I got in Trouble with Myra

Yesterday morning I told Myra I was going to walk to the river to look at how low the level was and I was taking the small shotgun in case a Grouse was wondering around. I inferred I would be back shortly and would be working in the yard. Well, Me and the dogs walked to the river. It is down so far that there is a walkable bank as far as the eye can see. I walked the bank down river for a couple hundred yards, I found a fresh water "seep" coming out of the bank. I goofed around with it for a while and dug a hole under it and created a fresh water pool. I decided to let it settle for a bit and then I was going to check the water quality. WELL, I started to walk down river. A couple of hundred yard turned into a couple of miles. I found another seep that someone had been using in days past. There was a pipe and a plastic can lid laying there. I dug at this one for a minute, built a small dam and installed the pipe. I have great fresh running water at about a gallon a minute coming out of the pipe. This seep is about a half mile from the cabin. It is now our closest water source and it is really clear and cold and great to drink! Anyhow, I walked far enough down river that I could see a cabin at the entrance to Fish Lakes Creek. Probably 2 miles or so. I saw BIG bear prints in the sand at one point, and eagles nest, badgers den, great views of the mountains etc. You could say I got lost in my surroundings, It was an awesome time with me, the dogs and Gods creations.
Meanwhile back at the ranch there is this women. She doesn't think much about the first hour of my disappearance, she is busy doing her thing. Then this women, well she looks at the clock and realizes her man is nowhere to be found. Thoughts go through her head, Alaska, Cold fast water, Guns, Bears, slippery rocks, husband that doesn't always think fully ahead, Hmmmmmm. Worry, don't worry? Yep, worry is the choice.
This women gets herself dressed for the outdoors, straps on her Gun and goes man hunting. She takes the ATV to the river, calls for her man. No answer, no sign of him, no dogs around. OK, he probably did not fall in the river cause the dogs would be around right? Maybe he took off into the woods hunting for dinner? Holler some more and still no answer. (This is a picture of the Yenlo Hills, they are just North West of us) Before she takes off down the trail thru the woods check the fuel tank on ATV. Shoot, it is low on fuel so back to the cabin to fill up before continuing the man hunt. ATV is full, which way do I start this man hunt she thinks? Well he left down the trail toward the river so I will go back around that way first. She knows the trail is blocked from a downed tree (wind storm & the missing husband has not cleared that trail yet) but she can go for a ways then come back around past the cabin and go that way from the back trail if need be. OK back to the highest hill on the property and near the river, she stops and hollers at the top of her lungs for her Husband. ROGERRRrrr, ROGERRRrrr. Then there is an answer, Yea Hello, where are you I answered? She answers "On top of Torture Hill, where are you?" I am down the river bank I answered. OH she says. I tell her I will be there in a little while and she responds OK. I was still a good half mile down river during this conversation but sound carries very well over the water and it was a calm day. I walk slowly with the dogs, enjoying the rest of our walk. I get to our landing area and there SHE is, waiting for me. Ooops, I explain that I couldn't get the dogs to turn around, there is a new water source, I took pictures, I saw an Eagles nest, I took more Pictures, Bear prints, the mountains were pretty, I got side tracked, I got lost in our space, It was Gods time. NOTHING WORKED, I was in trouble. She left her gun in its' holster but she did get her man! I might still be in trouble, it's hard to tell because she does not talk to me very much today. I don't know what that means and I have learned after 31 years of marriage, don't start asking questions if you don't want to know the answers.
Well, I did get a lot of work done later in the day yesterday and all day today. It is amazing how much a man can do when he feels a need to stay out of the house.
Time to change the subject.
It snowed this morning and 2" to 4" is forecast for tonight. We will see if that happens or not. The snow this morning came down hard for about an hour but did not stick to anything for long.
We have been working diligently around here most of the time, doing the final preparation work for winter. I am sure I will find out what I am missing, when God is ready to teach me another lesson. The boat is ready, the buildings are ready, the yard is ready (I'll get pictures tomorrow I think), the snowmachines are ready except for installing the belts and one battery needs charged (tomorrow), the wood pile will be an ongoing thing this year, but we have a start, the fuel oil furnace (for back up heat) is working, we have groceries, fuel oil, propane and gasoline stock piled. Let it snow!

These pictures are all from yesterday morning. That "cliff" bank is the south west side of the gravel bar in front of our place. This is the same gravel bar that was completely under water about a month ago. The water is down about 11' from then and this is normal for this time of year.
The snow covered mountains above are Mt Foraker (left) Hunter (center/right) and Mt McKinley (right) the top of McKinley is covered with clouds. The Boulder in the water is one that is right in the normal route that we take going in and out of our little cove off the main river channel. The close up of the eagles nest gives you a little perspective how big the nest is. The branches it is built on are about 12" around. Look how many branches it would take to span the nest.
It was a fantastic walk yesterday and very productive since then.
Life is Good and God is Great, He gives everything to appreciate!
I really Really REALLY appreciate Myra,
Thanks for being with us Ya all!
See Ya,
Roger

Snow is in the Forecast

Well, we weathered the Wind Storm. It has stayed pretty breezy since then until this evening the wind finally dropped to calm. The "Tarsp" has been cut into pieces and has been recycled to another use. It is now a vapor barrier under my new Workshop and Barn. Since the world revolves around me and the windstorm was just to give me a message, by blowing down the Tarsp, I would like to tell you "message received".
You can see the board across the two trees in the background (right), that was one of the old Tarsp supports. I now have two "Alaskan Shelters" put together. The big one is the Workshop and the small one is the Barn. The Barn will hold all of the fuel barrels, extra building materials. the off season vehicles, IE snowmachines or ATVs and other misc items.


Check out the inside of this workshop, Looks like it should work for a while. I have plenty of room to work on the vehicles and build cabinets etc as the work is called for. I just have to clean up in between projects and can't just push one to the side to work on another. I do not have enough plywood on site to cover the entire floor right now but I will be hauling more up after the river freezes.
I felt compelled to give a couple of comparison photos from what I worked in all summer, until God blew it down and told me to get these new "temporary" buildings up before snow flies.


Snow is in the forecast beginning with a slight chance on Wednesday and increasing everyday for the next ten days. We are told by the neighbors that 13" by October 13th is a good general rule of thumb.

I still have a fair amount of work to do in the next few days to get the yard cleaned up and items into the barn before too much snow flys. I also still have to get over to the boat and get the canvas top off of it and winterize the motor, jack up the trailer and put it on blocks and cover everything with a tarp. I was advised to put the trailer frame on blocks with no wieght on the wheels because the snow can get so heavy this winter it will break down the springs or bend the axle. Once I get all of that done all I have to do is get the underside of the cabin (floor) insulated and we should be about ready for snow.
I then have to get back to getting firewood as I still don't have enough dried, seasoned wood cut and stacked. I still have to get the dried wood from the neighbor about a mile away. I will drag the logs back here and cut and split them. I have enough wood to get us thru for a while so this is not top priority but it must be done before we get too much snow.
Myra did the domestic things today, laundry - hand washing everything - hanging out to dry, dishes - haul out waste water, house cleaning - fire up the generator to run vacuum, back porch organizing - still not all moved in, hauled used cat litter down the trail to dump it where the bears don't come too close to the cabin, carried water buckets out from laundry. You Know, all those normal things everybody does on a house cleaning day. Then she cooked a great roast beef manhatten dinner with homemade bread and great scratch gravy. She sure is getting the hang of this life, and I LIKE IT!
Still busy around here but life is good,
Thanks for visiting!
See Ya soon!
Roger
Even the dogs are tired tonight!

Wind Storm & Earth Quake

Starting about 36 hours ago we had winds pick up for the first time since we have been here. I did not think it got Windy here after going all summer and only 2 thunder storms and not seeing much wind over about 20 mph in gust. The only other wind I experienced was on the river during tidal changes. I was taught another lesson about our environment over the last day and a half.
I had gotten lax about setting stuff around, and the left over metal roofing was just piled on some logs in the back yard. I had put more metal roofing sheets on top of the wood pile and over the fuel barrels for rain and sun protection. Today I will picking up all of that roofing and re stacking it in an orderly fashion and anchoring quite well under something. I think the farthest I will have to walk to get it is about 60 feet. The loose insulation under the cabin is a different story. I still had not finished removing all of the bad insulation under the cabin but, I had pulled all of the chicken wire loose that was holding it. Well, I have foil pieces and insulation balls blown all over, Maybe over 100 yards out into the woods. I will pick up what I can see and get to. I have a feeling I will be finding it for a year or two. Oops!
The Blue Tarp workshop affectionately know as the Tarsp is no more. The wind took care of it also. It knocked over my drill press and a multitude of other items on its way to tearing the tarsp down.


I spent the better part of yesterday cleaning up, after the wind slowed a little bit and trees quit breaking, and doing prep work to put up my new temporary building that I purchased a while back. I guess God is telling me it is time to get that put up before winter hits or something like that.
The winds had been a constant 15 to twenty mph with frequent gust of 35 to 50 mph. Some of the gust maintained for 45 seconds to a minute. The hard sustained gust are what did all the damage.
The winds finally calmed down after midnight last night. Then we were SHOOK awake at 4:06am with a 5.4 magnitude Earthquake. The epicenter was less than 20 miles from us. It shook for a good 30 plus seconds from mild shake to pretty good bouncing then back to mild. I would compare this one to being on a railroad bridge when a heavy freight train crosses over it. You could feel it coming, it roared by then it passed with kind of a rhythmic shake. There is no damage and nothing even off the shelves but I don't think it would take very much more for things to move around a bit. It was enough of a shake to make my thoughts race for a few seconds.
Just now, as I type this I had another new experience. The sun just started blinding me from the side, throught the kitchen window. I said something to Myra about the sun coming up in a new area. She laughed and mentioned the lack of leaves on the trees. LOL, The trees were stripped during the wind storm! The sun is now coming through the forest, don't I feel (a little less intelligent).
It is a beatiful morning outside, about 32 degrees (when I got up) and crystal clear blue skys. Thankfully there was now dew last night because I was unable to get things covered with tarps last evening. The wind had picked back up to dangerous levels and there was no way I was going to try to handle tarps in that breeze. Myra may have had to come throw me a float ring in the river or help me out of a tree or something like that. Dorathy in the wizard of oz type of stuff.
Today will be spent putting up the temporary building and cleaning up the yard and surrounding area. I have got to get over to the boat soon and finish the winterization of it and God keeps changing my plan, go figure.
Myra got most items moved into the new porch and got it organized yesterday. It is starting to look like a different place around here. We don't have totes for walls any more and we can walk around a little. It seams as if we are tracking in far less dirt already and the dust is beginning to settle. It won't be long until we can actually clean the place and maybe keep it a little more so that way. It has been a dusty mess all summer, and it was so cramped it was almost impossible to clean.
Time to go get my work started for the day,
Thanks for taking your time to read this, it is truely a pleasure to be able to share our experience!
Roger
Did we share this sucker or was it all Jeffs'?

A Beautiful Day, Beginning to End

It was a very productive day, Yea! The first three pictures are sunrize time this morning. The sun was to my back and the ball you see in the sky is the Moon. It was way too cool not to take pictures of it.






I got the oil changed in the big Generator first thing this morning, then fired it up for the day. I got all of the siding and trim finished on the new porch. Then I put the trim on the front of the cabin that was never installed since the day it was built. I also trimmed the front upstairs window and caluked everything on the front of the cabin.
When I got all done with my work for the day (about 8:00) me and the dogs walked to the river to watch the sunset.














Myra went and picked more Rose Hips today and then made Rose Hip Jam. It is very high in Vitiman C concentrate and totally natural. She canned 12 4oz jars of it. We can't open it for about two weeks. I will try to remember to tell you how it turned out. Here is a picture of a rose Hip that we took earlier in the year.

























These "Buds" get quite a bit bigger than this picture and they turn deep Red. When ready to pick they get soft like a fruit. She boiled them, ran them thru a sieve with a pezel and then processed them into jam.I have had the Jam that some friends made it it was really good. I can't wait to try Myra's.



More pictures of the Day just for good Measure.
Thanks for Being Here!
Roger

Busy Times In the Bush




 





 Hi all. It has been busy around here the past few days. The weather has been gorgeous so we have been trying to get as much done outside as possible. The porch is almost complete, just the top of the siding to finish. The doors are both in now and we have stopped using the "front" door with the ramp. Roger added steps at the back door this evening so that will be even nicer, not quite such a big jump! He has also started building a generator shed by the porch so it will be protected this winter and we won't have to go to timbuktoo to start it. YEAA!!!! 

Slowly but Surely



"New Beginnings"









Baby Spider









In between helping Roger with the siding etc I worked on repotting the few little plants I managed to keep alive from Ohio to here. The one that is just now getting 2 new leaves had only one when we arrived and not really any roots to speak of. This is from a plant that I had for over 25 years that a friend now has and several other people have "starts" from. Those of you who were in our home in Ohio know that I had many plants, many of them many years old and very large. I have one small aloe plant that is just now getting some new shoots on it. One of the biggest problems with the aloe plant is the cats like to chew on it so I have to be careful where I put it.



Isabelle In "Dad's" Recliner






Gracie May

 







The girls have adjusted fairly well and love to lay at the top of the steps and look through into the kitchen when one of us is in there. All of the animals like to "gang" up on me when they think it is time for treats though!



The MUCK!!!!!

Last evening we took the boat out of the water with the help of our neighbor Tom and his bulldozer. Thankfully we have wonderful neighbors that are willing to help people when needed. We couldn't wait any longer to take it out if we wanted to store it over there as the water levels have been steadily dropping and getting into Fish Lakes Creek could become impossible in the next couple of days. So at this point unless we fly we won't be going any where until after freeze up.



Over the River and Through the Muck!



While Roger and Tom were pulling the boat out I was enjoying the beautiful fall evening and taking pictures.

Today I went and picked rose hips to make into jam. I will have to go pick a few more tomorrow as I do not have quite enough for a batch. It is kind of like doing strawberries so far as cleaning them other than you use your fingers to pull the stems off and they are a lot smaller so you have to do a lot more of them.

Tomorrow will be picking more rose hips, making jam, working on organizing the porch and cleaning the house. It might be time to kick a few dust bunnies out! Maybe a lot of them!!! Thanks for sharing our adventures with us and enjoy the beautiful fall!



Fall Beauty on Fish Lakes Creek

 Blessings, Myra

We are Gaining on It

First, I have no new pictures today just some of the flowers down at Yentna Station. Myra was playing with her camera.
The day after my last blog we went over to Fish Lakes Creek to unload the boat trailer off of the boat. Myra took the ATV over and met me at the boat landing over there. Much to my surprise the landing was pure Muck. The water has dropped low enough that the lake bed is exposed for about 15 feet past solid ground at the landing. I was able to get the boat near the landing and we threw a board out. I walk the tongue of the trailer out to the board and walked on the board up to "less deep" muck onto shore. We ended up pulling the trailer off of the boat with the ATV winch, onto two pieces of plywood over and through the muck. We are now going to have to get back over there in the next day or two and have Tom pull the boat over the muck with his bulldozer and we will winch it up onto the trailer. Oops, waited too long.
Sunday morning was spent listening to the Nascar race on the radio (internet). Myra is a Tony Stewart fan. He was winning the race with one lap to go, then he ran out of gas. Shortly there after I found other things to do. Most of Sunday was spent doing little things. I went for two trips of water and we have 100 gallons on site right now. Then go check on the boat and split a little wood, (stay away from Myra).
When all was good, we went over to the neighbors for a visit, first Tom and Patty at Bentalit Lodge then over to Eric and Shans' at North Woods Lodge. No big adventures or excitement, mainly relax and enjoy the beautiful day.
Monday we worked on the Back Porch most of the day. We got all of the siding on except for the high tedious cuts, and I got the outer door installed. Myra baked bread (I love bread day) and a baked Pork dinner with potatoes and carrots.
Pretty Non Exciting the last couple of days. It is a nice break from all of the "learning" experiences.
We will try to get the boat out today I think.
Talk to you soon.
Thank you sincerely, for caring enough to read this.
Roger

The Boat Trailer is Here

Well, I keep talking about how much I learn around here, It just continues to happen. Most of the things I learn, I learn by accident and or I just have an Ah Ha moment and realize I learned something and it had not dawned on me until now.

The boat capabilities is another one of those things. I have been talking about running this river and all of the hidden gravel bars etc, and how much concentration it takes to stay in the deep(er) water. This is all true, however; as I was going back down river the other day I had one of those Ah Ha moments. I can now see many of those gravel bars that used to be under water and their shapes and depths out of the water. I can see the places where I have hit bottom with the boat and those places really stick out in my memory. This all leads up to how much I really have learned about reading the river and the currents and deep areas versus shallow.

I made another run to the landing and went into town. I made the trip with no GPS unit and took a little different route around a section of river where I hit bottom last time. I did not hit bottom, I only had a couple of scarey moments but, in general I was much more relaxed. I am not saying I have this down to a science because I am still driving a boat on a fast flowing body of water that has the clarity of a milk shake, but, I let go of the fear and trusted what I learned over the summer of high water and invisible gravel bars. Now I can see a lot of the gravel bars and remember what they looked like in the current when I could not see them. I just avoided the currents and characteristics that I had seen around the (invisible) gravel bars that I can now see and walla! I made a relaxed round trip on a very low river.

I did bring up the boat trailer and another 60 gallons of gasoline. Trips to town should be all done until after freeze up. Now it is just work around here, and maybe a little visit time with the neighbors. I still have not taken the boat out of the water, but I can when we need to now. We still have enough water to drive around locally.
I also bought an inexpensive "Matched Pair" 22 Rifle / 4-10 Shotgun. It has one stock and receiver but two barrels that are easy to interchange. This way I can go bird hunting and not blow them to pieces or torture them with the pellet gun.



Myra planted strawberry plants today that we got from Patty over at Bentalit Lodge. She also dug up an area in front of the cabin to plant some flower bulbs. She stopped short of planting those bulbs but I am pretty sure she will finish it on Sunday. She is not real happy with me and the camera at this moment, she is kind of telling me where to take it during this picture. That is a lolipop stick in her mouth in case you are wondering. Hans hung around with her while she was digging. I did not get the camera fast enough to catch him trying to play with the shovel while she was trying to work. It was really funny!The biggest danger to the strawberry plants will be Hans' love of digging. If Hans lets them survive then all we have to watch for is the Bears and Moose as the ripen. The area where she planted these will be our garden area next year, God Willing.
I did get the work shop cleaned up today and re-grouped to start back on projects. I then started siding the back porch. I got all of the T-111 siding up (4') and started the lap siding. I hope to get the siding done tomorrow and maybe even get a door or two installed. I get you pictures when it is done (for this year). We are not intending to insulate it or do interior wall coverings at this time, it is just for storage of all the items we don't need to keep in the cabin. I may also put some of my more expensive tools in there for the winter just for moisture sakes. I will get my other temporary building up soon but I don't think I have enough time to build any kind of floor in it.
Hard to say how far I will get on the porch tomorrow for sure. I have to go get water and may fix the other ATV. It has been setting so long the battery went dead. I was trying to pull start it today and broke the dog gone pull rope. Now I have more fixing to do. Anyhow, two ATVs would be nice because we want to go visit Eric and Shan over at Northwoods Lodge and two of us on one ATV is a little hard on our one person machines.
The weather is still gorgeous once the fog lifts each day. It is predicted to be sunny all the way through next Thursday. It is so foggy in the mornings it is hard to do much out doors because it is so wet and "drippy". the fog does not lift until around 2:00 some days. Other days we don't see any fog at all but the temperatures are the same, just different humidity levels.
Enough said for today.
Thank You very much for reading along with our adventure!
Talk to you Soon,
Roger

It is Fall & Falling

The season has definitely changed here. Those who wrote the seasons on the calender did not live in this area. The temps are in the thirties almost every night, The underbrush is all but dead in the forest, The leaves are changing on the trees by the minute and the river level is dropping 3" a day, every day. Oh yea, the length of daylight is also dropping over over 7 minutes a day. We are losing well over an hour of daylight every 10 days.

WoW, what a change in a very short period of time. One great change is that the rain seems to have moved on to another region. September is typically the wettest month of the year around here but we have had only a few days of rain so far this month and the weather has been crystal clear for a week and the forecast is to remain crystal clear for the foreseeable future. This is a really nice break for me to be able to enjoy.

The down side to this great weather is the daytime bugs have come back in full force. The mosquitoes must know that there time to get blood is coming to an end for the year because they are landing stinger first. They don't even buzz you, they just pile drive that thing and start sucking immediately. Then there is this new discovery of a bug for me. I am aware of Mosquitoes, Noseams, Nat's and black flies but now we have a little biter called "white socks". It is bigger than a Noseam (you can see these) and smaller than a fly or mosquito and about the size of a Nat but they ain't a Nat. These little suckers bite like a deer fly and swarm like Nat's. They take small chunks of skin before you can feel them land and they are so small they are hard to kill with a swat. I end up smacking myself hard to kill them, then the smack hurts worse than the bite. I have resorted to the deet again, for self preservation. If you ever want to learn about bugs just come on up here, there are so many different varieties the education could be priceless. The beetles look like something out of a horror film, good thing they don't bite. They are black with white strips and war paint like markings and their tentacle's are longer than their body. The body is about one inch to an inch and a half and with the tentacle's when they land on you you think you are going to be eaten or carried away, or worse yet. My fear (nightmare) is some day they will just knock me down and just keep walking all over me. Yuck that gives me the creeps. Then we have dragon flies with a wing spread that will challenge a small eagle. If you don't pay attention it is possible to mistake one of those for a humming bird, except they are bigger.

All bugs aside, if they don't bite you, carry you away or knock you down and walk all over you, it is easy to remember they are just more of Gods creatures. It's a good thing I don't have to understand everything God does and I just remember he has a great sense of Humor and these things must be part of it!

I have made three trips to town in the last 6 days. Do you drive very often in heavy fog on a single lane road when it's icy and there are deep ditches on both sides. Well that is comparable to the concentration level it has been taking to navigate the river in the low water conditions. Now do this for three hours or more at a time. The mornings are extremely dense fog so I have been trying to wait until later in the day to drive. The later I wait each day the lower the river gets. Today, on my way home I came into an area where I knew it had been getting very shallow. I watched the current flow as far in advance as I could but when I got to the top end of this pass there was just now where to go to find deep water. It was like coming into an intersection, seeing cross traffic and not being able to stop, but you could see everything that was going to happen. There was no other way for me to get home, nowhere to turn around and nothing to do BUT, hit the throttle to full, raise the motor as high as I could and still keep it in the water and Pray. The motor hit the bottom four times, but not very hard and the boat hull never hit bottom. I made it through, took a breath and said thank you. This is supposed to be my last trip to town with the boat this year. I did bring everything up river I set out to, except the boat trailer. I just did not have the weight capacity left to haul it.

A couple of views from the grocery store parking lot. See the new doors in the back of our truck? Sometimes I think about getting a better quality camera but then I would have to get better at taking pictures because I wouldn't have an excuse.


I have no idea yet, what I am going to do about getting the boat out of the water. I don't know if I dare take a chance on one more trip ( It would be far less weight than this trip) or if I am going to try to devise some sort of skid system to pull the boat up the bank right here at our place. If I do figure out how to get it up on High shore here then I also have to know how I am going to get it back down to the water next spring. Getting it onto high shore could be done with the ATV and electric winch on it, plus the aid of a chain fall I have here. All of that should lift the boat. The bigger problem may be getting it back into the water. I can't just drive the ATV out into the river and anchor it to a tree to pull the boat back down there. The thing weighs a couple thousand pounds so I can't just carry it and it won't slide well on the dirt, hum. The last option would be to take it (the boat) back down river, put it on the trailer there and leave it then higher a plane to fly home, $ Hum again! Still thinking, I'll let you know.

I made a deal to trade the "Alaska Moving Trailer" for a large portion of the price for a Freight hauler snowmachine. I took all of the upper wood off of the trailer and brought it home. All I am trading is the frame and deck for the snowmachine plus 2 sets of axles and tires so I can make another trailer or two up here. I have to kick in a little cash but We will now have a "Heavy Hauler" snowmachine for pulling our freight this winter. This new (to us) snowmachine is a Skidoo Superwide Track (30") with a two speed transmission (low gear) and a 503cc motor. It has 4072 miles on the chassis and 160 miles on a complete motor rebuild. It had been loaned to a guy that pulled a double bottom freight sled with about 4500lbs on a 40 degree day last spring, He melted it down. It has a hole new top end and rebuilt lower end courtesy of the borrower. It was not really for sale but; it was only a back up machine for a friend of mine that has purchased a 2009 four stroke 800 cc freight sled (because he could) and he didn't really need it anymore. That is why he had loaned it out and he has decided that is not a real good idea either. I talked him into selling it to me. Hopefully it will be a nice machine for us, and we got it for a good price. I forgot to mention that after searching most of the summer I have only found a few heavy haulers for sale and they are usually over 10000 miles or 10000 dollars. I got it with less than half the miles and far less than half the price. These things are very valuable up here and skidoo has anounced they are going to quit making them after this year. Thanks God! oh yea, and Ron too!

Ok, I have been rambling long enough. I have been extremely busy and tired. It is fun to just sit down and catch up with myself, and you all, a little bit. I have a long list of projects to get done and hopefully all of the materials to do them. I should be able to schedule myself a little bit and work at a reasonable pace for a while.

Nice talking to you, hope to do it again real soon.

Thanks for listening and sharing!

Roger

A couple of more pics from todays trip. I was too busy driving to stop and take pics with mountains in the background and the colors up front. The river was just to tight to do it alone on those areas but, wow, thanks god for the views. Use your imagination, it won't get you all the way to the reality of it!