Family Day

For the first time in 11 years, our Family Day is not going the way I like.  "What is Family Day?" you ask?  Family Day is the day that we celebrate our becoming a family!  Eleven years ago today a judge banged a gavel and made "The Greear Family" an official unit.  Every year we celebrate this day as a family, together, uninterrupted.

 Oh!  But how the time has changed!  This year everyone has been scattered to the wind.  Vince is at work in Soldotna.  Willie has school and then work until 9.  Falcom is across the bay on a wonderful school field trip for two nights.  Marina is here still.  I am here.  Gloria is in Hawaii, but she should probably be here.

Meanwhile, I feel happy and sad that they are growing up and that this must be a little prelude to how adults feel when their kids start to move on;  like when they miss Thanksgiving because they are in college out of state, or spend a Christmas with their boyfriends family. There is a serious irony in Falcom's first big trip away from any family members being on Family Day!  UG!

Monday nigtht I promised them ALL, I said "Look, do not think that I have forgotten about family day just because most of you will not be here for the actual day!  On Saturday, before Willie has to go to work, we WILL be celebrating Family Day.  Even if it means we hide in the basement and play Wii together, we will do it!  Have I made myself clear?"  They all smiled at me and nodded.

Today Marina made a plan.  She will ride the bus to town.  We will shop around and do special things together and then go out to dinner with Maygen, Iris, and Mema.  Then I got a call from Piper's mom asking if I would watch her for the afternoon since Beezer is out of town.  I found that cosmically amusing and wonderful too.  All us girls, in all of our families will get to spend the evening together.  We will take a dessert to Willie at the fuel dock.  We will Face Time Vince from the restaurant.  We will still love each other to the max even if we can not physically be together on this day!

Across the Bay

Sometimes pictures make a setting seem contrived, like a summer meal in Sunset Magazine.  The clever marketing in a Land's End catalog tends to make one think, "A new swimsuit will make me slender and playful when we spend the weekend on the shore!" or like how those half naked jean models in a Calvin Klein ad make 17 year olds think.  "If we wear those pants all us friends will start laying around on top of each other half naked!"

In this case it's, Greear Family Blog; "If we move to Alaska with our family everything will be joyful and we will never fight with our spouses and our children will never fight with each other!"

What today's blog does not tell from the pictorial is that I had to yell, while talking on the phone with my dear Craig in California, "Look at me.  Look at me!  Go Upstairs now and get your clothes on we ARE going across the bay!" evoking hearty laughter from Craig.  It does not mention how Piper had an absolute meltdown when she thought her virtual pet would disappear if she did not brush it and it cost 'money' to brush it.  Or that Iris was being Iris. 

One can not tell from the look in Marina's or Piper's eyes as they show off the toys they made for Iris that they were completely freaking out that they would not have any TV or Computer for the whole day!

Sadly, these technological additions to our natural life do become very infecting to young people.  I have often referred to these games as heroin for the ADD brain because they stimulate a part of the ADDer's brain that has a difficult time finding naturally occurring objects to satisfy it. I have more than once accepted my role of 'Meanie' by turning it off!

But look what happened...as the boat pulled out of the harbor and the picnic began the people began having fun;  honest legitimate nature inspired fun!  Suddenly, we as picturesque as a magazine spread.  I have not felt so relaxed in a long time!

They went canoeing.  All of them fit nicely into Beezers canoe.  Beezer cooked delicious chicken!

Chester got to do a lot of fetching and swimming.  And the girls made this fabulous piece of environmental art for their fort and then they threw a dance party with Falcom singing while each of them had a dance competition. 

I know.  I'm a mean mother to make them walk away from their technology.  Oh well.  hehehehe 

Don't worry.   Those of you out of state won't have to move up here just yet.  My kids were back to arguing before we got out of the harbor parking lot. 

New Members of the Family

After a year and a half without a dog, we find ourselves being followed around by one of the nicest labs we have ever known. 

This is Winchester.  He has stayed with us often over the past couple years.  He would come over whenever his owner had to leave town.  Well, this year his owner is going to be gone most of the winter and instead of Winchester bouncing back and forth between households, Steve decided he would be better off staying here with us.  I am still unconvinced that Steve won't change his mind come spring, but until then, I've got a very mellow dog to hang out with!  He is like the albino version of Woody.  I find myself asking him, "Is it too much energy to sit up instead of laying down?"  and "Really, you don't need to follow me upstairs, I'm coming right back."  To which he lays right down.

When we returned from our Arctic Adventures, Daisy the Duck began hatching these ducklings.  Six little baby ducks.  How cute is that?  Very, very cute! 

Some of you might remember that this duck, Daisy, is the duck that Maygen rescued from Ulmer's parking lot last winter.  These little ducks are part Peking, part inconspicuous brown duck.   The only duckling we have named is the pure yellow (-ish) duckling.  We are calling her Rubber.  (Get it?  Rubber Duckie?)

The mom is the most freaky little duck.  It might be from her fight for life in the Ulmer's parking lot or the torchure that she endures from the monsterous drake Peking duck.  Whatever makes her such a little freaker, she is putting it to use with her babies.  She has taught them to run and hide.  She yells at us every time we enter the pen and when Falcom and Marina turn their backs she nips at them.  Fortunately, she doesn't have sharp front teeth.

Falcom's First Paid Gig

Sometime earlier this year I got a call from the Kenai Peninsula Bourough Fair that they would like to hire Falcom to perform.  It sounded good to all of us at the time.  Hey, what is one more thing to pack into the final week of vacation before school, right? 

Cherish assured me that it was not a big deal and that he could just do songs he already knew

Haul Road Heros, Part 2

One of the activities I neglected to mention in the HRH, Part 1 is our visit to the Arctic Ocean!  Because of 9/11 and the increased security measures that brought to our nation, the only way to see and touch the Arctic Ocean is by spending $45 a person for the official "Tour".

The police officer giving the tour gives the same tour twice a day.  We think they picked him as tour guide because he is an Alaskan Native.  It certainly is not because of his charisma.  He swore to me that he did not get bored showing the same oil wells, big trucks, heavy equipment, over and over again, but it would take a total knuckle head to not be bored lifeless taking people like us on that tour again and again.

Finally, we reached the Arctic Ocean.  We were told very firmly that no one is allowed to SWIM in the ocean.  There is a high risk of attracting polar bears apparently.  Whatever.  After the guard searched the ocean for several minutes we were given clearance to touch the water! 
Another bucket list item checked off!  I have stepped foot in the Arctic Ocean! 

What did the Arctic Ocean feel like?  There are rocks and sand and also mud.  There is a lot of driftwood that comes from Canada.  The water is cold...really cold...but not unbearable.  If it had been OK, I would have swam, if only for a minute or two.  OK, lets say I would have dipped.  OK, ran in and ran out.  At full speed.

And so it was that it was time to bid farewell to the masculine comfort of Deadhorse.  After a leisurely morning we headed out for our return trip south.

We were drinking coffee, visiting with Stefan and his friends about this and that... No, Vince would not be hunting this trip.  He brought his bow just because you always hear these stories of guys having a thousand animals cross the road and nothing to harvest one with.  The guys told stories of workers leaving their camps each night to drive the 16 miles out of Prudhoe to try to get a caribou.  Never having any success. Yes, Vince hunting was highly unlikely. 

Well, guess what?  20 miles outside of Prudhoe the above male caribou was laying by a river, resting in the sun.  Guess what else?  Vince said, "You know, I have to try." 

I will not go into the details of the hunt here in this narrative.  I will tell you about the rest of the family sitting in the car.  Marina:  "I know my dad can do it!  He can do anything!" and Falcom: "Off with his head!" in full Red Queen, Alice in Wonderland voice.  "Marina!  Stop praying so loud!  You will scare it off!" 

And there we were.  Out in the tundra and about 50 yards from our car.  As we sat in that 70 degree sun, with the brisk wind sweeping the bugs away, I felt that we could have been on a picnic of sorts, a kind of 17th century European family outing.  If only I had my basket of cheese, bread and fruit there with my bottle of wine spread out next to the freshly killed animal.  Trucks were honking in congratulations as they drove by.  Fellow hunters were shaking hands and congratulating Vince.  Marina was blissed out.  Here was more science and biology than she would get the entire next school year.  "It's OK that he was shot because he has already mated, right?"  "Look at the intestines."  "I must collect my blood and lung tissue samples!"  She stood by Vince's side as he removed the quarters doing everything he asked.

Falcom, on the other hand, quickly grew tired of this event.  Once the initial drama and thrill had subsided and the gore of the event was being undertaken, he checked out and became my doll maker of the tundra; turning Arctic Cotton flowers into dolls which underwent many difficult tasks.  My gender variant son pranced around with his dolls in the sun and attempted to help by doing things like, get more water, but was easily distracted by flowers and breezes and birds...

Many of you know, hunting is not my thing.  I was a vegetarian when I moved here because I had a slogan, "If you can't kill something, then you shouldn't eat it!" and since I am stubborn, and because I can not kill anything, I didn't eat any meat.  This changed with the introduction of Vince into my life.  He is quite a provider.  And so here I found myself, pulling the hide from the carcass, opening game bags, putting meat into the meat bag.

At one point Falcom looked off across the tundra and said, "There are large brown animals out there!" and then went back to his dream world.  "Fal!  What are they?"  said Vince.  "I don't know...bears maybe...musk ox..." and he turned back to his flower dolls.  With hands bloody from skinning his third quarter, Vince yelled, "Go to the truck and get the binoculars!"  "Oh!  Sure!"  And off Falcom went to get the binoculars. 

Musk Ox.  They were musk ox.  Another caribou came up about 30 yards from us trying to see what was going on.  The sun was bright and the breeze was strong and when I closed my eyes I could go back to that 17th century pastoral setting of my strange picnic.

After we finished we texted Stefan.  We were still in cell range of Deadhorse.  Stefan invited us to come back for another night and so we did.  The following morning, having coffee with Stefan and his friends I relived the scene for the guys.  Someone mentioned Sarah Palin and her caribou hunt.  I said, "There are so many other interesting women in this state...if we could just give one of them a haircut!"  Stefan said, "Baby, after hearing that story, that other woman should be you!" Ha ha ha!  Thank you Stefan!

The reality of our new situation (meat carrying) made us rethink the rest of our trip.  We had to get home and deal with meat.  This is much the same way we find ourselves having to deal with fish. 
We left Deadhorse for our second time and drove like the dickens to Fairbanks.  At each stop we were greeted by congratulations, by other hunters looking for tips, by jealous and amazed guys who could only see a family undergoing one of the most ancient rituals that they were not able to get their women to participate... Vince was a hero!  The luckiest man!  He tried to explain that it was all by chance, but that didn't make it to any of these men's ears.

At midnight the next day we were home.  Happy from our trip to the tundra.  Happy with each other.  And happy to have had some fun in the sun on the tundra.

Haul Road Heros, Part 1

This week our family drove from Homer Alaska  to Deadhorse Alaska (otherwise known as Prudhoe Bay).  What kind of trip is this?  Well, think of it this way:  the drive from Roseville, California to the White House at 1600 Pensilvania Avenue Washington, DC is 2716 miles.  This week, our family drove from Homer to Deadhorseand back and put another 2400 miles on our rig. 

We did this without any video technology.  We did this without DS gaming technology.    We did something that many families have stopped doing because of modern technology, we listened to music and audiobooks.  We had a couple rules.  One was that if you asked when we were going to get there you got to do a page of homework.  If you did something to your seatmate that required them to shout, "Stop It!" you each receive two pages of homework.  A lot of homework was done on the first day.  Remarkably, this stopped and there was only scolding from the father once or twice a day.

With that scolding going in it was just like an old fashioned family road trip! 

We didn't make them only sit in the truck.  We stopped at the Reindeer farm so they could feed and pet reindeer, moose, and buffalo.

Back in the car they discovered  new favorite song, "Boogie Wonderland!" 

We stopped in Talkeetna for a walk around and a lunch.  We were going to buy this famous burger but for 38 dollars, it seemed a bit much.  We enjoyed other food instead and enjoyed Talkeetna and it's big tourist oriented downtown area. 

After Talkeetna we tried to camp at Denali where we were going to see about a bus ride the next day.  It was raining and miserable and all the camping spaces were taken up.  We realized we needed to keep going. 

It wasn't until Healy that we were able to find a tent spot.  It was a hole of a place but, it did the trick.  Falcom made dinner for us at 9pm.  Ramen and hard boiled eggs.  It tasted fantastic.

The next morning, after a quick stop in Fairbanks, we were off to the Dalton Highway.  I sat in the back with Falcom.  It poured down rain the entire way to the Yukon river.  (See Truck in above picture).  I slept the entire way to the Yukon River.  I am surprised no one snapped a picture of me mouth open, drooling.  When I woke up I heard Marina asking Vince, "Will we be able to catch frogs?"  Vince said, "No.  There are no frogs this far north."

Guess what they caught before I could even get out of the truck at the Yukon River Bridge? 

After leaving the Yukon River the next major stop we made was at Finger Rocks.  There we found and interpretive 'trail' and fantastic rock formations.  Vince and I were investigating the geology of the area and Marina and Falcom ran down to the flats to check out stuff.  "Mom! Dad!  We found blueberries!"  Marina was in heaven.  She and Falcom were picking and picking.  I went over and walked down to join them.  Vince stood on a slab over looking us and said, "Hey, Alana, does that rock look strange to you?"  Sure enough, when he shouted down to us the 'rock' moved it's head and revealed itself as a very blond grizzly bear.  One hundred yards away was too close for our comfort, especially with a  creature unfamiliar with humans.  "Kids, get up here!"  We started walking quickly back up the slab and the bear took to its rear legs to get a better look at what must have seemed like a much better meal than ground squirrel and berries!  We resumed walking, but more slowly.  When we reached Vince and his waving arms the bear had decided to retreat behind the rocks in the background of the above picture. 

Vince was thinking after we left the Yukon River that we should just bag this whole trip.  Rain in the tundra is just no fun.  Especially when we set up our tents at the Arctic circle in the puking rain.  What is puking rain?  Torrential, monsoon, get out the tarps and string them to tiny trees puking rain.  It was sheer misery. When the rain would let up, the mosquitoes would start swarming.  It was miserable.  

I decided we should press on and see what was going to happen and so we did.  I am so glad we pressed on! Once we were past the Arctic Circle the sun came out and we were able to do what so few people on this Earth get to do:  experience the far north!

Here we are checking out the Dall Sheep in Atugin Pass.

We stopped at the Koyokuk River for a rest. How cold could the water honestly be? These two spent plenty of time swimming!

At the point on the highway undergoing major construction, a herd of sheep were resting on the mountainside. Sorry, no rams!  

That night we camped in Happy Valley.  This area is trying to become known for fossil hunting, but it will be hard to change that reputation from "place to go to catch a flight to go hunting." for the Princess Tours buses. We gave it a shot, found some things.  Marina got to make the Hobo Stew she learned to make at Girl Scout Camp for us.  It was delicious!

The kids were loving having a fire.  They were playing some fire, witch, hair salon game with singed tundra grass.  They could have sat by that fire for days without being bored.  I had a chance to sit by the river and drink coffee and meditate looking out at the tundra.  It was amazing!

More amazing than that...in fact a bucket list event completed...on our final drive into Deadhorse we came across a herd of 17 Musk Ox!  I do not have the ability to show you a picture of this as Vince took the camera to Soldotna to show his friends.  We were about 100 yards down wind from them and we spent over an hour watching them fight, eat, sleep, attempt to mate.  It was....well... amazing.  They were beautiful.  Their fur hung long and in the breeze, it looked like a skirt swaying around their legs.

That night we arrived in Deadhorse, or Prudhoe Bay. Miles and miles of unobstructed beauty and then pop!  we landed right in the middle of a major industrial complex.  Our friend Stefan greeted us warmly and filled us in on the ins and outs of life as a slope worker.  This is a grey world of utilitarian buildings, big trucks, and Fox News on the flat screen TVs that are in every room of the place.  The only exception to this is one new hotel that is a yellow fancy place comparatively speaking.  We met our friend Lori there for a minute and they were playing CNN news. I mentioned to Stefan that no one even hardly made eye contact with me or the kids and he said, "Honey, these guys can't fathom you because you are completely out of context to them.  A woman and two kids up here do not belong!" and I realized he was right, we may have well as have been maritains.

After a good night sleep we said good-bye to Stefan and prepared for a leisurely trip back to the land of cell phone service.  But fate had other ideas! 

...to be continued