Mom meets Martin Buser

As the week progressed for Mom, the cold weather continued. But Mom was a trooper. Not once did she complain, so I continued to take her everywhere I could think of. We went all over the city of Anchorage. We took the city tour and talked about the great earthquake of 1964 that nearly leveled the northern part of the city. It is amazing that only 33people died. We went to earthquake park and stood at the memorial were you could look straight down and see where the cliff dropped about 30 feet into the sea.

After that we went to Alaska Wildberry. Kelly worked there for a summer. Mom was able to see the largest chocolate fall in the United States, maybe even the world!

Mom made many friends while she was here. I think Loretta had high hopes mom would find a new boy friend while she ws here. I don't know, mom seemed a little leary of a long distance romance, but she did seem partial to this one guy... but here, judge for your self.

I do beleive that the highlight of Mom's trip was Saturday when we went to visit Kathy and Martin Buser in Big Lake, Alaska. We spent the afternoon with Martin and Kathy just chatting casually about the iditarod, his family, our family, what it takes to be a musher and 4 time iditarod champion. Mom was so surprised to learn not only how long the race is in miles (1,049 miles to be exact), but that it can be won in under 9 days! She was also surprised how small the dogs were too. She came home with such appreaction for Martin and for his dogs too. I think that this next year she will also be glued to her T.V. for the start of the race! Below is a picture of Martin with Mom.

Also while we were with Martin, Terry and I had the opportunity to officially invite Martin to be our main guest speaker for the 2009 Citizen's Police Academy National Convention. Here is Terry giving Martin one of our local chapter's T-shirts. It was so much fun for us to give Martin a t-shirt, because he has given me several of his shirts over the past year, so it seemed like a good trade!

Mom Comes to Alaska

On June 17th, Sussie's mom came up to Alaska for her first visit. We decided it would be fun for us to take her on the same tour that the site committee took while they were here in Alaska. Sussie and her mom started out by going to the Conervation Wildlife Refuge Center. This is a center where animals go that are either injured and stay until they are strong enough to return to the wild, or can be sent to a zoo somewhere in the lower 48. Some of the residents have grown so used to humans, that they are happier to remain in the reserve, so they live their days out here is Alaska. This is strickly a Non-profit facility. Mom had so much fun meeting several animals for the first time. She met Cariboos, Musk-ox, Moose, Plains Buffalo, Brown Bear, (the black bear were hidding) Sitka deer, Reindeer and we saw about 10 Eagles through-out the day. It was a beautiful day over all. After the Wildlife refuge center we went to Portage Glacier and Mom got to see her first floating iceberg!





On the weekend we took Mom south to Seward for our second crusie with Renoun Tours. What a fantastic trip we had! Oh my gosh! We had the best time ever! We saw the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. I know, I live here, but really what a splendid state we live in! Mom of course wanted pictures of every thing, so we took as many pictures of everything, including Terry eating lunch! Smoked salmon of course!




The cruise was a six hour cruise, and we saw humpback whales so close you could actually hear them calling to each other. It was amazing. We got to see the glaciers calving, and I have never before seen that. It was so incredible. The noise that comes from the glacier is so hard to describe, I hope the video that Terry took has the sounds on it, because I can not describe the noise from the glaciers. I truely thought the captain started the boat engines again. He did not, it was in fact the glacier! It is truely a once in a life time expierence. So those of you who come to Alaska for the conference, you must take this cruise, you will be so glad that you did! I will attach some of the photos we took for your enjoyment!






Monday I was able to take the majority of the day off and take Mom to the Native Heritage Center, I think it is by far one of the best places to see in all of Anchorage. It is a bit pricey, but 90% of the proceeds go towards education in the villages, so it is worth it. Anyway, we spent 4 hours at the center, taking our time going through all the exhibits. When the site committee was here, the center wasn't open yet, so they weren't able to see very much at all. There are exhibits, artists displaying their crafts. My favorite artist is Jerry. He makes drums and paints them by hand. He tells the story of the design he paints.



Around the lake there are copies of how each one of the different tribes/villages homes would be. Inside there is an amphi-theather where you can watch demonstrations of Native Games and Native dances, there is also a theater where you can hear some of the old traditional stories that have been passed on from generation to generation. This is a picture of the Heritage Center Dancers


Next weekend we are headed off to the north country. We are going to pop in on my dear friend and 4 time Iditarod Champion, Martin Buser. Mom has never seen a dog sled, so she is in for a treat! I thought I would bring a long one of our citizen's academy shirts for him so when he comes to the National Conference he fits in...

In Closing...

May I just say what a great place we live in this place we call Alaska! Never before have I seen such beauty on a day to day basis. When the dolphin were bored with us, they swam off to bigger and better things, I went inside with Captin Lief, and Terry. It was then that I learned that Renoun Tours has an evening cruise, a diner cruise in fact. He thought it was quite funny that Terry and I had been placed on the wrong tour. He said he now understood why we didn't seem quite as excited as the others when we first started out. He said of all his passengers, we looked

almost confused

...and he was surprised by that! Go figure! After several minutes of talking about next year's convention, Terry and were invited back to go on the Northwestern's diner cruise! For FREE! And you will never guess when we are going...you guessed? When Mom is here? Of course! It is a very hard life I lead being the chair of the 2009 National CPAAA convention! Hey! Somone had to do it! Here is the video of the Dolphins I meant to attach earlier. Enjoy as we did!

Dancing Dolphins part duex

So, as the afternoon forged on, the weather got much better and so did our moods. Terry went outside and pretty much stayed there...or so I thought. You know how he loves to meet people, well he snuck around and found his way into the Captain's quarters, thus he was hanging out at the in the hull. i was hanging out with the little people taking pictures of wild life, or trying to. Every so often a Puffin would fly by and yes all of us tried to get pictures of them, and no none of us got a clear picture!

I did however meet a retired police chief from Santa Barbara, California who had never heard of the NCPAAA. He was very impressed with us as a group, and very excited to go home home and talk with the new chief of police and see what he could do to initiate a CPA in his town. Who knows, maybe we'll see him in Anchorage next year at the convention!

About an hour before the Cruise was over, a call from the Captain's quarters came saying dolphins on the left side! At that moment everyone was running to the left front of the boat including me! Heck I would have thrown small children and babies overboard to see them! As you all know dolphins are my favorite thing next to my family! This was my first time to ever see them outside of an aquarium, and I was so very excited! I will attempt to include a video that I took showing them swimming with us! It was so cool! It is one of those things you just have to see to believe, your so excited, your heart is in your throat so to speak, I can't even find words to describe!

Terry and Sussie Dance with the Dolphins!

May 24th was a cold and foggy morn as wet set out for Seward Alaska, but it wasn't going to dampen our trip for a moment. We were headed for a day filled with adventure! We left Anchorage at 7:30 in the morning and on our way out of town we did the McDonalds drive thru breakfast, so as not to temp fate with sea-sickness by eating a nice breakfast just before boarding our cruise vessel. Since neither one of us was to familiar with Renoun Tours, we had no idea of the size of the boat we would be on, so for now we'll call it a vessel.

We arrived in Seward an hour an a half before we needed to check in, so we had some time to stop for a little munchie after checking in, which we did! We were also the second two on the vessel, and keep in mind we were checking this tour out for the Citizen's Accademy Convention next spring. Remember we need a boat that can hold at the very least 225 people. We we got to our boat we guessed it could hold maybe 50! Thus the look on my face! (I was sporting my very official jacket for the occasion. )

Terry also took a shot of the Boat I beleive which I will also show later on. It was kind of funny because when we first left the dock, the skipper, of as he preferred to be called, Captain Leif, told us; we were going on "a three hour tour"! For those of you who are old enough to get that, pretty funny huh! Any way, after a year of driving for tourist, I learned that the more foggy the weather, the better the chances of actually seeing whales you have, so I was feeling fairly confident that we were going to see whales today. And guess what? What you say? Terry and I were the first to see the whales! What is our secret?

The secret is great eyes! You must have excellent eye sight! And since we were on the llok out we were the first to spot the whales! The problem with getting great pictures of them is you can only catch them for a split second, and then they are gone. I was mostly in charge of the camera at the time we spotted the whales, and being the tall person that I am, well lets just say that I got more pictures of arm pit than I did of the whales!

This is the tip of the whale's fin, It is rolled over so it is difficult to see very well. I think it is the only shot I have of a whale at all!

Below is a picture of some sea lions. According to Captain Leif, these big ol boys can weigh any where from 900 pounds to over 1800 pounds! Maybe they need to call Jenny Craig!

So I finally figured that if I want the picture and then ths story I have to publish the picture first! Any way this is Terry and I stopped to look at Denali (as we locals like to call Mt. McKinnley). Since President McKinnley never bothered to come and see the Mountain named after him, no one here likes to call it that...

Anyway, we stopped to look at her and there was another couple who had the same thing in mind. They were having a hard time trying to get a nice picture of themselves with the mountain in the background so Terry took their picture and then they took ours. We had so much fun last weekend. I can hardly wait for this weekend to take our whale watching cruise. I have never done that before, so I am way excited!

Talkeetna, here we come!

Wild flowers in Talkeetna area around the lodge.
Martin at home going over some of the equipment used in the iditarod.

As you all should know by know we have entered our last year of living in Alaska. We have decided to spend this last year living and enjoying the land to the fullest. So with that in mind we kicked off our last summer in grand fashion with a trip to Talkeetna, Alaska. Talkeetna is about 100 miles North of Anchorage, and from there you have some of the most glorious views of Mt. McKinley (if you are lucky enough to see her). As luck would have it, we were! It is also home of the infamous Talkeetna Bachelor's Auction! You know where the odds are good, but the Goods are ODD!

Mt McKinley was out in all her glory on Saturday. We were able to get some great shots of her. We were there for a wedding for some of Terry's oldest friends here in Alaska, and we decided to turn this trip into a site inspection of the lodge for our Citizen's Academy National Convention for next year. Everywhere we visited I begged for free donations for the silent auction! So far I have nothing, but we can officially write off the trip, so it is still a win-win situation!

We also had the pleasure of visiting with a dear friend of mine, Martin Buser and his son Rohn. Terry's Martial Arts Student's sponsored Rohn this year for his 1st iditarod. We decided since they gave tours everyday at 2:00 pm we would stop in and take the tour. It just so happened that this weekend Rohn graduated from High School, so they weren't having tours, but because it was us, we got a private tour and so we just hung out with Martin and Rohn for about an hour and a half. It was great fun and they are such good people. Next year our goal is to go to Nome and watch Martin cross the finish line. We were invited to come this year, but we had another fun trip instead, Ashton's blessing was at the same time, so I chose that trip instead!

On our way home from Martin's, my Passat decided to die a long and slow death. I guess I should have seen it coming, ($195.00 oil changes, head lamp replacements bi-monthly, etc) but I refused to acknowledge it. Well as the STOP engine too hot, oil pressure light kept coming on and we would have to pullover and wait for the engine to cool off I told Terry we should stop at Cal Worthington's to see about a trade in for my car...I was half joking. I told him the only way I would do a trade is if it cost me nothing and they could do it in an hour.

Well an hour later we were walking out with a new car. Today we have some buyer's remorse, but the engine works and I get much better gas mileage, which is a good thing since gas isn't going down any sooner. With Memorial day around the corner and predictions of $5.00 a gallon in the rumor mill I guess this is a good thing.

This weekend we are off to Seward, about 120 miles south of Anchorage to do a site inspection for the Citizen's National convention for Whale watching! I love this job....I Love this state, and we are going to miss it terribly, so if any of you want to visit, this is the year to plan your vacations!