Now where was I? . . . over Thompson Pass . . .

. . . through Keystone Canyon, with its hundreds of waterfalls . . .

. . . to your final destination of Small Town, USA.

Dinner last night: cheeseburgers on the barbie, chocolate cake

Exactly one year ago:

Gardening Rules, Weeding Drools