Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

   Jan and I grabbed up Jen and Kaylahni  and made a mad dash out to Freshwater Bay last Sunday. We wanted to take advantage of the sunshine. There has been darn little of it this year, even though the winter has been exceptionally mild. It was almost fifty degrees in the sun, so it felt great. It's hard to imagine the East coast suffering through record snow and cold, while here in Alaska, we hardly have enough snow for the Iditarod dog sled race. Simply amazing, but I'm not going to complain. The road out is all gravel and narrow with lots of blind spots and hills, to say nothing of potholes, so you can't really drive all that fast on it. I think it's about twenty seven miles to get out there, but it still takes over an hour to get there- sometimes longer depending on the condition of the road. When we got there, Jen wanted to build the fire. She had been out to Long Island the day before and had built a towering inferno, so I guess ...

This past Sunday Jan and I decided to pry ourselves from the couch and go out to join several of our kids and grandkids for a picnic out at Long Island. The weather was uncommonly warm and sunny that day and it was nice to get out and enjoy the sunshine. Jennifer and her family are regular visitors to this sand spit and by the time we arrived on the scene, Ben had a fire going and all the food was layed out on a blanket. That's just the way I like it. I show up just in time to eat and have fun and leave before the mess needs to be cleaned up. Jen is the master weenie- roaster today. She wisely chose to purchase a commercial hot dog roasting implement for just such occasions. It has a long steel rod with two spears on the one end and a wooden handle on the other. While it's better than most sticks that I've used, I think it should be more solidly built- perhaps out of stainless steel and another foot longer with an insulated glove built into the handle so you don't h...