Talkeetna

I took some time off yesterday to drive on Hatcher Pass, and I'm so glad I did. It reminded me of some of the roads I drove on in the deep-woods portions of Canada to get here.

Hatcher Pass is about 45 minutes south of Talkeetna. You get to it by taking the Parks Highway south just barely past Willow Creek, then take a left. Alternatively you can get to it from Wasilla, which is how I got on it.

It's been "mood weather" here in Talkeetna, Alaska for several weeks now, ever since the fires were threatening to burn the place down. (Ask for a little rain, and you get several weeks of it.)

It's not too bad though. Except for a few nights where the rain has been really heavy, it's usually just overcast with periods of drizzling rain. That helps keep the weather cool, usually in the 60's. And with it still being light out somewhere around 20 hours a day, you have ~20 hours of overcast-but-light skies.

I don't know anything about hunting seasons around here in Talkeetna (or if it's always hunting season) but the gunshots have been echoing through town the last few nights. It wouldn't be too bad, except it's usually at one or two o'clock in the morning, and these guys must be pretty bad shots, because it's not like just one or two shots, it goes on for a little while.

(I guess my assumption is that they're not drunks with rifles shooting at signs.)

I'm not sure what it says about me, and I don't think I want to know, but I listened to Christina Aguilera's song "Walk Away" for about four consecutive hours the other day. If it plays about 11 times per hour, I guess I listened to it 44 times in a row.

I got hooked on her music before leaving Louisville after hearing songs like Hurt, Impossible, and especially Cruz.

I just noticed on a recent walk by the river that the fireweed plants are beginning to bloom! I need to remember to take my camera on one of these walks.

Today is "mood weather" day, as Leo might call it: a drizzle most of the day, temperature right around 55 degrees.

There is no trash service here in Talkeetna. You just throw what you have in the car and drive it to one of two dropoff spots, with one at each end of the spur road. The closest one to me is three miles down the road. Turns out it's $1 per bag to drop off. You just drive in, tell 'em how many bags you have, then drive to the dumpster and throw them out.

Arghhh. For the second night in a row it looks like I'm going to get less than three hours of sleep. This doesn't have anything to do with Alaska, but has everything to do with a sciatic nerve.

I've done something to trigger a problem with the sciatic nerve in my right leg. It doesn't "hurt" so much as it is incredibly uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to move the leg one way or another, like the nerve is swollen or somehow shortened, and sleep is next-to-impossible. I'm currently alternating hot and cold packs, taking a ton of Aleeve, and fidgeting like a crazy person.

I woke up this morning here in Talkeetna, Alaskato find my car covered in, well, something.

I'll post a picture of my little squirrel friend here shortly, but in the meantime the story is that we're trying to get to a point where we trust each other.

I put out some Cheerioes for him every day, and he does his part in eating them all. Some days he only comes by once, other days, like yesterday, he'll come by four times. When there aren't any Cheerios out on the rail he comes up to the window to see if I'm sitting there working. If he sees me he proceeds to throw a fit, doing everything but pounding on the window with his little paw and calling me names.