DAY 13 OF OUR ALASKAN ADVENTURES

I hate to sound like a broken record, but when I walked at 6am this morning it was 24 degrees and I saw ice on some of the puddles along the side of the road. Now, we left Apache Junction when the temperature was in the 90's and expected to reach the 100's soon - sounds like spring heading to a "hot summer" . We are traveling to Alaska for a "summer" job and the daily temperature continues to drop. Yesterday we were tromping around in the snow. There is something very wrong with this picture. I am beginning to question our mental status!!! Granted this is magnificent country, but a tiny little bit of warm weather would be appreciated. We expected cold weather, but thought it would be a gradual process - not slam, bang 90 to 24. We haven 't had time to thicken this Arizona blood. The poor robins are having to wear socks on their poor little feet.
Actually, it is not really that bad. I'm a north country type person, so I love these cold, crisp mornings, clear blue skies and the scenery is beyond words or what our pictures show. British Columbia is my kind of place. This has been a strange winter/spring. I talked with my sister-in-law, in Upstate New York, today and it was 90 degrees there and had been in the high 80's. They were complaining about the heat. It does not get that warm in the summer even.
Enough about the weather, when I walked to the water tower on the hill this morning and down to Dragon Lake there was still ice on the water. When Randy drove into town about 2 hours later, the ice had sunk into the lake, just as he had told us. I never realized that the ice sank. I assumed it melted off the surface. I would have loved to have seen it happen.
I took pictures of the Cedar trees in Chris and Randy's back yard and at a house across the street to show how the deer come into the yards and eat the foliage as far as they can reach. To prevent that, people wrap the lower part of the trees in burlap or fine chicken wire. This neighborhood is a virtual salad bar for the deer on a daily basis and you can see dear wandering in the morning and evening.
We took the opportunity today to catch up on some chores before leaving. Bob changed the spark plug on the generator and he hopes that will solve the problem of the hard starting in the mornings. Chris was kind enough to let me do some much needed laundry, and I got to hang it on the clothes line to dry. I have not done that since I was a child. The wind was blowing and the sun dried everything in no time at all. Boy did everything smell clean and fresh.

Our last day here was beautiful and we even got to take the dogs for an extra walk in the afternoon. We are off and running tomorrow and hope to be in Anchorage in 6-7 days. Our stop in Quesnel was about half way on our "Great Alaskan Adventure". Our stay here has been great and Chris and Randy have been gracious hosts. Hope we can return the favor someday. We may not have blog entries on a regular basis from here on. It will all depend on what kind of internet access we can get but stay tuned for the updates.