Hello,
Spring time has officially arrived in South-central Alaska! After a long and rather difficult winter, mild frost bite and other crazy events, the earth has started to roll back into the graces of the sun. Our days have lengthened to over 17 hours with sunrise now at about 6:00 a.m and sunset at about 10:00 p.m, though it's light out from 5:00 a.m to well past 11:00 p.m., and we're gaining more than five minutes per day. The first order of spring, following my mother's wedding last month, was a visit from my father. In case you are curious, he actually did remember to bring pants! He also remembered face masks (for volcanic ash), fancy computer, giant winter coat, assortment of good books and camera, but still managed to forget his life saving/giving asthma medicine.
In the shadow of Mt. Redoubt's continuing ashy eruption, this was quite concerning to me, but in the end, Redoubt behaved and the ash that was kicked up off of the road served only as a minor eye irritant. The clouds never really cleared enough for my father to get a good look at the volcano, but there were other notables and firsts for this trip. Simply picking him up from the airport was it's own adventure and lesson in funny frustration. I'm not sure how exactly, but it took over an hour to find my father at the airport once he arrived.
Instead of walking out of the big doors marked EXIT near the baggage claim, he elected to go back upstairs to the departures area following a series of misleading ground transportation signs that led him to some unknown airport location. He has been here more than once, so I don't know how he forgot how to exit the airport, but whatever. While I was hastily driving around the loop of airport pick-up/drop-off routes, I was simultaneously trying to call papa on his cell phone. This presented other problems.
First problem? He doesn't turn his phone on, so he can't hear it ring. Then, when he does turn it on and does hear it ring, it takes him too long to answer it because he has to push too many buttons to answer the phone and it goes to voicemail, defeating the purpose of the call in the first place. Second, my father is a non-linear thinker. What this means is that when I did get him on the phone and asked him where he was he simply said, "on a road in front of brightly colored flags... and there's a building with a lot of glass in from of me" which was about as helpful as telling me he was in Anchorage. There are flags all over the airport and the large glass building is the only view from almost anywhere on the airport property. The pick-up was also further complicated due to the fact that he wasn't actually standing outside where anyone could see him. For some other unknown reason, he was standing INSIDE behind mirrored glass windows, making it impossible to see him from a distance.
Okay, in all fairness, there was one other problem that was my fault. As many of you know, my cell phone doesn't function very well and only holds a charge for about 30 seconds before it dies. It took me three calls to tell him to stand outside, but he still didn't stand outside because it was cold. Chris called at one point, and I tried to get him to relay the message to my father to stand OUTSIDE, but there again, my father's phone was either off or going straight to voicemail. After and hour of this dog and pony show, I finally gave up and parked in the garage. I was going to start a search by foot. I started the search in the usual places, like oh... say, the baggage claim! But no, there was no sign of him. I knew he wasn't at the north terminal. There are only two terminals and the north terminal is only a one room terminal - that, and I had already been there just in case. The south terminal is only two stories, but there are a lot of exits.
Finally, after calling out loud like a cranky mother looking for a misplaced child, a janitor on the lower level near the baggage claim, smiled and pointed up to the second floor. He didn't speak English, but he knew exactly who I was looking for and sure enough, milling around near the Korean Airlines check in desk, there was my papa! Found at last.
That was the first adventure and we hadn't even made it out of the silly airport. The next adventures were here in Anchorage and then in Talkeetna. My father was walking along the Coastal Trail, no doubt, thinking about words, writing or the like when he abruptly came face to face with the very large butt of a female moose. Moose are not nearly as friendly as the cartoon Bullwinkle versions and this lady moose must have simply recognized my father as a creative and good soul. Lucky for him, she let him back up and go in peace with only a modest warning from her lowered ears. He got to see Eagles, the train and a large tanker coming into port on the same trail, so he was very pleased. In Talkeetna, Denali (Mt. McKinley) allowed the clouds to part ways long enough to give us very rare, unobstructed view of the entire range. Of course, we had to hike out a bit on the river bank to get the best view and we all sank like rocks into the waist deep snow, which made for some pretty funny gasps and a lot of labor to get to the beached driftwood log. Denali, Mt. Foraker and Mt. Hunter were all spectacularly visible from our perch at the confluence of the still frozen Talkeetna, Chulitna and Susitna rivers. It was a great afternoon!
We stayed in a cabin in downtown (if there is such a thing) Talkeetna, ate at the Road House and West Rib and enjoyed our time together. Chris and I had high hopes of seeing the Aurora's and my father dutifully woke us up as requested at 3:00 a.m., but the lights weren't out. We drove back to Anchorage for my father's final day and got the best treat of all. While Chris was out riding his bike, he ran into a family of black bears on the trail and called us to come take a look. As expected, the mama and three cubs were all out enjoying a pleasant afternoon so close to the road, that I was a little nervous about getting to far from the car. We snapped a few pictures and watched as they did their bear thing in the woods. It was quite a treat!
During my father's visit, we also celebrated Chris's 37th birthday with much wine, beer and of course, good food. I reminded Chris that he has more gray hair than I do and that he will always be older than me (barring premature death). I don't think Chris was as enthusiastic for his birthday as I was, but that's not surprising. He doesn't much care for aging and I can't say I blame him now that he's officially in his LATE 30's... practically ancient compared to my spry youthful 33 years. Seriously, though, he enjoyed his birthday and I think he got everything, or nearly everything he wanted (a healthy supply of gourmet coffees, new bike gear - panniers, new waterproof bike pants and some other gear and clothes). He sends his many thanks to everyone who sent him such generous gifts.
Currently, Chris is Vegas at a conference. He posted a lovely picture of his winnings from the Rio Casino where he has been staying. It showed his winnings as a whopping penny! Yes, that's right - a singular, lonely penny, verified by the printed voucher stating that it must be cashed in within 30 days or it will be void. I think we can plan for early retirement now! I also noticed that he neglected to let me know how much dough he spent to win the priceless penny. We shall see. He returns tomorrow.
As for me, I've been keeping busy at work with two new book and calendar projects. I bought a new fancy wide angle zoom lens for the camera and have been enjoying seeing just how much more I can see with it. I've had back to back flights for the last three days, and my instructor has informed me that I just need to take the written exam for my next rating. At this point, he feels I can teach as well as he can so really, we've just been having fun flying until I get the paper portions out of the way. The dogs and cat are great, the sunshine is great and well, life is good. Aside from being nearly smothered to death by the dogs on Monday morning and an ever urgent need to clean up the back yard from the gifts of winter, I think everything here is in fine order!
Be well and keep in touch
Vered
(...and Zev, too)
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