summer solstice has come and gone, and i refuse to speak anymore on this topic. too depressing, as the weather here has not indicated to me, or anyone else, that summer arrived at any time.
my little brother flew down to anchorage last week, and hitched a ride down to homer to spend a few days with us - me, kaya, and the new dog shaemus!
on monday we drove up to anchorage to pick up our mom, who flew in from boston to spend two whole weeks up here! we surprised her, both with chris and two dogs! i think the dogs are growing on her, and regardless she's been a great sport.
we then drove up to fairbanks and brought chris back to work with the alaska smokejumpers. he gave us a tour of the base, where the alaska fire service rents space for the smokejumpers. it was *so* cool. i was super impressed, and really excited for chris.
katie let us stay in her cabin, and it was great to be back on army road - aside from the freaking swarms of mosquitoes! holy camoly they seemed bad. maybe i'm just getting weak now that i have a damn-near-constant sea breeze keeping them at bay.
we went goldpanning at gold dredge #8, up in fox. it was so funny - i've never considered going goldpanning, but it was fun - i could see the potential for grabbing a pan, some food, and heading up north to try my hand....really it was just fun to try taking some pictures inside the old dredge (they'll mostly be up on my flickr site). the tour was pretty weak, but i did learn that issac newton invented .... gravity. it's a little known fact, but there ya have it.
i seem to be an old pro at this!
for the drive back to homer we were blessed with incredibly beautiful weather! not a cloud in the sky, and denali was in all of her glory on the horizon. it was awesome! we stopped at wal-mike's on the way home along the parks highway and found some unique treasures...
we were going to stay in anchorage, but the pickin's were slim...we ended up passing on the 'arctic bed and breakfast':
and moved on to indian, alaska, where we rented a little cabin on the side of turnagain arm - it was absolutely lovely! not to mention the store that was right next door:
who says i am not able to show my mom a classy time in alaska?