Alaska Day Six: Float Planes and Eisenhower

Monday morning we both managed to finally sleep in, our exertions of Sunday catching up with us.  We lazily got up and got packed and ready to check out of the hotel.  For the first time since arriving in Alaska, we had no car or hotel room to call home. 

We started by finishing up some souvenir shopping in downtown Anchorage, with the highlight of that journey being me breaking the mug I bought for mom about 37 seconds after I bought it and about 3 inches in front of the store.  We went back to our go-to Starbucks, and were waited on by a barista who had just come from living in Bartlesville, OK for a few years while she went to school.

Our next idea was to go to Lake Hood to see the float planes, so we went to the Visitor Center to figure out how to take a bus there.  They were not too helpful but did point us in the direction of the bus station and a post office.  The route to the post office took us by two guys smoking pot and hanging out on the stairs.

At the Transit Center, we bought day passes and were off on a bus to find Lake Hood.  By following our route on my GPS, I was able to tell when we needed to get off the bus.  We arrived a couple blocks away from Lake Hood and walked in the rain to find the planes.  We saw several take off and land, and a dog named Kiki jumped up on me and got muddy footprints on my jacket.

Our next destination was Earthquake Park and we determined we could get back on the bus we got off and make it there, but there were about 30 minutes before the bus came.  We opted for lunch at Wendy's with frosties for dessert.  The frosty sounded better before we had to wait in the rainy cold for 10 minutes as the bus was late.

Earthquake Park turned out to require a very long walk before you could even see anything, and we wound up going way farther than we wanted to on our post-race day.  Eventually we reached the coastal trail and had a nice view back toward downtown Anchorage.  Other than, not much to say about Earthquake Park.  To get back to the bus, we had to walk uphill several blocks through a residential neighborhood and when we finally reached the bus stop, we learned it would be 50 minutes before the bus came.

At this point we had basically run out of energy and things we wanted to do, but we had nowhere to go.  We browsed a few of the shops again and visited the Eisenhower Monument.  Frances was excited to see somebody else besides the state of Kansas interested in Eisenhower.  Alaskans like him because he made them a state in 1959.

It started raining again with a very ominous sky so we opted for the dry seats of the 5th Avenue mall food court.  It was a relief to sit down and be dry with access to a clean bathroom.  We chose Humpy's, an Anchorage classic, for our last Alaskan meal.

From there, we returned to the hotel to pick up our luggage and get a shuttle to the airport.  The desk clerk told us when we checked out that he couldn't pass along our request for a shuttle, that we'd need to do that ourselves 30-60 minutes before we needed to leave.  We waited 60 minutes and when the shuttle driver came, they told us he couldn't leave because he was the only one that knew how to fix the dryer.  Finally we were on our way to the airport, and I was no fan of the service from the desk clerks.

Our flight departed Anchorage on time at 10:40 p.m. and arrived in Denver at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday Denver time.  I managed to get a little sleep on the flight as I was not interested in watching Cars again.  After a brief layover in Denver, we headed for KC, arriving at 9:30 a.m.  Cindy picked us up, and the highlight of the ride home was Frances discovering she had gum on her arm, which she then got on the car seat.

And that's the end!

Alaska Day Five: Race Day

Frances and I both woke up before the alarm, around 7:00.  I reluctantly looked outside as a high chance of rain was forecasted.  It was drizzly but not raining heavily.  We got dressed in our running clothes and headed to the starting line, about a half mile walk from our hotel.  By the time we got there, it was 53 degrees and not raining.  There wasn't much to do so we went to Starbucks to stay warm and wait for the races to start.

The marathon- ers started off at 9:00 a.m. so I wished Frances luck and waited my turn.  Next were the half marathon- ers at 9:20 a.m.  I waited as long as possible to check my bag so I could hang on to my jacket.  We in the 5K were the last to go at 9:40 a.m.  The race went a few blocks on city streets, then down a hill and out along the coastal trail.  It was a little narrow as the trail wasn't very wide and there was two-way traffic with the lead runners coming back towards us after the switchback. 

As I got to the hill back up to the streets, it started raining lightly.  I managed to finish just under my goal of 36 minutes, so I was happy with that.  I collected my medal and started off to find the 16 mile mark of the marathon where I was to meet Frances.  It ended up being about two miles to get there, and I was there about 20 minutes ahead of when I expected her.  I had to walk along a trail with the half marathon runners because I wasn't sure how to go any other way.

Frances came along at 11:35, about 5 minutes ahead of schedule.  She said she was doing well but was having trouble finding someone to pace with.  After she was off again, I headed back to downtown to wait for her to finish.  It started raining so I went back to Starbucks again.  I was expecting Frances around 1:30, but around 1:05 the rain had mostly stopped so I went over to watch the finish line.  Luckily I did because within 5 minutes she came crusing in, about 15 minutes ahead of her last run!

We had someone take a picture of us with our medals to send home for the letter, and then we started off back to the hotel to shower.  A unique feature of the hotel bathroom is the light switch - which is a timer knob you have to turn to get the light to come on.  Of course there are no numbers on the knob so you have no idea how long you have it set for.  Frances and I both had the experience of not setting it long enough and having the lights go out on us in the shower.

We probably should have stayed put longer, but we were hard core and after a brief rest, headed out to browse the Sunday Market.  We hit up a few gift shops but I quickly realized I was too tired to shop.  We had dinner at the Glacier Brewhouse and then went to see the AurorA movie at the Alaska Performing Arts Center, a show with images of the Northern Lights.  It was just us and another couple in the theater.

After the movie, we finally headed back to the hotel for good.  I checked my fitbit and found I had my highest number of steps ever - almost 31,000.  It was tricky to get all my steps in because my fitbit was still on central time and I had to get them in by 9:00 p.m. before it reset.

Alaska Day Four: Glaciers and Otters

Early Saturday morning, Frances drove to the north side of the city to watch for the lights but no luck.  In the morning, she ran two miles, the last step of her training.  Our first stop of the morning was Walmart again so Frances could get a watch for the race.

Then we headed out again on the Seward Highway towards Whittier.  Since we weren't crossing into Alaska so no welcome sign, we opted for the photo op with the Alaska Scenic Highway sign for my collection.  Several more photo ops along the way, with few clouds in the sky and no rain.

Outside Whittier, we paid $12 and got in line to go through the one lane Anton Anderson tunnel, which is 2.5 miles through the mountain.  The tunnel is open in each direction only once an hour, and we went through during the 10:30 opening.

We paid $5 to park in tiny Whittier, where the skies were beginning to be overcast again.  We walked around and checked in for our glacier cruise.  Because we had opted out of the buffet on the boat, we grabbed some food in one of the tiny shops.  There isn't much to Whittier, but a lot of boats. 

There was a cruise ship in port.  In the shop where I bought my pizza, there were some guys who had been up in the mountain hunting and seen 3 bears, but as it was not bear season, they had to leave them alone.

After lunch we boarded the Fairweather Express II.  The boat was only about half full which was nice.  The tour was narrated by a Chugach National Forest ranger named Mary.  From the time we left Whittier, the sky was cloudy, drizzly, and cold, but we had a great time anyway.  Mary pointed out some valley and hanging glaciers, identifiable by their blue ice.

We passed several fishing boats, and we weren't able to visit the fish hatchery because the boats had their nets stretched across where we needed to go.  We went out around Esther Island and traveled through Esther Passage.  We came upon a whole bunch of sea lions "sunning" themselves on rocks. 

After the sea lions came the sea otters, which are bigger than the otters I've seen in the zoo - around 100 pounds each.  Frances was able to get good pics using her zoom lens.  We spent time out on the deck of the boat but got too cold and wet so went in for awhile.

The highlight of the cruise was our arrival at Surprise Glacier, a tidewater glacier, meaning it touches the water.  The boat stopped near the glacier and we had lots of time to take pictures.  Most people gave up and went inside, but there were a few of us still out there when a harbor seal popped his head up between the ice.  He came up one more time and then disappeared before anyone could get a photo. 

We finally had enough of the rain and cold and went in to have hot chocolate.  The crew had fished glacier ice out of the water to make glacier ice margaritas.  I was too cold, but Frances did try some glacier ice water.  On the way back to Whittier, some junior rangers were sworn in and brought around an otter pelt for everyone to feel.

Near Whittier, the captain announced some whales had been spotted, and we were able to see a whale a few times.  Frances, who is scared of whales, did OK and called it "exposure therapy."  The last stop was at a bird rookery just across the water from Whittier.  Once we got off the boat, we hurried back to the car to make sure we were in line for the 6:00 tunnel opening.



 The drive back to Anchor- age looked complete- ly different than that morning - overcast, drizzly, low tide with low clouds.  We took a picture at Beluga Point to show the difference from just 7 hours earlier. 

We arrived back in Anchorage around 7:15 p.m. and both thought Panera sounded like awesome pre-race dinner.  Unfortunately Panera has not make it to Alaska and we finally stopped at a Schlotzsky's, which had horrible service.  We had to return our rental car and called the hotel to get a shuttle.  They told us to call when we had our luggage, so we waited until we were done checking in the car.  When we called, they told us it would be 30 more minutes.

While we were waiting, I discovered I had left my phone in the car.  I called the rental company and started walking back over there.  The guy said he would go up and check and call me back.  When I got to the car, it was still there with my phone in it.  I told the guy in the booth I had it, to let the other guy know when he came to look for it.  Apparently he had already been there.  He didn't even look in the car - just asked the guy in the booth if anyone had turned it in.  Seriously!

I made it back to the shuttle stop before the bus arrived, and we finally got to the hotel at 9:30.  The room was clean but the customer service was lacking.  Frances studied the race map and made her final preparations, and we went to bed.

Alaska Day Three: Fall and Scenic Drives

The day started off at 4:30 when Frances woke up later than planned to look for the Northern Lights.  Turns out she set her alarm for 12:30 p.m. instead of a.m.  She did not see them.  She did get to see the sky starting to get light.  After logging our names in the Aspen Haus guest book, we headed back to Denali National Park.

We parked at the Science Center and headed out the Horseshoe Lake Trail.  On the trail, we saw what we decided are moose tracks.  We also noticed lots of trees starting to turn yellow, and we both agreed they seemed even more yellow than the day before.  At one point the trail crossed the Alaska Railroad tracks so we paused for a photo op.  The sky was overcast but did not rain on us during the hike.

Near the beginning of the trail was an overlook with a view of the lake, and the Subway and other shops outside the park.  From there, it is a steep walk down to the lake itself.  There was a sign that beavers live here and we saw their dam, but none made an appearance.  Other than rabbits, we did not see any wildlife.  Unfortunately the return trip was back up the hill we came down. Again we felt like we were in the Twilight Zone because there were no people or animals, just stumps that look like bears.

After our hike, we headed out of the park to do some souvenir shopping and partake of free fudge samples.  We stopped at the Mt. McKinley Chalet Resort to check it out and partake of their restrooms before heading out on the return drive to Anchorage.  About 15 miles outside the park, we met up with the intermittent rain which followed us most of the way.  We visited the same Subway near Talkeetna where we ate lunch the day before.

We stopped at the South Viewing Point overlook and checked for Mt. McKinley.  Of course we did not see it.  For those counting, this is the third time we did not see it.  You can see in the center of the photo where they claim it should be.  We got back in the car, convinced it was just a ruse to get tourists to drive out looking for it.

A little north of Wasilla, we encountered one lane traffic and were halted for about 20 minutes, of which Frances slept the first 19.  She woke up just as we were moving again.  There were more than 100 cars waiting for their turn to drive on the road.  Traffic continued to be heavy until we were through Wasilla. 

After Wasilla, we noticed all the mountains that we weren't able to see the day before because of rain and clouds.  Back in Anchorage, we stopped at the race expo to pick up our packets for Sunday.  We took a quick look around the expo but it was not very interesting.

At this point it was about 4:00 and we figured we needed another activity before we made a repeat visit to the Qupqugiag Inn, so opted for a scenic drive along the Seward Highway.  We stopped at Walmart and picked up snacks for the remainder of the trip, something we should have done the day before.  There was rush hour traffic as we were trying to get out of Anchorage but not too bad once we left the city limits.

Our first stop was Potter Marsh, offering views of birds from the boardwalk.  It was a little scenic but not being too interested in birds, we headed on to the south.  One thing of note - Potter Marsh is located directly across from the Rabbit Creek Rifle Range, so while you are chilling on the boardwalk checking out birds, rifle fire makes up the background noise.

We drove as far as Beluga Point, taking advantage of many photo ops.  We stopped at McHugh Creek and went for a walk along the Turnagain Arm trail towards Potter, hoping for some scenic vistas.  We followed signs to Boy Scout Rocks, which proved not to be very scenic.  We did find one spot where we could see out and used the camera self-timer to get a photo of ourselves.  No wildlife here, except a trail runner who came racing out of the brush ahead of us and scared us half to death.  On our return trip, he was coming back at us, startling us again. 

Here the sun was stuck in the sky again at the same spot we noticed it on Thursday night.  It looks like if you hang out for 30 minutes, you should get to see an impressive sunset, but it never moves.

We checked into the Qupqugiaq Inn for the second time, this time with a room on the noisy front side.  After checking in, we headed to downtown in search of food.  We ended up at Rumrunners for a quick dinner and were back at the hotel at 9:00 p.m., still sunny, and made it a little longer before going to bed.  Frances made sure to set her alarm correctly this time.

Alaska Day Two: Sled Dogs and a Moose

Thursday morning we both found ourselves awake at 6:30 a.m., given that it was 9:30 a.m. in Kansas City.  It was pretty rainy but slowed to a drizzle while we loaded the car.  The hostel/inn offered cereal and waffle mix for breakfast.  What they didn't mention was they don't offer any dishes.  Technically they do, but they were all being used and we had to improvise.

We made our first gas station stop of the trip for drinks and then headed north.  Most of the morning was rainy and we couldn't really see too much of the mountains around us.  We did pass through Wasilla, home of Sarah Palin, but nothing to write about there.

We took the Talkeetna spur road about 15 miles into Talkeetna, a tiny town with little shops and cafes and a view of Mt. McKinley.  We walked around, purchased a few souvenirs, and then did NOT see Mt. McKinley due to clouds.  This is the first time we didn't see The Big One.

After returning to the main highway, we had lunch at Subway as we weren't sure when the next opportunity to eat would be.  As we drove along, there were fewer and fewer radio stations and more and more RVs.  Frances provided encouragement and I on multiple occasions overcame my fear of passing them.  We also crossed the Alaska Railroad tracks many, many times.  The rain continued to come and go throughout the drive.

We arrived at Denali National Park at 2:15 p.m. and had our picture taken to prove we made it.  Our first stop was the Visitor's Center, which fascinated me by looking brand new.  In fact all the buildings did. 

The bus for the sled dog demonstration was leaving in about 20 minutes, so we did a quick hike on the Spruce Forest Trail.  This took about 7 minutes giving us ample time to get on the bus!

At the sled dog kennels, we had a chance to walk around and see the dogs, almost all of whom were sleeping either next to or on top of their houses.  Three were celebrating their 8th birthday.  These are the only working sled dogs (canine rangers) in the National Park System.

Range Jamie led the demo and told the history of how they dogs came to be in the park and what kind of work they do.  Then he asked us to clap if we were ready to see them in action.  As soon as we started clapping, ALL the dogs came to attention and started barking and jumping around.  Only 5 could go on the demo run, but they were all excited and no longer interested in naps.  They hitched the dogs up and make a quick loop run on gravel, ending right in front of us.

After the tour, we took the bus back to the Visitor Center.  A train filled with huge rocks was rolling through the station, so we stopped to take a few photos.  The park road is closed to private vehicles after mile 15, so we figured we'd drive out that far and look for a hike.  Mile 9 is supposed to be a great place to see Mt. McKinley.  We stopped but could not see it.  For those keeping track, this is the second time we didn't see it.

We continued on the road and saw two caribou along the way.  We opted for the Savage River Loop Trail.  It was about two miles and easy going, without much climbing.  We did veer off the trail to climb a hill and get some photos of the valley before heading back.  On the hike back, we came upon another caribou and Frances was ready with her zoom lens.  The "loop" part of the trail was a bit of a misnomer as it lands you on the opposite side of a bridge from where you parked, so we had to climb up and walk across the bridge.  Frances wants to write them a letter about this.

Along this hike was where we first noticed the lowering in the sky and then just stopping.  It is a bit of a Twilight Zone feel, especially since we were about the only people around.

On the drive back, we spotted a moose and Frances again got him with her zoom lens.  From the park, we drove north to Healy, about 12 miles.  We missed the turn the first time and had a little trouble navigating but ulimately arrived at Aspen Haus.  We were checked into the Southview Suite by young Dylan, son of the proprieters.  He was very professional.  The room was nice and had a small kitchenette. 

We ate dinner at the 49th State Brewery in Healy.  I ate approximately half of the GIANT burger they served.  We were back to our room at 9:00, with the sky bright as day.  Dad, to answer your question, it was not dark enough to go to bed.

Frances set her alarm for her first attempt to view the northern lights.

Alaska Day One: The Uneventful Day

Our story starts at the beginning.  Unfortunately the beginning is boring but what are you gonna do? 

After carefully extricating myself from work, Mom delivered Frances and I to the airport for our late afternoon flight.  Perhaps the most interesting thing I saw on the flight to Denver was a man with a large bald spot on the top of this head.  In this bald spot, he had a tattoo of a man cutting the grass with a lawnmower.  Other than that, he appeared to be your average 70ish man.  I tried to take a picture but found it to be too awkward.

We had a quick dinner at McDonald's in the Denver airport and then boarded our flight to Anchorage, leaving Denver around 5:30 p.m.  The flight attendants were all older males, which you don't see very often.  Apparently one of them hugged Frances as she was getting off the plane.  She did not appreciate this.  Movies shown on the flight were Cars and Avengers.  I did finally watch cars all the way through.

I entered my 49th state about 9:45 p.m. in time to find the sun just getting ready to set.  We picked up our rental car and found our way to the Qupqugiaq Inn.  That's really it.  Told you day one was boring.  Day two is better so stay tuned.

Four Pots Revisited - One Month Later

Here is an update on the four pots.  Some good progress, but some doing better than others.

The potato vine in this one hasn't taken off too much yet.  The fuschia is still alive, although it hasn't gotten any bigger.  It lives in the shady middle created by the plants around it.  It looks healthy, just small.

This potato vine, on the other hand, is going bonkers.  It gets more sun, which luckily hasn't struck down the caldiums.  The asparagus fern isn't doing much.

This is an interesting mix. Nothing has really taken off yet, but the cannas are coming up!

The front porch plant seems pretty happy.  The million bells are filling in and will hopefully come over the edge of the pot.  The lantana and coleus will have to hurry to keep up.

This pot is composed of everything that was left over.  The canna was planted squarely in the middle but as you can see prefers the outside edge of the pot.  At least it is present.

Noodle Bits

I had to take the kitchen sink apart.  I put some pasta salad in the garbage disposal and the sink wouldn't drain.  I tried to clear it from the top but no luck.  So in DIY fashion, I figured I'd take the trap off and clean it out.  Unfortunately when the pipes are full of water, it's nearly impossible to take apart without the water going everywhere.  As I'm sure you can guess, that's what happened.  The best part was the drain was full of chopped up noodle bits, which were soon all over me once the pipe was removed.  So there I was, head under the sink, soaking wet, covered in noodle bits.  I was pleased with myself, however, that the trap was clogged with grit from when I did the tile, and of course noodle bits...  So at least I fixed the problem.  There was a little drippage as a side effect but seems to have cleared itself up.

Memories of Raquel Welch

For my mother about her mother.

• Teaching us card games and then not letting us win, especially at Slam
• Picking me up from school when I was sick and dressing Abe up as my nurse to come check on me
• Taking us to Starlight when Mom was working and telling us we needed to give her a Hershey bar so she had the motivation to walk up the hill from the parking lot
• Writing letters to me at camp every summer
• Taking us to K-Mart on Wednesday, senior discount day, at the beginning of the summer to buy four new dresses, one for each Starlight show.
• Always having treats in her purse at the circus or other events we went to
• Her and grandpa being clowns and helping out at our kid birthdays
• Making audio tape stories to listen to at night, and alphabetizing and creating a card catalog for them, a trait I definitely inherited 
• Her camping “system” including meals, checklists, rules for camping, that still heavily influence how we camp today
• Giving us a bag of M&Ms for birthdays, and then saying all the M&Ms with M’s on them were hers because they had her initials on them
• The special grunt she said you had to maketo get the bottom trundle bed come up
• She always said I taught them how to be grandparents by being the first local grandchild
• No matter what country you studied at school, she had something in her house that you needed for your project, and that even the most innocuous things had some explanation ( i.e. the Washburn rock that holds down the bird bath warmer)
• Her continued exhortations (for years!) that there were no rolls in China after I made them for a school project about China
• Playing harmonicas and Holly Dog singing along
• Personalized bags of Easter candy
• Her entertaining us when we were waiting for Mom at the garden center meetings, playing the “dots” game
• Serving Neapolitan ice cream always in slices
• Making separate brownies for me that didn’t have mint in the icing
• Knitting parkas for Little People to wear in dioramas
• If you told her your arm, stomach, head, etc. hurt, she’d offer to stomp on your foot so you wouldn’t think about it anymore
• Robins mean spring, fireflies mean summer
• Chunks of mozzarella cheese go with any meal, especially when pronounced "mozzarelly"
• Teaching me to keep score at baseball games
• "No one ever starved in one meal"
• No holiday is too minor to celebrate (Kansas Day, Lincoln’s birthday, even Arbor Day)
• Waiting to pick me up from sectionals in high school and throwing her apple core under the car, saying it was natural and would decompose
• Her announcement that we were an open and affirming family
• When Bob Dole called after Grandpa died, she asked him if he really did that flip in the Diet Pepsi commercial. (by the way, watch the commercial and notice who else is in it!)
• Her plans to write a sequel to My Life, an expose called "Night at the Rest Home," which was never published. 

Four Pots

I tried to think of a clever title but nothing came to me.  For record keeping sake, I am posting "before" pics of my four pots I planted.  These are carefully planned, so we will track their progress to see if it does anybody than my usual random planting.

This one has fuschia in it so not sure how that will do.

Starting with already started caladiums:

This one has the farthest to go.  A canna in the middle will hopefully make an appearance.  The pot itself doesn't look too swell I see.

I think this is the one I'm most excited about.

That Will be 50 Dollars

The hotel we stayed at this week has self-pay parking and when you have a room, they add it to your key card and you can use that to get in and out of the lot.  When we were leaving the hotel Thursday at 5:45 a.m. to drive to the airport, we had already checked out and I gave the front desk my key.

Well, of course we couldn't get out.  I tried pushing the "Push for Assistance" button and was connected to the hold music and no one every answered.  I tried pushing the Lost Receipt button.  The machine's response?  "Fifty dollars, please." I think not.  At least it was polite.  Luckily another guy came up to the gate at that point and we used his card to get out.  Turns out he works there.  Whatever.  This, by the way, is not the first time I've tangled with a parking garage "attendant." 

Who's a Taurus?

Bailey is! Happy birthday today to Bailey! She looks grumpy in most of the pictures so this is the best we got.

Clean Clothes

Er... they were. Reminds me of this lolcat.

Fitbit-versary

As of today, I have had my Fitbit for one year, and other than one hike in Kodachrome State Park, I think I've worn it for pretty much all my steps. Since we all know I like to see the numbers, here they are:

• 4,681,146 steps


• 2,062.34 miles


• One day with more than 30,000 steps (Oct. 9, 2011)


• Five days with more than 25,000 steps


• 13 days with more than 20,000 steps


• 140 days with more than 15,000 steps


• 292 days with more than 10,000 steps. This was my initial goal. I was actually surprised there were that many days that I did not have 10,000, but I haven't had a day lower than 10,000 since Nov. 1 until this week. Not bad for winter!

So I figure that's probably at least 30% more activity than I was getting before I got the Fitbit. I'd say it is a success!

[Note: While I am still excited about these results, they are tempered by my less than stellar results for the past six days as my injured ankle has greatly suppressed my activities. My lowest daily total ever, 2818, was this past Friday. Grrr!]

Happy Birthday Birthday Girl!

Today Riley is 10! That's hard to believe. As usual she was hard to photograph because she likes to be as close to me as possible but I was able to distract her with this tiny box. She and Bailey both fancy themselves Maru lately with this box.

Beware of Armed Bees

Today at work I tried to look at party pics from Saturday night. [This is, of course, the first time I've ever done something non-work related while at work.]

Anyway, my efforts were thwarted because the website, http://www.shotbee.com was blocked by our security team. The best part was the blocked category it fell in: weapons. Go figure. Guess I'll look at those later.

Door Drafters

We have a rule that you are not supposed to let other people in the door behind you, and they are supposed to scan their own badge. But it seems a bit rude to just close the door in their face. If you forget your badge, you have to try and get right in behind someone, and that's clearly what these two are planning to do. Apologies for the cell phone quality photo.

What a Pair

Well, I caved and bought a black stove to match my microwave and dishwasher. It was a bit of an impulse purchase for me, but I still got a pretty good deal. And it has fancy upgrade features my old one did not, like an oven light.

Impulse does not, however, mean instant gratification as it was two weeks from ordering to delivery, delayed by Lowe's not showing up on Thursday morning. The humorous part was when they called to reschedule, I asked if I could get a narrower window for delivery given their failure to deliver as promised. The delivery guy said they couldn't do that, they needed the full four hours to ensure they could deliver within the timeframe. Seriously? Thanks to Saturday delivery, my microwave has a new friend. Now I just have to figure out how to use it!

Tulips Too Early

Today most of the tulips opened. They may actually not be as far ahead of schedule, but everything else sure is. And those are nearly fully leafed out rose bushes, too.

The grass was also finally dry enough to mow for the first time this morning, and some places were about a foot tall. Mostly I'm posting this so next year I can remember exactly how early everything was.

Car on the Rocks

I was trying to be stealthy and take this photo so you can't see as well as I would have liked, but this car has rocks behind all four tires. The parking space is fairly flat, and I saw this same car like this last week. Apparently they have no faith in parking brakes.

Fantastic Floor

Yesterday dad and I installed the kitchen floor. It took all day, and I'm not sure we quite got the hang of how to snap the pieces together. The first two rows took the longest to get started, but then we made faster progress. Because the kitchen isn't very big, there were very few full pieces, so lots of cutting. But it is done and I love it, and so does Riley! She spends a lot of time laying on it. (In this photo, you can also see my shiny new trash can that replaces the one I bought when I was a junior in college.)


Here is a closer up shot that better shows the cabinets. The dishwasher is also back in the kitchen awaiting plumbing. Hopefully any day now the counters will be ready and then the sink can go back in, returning the kitchen to a useful status.

Please Yield to Goose Fights

This morning as I was navigating my auto across our campus, I came upon a trio of gooses. Geese are very common around campus this time of year, along with goose poop, but they are usually in a large group or a pair. A trio is rare and indicates trouble. This particular trio was having a very vocal spat, and they were having it in the road. I had to yield my progress until it was safe to go into the oncoming traffic lane, leaving them to sort out their difference, hopefully in a safer location. No idea what the argument was about, but I'm guessing somebody was moving in on someone else's territory and/or goose.

Reflections on 7-Year Adjustable Mortgages

Don't worry, this post isn't really about mortgages. Seven years ago today, I closed on my house. At the time I had a 7-year adjustable mortgage, and seven years sounded like an eternity. Well, those years have flown by (and I've refinanced) and lots of house things have been accomplished. As a summary of where I and my home remodeling team have been, here's the rundown.

• Removed all the hearts and pink trim, wallpaper, and ceilings.


• Replaced the air conditioner


• Remodeled the basement and downstairs bathroom


• Replaced the windows


• Remodeled the hall bathroom


• Greatly enhanced the deck.


• Cut down all the overgrown-ness in the backyard and added grass and flower beds


• Cut down two dead trees and planted two new trees


• And now the kitchen!

I'm sure I'm forgetting something big. We've come a long way, so thanks to my team.

Cabinets are in! (almost)

The install work for the cabinets has nearly been completed. The last cabinet can't go in until the counters are installed. Until the counters are in, it still isn't too usable, but it looks like a kitchen again! I wish the stove was black to match the microwave, but I don't want to buy a new stove right now.

The biggest change is the new pantry cabinet. I'm not used to having anything on that wall, and it seems big enough to hold everything I had in my old cabinets! There will be a second cabinet to the left of it.

I really like the knobs, and I'm glad I went with a light paint color since the cabinets are dark.

Last but not least, the last cat was installed last night. I'm glad I only went with two of these as they take up a fair bit of room.

Cabinet Baby Steps, and a Unique Feature

There have been a few delays in the installation, but most of the cabinets are now in. It is hard to take a picture because the fridge is smack in the middle of the kitchen, but this gives you an idea of how they look.



These cabinets also came with a unique feature.


Luckily they seem to have passed the feline inspection, which is pretty rigorous and thorough. Hopefully today I'll be able to get some good pics.

Cheese Control

This is old news and I meant to post it forever ago, but you need to know about the inequality of string cheese. Just look at the variance in the five string cheeses pictured. They vary in length from 3.25" inches up to 4.5". That's craziness!

Milest00000ne

What, two posts in one day? Well, I knew I needed to start posting on the kitchen, but I can't miss sharing this milestone that was reached yesterday.

And I drove nearly every single one of those. Only 9 miles on the car when I bought it!