July 14, 2007
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Dear One and All,
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This last week as been spent in Fairbanks. We put Lila on the plane Monday night, after a wonderful day spent visiting the Museum, and interviewing the Caribou biologists with National Fish and Wildlife Services. We visited a park along the river to get some good bird material and ended up getting eaten up by the Alaska State Bird (The mosquito)! It is so hard to say good bye to Lila. I am missing her terribly already. What a dear friend she is! What a great time we had! I laughed until my sides hurt, time after time after time.
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1:30 am Tuesday morning we picked up Cathy Shusta, poor thing, her flight was almost an hour and a half late. Of course it wasn’t dark. Her dog Bailey is quite a trooper, he handled the long ride just fine in his little carry bag that was under her seat for the whole trip. That day we all went out for “Ken’s Fairbanks Tour” and had a blast! We went to the Large Animal Research Station with the University of Fairbanks and saw Caribou up close and personal. What a great photo time for me. I was shooting all the detail I could get. Ken on the other hand was looking for a clean shot with no fence and didn’t have much luck. Although knowing Ken, you can be sure he took full advantage of what luck he had. We went to the Ice Museum, and had walked around in old downtown Fairbanks. I really like this town, it has great character.
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Wednesday while Cathy took a Riverboat and Bus Tour of Fairbanks, Ken and I headed up for the Dawson Road to the Artic Circle. We got well onto the Dawson road before we decided it was not even remotely smart to continue on as it was raining and foggy. After our experience in Denali we knew what these roads could be like and the only thing worse than a bunch of tour buses in this situation is a bunch of tired, cranky, truckers, hauling oversized loads with eighteen wheelers trying to “make time”. Our little jeep was road kill. But, we did get to visit the Artic Circle trading post, a real place in the real wilderness. Complete with hole in the ground outhouses. I hadn’t seen a place like this since I was a girl traveling route 66.
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Once back we worked out what provisions we would be needing and left Ken at his hotel and went to the Wal-Mart Super Center of Fairbanks, Fred Meyers. I shopped and shopped, trying to find my way around this behemoth of a store, but I have to say their Organic section in the middle, with all the organic food together, made my life a lot easier! What a great selection. They even had my favorite chocolate. Some three hours later I was back at the coach stowing stuff away. Now it was time for a dinner with Cathy along the river and bed.
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Thursday was drive down to Kenny Lake time and Friday Ken and Cathy headed for Kennecott in the Wrangell, St. Elias, National Park. I had already been there with Bart and Sarah Jennings and I accomplished my interviews, so, low and behold, I actually was going to have two days off!!
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Today is Saturday and I am catching up on my correspondence and getting more rest. Tomorrow Ken and I head for Anchorage to pick up Randy and put Ken on the plane for home. It is Randy’s Birthday and our Wedding Anniversary. Ken helped me plan this great surprise for Randy and he will be there for the dinner part. Monday, Randy and I will be taking care of business in Anchorage and heading back to Kenny Lake, to relieve Cathy of her Giclee chores and start our adventure again.
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I’ll be sending this and a couple of other letters I could not get sent off due to lack of wireless from our hotel. Then it will be no word for a while as here at Kenny Lake we have weak cell phone reception and that’s it.
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Good Bye and God Bless,
Love Susan