My favorite day of the year, living in Palmer, Alaska

Colony Christmas is a town celebration in Palmer each December. It commemorates the first Christmas the Colonists were in Palmer. It had been a hard first season of hacking out fields, crops, and homes and barns from wilderness. Everyone had next to nothing and spirits were low. The train brought in gifts to raise their spirits, with treats like a box of oranges. Now Colony Christmas is a chance to enjoy the best things about Palmer: a warm, caring sense of community, sharing what we have, and having fun together.

Here are pictures of us with the reindeer, the horse-drawn wagon going around town, and a photo of the "Tuba Christmas" concert put on by everyone with a tuba within 100 miles. A few didn't make it coming from Anchorage because they got lost, but it sounded amazing and we all sang along.

3 mooses! 3!

How exciting! I saw mooses outside our bedroom window so went for my camera. When I came back, I saw that there were 3 of them! It was mama with two 4 month old twins! I didn't realize she had twins again this year. This was our first time seeing this year's twins. They had been quite secrative before this, but what with all the fruit trees ripe and delicious, apparently this was a good time for an introduction to Alaska Garden Gate B&B for the young ones!

You may recall that mama had twins last year, too: the boy yearling is the crabby one who keeps chuffing at us and mock-charging when we get out of our cars, and his sister had a run-in with a car but seems to be mostly healed and walking on her fourth leg again. Moose stats tell us that Mat-Su moose bear more twins than moose in other regions. The browse locally is more nutritious for moose moms and supports more twins sets coming to full term, as well as seeming to play a role in twin conceptions.

Driving back from Fairbanks

Coming back from the Alaska Travel Industry Association convention in Fairbanks, I left pretty early to be home by mid-day. The sunrise offered some beautiful photos just south of Fairbanks, and then also of the bridge over the Nenana River at Nenana.

Les Francais en aout

Mid-August, I had a group of 10 French folks on a tour stay here 3 nights. Due to a problem with a room, it was especially cozy (the two tour guide fellows got the living room...). They were supposed to have a guest apartment with a kitchen, and that's the one that was out of commission while they were here. This led to them cooking dinners in my kitchen with much joie de vivre until nearly midnight.

Everyone dealt with what came their way very well, and we got to know each other through my rusty French. They learned a few things about Alaska and I learned that after making big American breakfasts for them several days in a row, they will only eat toast, and lots of it. Love that toast. Josette who was particularly sweet just sent me 2 photos they took as mementos of their time here. They were so kind to present me with flowers their last night here. In return, my parting gift to them were a couple jars of local highbush cranberry and fireweed jellies, for future toast.

Fall colors

Another photo from my friend Collette Hand, who has Alaska's Harvest B&B. She was out for another motorcycle ride and said the colors along the Glenn Highway by the Matanuska Glacier were positively neon. The vibrant yellows and reds played off the blue lakes and alpenglow on the mountains that evening.

Another neat picture

This one is also from Collette at Alaska's Harvest B&B. She and her husband Joe went motorcycling to Valdez and saw this sign.

Amazing photos from Alaska

My friend Collette Hand shared these photos. She has a beautiful bed and breakfast called Alaska's Harvest B&B, just a couple miles from mine. The one of the rainbow is over Turnagain Arm as she and her husband, Joe, were motorcycling down to Girdwood a week ago. See the white beluga whales' backs in the water? She said they saw 25 that evening in the arm. The next photos are ones taken by a family friend of theirs who works on the North Slope. Collette said this friend was watching these polar bears frolic while he was on his lunch hour--How cool!