Blind Doggie

My doggie, Daisy Mae, has been having some issues. She's old - at least 10, maybe even older and lately she's been wetting the bed everytime she lays down. She had peed on all her beds and herself. That was my big concern that lead us to the vet today. It stinks. It makes a mess. And I had no idea why it was happening. I'd noticed that she was having trouble on the stairs in the mornings and so I figured her arthritis was getting bad and she was stiff in the morning. I'd also noticed, fairly recently, like in the last week - week and a half that she was bumping into things. Mostly in the morning when I let her out she'd miss the sliding glass door and walk head on into my antique-painted-by-my-great-grandmother coal hod by the fireplace. One morning she got stuck behind my desk attempting to go out the wrong side of the sliding glass door. I'd sorta chalked this up to the fact that she's not a morning dog and maybe wasn't quite awake yet. This morning when I fed her she walked over to her dish and walked right into the wall before before bending down to eat.

I took her to the vet early so she could get a bath before the appointment. The whole staff at the vet's office noticed that she was running into things. The vet was quite concerned, esp since this was so sudden. Turns out Daisy is blind. I'm not sure if it's total blindness at this point or rapidly deteriorating but she def can't see well at all. My vet has referred us to a Veterinary Opthomologist to investigate and fully diagnose the problem.

This is why she has a problem with stairs. Suddenly she can't see them. Maybe this is why she is incontinent all the sudden - she can't see to get downstairs when she has to go.

The dr gave us some pills for the incontinence, but the sudden blindness was a much bigger concern.

I have surfed the net a bit and there's actually a lot out there. It's sounding like this is a permanent situation, but I don't think it will be that bad - of course it's likely the beginning of a downward spiral for my senior doggie. :(

Calling all Deadlist Catch Fans!!!!! The final Armchair Traveler Reviews!

If you love Deadlist Catch then you need to read these 2 books:

Lucy The Giant by Sherri Smith - I don't normally go for young adult novels, however I enjoyed this one! Lucy is a teenager growing up in Sitka, AK, who deals with much of the usual teenage angst - excaerbated by the fact that Lucy is overly tall, her father is a drunk, her mom ran away when Lucy was little and she doesn't think she has any real friends. Opportunity presents itself and Lucy runs away to Kodiak and joins the crew of a crab boat where she discovers community and friendship and life on a crab boat is much better than life at home. Lucy's utopia unfortuently is shattered by the secrets she was keeping. But the book has a happy ending!

Dead in the Water by Dana Stabenow - Dana Stabenow is "the Alaskan Mystery Writer" she has written lots and lots of books all set in Alaska any many starting Kate Shugak. Kate used to work in DA office in Anchorage, now she's unoffical, but she still helps out. In this book she is under cover on a crab boat to determine what happened to 2 crew members who met untimely and unexplained deaths the previous season. Kate quickly uncovered the true identity of the skipper and quickly figured out how the crew members died..it seemed as if every lead she followed turned into something important...which kept the book moving, but left me feeling that the story was very contrived. There were some surprises at the end of the story, however since this is one many stories starring Kate Shugak so you know that she survives no matter what and that took away some of the suspense.

The thing I found most interesting about both of these books was that it is considred bad luck to have a woman on a crab boat...yet both of these books have women main characters!

Both books made for good Deadlist Catch fixes and were decent reads about AK!
Not only that but I have now completed the Armchair Traveler Reading Challenge!!! :) Go me! :)
I really enjoyed the challenge...it was fun to read books around a theme and have a reason to blog about them....I'll be on the lookout for the next challenge....

2 hours...

That's how long it took me to get home tonight. Susan has blogged a lot about the horrors of traffic here in the DC suburbs but today took the cake. I left school at 5:50. I walked into my house at 8:00. That's more than 2 hours. It's less than 20 miles from my school to my house. The reason: A truck accident on I-95 south right at "my" exit. Apparently the accident happened BEFORE rush hour so that must have been like 10am - there's not much day that would classify as "before" rush hour. And apparently 95 south was shut down for awhile. Traffic was backed up everywhere! I know about 12 different ways to get home from school and I tried all of them. Every route I took I was greeted with lines of backed up cars. Many times I just broke down into tears I was so frustrated and feeling so clausterphobic about being literally being stuck with no way out. Kinda made me wish I was driving my little RV again...then I could have pulled off and watched TV or something! :)

Do you realize how far I could get in 2 hours driving the speed limit? Almost the whole way to my friend in Central PA's house. Williamsburg - which is like a whole other era so I could practically go back in time in 2 hours. The Mountains - Shenandoah National Park is less than 2 hours away. And it took me 2 hours to drive 20 miles today.

There are only 2 other times that I remember traffic being this bad...one was Sept 18, 2001, exactly one week after 9/11 - they re-opened some of the military bases and with the heightend security traffic backed up very quickly. I was interning in Southeast DC at the time and it took me 3 hours to get to work. I didn't have a cell phone either. There was a silver lining then though...I was at the top of a hill on I-275 in Washington DC with an amazing view of the Capitol, The Monument, and The Pentagon when they played the National Anthem in conmemortation of the one week aniversary. That was an amazing moment.

The other time traffic was this bad was the day a fertilizer truck over turned on I-95 and they had to shut down the road for the whole day and re-pave the road b/c the fertilizer ate through the asphalt! That was a big mess because there was no way to get south of DC and 95 was backed up from the Beltway to Fredericksburg. The silver lining there....I wasn't sitting in the traffic.

Today, no silver lining.
Drive safe out there folks...you wouldn't want the biggest back up in DC history to be your fault! :)

Book Quiz.....

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

You're West Virginia!

You are a true coal miner's daughter, or maybe even son. You probably
smoke, and your lungs are paying for it every day. While you're definitely willing to
separate yourself from the crowd for what you believe in, this policy has put you into
a state of unending obscurity and poverty. As a result, people only come to visit you
on foot, and usually they're just trying to prove that they can do it. Keep a canary on
your shoulder whenever possible.


Take the State Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Challenge Update

Well, I was crusing along with my books for the reading challenge. Then I started About Grace

by Anthony Doerr. Life is too short for About Grace. I'm usually not one to put down a book that I have begun - I usually plow through it, even if I decide I'm not a fan or it's too hard. I was planning to do that with About Grace, however about 2 weeks ago I got a notice from the library that it was my turn for Khaled Hosseni's A Thousand Splendid Suns. I knew I had to put About Grace down and read this one since it was in such hot demand I'd never be able to renew it. I absouletly loved A Thousand Splendid Suns. I thought it was just magnificent writing and such a compelling, though heart breaking and horrifying, story. I couldn't believe how Hoesseni was able to draw me into a story that was so far outside of my own exsistence! Abosultely amazing. A must read. Now, I know I could count A Thousand Splendid Suns toward my challenge, many people have it on their lists, however I had decided before I started that all my challenge books would be about Alaska. So back to About Grace.

It's not a bad book. In fact, it's prob a great story. It's just dense. Very very dense. The story is about a man who has an affair with a married woman, they have a child, Grace, they get married and move from AK to Ohio. He has these dreams in which he sees the future. In one of the dreams he dreams that Grace dies in a flood. He tries to change the course of things and his wife thinks he's crazy. The flood he dreamt about happens, but his wife kicks him out of her and Grace's life and he doesn't learn if Grace survives or not. He then moves to an island where he tries to make sense of everything. The story is full of his angst, uneasyness, and grief about possibly killing his daughter as well as the giant question mark - is she alive or not. He attempts communication through letters with his wife and child but they are never answered. I got far enough into the book that I was attached to this man and very interested in hearing the end of the story. However, it's such a dark tale and so tough to get through the writing that going back to it, especially after reading about the horrors of modern day Afghanistan was asking too much.

So....my new book(s) for the challenge:

I needed a twinkie read so I have actually come up with 3!

The Homestead Kid - This is a book that my mom bought me in AK. It's about a family who took in a number of foster children and then moved to bush of AK to build a homestead and live off the land. They loaded up in an old school bus turned camper and bought a claim of land outside of Fairbanks. They all pitched in to build the cabin and barn and other buildings. It's dubbed "Little House on the Perma-Frost" - for all you Laura Ingalls fans!

Dead in the Water - Dana Stabenow I had previously avioded her work not being a big fan of mysteries, esp criminal/murder mysteries, however she has written so many books about Alaska that I had to try just one. This one takes place on a crab boat on the Bering Sea so might be able to scratch my "Deadlist Catch" itch in the process.

Lucy the Giant - Sherri Smith This is actually a young adult book - there are lots of young adult books about AK, but I'd kind of been avoiding them just because I'm not too into reading books about teenagers - even though I know there are some great YA books out there! This one also is set on a crab boat in the Bering Sea!

So whichever one I finish 1st I'll post as my final book in the challenge. Do I get extra credit for the other 2?

My Middle Name

Well Susan tagged me so here goes.....I liked this one, it was a bit different....

Here are the rules for this Meme:

The Rules:
1) You have to post the rules before you give the facts.
2) Players must list one fact that is relevant to your life for each letter in your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name then use a name that you like.
3) When you are tagged, you must write a post containing your own middle name game facts.
4) At the end of your post, you must tag one person for each letter in your middle name. Don’t forget to comment them telling that they are tagged and to read your post to get the rules.

My middle name is Reeder. I'm named after my God Parents, Edythe and PE Reeder. They were both teachers in Dunbar West Virginia - Edythe taught 3rd grade (and was "the" 3rd grade teacher that everyone wanted their kids to have) and PE taught High School English. Both were active in the National Education Association and PE was even the president of their local chapter at one time. I find this interesting because no one else in my immediate family is in education in anyway shape or form. Even the last time I saw Edythe and was very old, suffering from Alzhiemer's and hadn't seen me in years her 1st question for me was "Is my baby a teacher yet?" Anyway, I digress - I'm named after them because they had no children of their own, just a few God Children. The agreement my parents made with Edythe and PE was that she would name me after them and then I would get Edythe's silver punch bowl after they died. They are both dead now and I have no punch bowl, oh well, it's a good story!

Ok on with the Meme:

R - Read....I love to read! I mostly read novels - I'm currently reading Khaled Hosseni's "A Thousand Splendid Suns", but I also enjoy magazines, professional books and educational journals

E - Engergetic, most of the time, when my allergies aren't acting up, I'm very energetic

E - eating....really, who doesn't love to eat????

D - Doing crafts - I enjoy crafts of all kinds, but I'm especially partial to cross stitching.

E (another e? seriously, this is hard...) - Excercise - gotta work off all that food right? I'm not to regular about it but I enjoy getting on my treadmill, or going for a swim, when it's not a pollen season or too hot (so like January) I really enjoy going hiking in the mountains. I'm also getting into yoga, a friend of mine from work teaches a yoga class after school and it's lots of fun!)

R - Relax - I always enjoy a good day of relaxing in my jammies with my computer and my TiVo!

Ok so now I have to tag 5 people....hmmm...can't tag the person who sent me this....let's see...I'll tag: Brenna, Counsuelo, Kristie, John, and Judy (yes I know your sister already tagged you)

EWWWWW!!!!!

This evening I let my dog out in our backyard. My backyard has a large grassy area with "flower beds" around the edges. The "flower beds" were lovely when I moved in 5 years ago, but they are now over grown and full of weeds. Daisy likes to crawl around in the weeds and sniff things. Tonight was no exception.

She was out rooting around in the weeds and I was checking e-mail and such. She comes to the door and scratches to be let in. I go to the door and immedatlely notice that she has something in her mouth - her mouth is bulging and there's some furry grass sitcking out. I figured whatever it was that was in there was dead and I surely didn't want it in the house. I figured Daisy had a plan for her critter - likely to eat it - and I didn't want her to do that on her bed!

So through the glass I directed her to "drop it". Daisy doesn't know any commands, but I swear she understands me. She looked at me like "Drop what, I don't have anything." I then told her "You aren't coming in until you drop whatever is in your mouth." Again she looked at me like she didn't know what I was talking about. I then gave her a stern "NO!"

At this point she backed away from the door. I decided I had to go out there with her. I opened the door and she made a run for it. Luckily she's old and fat and I caught her collar before she got in the house.

I finally managed to pry open her mouth (luckily I'm reasonably sure she won't bite me) and about half of the furry creature emerged. It reminded me of childbirth. It was gross.

I pried her mouth even further open and the entire dead baby rabbit fell out. :( It was whole and didn't look like it had suffered.

I then sent the dog in the house with a stern "get in there" and she was smart enough to go. My next task was to get the shovel and get the body off the patio and out of the yard where hopefully a hawk or other predatory animal was able to get a free meal.

This is now the 2nd baby rabbit she has killed, that I know of. Who knows if she killed more and devoured them outside. You'd think the rabbits would learn not to build a nest in my yard! And to think that for 6 months she shared a house with a rabbit!

Armchair Traveler Challenge - book #5 - Manhunt

I finished this book weeks ago and at the time felt like I was just blowing through these books! My last challenge book however is proving to be more of a chunkster! Manhunt was yet another "twinkie read" - this was the utmost of "twinkie reads". Alex Scott is in her late 20s and single. She wants to find a husband so she trades her condo on the East Coast for a cabin and "hardware store" in rural AK. While on the ferry coming from the states she manages to get herself in a bit of a predicament and the drama surrounding it caught the attention of an unsuspecting man. Turns out the man's cabin/property is adjacent to Alex's and thus blooms a love/hate relationship that surprises them both. With few characters and a straightforward plot this was a light and easy read. It was def a "romance" novel, however it was in no way "trashy". There were parts that made me laugh out loud!


This is an "orginal" Janet Evanovich. Before Janet became a famous author she, like many aspiring writers, wrote romance novels, and like many budding authors Janet used an assumed name. Now that Janet has hit it big and made the NY Times Bestseller's list, they are re-publishing all her original books and putting her name on them. I think I'm going to have to add Janet Evanovich to my "To Be Read" list!

It could be awhile on the last book, "About Grace", it's a great story and I'm enjoying it, however it's slow going. Been reading it for weeks and am not even 200 pages into it! To further complicate things it's my turn at the library for Khaled Hosseini's latest "A Thousand Splendid Suns". When I requested the book back in June I was 176th in line...I'm surprised at how quickly I got to the front - maybe it's a quick read. So I will have to put "About Grace" down tomorrow when I can finally get to the library (they were closed all weekend) and pick it up since I know that I won't get more than 3 weeks to read "A Thousand Splendid Suns". What will be interesting is that I renewed "About Grace" for the 4th time today...I think that's my limit so I may have to plead my case with the librarian to let me return it, then check it right back out again!

Armchair Traveler Challenge - Book #4 - Sitka

Sitka by Louis L'Amour

I had never read any Louis L'Amour though the name was familar as I believe that my grandfather read all his books. I never thought I'd like "Westerns" but having been to the western parts of the country I think I might enjoy them more.

This might be one of my favorite of my Alaska books that I have read. This was a historical fiction set during the time when Alaska was a Russian colony, right before it was sold to the US. At times my comprehension skills were put to the test as the book was political in places and many times the author presented information before he explained it. Once I figured out his style I could relax a little and know that if I was confused I should just keep reading and it woud get all explained.

I highly recommend this one!

Armchair Traveler Challenge - Book #3 - The Serpents Trail

Sue Henry has written a whole series of mysteries set in Alaska. I saw them all and randomly picked one. The one I picked had a motorhome on the cover and it said it was about a single retired woman driving the Alaskan Highway.

Well, not quite. It was about a 60 something single lady, Maxine, and her Dachsund, Strech. And she has a house on the Katachemak Bay in Homer. And she drove the Alcan Highway to get to the Lower 48. However the story took place in Colorado.

This was what I call a "twinkie read". Not exactly good for you but enjoyable and easy to read. The story was about Maxine's best friend Sarah who died unexpectedly and Maxine was charged with uncovering many deep dark secrets about her friend and investigating her untimley death.

The odd thing about the plot was that this woman was confronted with the death of dear friend, however the emotions that would surround that didn't come out in the story. To me that took away from the story. Also the author spent a large amount of time describing unimportant things. I think maybe she was creating a distraction and giving the reader more details to sort through, but I found the extraneous information just that.

I will def read more Sue Henry novels when I'm looking for some twinkie reads! I already have the next Maxine and Stretch novel!

Armchair Traveler Reading Challenge #2 - True North

During my trip I managed to read 3 of my challenge books! I'm going to review each of them in seperate entries.

True North - by Kimberly Kafka

This was a nice book. It wasn't a great book, just a nice one. I would recommend it to someone else though.

Bailey has moved to Alaska from the east coast to escape a tragedy. She lives alone in a cabin way out in the bush. She flies her own float plane and she's a medical professional. She finds acceptance, and even attracts the attention of one of the native men. All is going well until two 20something kids come from the east coast for 2 weeks of camping at the lodge owned by the natives nearby. The kids arrival causes many secrets to be revealed and personalities questioned.

The setting was definitly a major part of the story. I enjoyed learning more about the native people in AK and what they are doing to maintain control of their land and bring in income, despite the internal controversy over it. The Alaskan bush was an excellent place for the female kid (whose name I can't remember and I returned the book the library!) to "come of age"!

Nice book, a good read.

Pictures Posted!

I have finally finished posting my pictures from AK! I have posted 2 slide shows, one of the 1st week and one of the 2nd. I recently added a lot more pictures to week 1 so if you checked right after I posted it, be sure to check it out again. The new pictures are at the end of the old ones, I can't make the slide show save them where I put them. The new pictures start after the one of Mom and Dad's MH being towed. They are in chronological order, just not matched up with the others. Enjoy!

Pictures from Alaska Week 2

Pictures from the 1st week in Alaska

Home

I got home in the middle of the night last night.

Flying out of Anchorage on a clear day is fabulous! We saw McKinley again - that's 6 out of 7 days getting to see McKinley! This time we were above it, but my camera was in overhead bin! We flew down the inside passage and I got some pics of the glaciers and fjords and mountains before the movie started and we put the shades down.

Sunday night I connected with John and we went out to see his airplane! I got the grand tour since a maintance guy had left the door open! I think I saw John taking off on his daily flight on my way to the airport on Mon!

When I got home last night I brought my luggage in and left it open on the floor in the kitchen since most it goes directly to the basement to the washing machine. This morning I picked up the dog at the kennel and brought her home, then went to run some other errands. When I got home this is what I found:

I think someone is happy that I'm back! Her tail is blurry because she is wagging it!

Denali and back to Anchorage

Sorry it’s been so long since I updated. We had internet in Denali, however I was very busy. We took the bus ride to Toklat River – about halfway in, walked on the road, went on a ranger hike, and saw the sled dog demo. Denali is an awesome park. It is a hiker and backpacker’s paradise – you can hike anywhere, no trails, and you can get on and off the bus whenever and wherever you want. I didn’t have nearly enough time and can’t wait to come back to hike!

We have seen the mountain for the last 5 days! It was sunny and clear the whole time we were in Denali! That “rain insurance” paid off !!!! It did however dip into the 30’s at night while we were there! We even heard it was into the 20s at one of the campgrounds farther in…Summer is almost over in Denali!

We are back in Anchorage tonight. Tomorrow I return my motor home then I fly home on Mon. I may not update tomorrow but will when I get home.

Denali National Park

We mostly drove today. It was another 150 miles from Talkeenta to Denali NP so we got an early start, I was hoping to be here early in the day so I could do some hiking/walking around the Visitor Center.

The mountain was out this morning!!! I could see it in the rearview mirror as we drove out of Talkeetna! I got some good shots before the clouds swallowed her up again.

The morning’s drive seemed to be a lot of start and stop. First, I needed fuel in my MH – I’d filled up at Fred Myer but it was already down to ½ a tank! Turn out I’d hit the $75 limit for credit card purchase and really didn’t fill up. So we stopped about 15 miles out since we weren’t sure where the next station would be. This highway is very remote and there are few services.

I could see the mountain from the gas station! I took this picture there! Kim…is this McKinley? I’m not sure which peak is which! I was aiming for the tallest one assuming that was it…distance obscures things though.

Immediately after I filled up we came to “Wal-Mikes” an eclectic little store that sells just about everything…think junk antique store and is run by a “Mike” who is a unique character. You really have to see it to fully get it!

Then about an hour later we came upon the south view of Denali Peak overlook – part of Denali State Park. So of course I had to pull off. There was the great view of a smaller mountain that you see above (prob 7 -8,000 ft but compared to 20,000 it’s tiny), but McKinley and her sister peaks were enveloped in clouds. We had lunch at the overlook – the sun was shining and it was very warm! We ended up being there over 2 hours because Mom and Dad ran into a friend they’d met while driving the ALCAN and had to chat, then we ended up making a few “new friends”. I finally just left.

I ended up being pretty far ahead of them and by the time I realized it the radio was out of range and I had no service on my cell phone. I just kept driving figuring they were back there somewhere!

The road is beautiful. There are mountains on all sides, yet the road itself seems to be in a valley so it’s flat. The Alaska Range seemed to be churning up some weather – they were all ensconced in dark rain clouds, yet where I was driving on the Parks Highway it was sunny with high thin clouds or puffy cumulus clouds, no sign of rain at all!

I arrived at Denali and set about making our plans, campground reservations, ranger lead hike sign ups, passport stamps, bus tickets. Turns out mom and dad were just a few miles behind me – the cell phone worked so I was able to call them. We are camping outside the park tonight (hence the pictures…high speed connection), but tomorrow and Friday nights we’ll be at Riley Creek in the Park. I didn't make it to the hike/walk today - doesn't look like we'll have time for that now. I hope to get in some walking/hiking tomorrow and then again on Fri.

Tomorrow we are moving over to the park 1st thing, and then at noon we are riding the shuttle bus to Toklat River. Dad and I plan to hike/walk a bit; mom will probably stay on the bus most of the day.

There won’t be any more high speed connections till I get home. I might not be able to connect tomorrow or Friday either – my cell worked in the park so hopefully the internet card will too.

PS - to those of you dealing with the oppressive heat and humidity on the east coast....it's 58 degrees here. I have the heat set to come on in the night. I love it!

Denali - The Great One

I got to spend nearly the whole day with The Mountain, Mt. McKinley, Denali, The Great One. I took over 50 pictures. Since I don't have time to post them all here I'm giving you the overview...Morning in Anchorage, evening in Talkeetna, and sunset in Talkeetna! Enjoy!


The tall peat is Denali, The Great One. The other peaks are part of the Alaska Mts.
This is from Anchorage - Elderberrry Park- around 9:00am, zoomed in.


This is McKinley along with several other peaks, zoomed out a bit. The mts are over 200 miles away. The body of water is the Cook Inlet.

This is all the mountain I was able to fit in the frame. I climbed up on some playground equiptment to get even higher to get the whole thing.

From the Talkeetna Spur Road (I was on foot!) at around 7:30 pm.

Talkeetna Beach area - around 7:45 - 8:00 pm. Note the clouds to the left of the big peak. They weren't there earlier!

Talkeetna Beach - 10:30 pm. Note, no clouds. You can see how much closer I am now to the mountain by looking back at the picture from this morning that has the peak zoomed out a bit and you can see the other three peaks. This picture is not zoomed.

Denali Mountain after sunset - 10:45 ish pm. The dark blueish purpleish shapes at the bottom are more mountains. I have obviously zoomed in here...this may become my new background on my computer!

It really doesn't get much better than this.

A few More Pictures

Again these are in reverse chronological order....



The Coach being towed off of Turnagain Arm.



These puffins are in captivity at the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward - they are much easier to photograph that way. These are horned puffins, as opposed to tufted puffins.


Aialik Glacier in Kenai Fjords NP - that's fog above the glacier.

Harbor Seals in Aialik Bay - Kenai Fjords NP. No the picture isn't grainy...it was that foggy.

Elephant Island off Katchemak Bay near Homer - this was taken from a kayak, in the wind!

The Homer Spit, Katchemak Bay, and the mountains - taken from the overlook just before you go down the hill into Homer.

Pictures!!!!

It's only 3 for now....I have a high speed connection tonight so I'll try and post more - esp my pics of The Mountain and a few of the glaciers and hopefully one of my puffins -trust me this is a microscopic tip of the iceberg! They are in reverse order because I posted them wrong!

Off to watch the sunset over Mt. McKinley!







This is the trail up the mountain to Harding Icefield that dad and I hiked in the rain.

Eagle sitting on the rock at the Homer beach right in front of my motor home.

My little motor home and my parent's "big rig" at Williawaw the 1st night.