highlights 2010

Over dinner on New Year's Eve, we remembered some of the fun and travels of 2010. Again, we are grateful for the good fortune that continues in our lives: good friends, great family, stable jobs, good health, and being with each other.

Here are some of the highlights of each month of 2010:

January: Good skiing when the snow was fresh and great mountain biking on packed trails in the local parks. Never a dull moment in Anchor-town.

February: An active trip of hiking, biking, and snorkeling with good friends in Hawaii.

March: We skied out to Dalteli, a small lake in the Alaska Range foothills with a group of friends.

April: A warm sun made spring skiing solar powered and brought a smile to everyone's face. Even the ptarmigan got friendly.

May: With the return of the green came more biking and hiking, and gardening. This little footpath became a regular route on evening walks in Bicentennial Park.

June: When we weren't on the boat in Prince William Sound, we rode the singletrack trails in Bicentennial Park.

July: We spent most weekends and an entire week on the sailboat in Prince William Sound. One of the highlights of our time in the Sound were hikes through bogs with abundant shooting stars.

August: A silver-lining of the wet summer were the mushrooms. We spent many evenings harvesting boletes in the parks. This red bolete dramatically and quickly exhibited a change in coloration to blue when cut, which signifies a poisonous bolete.

September: The annual backcountry bike trip with the Alaska Dirt Divas to the Serenity Cabin near Eklutna Lake in Chugach State Park. Blue skies, stunning fall colors, and fun friends.

October: Mountain biking with the Alaska Dirt Divas on the White Rim Trail, in Canyonlands National Park, Utah - an adventure with good friends

November: Spending Thanksgiving with my mom, step-dad, brother, and sister-in-law in central New York. My brother and I wandered the farm's woodlands, just the two of us, and appreciated the big trees.
December: Santa found us in Talkeetna, bringing us more than we deserved and helping to remind us how blessed we are with friends, family, and a happy pack.

A post about the highlights of the year begs a mention of the sadnesses of our year as we lost family, friends, and acquaintances who have touched our lives and hearts. In August a plane carrying three young maintenance workers from Katmai National Park disappeared in bad weather on the coast. Paul knew one of the young men and they worked with some of our friends at Katmai. In September Sandy Kogl, a good friend of good friends in Talkeetna, died after a gracious struggle with ALS. In October Paul's aunt Norine succumbed to a rare form of lung cancer caused by her exposure to asbestos as an infant. We saw Norine each Christmas that we spent with Paul's parents and we traveled to Italy twice with Norine. Norine and Sandy were both just 68.

thanksgiving 10 family history

Many of us in Alaska have left family far behind in the lower 48. Some people come here to forget their family and start over. Even for those of us with happy childhoods and loving parents, at times living in Alaska makes it seem like we're the beginning of the line, defining a new path in the north.

When I visit my mom in upstate New York, however, I am immersed in family, heritage, and a history rooted in place. My mom and stepfather live in two old farmhouses in upstate New York. One they bought just as I finished college, and they moved from the Finger Lakes area, where I spent most of my youth, to the northern edge of the Adirondack park. I haven't seen that house in years because early in this decade, my mom and her siblings inherited the family homestead in Verona with a house built circa 1815. My mom eventually became the sole owner of what we have always called "the Farm."

My mom's Uncle Ed acquired the Farm in the 1950s and slowly worked on it for decades. He added electricity and plumbing and a 'modern' kitchen in the 1970s. He had hoped to live there with his mother, my great-grandmother, but she died before they could move there. Finally in the early 1980s Ed and his sister Hazel moved in. Aunt Hazel was an outgoing, stylish woman who played a mean game of cards called Spite and Malice (which as a child I thought was Spike and Alice). Unfortunately her brother wouldn't let her paint or hang pictures, and the only room in the house that didn't look like a furniture store was her bedroom.

Visiting the Farm as a kid was always a treat because it had barns with sleighs, spinning wheels in the high attic, and another attic packed with stuff. A kid could hope there was some sort of treasure there somewhere. Now visiting the Farm is a treat because my mom has turned a handsome old house into a home. My step-father Jack installed a wood stove in one of the fireplaces, making the house cozier than it ever was before. They have painted several rooms in bright warm colors. On this recent trip, my brother and I got to give opinions on which green to paint the living room.

Jack has also created trails throughout the woods and dug two ponds. Some of the land is still cultivated by farmers who rent the land from my parents. The harvested soybean and corn fields attract deer and wild turkeys, which in turn bring coyotes. After Thanksgiving dinner, we walked through the woods and circled the fields. Jack showed us where the bucks paw the ground to mark their territory.

My family has also marked this land as ours, with houses, barns, fields, and a family cemetery. These things are only slightly more permanent than the deers' marks, but much more noticeable to other humans. They say that a family has lived here and cared for this place.