The Butte Elementary Annual Pig Raffle

My nieces Tabitha and Kaylee both go to Butte Elementary, so when the annual raffle came up this year I of course had to buy 10 tickets. I told the girls I really wanted that pig, so they had to arrange things for me to ensure that I won it. They said they would do what they could.

Which actually turned out to be quite a bit – I didn’t win the pig, but I did win a prize! I got a Family Day Pass worth up to $200.00 for Skeetawk, the (relatively) new ski lodge up at Hatcher Pass!!

Bryan has been talking about wanting to check that out this season, so now he can go. Sadly we do not have a “family” to use the full potential of the prize, but I know my nephew Corbin loves to go snowboarding so perhaps Bryan could take Corbin one day and have some fun up on the slopes.

I’m pretty pleased with it all.

Spontaneity

We had a very un-planned date night last night – it was fun!

I had been going through my emails, deleting the junk and reading through the more important ones, when I came across an email from the Mat-SuTrails people. They had a couple Events listed at the bottom of their monthly newsletter, one of which caught my eye. It was a fundraiser for the Avalanche School here in the valley featuring a movie called “Anywhere From Here” being held at the Glenn Massey Theatre off Trunk Road.

We weren’t doing anything that night, so we decided to go check it out!

At the lobby, they had a silent auction going on – so we perused the tables and placed a few bids on things that Bryan thought he’d use if he actually won. The we headed on in to the theatre and took our seats. The theatre is actually really nice – plenty of seating, good lighting, nice acoustics. The perfect place for live performances and concerts and such. They have a huge drop-down screen, so we got to watch all that Extreme Skiing in larger-than-life color!

The movie was really good - all about Extreme Skiing. It mostly featured a 12-year-old boy, but also had others ranging from their 20s to their 30s. The skiing was just amazing. Honestly, I do not know how people do that. They helicopter up to the top of some really, REALLY big mountains and then strap little slats of wood onto their feet, balance themselves up on a knifes edge with a sheer drop off going straight down for miles and miles – and just jump off! Down they go! It was truly spectacular.

They had a lot of drone footage, so we got to see the skiers from all different angles as they flew down the mountains, in locations all over the world from Banff to Valdez to Switzerland to pretty much anywhere there is a mountain with snow on it. These people have no fear – or at least a very healthy respect for fear. There were some pretty colossal fails right alongside some epic – or “sic” as they would say – runs.

Bryan spent the whole night just wide-eyed and shaking his head. He skis, but has to fight his fear of heights the whole time. So you would definitely not find him up on a knives edge falling down off the mountains, no matter how “sic” the run might be!

All in all, it was a fabulous night out. We are now awaiting the phone call to announce Bryan as the winner of the items he bid on (not really).

The Fly-Way

They call it the Fly-way,

It is, in my humble opinion, the most confusing intersection in all of Alaska; maybe even in all of the U.S. Perhaps even in all of the World! But that’s probably reaching a bit high…

In the past if you wanted to drive from Anchorage to Palmer, you’d get on the Glenn Highway and just drive straight there. You might, if you were so inclined, turn of onto the Parks Highway and head West into Wasilla or Talkeetna. But either way, you’d head North on pretty much the only highway available to you. It was a no-brainer.

The railroad crossing at the Parks/Glenn intersection caused a lot of delays and traffic jams, plus just a general increase in population required an upgrade in that area. So some Civil Engineer somewhere got hair up his butt and somehow managed to sell the upper brass on this gem of an idea. It’s beyond weird, if you ask me, but he (or she) probably got a medal or commendation for the darned project.

The general idea is to allow the railroad to pass under the highway so that no one has to stop to allow the trains to go by. That is a good idea: I agree with that concept. 

But now, in order to go from Anchorage to Palmer on the Glenn highway – you must EXIT the Glenn highway, swing around to your left over the top of the railroad tracks, then swing back to your right and under the highway and merge back onto the Glenn to continue on your way.

If you’re confused and do NOT exit but stay ON the Glenn Highway, you will be routed up and over the train tracks and under and around the people who have exited the Glenn, and get merged into the Parks Highway, to where you are then headed West on your way to Wasilla and/or Talkeetna.

It makes my head hurt just trying to think about it.

And don’t even get me started on the round-about situation at the hospital up the road a ways!

Frozen Fingers

“Let’s go berry picking!” he said.

“It’ll be fun!” he said.

And honestly, it was fun. It was just really, really cold. It was so cold the berries were actually frozen on the bushes. Our poor fingers!

Bryan had gone up Buffalo Mine Road this past weekend on a hunting/hiking trip and found this huge field of High Bush Cranberries, so yesterday after work we bundled ourselves up in our winter gear and headed up about 35 miles north of Palmer. He’d originally planned to park the truck and hike in a bit, just like he’d done on that weekend – but there were enough berries just right off the side of the road we barely had to leave the ditch to fill our buckets.

Of course, about 10 minutes into our berry picking it started to snow. By the time our fingers were too cold to pick anymore it was a full-on blizzard, with big thick fluffy beautiful flakes! Thank goodness I have a brand new pair of snowpants and a nice warm thick sweater. The only thing that got cold was my hands!

We now have our own “secret” spot for next year, with potential for lots of High Bush Cranberries, Low Bush Cranberries, Blueberries, and probably even some Rose Hips, too.

Yay for harvesting berries!

So Much Stuff

The tenant in my house in Anchorage moved out on the 30^th so Bryan and I went in Saturday to inspect the place and see what needs to be done with it in order to sell the place. It was not nearly as bad as the last tenant, but not good either. The guy left a TON of stuff behind: closets full of clothing, the washer/dryer full of clothing, the garage full of junk, the back deck/yard full of junk (and poop everywhere).

I called my property manager who contacted the guy to make sure he had actually finished moving out and the guy apologized but said yes, anything left behind was left behind on purpose and could be thrown away at the dump.

Yeah, thanks a lot, dude.

So – Bryan spent a good 4-5 hours that evening loading up his truck and the trailer as well. He’ll have to go back in on Monday to finish up with another load or two, one to the dump and one to bring more stuff here to the house.

Today, we spent the whole day going through bags of clothing and suitcases of clothing and boxes of clothing and tote bags of clothing and backpacks of clothing. It’s amazing how much clothing we’ve gone through. Apparently the guy’s wife just up and left him. All her clothing is now in our house, and she was a cloths hound. All her baby girl’s clothing is here, too – and a very large portion of His clothing as well. Really makes you wonder what they’re all wearing right now!

Anyway, we have two very large garbage bags stuffed full of baby girl clothes that I plan to give to my niece. Two medium garbage bags of clothing that I think my nephew can wear. One large garbage bag stuffed full of clothing that will go to the goodwill. One tote full of really nice coats that I’ll give to my niece to see if any of her gang will wear. A huge box of miscellaneous shoes and boots that will go to goodwill. A huge bag of pillows, curtains, lap rugs, and various fabrics for goodwill. A tote full of hats, gloves, mittens, belts, caps, and whatnot for goodwill. And Both Bryan and I each got a nice coat out of the deal – and even Mother got one!

Bryan is in the garage dealing with the larger items, like the bicycles and coolers and grills and baby cribs and car seats and camp tents and stoves and cat trees and whatnot. One at a time, he’s taking pictures of them and posting them on Facebook Market Place to sell them. We figure the money we make off these items will go towards a really nice bottle (or three) of whiskey!

A couple items have been rather surprising. One box, maybe three foot square, full of nothing but make-up. I know make-up can be very expensive! That box must be thousands of dollars’ worth of make-up – some packages have never even been open. We plan on selling the whole box for $100.00 (OBO)… we’ll see if it goes…

Another surprise was opening up a suitcase and finding it full of Adult Toys  (and it was a very large suitcase) – a leather harness, at least 10 dildos of various shapes and sizes, but-plugs, anal rings, hand cuffs, muzzles, the whole she-bang. Hell, I don’t even know what half of those things are – or how you’re supposed to use them. And I really don’t know how we’re going to get rid of them. I’m pretty sure Facebook won’t allow us to sell that kind of stuff on their marketplace. Maybe we’ll try Craig’s List…