Love That Mule!

 The mule I got to ride down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon was named Sansa. She was the greatest mule EVER! I loved Sansa. She was feisty and tried to sneak a snack all the time (they’re not supposed to eat on the job). But all I ever had to do was tug on the reins a bit and she’d behave again.  The following pictures are from our lunch break the first day: I went over to say hello and she took the opportunity to scratch her head all over me. Thankfully the girl who offered to take a picture got it all on film.

The Grand Canyon!

I recently had the opportunity to go on such an amazing journey! Thank you so much to Becky and Debbie and Joyce for allowing me to tag along. It was truly awesome. We rode the Mules down the Grand Canyon!

We got to the canyon Thursday afternoon. After checking in to our hotel (the Bright Angel Lodge) and dropping off our gear at the mule barn (it went down ahead of us to greet us at the bottom) we had time to explore a little bit, so we decided to go to the Mather Point Overlook. The canyon is truly a Grand place, that is for sure. What spectacular views!

After a good night’s sleep, we met up with our mules and headed on down the canyon. Unfortunately, Debbie decided not to join us, so it was just Becky, Joyce, and me. We really missed Debbie’s company, but her health just would not have enjoyed the trip.

The Bright Angel Trailhead is at elevation 6,840 ft. – after about 4 hours in the saddle, we stopped at Indian Gardens (elevation 3,800 ft.) for a break and a bite of lunch. Two hours later, we finally landed at Phantom Ranch (elevation 2,470 ft.). We were quite saddle sore and sweaty, but certainly happy to get there.

Our cabin at the ranch was cozy: two bunk beds and a tiny bathroom with just enough room for a toilet (and that’s it). The food they served was good with very generous portions. No chance of anybody going hungry down there.

Temperatures down at the bottom were averaging around 94 degrees, so we decided to do our hiking early the next morning in an attempt to avoid the worst of the heat. We chose a nice little hike called The River Walk that took us across one bridge and along the trail that the mules took, then looped us back around to another bridge and back to our campsite.

Sunday morning put us back in the saddle on the same mules we rode in on: I rode Sansa, Joyce rode on J-1, and Becky rode on cuco (pronounced Koo-Koh). The ride up was not quite as rough as the one going down; but we were still quite happy to arrive back up at the rim and to meet back up with our lost companion.

To celebrate our fabulous ride, we treated ourselves to dinner at the famous El To Var restaurant! Good Food, Good Conversations, and a Great Vacation!

A Gift From A Friend

Bryan’s mother, Lita, lives down in Washington and is just the most wonderful person! Right from the beginning, she has accepted me into her family circle with love & friendship. She is a joy to be around! 

I got a surprise from her in the mail the other day, just in time for our Weekend Get-Away in Girdwood: a book called The Unwinding, by Jackie Morris. Below is a sampling of the artwork to be found inside. 

I have a feeling this is going to become my place to go to find peace.

Valentine’s Day Flowers

Bryan surprised both Mother and I with some beautiful flowers!

I got a dozen red roses.

Mother got 3 Red Roses, 3 White Roses, and some curly Lilies.

Finally Got To Ski!

We have not had the best of luck on our Weekend Get-Aways this year, when it comes to weather – and this one didn’t start out very promising. The ride from Palmer to Girdwood was horrible! The snow was mostly a mixture of slush/rain, the roads were a mess, and it was later than usual for us so we had to deal with oncoming headlights. On top of all that, the wind was really whipping it up out on the inlet. I kept my head down in my book while Bryan kept a white-knuckled grip on his steering wheel the entire way.

We managed to make it to our cabin without any real problems, though, but we heard later the next day that an avalanche had occurred after we’d passed, blocking of the road for a good 10 hours or so. Thankfully they got it all taken care of so traffic was back to normal by Saturday.

Our cabin this time was a let-down. The pictures on-line made it look quite roomy, but in reality we barely had room to turn around. We did have a “well stocked” kitchen – however, their idea of being well stocked is not even close to ours. They had 4 frying pans and one pot big enough to cook soup for two weeks. The oven was dirty inside and one of the burners did not work at all. The kitchen table had one leg broken off so it was perched precariously on it with no attachment. And they only had one mug. Thankfully, I always bring my tea mug with me, so Bryan was able to drink his coffee in that mug.

The bedroom was nice enough, with a huge king sized bed and a very comfortable comforter on it. The only TV in the place was mounted to the wall in the bedroom, so I set up my crafting table in there while Bryan set up our DVD player. Honestly, while the place was small – we made it work.

The kittens came with us this time, so both cats had fun exploring the cabin. Viktor had two of his favorite toys with him to keep him occupied while he wasn’t busy opening all the kitchen cabinets. Naldo fell in LOVE with the bed. She’d stretch out as long as she could get and just roll around with a huge blissful smile on her face. I think the only time she ever got off the bed was to go potty and grab a quick bite to eat on her way back.

Bryan spent most of Friday out on the slopes while the kittens and I hung out in the cabin, making cards and watching disaster movies. When he finally had to call it quits for the day, we treated ourselves to dinner at The Double Musky! For those of you who are not familiar with this iconic restaurant, they are a World-Class Cajun restaurant featuring their famous Pepper Steak: 16-20 oz. New York Steak, crusty with cracked pepper and covered with a spicy burgundy sauce.

We had some Peel & Eat Shrimp as an appetizer, then Bryan ordered the Pepper Steak while I had the Garlic Seafood Pasta with shrimp, halibut, and salmon. To drink we each ordered a Margarita, and for desert we shared a piece of their home-made pie. All in all, it was a great meal – Bryan sure loved his steak!

Skiing in Girdwood - Foiled Again!

We apparently have the worst luck when it comes to the weather down in Girdwood. It seems like each time we plan a Ski Weekend, it ends up raining! But we have fun, regardless of the weather – so I guess it’s okay.

This time we stayed at The Ski Inn, a place I’ve always been interested in. Their website calls it a Boutique Inn: it’s very quaint, almost like a hostel in that the people staying there are all very friendly. The owner was there working on little fix-ups, so we got to chat with him for a while. Their common area has the coffee/tea corner with a good-sized fridge full of breakfast items. There’s lots of comfortable seating with an electronic fireplace for ambiance.

Our room was upstairs and offered a view of the ski slopes, so theoretically I could have “watched” him ski that day. It was a very small room, but we made it work. We have refined our packing to where we have pretty much everything we need: one tote with all my crafting stuff, one tote with everything we might need to watch movies (including a DVD player, a monitor, speakers, and pretty much every kind of cable there is), and one tote with all his ski gear.

Since we had no kitchen this time, we went out for dinner each night. My favorite place is, of course, Chair Five where he got his pizza and I had a Caesar Salad.

Cancer Screening

I had to have a Colonoscopy the other day; not the greatest experience in my life, to be sure – but I have to be honest and say that it really wasn’t all that bad, either. For the most part, I wasn’t even there. Just go in, go to sleep, wake up a couple hours later, and go home.

Of course, the prep is the bad part. That starts the day before and involves a lot of quality time on the toilet. My doctor gave me a list of various laxatives to buy and a schedule to follow outlining exactly how to prep for the procedure. I weighed myself in the morning, then again that night after enduring the prep – and found that I lost 5 pounds that day!

The really bad part was the fasting. I have plenty of reserves, of course, so my body was not starving by any means. I really wasn’t even that hungry. But going without my regular scheduled feedings is apparently a major trigger for my migraines – I had a SCREAMING headache that whole day.

The instructions for prep say that you should not eat any solid foods that whole entire day – so you’re thinking “ok, 24 hours without food = I can do that.” but what it really means is that your last meal is dinner the night BEFOR the prep day – and your next meal isn’t until they finish the procedure the day AFTER the prep day. So, figure my last food intake was on Monday at 9:00 PM and the next food intake wasn’t until Wednesday at 2:00 PM = that means I went on a 35 hour fast!

So, yeah. My head hurt. A lot. And I wasn’t allowed to take any medication for it, either. By the time I got to the surgical center, I’d say my pain was somewhere around a 9 or a 10.

The procedure itself was a success, they tell me. They found and removed two pollyps, wich the labs later called Pre-Cancerous. The nurses and doctors were all very friendly and made sure I understood what was going on. My arm was farily cooperative: they only had to poke me twice to find a vein good enough for the IV. I now have a LOVELY bruise, with multiple colors ranging from yellow to green to purple to black, where they tried and failed the first time.

Snownado!

Some of you may not have heard yet – but Palmer got hit by a huge windstorm a few days ago. We had three solid days of winds gusting up to 91 mph with windchill factors reaching 45 below. Power is still out in places, and the destruction of property is overwhelming 

Thankfully, our house was minimally impacted. We lost our fence: Bryan found parts of it 4 houses down the block! We lost a bunch of tree branches: some are still hanging onto their trees by mere splinters, but most are scattered around the yard. Our roof is in pieces all over the place, but thankfully it’s not a structural issue – just roofing tiles. We did lose a strip of fascia covering, but I think that’s easy enough to repair.

Our biggest loss is Bryan's grille. He has an XL Big Green Egg that he uses almost every night, and just loves that thing. We thought it would be safe, because the darned thing weighs a ton at least (okay, maybe not a ton – but it does weigh a whole lot) but the winds just threw the thing off our back deck. Sadly, I believe it’s broken beyond repair, and will cost well over 1k to replace.

This has to be one of the worst storms I’ve ever experienced. Three whole days of hurricane force winds, blowing constantly 24/7. We barely got any sleep the whole time, there was just too much noise. It was quite cold, too – we had a fire going the whole time but ran out of firewood by the last day so had to switch over to our gas stove instead.

The cats did really well, despite the frightening noises. Naldo wanted to be held the whole time (highly unusual for her) but Viktor seemed to be energized by it. He ran at full speed all over the house the whole time!

An Incredible Coincidence!

Several years ago, back when my niece Katy was perhaps 16 years old (she’s in her 30s now, so that gives you an idea of just how far back this story takes place), she and her mother were trying to come up with ideas for Christmas presents. 

Katy decided that she wanted to give me an antique cookbook because I like antique books and she & I had begun to share recipes with each other. An antique cookbook just seemed like the perfect combination of interests.

So, Noel took the idea with her to work and asked one of her clients to look for one since they were driving up to Fairbanks that week. As luck would have it, the client found one from 1941 and brought it back to Palmer for Katy to wrap up and give to me on Christmas day.

As I was opening the gift, they both told the story of how they got the book. It’s a pretty cool story, so I was happily listening while leafing through the book looking at all the different recipes. While doing so, I just happened to come across an old bookmark that somebody had used to mark their favorite recipe – and it gave me quite the jolt of surprise!

“Katy, where did you say you got this book from?” I asked her, with an amazed look on my face.

“From Fairbanks,” she replied “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Look at this!” I said, showing her what I had found.

Turns out, it was two raffle tickets from 1976 that apparently MY MOTHER had bought for a chance to win a horse that she planned to give to Kelly!!!

How the heck did THAT end up in this random cookbook that somehow managed to find its way into MY hands?!?

Later on, I asked Mother if she’d ever seen the book before, but she doesn’t remember it. She does remember buying the raffle tickets, however. Needless to say, she did not win the horse.

Happy Thankgiving!

I had a fabulous holiday weekend – how about you?

Thursday: we slept in a little bit, since neither one of us had pressing things to do that morning. Eventually we wandered out into the living room and got our days started. Bryan made us some oatmeal for breakfast, then I made my Brussel Sprout Salad while he got the wood box filled up again. We go through a lot of firewood: Mother loves her heat almost as much as my kittens do.

About 12:30 we got the car all packed up with the three of us and all our gear and then headed on up the mountain to my niece’s house for Thanksgiving Dinner with the family. She had quite the spread laid out, with two large turkeys and ALL the fixings. Each family member brought yet more food, from salads to deserts to appetizers, so we were well fed. Katy’s new house has a balcony overlooking the living area, so we took advantage of that to take our Group Photo.

From left to right: Tabitha, Autumn, Heather, Kaylee, Reed Hank, Darren, Corbin, Kelly, Annalise (the baby), Laurel, Danny, Mother, Tara, Maurice (the Great Pyrenees ) Lisa, Ruth, Bryan, Noel, Willow (the Corgi), Katy, and Maddie (a Lab-Corgi mix)

After eating dinner at my niece’s house, Bryan and I then drove into Anchorage to eat yet another dinner at his cousin’s house! Chris and Terri had a much smaller dinner party (only 9 people) but we still had a good time. They have twins, Madison and Maverick, who are just the cutest little 6-year-olds. Their older son Robert (15) was there as well, but he spent most of his time in the back room on the computer, listening to his music.

Friday: was our regular flex day so neither one of us had to work that day either. We spent the day doing chores around the house and just generally relaxing. Bryan installed the new water machine to our kitchen sink while I cleaned our section of the house and played with the kittens. I made a few cards while I was at it using a new-to-me technique of cutting a bunch of skinny strips of paper and gluing them down onto the paper with the die cuts. As you can see, I used both the die cut and the negative left over. Both cards are pretty cool, I think.

Saturday: Heather and Tabi came over that afternoon to do an art project with me. I had seen a picture online of some Christmas Tree Ornaments made out of old Scrabble Tiles and figured it couldn’t be that difficult to make. We had fun with it, each of us making at least 5 or 6 ornaments. Tabitha invited us all out to ice cream afterwards, so we got to prolong our fun and have good home-made ice cream too!

Sunday: Mother and I drove into Wasilla to do some Christmas shopping that afternoon. She had picked out several flyers from that morning’s newspaper listing all the sales going on, so we took advantage of them and got most of our gifts taken care of. It was a fun outing: Mother enjoyed just sitting in the passenger seat and watching the views out the window.