Our Arizona home

I had an unbeleivably hard time finding this blog to post an update. Turns out that someone else has the exact same name for their blog - I didn't know that you could do that.

Mark and I are getting ready to head back to Alaska for a almost 3 week vacation. That along with checking for updates on my daughter Amanda's blog amandagoeseast and other stories made me try to look for this one.

That made me realize that I never told you the end of the story. So for some pictures of our new home in Arizona.

This is what it looked like when we moved in. This past Feb. we had some killing frosts and lost a lot of the plants. And we now have more neighbors. But this is pretty much what the weather here looks like all the time. It's so nice that people seldom have any contingency plans when planning outdoor events.

We are fortunate to live just a few miles from Madera Canyon where there are lots of nice hiking trails. I've managed to find several friends who like to go hiking there.

Another thing I like about our new home are the twice weekly farmers markets. We have one on Monday and in another location there is one on Wednesday. So it usually works out that I can make it to one of them.

It's been two years since I've been to Alaska. Mark and Amanda got to spend some time there last summer but I spent my vacation time helping my sister bring home her new twins from the hospital. I missed seeing Alaska, but loved spending time with Virginia and her family.

Maybe I'll see you in Alaska.

I have followers??

I was just reading Amanda's new post and checked up on my blog. She's so much better at this than I am and has much more interesting experiences.. anyway I'm thrilled to find out that I now actually have a few followers and thought they might like to know how I'm doing.

Not that I live an exciting life, but I enjoy it.

Tomorrow Mark and I are both off and we are going to Tubac for the first time. We've heard that it's a good place to shop for local art and thought we'd get a start on Christmas shopping. Since we live far away from our families we have to shop early and get it into the mail.

I'm slowly learning my new job at Wal-mart pharmacy and as I get better at the job I enjoy it more. It's so nice to finally feel like I kind of know what I'm doing. People think you're just counting pills.. it's a lot more complicated. But that's enough about work.

We are slowly getting the new house in order. It's mostly furnished now and most of the artwork is on the walls. We really like our new house and the neighborhood it's in. If anyone's interested.. Madera Highlands, Sahuarita Arizona and there are three houses being built right next to us.. so you could come and be our new neighbors. The one right next to us is almost finished. the neighborhood is amazingly quiet and all the neighbors are really nice. There are a lot of kids and a nice mix of races and ages. And we have a nice park with a place for dogs to run off leash, pool, tennis courts... We see lots of people out in the mornings and evenings walking or riding bikes. We are next door to the largest irrigated pecan orchard in the US 6000 acres! www.pecanstore.com It's a nice view. And we also have a view of the mountians.

I'm taking another online class from berklee school of music berkleemusic.com . This one's Pro Tools 101. And on that note - I have homework to do.

Talk to you later,
Nina

More pictures

This is the teardrop trailer and my Ford Escape. Amanda and Kim will be riding in the car with all of Mark's African Violets and a few other house plants. And the cages where Toftee and Darla will be spending the nights.

I've decided that I don't like formating pictures to go in the center because I can't wrap the text around them... This is an Eagle that Mark, Amanda and I spoted a few days before we left Alaska while walking on the beach below our house.

I'm still in the laundry mat at the campground in Fort Nelson. Maybe I didin't tell you that before.. anyway it's taking forever to dry the one load of clothes that I had to do. The washer here didn't do a good job getting the excess water out of the clothes. Toftee got sick in the truck the day before yesterday and washing these jeans has been a priority for me even though she didn't get much on them.

I spent some of the time checking email and writing replies to a couple of them. But when I tried to send them.. they didn't go. So if you emailed and didn't get a response... now you know why.

I'm on my 4th time through the dryer. The first trip was 2 loonies (Canadian dollar coins) and lasted 30 minutes. The last two times were 4 american quarters and lasted 15 minutes each. The clothes are about where they should have been coming out of the wash. But I have no more quarters left so this has to be it. Wonder where I'm going to put all these wet towels and my wet jeans?

I'm using a different dryer this time. Here's hoping it works.

One last photo... some radom signs at the "signpost forest" at Watson Lake. Another must see. Now to put in some links just because I can.

The dryer is finished. And no they aren't dry. But I have to go anyway. See you in Sahuarita or on the web.

Pictures

Tonight we are in Fort Nelson. We spent last night at Liard Springs and visited the springs this morning after breakfast. This is our third trip on the Alaska highway and we always like to stop at Liard Springs.

According to the Milepost and other sources (i.e. other travelers) the 200 miles south of Liard Springs are the hardest. Going North you can use the springs as a reward for those miles. But we are heading south. We didn't make a lot of miles today but theywere hard ones and we got a late start.

We thought we'd reward ourselves tonight with a stay in a hotel. But it wasn't to be. After finding the Super 8 advertised on a billboard coming into town and parking both rigs.. we found out that not only was that hotel full but so were all the other hotels in town. In fact we were lucky to get a campsite here at Westend Campground. Somthing to do with the "oil companies changeover?"? Whatever that is.

Out of Wasilla/Knik

Well we didn't get far today, but the hardest part of any trip is just getting out of town. The first step. We are stopped for the night in Glen Allen. About 150 miles.

Darla (the cat) and I are holed up in the car away from the mosquitos. Mark is taking care of the dog and the girls are in the showers. Darla is enjoying a little time out of her box. She looks VERY annoyed. But that's pretty close to her usual expression anyway. Maybe just a little more annoyed this time. She's laying on the drivers side on the floor with her eyes closed. Actually right now she looks content. She might even be happy when Mark comes with her food.

Toftee traveled pretty well today. As soon as the truck starts moving she curls up and goes to sleep.

I have pictures and will post them later. Right now the camera is in my pocket but the computer case is outside on the picnic table and the sync cable is in there. Too many mosquitos I'm not going out.

Nina

U-haul

The time is near. There's a U-haul in the driveway and we're busy packing. Time is short so this will be short too.

Mark will be driving the U-haul and our daughter and her friend will be driving my Ford Escape pulling the tear drop trailer. Mark and I will sleep in the trailer and the girls will share a tent. Our dog and cat will bed down in their carriers inside the car.

So much to do. I can't say I'm really a fan of packing your own stuff. I much prefer to have professionals do it. But it's not in the budget this time. So back to work.

Nina

Saying Goodbye - Walk on the beach

Our house in Alaska is right on the beach. But about 120' straight up. One of the things on my list as we look at moving back to Arizona was to make another trip down to the beach.



That doesn't sound like much, but really it's not somthing I wanted to do by myself. The trail leading down to the beach is REALLY steep. There are strong tides and wild animals (read Bears) that add to the danger of going alone. An injury of any kind would make getting back up the trail really hard. Although the motivation of a bear ...



This is a picture I took from the banks of Fish Creek located about 20 minutes walk down the beach. It's looking toward Knik arm and the Chugach mountians across the water. You can almost see the snow caped mountains in the picture. I had to shrink it to fit here - sorry.



Spring has arrived here and all the trees are budding and as you can see in the picture the grass is sprouting up. The temperature was about 55. Perfect and sunny.



It was a little muddy.


Next Monday I'm going hiking on the Gold Mint trail in Hatchers Pass. It's a trail that I've not been on. It should be a lot of fun and beautiful. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures and post them here. Shouldn't be as muddy since it's in the mountians.

Nina