Desert Southwest

We enjoyed the drive across Arizona, New Mexico, part of Texas and then to Oklahoma.

Lefse making and Norwegian memories.

We stayed with Marlys' cousin, John, in Phoenix. Two years ago, John, his daughter, Janet, Larry & Marlys joined a tour to the Valdres Valley in Norway. John filled us in on the farm stories for our family. His granddaughter, Lynette, lives with John. We joined a dinner party the day we arrived. While we were there, John gave Marlys and Larry a lesson in making lefse. We took home some packages of lefse, Mmm good! We learned how to make the potatoes, roll out the lefse and cook it too.

November Journeys

We headed out on a new adventure just before Thanksgiving. We were slowed up a bit by a viral infection. Marlys had laryngitis for several days and then really felt bad so they postponed their departure by one day and changed the destination too. These pictures were taken on the way to Phoenix and include the state capitol of New Mexico at Santa Fe. We got off the freeway onto old route 66 and found some interesting buildings. it took three days of driving to get to Phoenix and was a beautiful drive.

Fall at the Wilson's

Life is back to the regular routine since the Sept. beginning of the school year. Even though we no longer work in the schools, our life still revolves around that calendar. Larry spent six days at school proctoring computer math and reading tests at the Middle School. He does that in the fall and spring each year. Otherwise, he no longer subs. We both returned to teach in the MOPS program at church starting in October. Larry has the oldest children. They are a bit younger this year. He has some four year olds along with the fives and sixes. Marlys has the youngest group that has real lessons - three year olds. We are energized by the antics of these little ones, but they do tire us out too.
Our grandson, Skyler, is attending Buffalo High School. We are privileged to have him stay overnight with us on Mondays. He has joined our square dance club and attends lessons as an 'angel' this year. He was in the cross country team this fall. We attended one of his meets. Go, Skyler! We also watched another grandson, Matt, playing football. His Becker team was playing Buffalo! We were able to cheer on both teams.
Last week we had help from our kids and grandkids here at our house. They helped rake and blow the leaves off the back yard. They also worked on vehicles. We have three that need attention (one is Paul's). We are down to one car that is running at our house. Larry is replacing the fuel tank and so had to first remove the gas tank.
Marlys is busy cleaning house this week. Mission 500, a card club, is coming Friday night. What a good excuse for fall cleaning.
We are looking forward to a short trip to the south in a few weeks.

Labor Day Weekend

Doesn't that mean a work weekend???!!
We are encouraging two of our sons to finish painting projects this weekend. We were at Pat's on Sunday helping in the basement. Mark is doing his room in camouflage colors. We will be back on Labor Day to continue the process. Paul's family is working on the office in their basement.
Then it will be time to get ready for school! I asked Larry if he missed the first day of school. By his reaction, I could tell he is way over that. It is just another lovely day of retirement for us.
However, the excitement is on in Pete's household as Gen prepares for her first day of Kindergarden!


Well, besides painting, we had to eat too!


Where was Grandma? Taking pictures, of course, since Paul wasn't there.

Camping with the family

We enjoyed another wonderful camping weekend. Had a few sprinkles during the night and it was a little chilly in the mornings, but warmed up nicely by 10 or so. We even enjoyed the heated pool in the evening. We joined Pat and their family at the Scout camping area. Their family camped with the Scouts and joined our family for Sunday lunch.
Larry and I had two of our granddaughters with us. Paul's family was using a ritzy camper for the weekend, but they brought pancake mix over to our tent site for breakfast.

Pete, Anne and little Vivienne joined us for lunch today too. Here are their two little girls.

We had a late celebration of three July birthdays - a 9 yr old, 13, and 17!
Larry and I are really tired. All that fresh air is very tiring for all of us!

Lee/Wilson Cabin

We had a beautiful week up north at Dave & Jodi's cabin with her brothers and their families. I just posted pictures on facebook. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2023559587692.2108914.1205043278
I'll put a couple here on the blog too.
Next weekend our kids and grandkids are getting together.
Summer is the time to get to the lake or the woods and enjoy God's great creation.
Hope you've had a chance to do that this year.

Hot and Humid!

We have been home most of the month of July. Wow, has it been humid! We are so glad that the humidity did not accompany us on our trip. We realize now how great it was to be a little bit chilly and to be able to put on another layer and be comfortable.
There is only so much you can take off! And even that doesn't help with the humidity.
It is nice to be home, however. The deep green leaves on the oaks in our yard are really beautiful.
Our gardens were full of huge weeds. We got great black raspberries. Just this week, I finally went outside and pulled all the plants out of a small garden by the road. it was long overdue for a change. Yesterday we planted some full grown perennials and it looks a lot better. I also put a full blossoming begonia in the big handing pot in the yard, so that looks better too.
Larry is busy working on cars. The car we had planned to drive to Alaska has given up. It is now a 'parts' car. He's been struggling to get a hub off one of the other cars to repair the brakes. It finally came off after his advisors all said to continue hitting it with a bigger sledge hammer. It worked!
We are working on getting pictures ready for the county fair next week. We also are making slide shows of our travels. It seems we have met several others who went to Alaska this year. Hope to share photos and journey experiences with them.
We haven't taken many pictures since coming home. We are dealing with massive overdose of pictures from the trip.
We're looking forward to August and hope to camp with our grandkids and see family at two reunions.
Here are some of our animal pictures.

Just made a book of our Alaska trip.

http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/projectshareewelcome/l=3232182027/p=414161310835666337/g=6332445027/cobrandOid=1000/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/otsc=SYE/otsi=SPBKlink/

Hope you can find this.

The Final Lap

Friday, July 1 was Canada Day. We reached Swift Current and looked in the cemetery for Doug's grandmother, Ida Bell Bonk (Larry's great-great aunt on the Rail side). We couldn't find her grave and most businesses were closed because of the holiday. So we decided to check out the historical buildings in town. What we found was a rodeo-fair-midway! It was similar to our county fair. We joined in the festivities and really enjoyed touring the old buildings they had - dentist, telephone company, store, blacksmith, school, church and farmhouse. We had ice cream from the store and Larry was really intrigued by the blacksmith. He spent most of his time watching and asking questions. In fact, one of the blacksmiths followed us out and directed us to a campground outside town where he had his rig. We stayed at the Ponderosa Campground, right next to the camp office and had good Internet connection. We waited with the blacksmith and his wife for fireworks but it was delayed because of the musical act at the fair and we wound up going to bed instead of waiting.
Saturday, we bought some hard coal from him so that Larry can do some smithing at home. Then we stopped at the local mortuary and found a map of the old cemetery. We went to find where Ida Bell's grave was located. I think we were at the right place but there was no stone. It was a beautiful day for driving so we headed home. The last gas fill was over $90 (Canadian) so we headed directly south to the border. The road was a small two lane road in rolling hills. The US border guards asked why we came that way. We said the price of gas impelled us to get to the USA as quickly as we could. Saw lots of abandoned buildings along the way.

We were in Malta, Montana and took highway #2 east thru Glasgow, Wolf Point to Williston, ND. We chose to go to Lewis & Clark State Park on the Skachekewea Lake. What a nice campground! The spots were big and they had free hot showers!!

Sunday we drove thru ND from northwest to southeast. We stopped in Tioga where Ione was born and other Golie relatives had lived. We saw oil drilling and big trucks and thought of Mitch and Dave who are working here in the northeast. Then we skirted Minot and drove to Bismarck. We turned east to Valley City. We stayed overnight in Fort Ransom State Park We had been there three years ago with two grandsons when we attended the Lowe Family Reunion. Before leaving the state on Monday, we drove thru Lidgerwood where my Golie grandparents had a hotel. The town is celebrating 125 years. I took some pictures of a few of the oldest buildings.


We continued on into Minnesota to Elbow Lake and then onto I-94. The Fourth of July brought us full circle-home at last.

Closer to home, but still a long way off

Wow, this last week has been a remarkably beautiful part of our trip.
We enjoyed Whitehorse in the Yukon. At the archives, we found that Larry's mom (Mayo) family is related to the man for whom they named the town of Mayo, Yukon. They also have Mayo River and Mayo Lake. We didn't visit the town but got his history and he is from the Mayos in Brownsville, Maine, just as is Larry's family. Albert Mayo (of Yukon) moved with his family to Beloit, WI. After the Civil War, he moved to the Yukon eventually marrying a native woman. They raised 11 children in that area. If you saw a picture of him, you'd think it was Grandpa Mayo.
Then we went on to Dawson Creek to visit cousin Doug & Evie Bonk. It was rainy weather, but we had a warm welcome there. We visited Doug in his apartment and Evie in the nursing home connected by inside corridors.
That was one of the few days of rain we have had. However, this part of Canada has been inundated for the past few weeks and flooding is common.
The floods forced us to change our direction when leaving Dawson Creek. Instead of heading southwest to Prince George, we headed southeast to Hinton. We came out of the rain and entered the Rocky Mountains.
We just about circled Banff and Jasper parks.

We went across the top from Hinton thru Jasper to catch the highway south on the other side of the mountains. Then we paralleled the mountains all the way to Kamloops. Our reason was to visit another cousin in Logan Lake. Grace and Jon have a darling girl, Kaitlyn. We saw the trucks that Jon drives in the copper mines. They are more than huge!

Then we headed east toward Lake Louise. All this way we were awed by the huge mountains and lovely scenery. Lake Louise didn't disappoint us either. The sun was peeking out all along the Icefields Parkway. It still ranks as my favorite drive. The mountain views are so wonderful I don't have enough adjectives to do them justice.
We ended that wonderful day in Red Deer with a Norwegian cousin of Marlys'. Betty Wulff and husband, Stan, were wonderful hosts. Betty has helped develop the international heritage of their town. Stan helped plan and build the Laft Hus at the Historical Park which is of Norwegian design. Daily in the summer, weekly in the winter, people gather at the Hus to teach and learn painting, hardanger (sewing), cooking and other activities. We were really impressed with the Norwegian heritage shown there.
Since leaving Red Deer, we visited three more families. The Fisher's in Innisfail (Wilson relatives), the Kuhle's in Calgary (friend, Madre's son), and Gordon & Mary Wilson in Calgary (Wilson relatives).
Now we really are on the way home. But there is still much to see and miles to go.

Starting Home

We left Eagle River in sun and moved into rain showers. Continuing on, we have had more rain. We stayed at Sourdough Campground in Tok in the rain. They have nightly entertainment. We didn't win a free breakfast in the pancake toss, but we did enjoy the music and karaoke.

We chickened out on going to Chicken. With clouds and rain, the roads are bad and we couldn't take the beautiful pictures we really enjoy. Instead we drove the Alaskan highway and had a sunny afternoon and a beautiful drive. We stayed in two Yukon campgrounds - Pine Lake and Marsh Lake. Both were in beautiful locations.

We spent the Summer Solstice on Tuesday in Whitehorse. We found special music and doings at the park for Aboriginal Days in the afternoon. We also had picked up passports for Yukon sights so we stopped at several museums to get our passports stamped. At the Yukon Archives we pursued the background for Alfred Mayo. There is a river, lake and town named for him on the road we didn't take. It turns out that Larry is related to Alfred. Larry's mother's maiden name is Mayo. Both families go back to Brownsville, Maine. We have information on Alfred's parents in our genealogy things. That is exciting for us!
After leaving Whitehorse, we have camped at two private RV parks so had showers and electricity. We recharged all our batteries at the first campground. Last night we used the covered picnic pavillion for cooking since the rain was off and on. Today is the same weather. When the rains come, it is a torrent, but then it stops quickly. We are heading to Dawson Creek to visit another 'cousin'.

Eagle River Adventures

We took our time returning to Anchorage. The weather was so nice. We camped next to the Kenai river and enjoyed rafters going down the fast river. We hiked a little too. How exciting to see a bear on the side of the road as we drove.
Friday, we had lunch with Keith and Cynthia, Jared and Travis. Keith is related to many people in our Buffalo church. We had visited the Covenant church where he is one of the pastors last Sunday, but he was on vacation. We were happy to connect with him this time.
Then we headed to see Diane & Bob Kelly. It's been almost 20 years since being together but what fun to reconnect.
They have a moose with twins living in their neighborhood. The mama even drank from their rain barrel! The weather was wonderful Saturday as we drove to the Independence Mine near Palmer. How small we are in comparison to the mountains God created. We listened to the stories of the gold mine days in the 1930's and 40's. Today we attended church at Joy Lutheran with the Kelly's.
Then we headed back toward Canada. We are staying at Tok at the SourDough Campground. They have entertainment every night. Danny Lee is singing Amazing Grace right now.

More activities

The picture of Mt. Redoubt is not great, but shows one of the active volcanos across from Kenai.
We were at the western most point of highway on North America.
This Russian Orthodox church is in Kenai.
We also visited Alaska Christian College in Soldatna. Had a good tour with Jackie.

Activities with the Millers

The "Diana Lee" brought the fishermen out to sea for the day.
Eagles soared right in front of us. The photographers tried to capture the moment on film.
Marlys got her 'halibut' at the Alpaca store in Homer.
In between rain showers, the lake in front of the Miller house was like glass. By the time we got in from canoeing the wind had come up and the sun was gone again. It was a beautiful interlude.

Halibut fishing

We have been in Eagle River (Sat-Sunday) and Kenai. Diane & Bob Kelly hosted us overnight. We got to see some of their family and then chatted the evening away. Sunday morning we attended Community Covenant Church in Eagle River. Keith Bergstrom was on vacaton but his wife met us and we hope to reconnect this coming Friday. We enjoyed visiting this sister church. I got some ideas about Mission bulletin boards.
We drove to the Kenai Peninsula in sunshine. The views were spectacular. By the time we crossed to the west it was cloudy but not raining. The sun has been in and out since then. We saw some fishermen on the Kenai River but it is too early for the salmon runs so they weren't crowded together yet.
Our visit with Janet and Larry Miller has been fun. We have talked later in the evening than we should. Last night we played aggravation. Larry took off time from work on Tuesday and Wednesday. He is up at 5 AM for word and on Tuesday we all got up that early to drive to Homer to go halibut fishing. Janet's friend, Diana, has a boat there. She took the two Larrys out on her boat with her friend, Roy, at the helm. They caught three halibut (Larry W. caught two!) and then the wind was up. Larry W. got seasick and the fishing was over. Meanwhile Marlys and Janet were shopping, eating and visiting. That was cut short when the boat returned. We all enjoyed the scenery as the sun came out but the wind was still strong. We stopped at a couple of villages on the way home. We saw eagles playing on the wind and we were at the farthest west point of highway in North America.
We have been trying to get Larry W's medication refilled. Hope that it is straightened out now and Walmart will call saying it is ready.
Today we all slept in. Hopefully, Larry M will be rested when he returns to work tomorrow.
I will try to get some pictures on the blog and fill in the details of the last part of our ferry trip when I get to a wireless location.
We are thankful that our journeys have been safe and we have arrived at our destination.
The pictures below show the sweeping mountains on the Glennallen highway going to Anchorage and then the inlet south of Anchorage on the way to Kenai.

Wrangell

This was the view from our camp ground just outside Wrangell.
In the morning, it was raining so we found a campground inland with a cover over the table. It was a good place to cook breakfast. This was the only day we had rain since we came to Alaska.