Weekly Update : 3 Days Late

So Joe went to Alaska for work last week.  Pretty cool trip, right?  Nola and I almost tagged along until all the tours I was interested in doing involved tiny planes.  That combined with three hours of sundown just didn't sound great with a nursing three month old baby.  

We didn't do much while he was gone except prepare for a week long trip to Wisconsin.  I managed to take a few pics of Nola getting cuter. 

She is really starting to love bath time and kicking her legs!  She is surprised every time she splashes water on herself.  What is it about babies in the tub that is so sweet??

Louis also planted his tomatoes in pots on the deck.  These were a gift from the Easter Bunny and he started them from seed.  We have other tomatoes in the garden, but these are his to water and pick.  I had to plant a bunch of flower pots for the deck because it is too tempting for him to climb and these help block that railing.

He also made some puppets for our trip.  Lucky the cat and Louis the bear.  He always has to have a "Louis" in his toys, books and movies.  We have to change the names in his books most of the time.

Meanwhile, Joe was in Alaska to inspect one of the fire training towers his company built about eight years ago.  I asked him to take a few pics so I could write about his trip.  The tower is on an Army base.

It was a really fast trip but he managed to book a tour from Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle on the Dalton Highway.  If you know my husband, it will come as no surprise he found the cheapest tour available.  It was a driving tour on a 20 passenger bus.

Here is the ghost of past tours.  I wouldn't want to encounter a bear in this thing.

A cabin in the woods.  Joe's always dreaming about getting off the grid.  He's kind of paranoid like that and I think he was probably imagining our family in this house.

This is a trading post with a population of twenty in Joy, Alaska.  Apparently the parents had twenty three kids and eighteen were adopted.

It was mostly a dirt highway.

One interesting fact, is you can see different ages of forests.  The trees mature and lose their branches which makes perfect kindling on the ground.  A lightning storm will move through and ignite it to burn out the forest.  This prepares the land for a new forest which you can see in the pictures below.  They used to try and fight the fires until they realized it disturbed the natural cycle, habitat and tundra of the land.  This really makes me think about how man has so much power to disturb the environment.

Joe loved the pipeline.  He had all kinds of engineering facts that I had no interest in hearing.  I'm sure it's all amazing but it's like sitting in math class for me.  BO-RING.

He saw lots of tundra.  The ground constantly freezes and thaws which pushes the rocks up out of the ground.

He is sticking his fingers in the ground to feel how spongy it is.  I just picture him thinking, "Oooohhhhh!!!  Spoooonnnggyy!"

Flowers in the tundra.  The second picture was interesting to Louis because Joe said they were Lorax trees. 

Some more nature shots of mountain flowers and a moose.

They crossed the Yukon River.

Another place we could live?

Since Joe grew up camping across the U.S., he got a kick out of the price of showers in the camp.

He saw the northern most mountain range of the U.S., the Brooks Mountain Range.  Once you cross this you are at the Arctic Ocean.

In record high heat, they finally made it to the Arctic Circle.  The dotted line is the spot during the summer solstice where there is 24 hours of daylight above it.

They had celebratory cake.  Another tour had champagne.  I'm not sure which was better.

On his way home he saw this sign and decided not to get out of his car for picture ops.

This is Joe with an old gold dredging bucket.  He had dinner on the Chena River before heading back to the airport.

The best part of his trip for me was he went to North Pole, Alaska.  I used this "meeting" with Santa as a discipline tool with Louis.

Joe got home first thing in the morning on Thursday and Louis was very excited to get his gifts.  Joe got him a caribou puzzle and Santa sent some candy.  I'll let you decide which one was more exciting for Louis.  My pictures are bad because I was half asleep as I took them.

We have been traveling through Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.  The minute we arrived in Illinois I lost service on my phone.  It seems I can text sometimes and now get Internet on our computer.  It's like living off the grid and it's not really selling me on the idea.  Especially since I was supposed to order some invitations online and book a hotel.  I had to pawn the invites off and the hotel thing put me in a bad mood.  Joe's phone is kind of working but the speaker is going out.  Talking to the hotel clerk about sent me over the edge and in need of a stiff drink!  To top it off the whole time Nola was crying because she wanted to eat.  GRR.  Anyway, I'm hoping to post updates on our trip this week but am already behind with this new obstacle.  What?  Me?  Behind?  Never.