A little way down the road we spotted an animal! At last! It was a big black dog with a whole bone of a leg of some really big animal - probably a moose or something - in its mouth! It's tail was wagging furiously and we could definately see the smile wrapped all around that face as it waited for us to drive by before crossing the road! I did not have the camera ready for that one but it will always be imprinted in my brain. That bone was so big and we hoped that the dog did not plan to try and go between two trees - he would get stuck and one could see that that dog was definately not going to let his bone go, for anything!
It rained and rained. All the way - all day long. We saw a moose in a pond, a mama moose with her baby - they dissappeared really quickly into the forest. I managed to get a clear enough cell phone signal to be able to call Penny and chat for a few minutes! Wonderful........... That cell phone is ready to run me wild - to keep the signal I have to first see which way to hold it, then dial and keep my head perfectly still all the time while talking. I cannot talk and stand still! I have to walk and move around, and it is very difficult to remember that I cannot do this. I have had to re-dial many a call.
Driving up the road into Fairbanks was interesting - there are many little side roads with wonderful log cabins and really interesting houses behind the trees. We dont see them long enough to take photos, and that would be a fascinating project to do - photograph all the different styles of homes up here. We saw a good few sod-roof places, with grass and fireweed merrily growing on top of the house - really pretty.
When coming into Fairbanks, the rain pelted down relentlessly. The GPS was bouncing around and kept on telling me that we were off route and driving in the middle of a lake - I turned the sound off. I thought I would remember the name of the RV place we stayed in last time, but too many days had passed and that information had apparently leaked out a long time ago. The roads did start to look familiar and we remembered some buildings that we had passed on our bicycle rides before. Finally it all came together and we got to the park we wanted to be in. Its lovely - we have a few trees around us, are next to the Chena River, have a beautifully level spot, full hook ups and ...........wireless high speed internet! Life is good.... We pulled into our designated site, right at the back of the park - again, and stayed one night before asking to be moved to a more central place which they graciously did.
And then we got to meet Debbie! Debbie is my 'Seattle internet friend' who's daughter, Laura, also has CML and who is visiting her family in Fairbanks this week as well. It was wonderful to meet her and know that here was the only other person that I knew personally, that understood exactly my position in this cancer learning curve! She had already been such a help to me over the past months and it was simply wonderful to finally meet her - and a few weeks early at that! We had originally planned to meet in Seattle around the end of the month.
We were very kindly invited up to her family's home for dinner of king crab, steak and all the 'fittings/fixings' that go with that. What a wonderful dinner and really, really lovely people! Tammy, Randy, Jaclyn, Jocelyn and Debbie were so easy to chat to and the evening went by way too quickly. The view from their house is stunning, looking over the Tanana and Chena Rivers with mountains hiding behind the clouds waaaay in the distance - simply beautiful.
We went back there this morning and were beautifully surprised by complimentary tickets on the Riverboat Discovery trip as well as the El Dorado Gold Mine! These were generously given by friends of Debbie and her family - Nancy and Eric. The Riverboat Discovery outing will take us on the Tanana and Chena Rivers in an enormous sternwheeler riverboat. The Eldorado Gold Mine experience will put us on a train, in a permafrost tunnel and we get to pan for gold too........ It sounds like a full and wonderful day waits for us tomorrow. Thank you Nancy - you really have spoiled us!
After another easy few hours there, we headed out scratch around in some little stores around town. We found a place that had antlers for sale and bought two relatively small moose antlers - I want to try my hand at carving those things - I have seen some awesome carvings and would love to see if I could try something like that. We also went into a fur shop and it was amazing to feel all the different furs. It was weird and somewhat uncomfortable seeing wolf feet hanging up for sale, but they felt wonderfully soft - along with all the other furs. We did not buy anything there although there were many beautiful items, not all fur products either.
Debbie has helped us make contact with a few people here and we have an article in the papers tomorrow and on Wednesday I will hopefullly be going to a cancer support meeting in Fairbanks - just a small group but it will be lovely to chat to some people here. I had a lovely chat with Sandy from the Interior Alaska Cancer Association this evening - she spent many years in South Africa and South West Africa and we spent a good while chatting about what we loved about those countries. We are hoping to get to Anchorage by Sunday where The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has a concert organised there. The people that I have spoken to up here from the LLS and the Cancer Association are lovely! They are full of enthusiasm and really interested in trying to help get this fundraiser some exposure. We need all the help we can get!
Thanks for the emails and responses to my postings, they are all greatly appreciated.
Love and Light to you all
Especially U3
Annie & Frank
XXXXxxxx
www.RoadrunnersUSA.com www.LivingwithCML.blogspot.com www.PenniesforCancer.com
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