Monday December 21
Hello all from Silty Slough. 13 degrees this morning when the sun rose at 10:29 and set at 3:38 for the shortest day of the year, 5 hours and 9 minutes. I thought we would go below 5 hours before we managed to flatten the downward curve and start to gain daylight again. I guess we need to be a couple hundred miles farther north to sag below the 5 hour mark. This is also the longest night of the winter if you want to look at it that way. Depending if you are a pessimist or a nocturnal optimist. I was wondering the other morning when I couldn’t get back to sleep at 4, is a pessimistic pessimist really an optimist?
Last Sunday the 13th Roger text and asked if I wanted to go to town Monday and come back out on Tuesday. He had a snow machine to pick up at the landing and I had one that he could drop off there. Sure. Roger arrived at our place at 8:15 for the trip. Kari and I had our freight sled loaded with 8 totes of trash, 3-33 pound propane bottles, and 4-20 pound bottles. I hooked a tub sled behind the freight sled and had 2-100 pound propane bottles in it.
We left Kari and the dogs to run the asylum and headed on the trail through the woods and down the ramp to the slough and onto the river trail. It is about 15 degrees so I was able to ride with my helmet open and after 15 minutes or so I was farther from the cabin than I had been in 12 weeks. The main reason for me going to town was a box of Christmas cards and two boxes of contacts. When I was getting ready the morning of the trip Kari found my boxes of contacts. I can’t come back to the cabin with an empty sled so Kari got busy on our AnyList app. Soon there were 45 items at Costco, 2 spare snow machine belts at SkiDoo, a stop at Lowe’s, orders to pick up at Fred Meyer, and a stop at Carr’s for dried fruit for making my fruitcake.
Roger and I hit the ground running when we reached the landing. I dropped Roger off at Willow airport to retrieve his truck from under at least 3 feet of snow and headed on to Wasilla for belts and Arby’s. They have 2 sandwiches for $6, I haven’t had fast food for over 3 months so I got 4 for $12 so I could have some later or take a couple back to the cabin. Then to the landfill at Palmer. It was windy there as usual. I just rode 60 miles on a snow machine no problem. I thought I was going to freeze to death in the 5 minutes it took to unload the trash. Then on to get the propane bottles filled and I was out of time for a trip on to Anchorage to Costco. I’ll go there tomorrow. It has been a long day and I’m really tired and a little sore from the first long ride of the year.
I was at Costco when they opened at 9 for old people’s hours. AnyList is a good app because it syncs the list on Kari’s and my phone. Then it is also a bad thing because she was adding things as I shopped. I was bouncing from one side of Costco to the other like a ping pong ball. Took more time than I had budgeted. I grabbed a world famous Costco hot dog and headed back for the Valley and Wolf Lake. It is almost noon and I’m already tired. I asked Roger about delaying until Wednesday morning and he said no problem. We made a run 45 miles back to the landing to drop off the propane and pick up the trash that wouldn’t fit in my pickup the day before. Back to the landfill and a couple stops in Palmer. I think I have everything on the list so far. The last message was Fred Meyer has turkeys for 69 cents a pound. I don’t care if they are free, I’m not going into another store this year. Time for a pizza and a Tiger Woods or two or three.
I planned to be up at 6 to get everything packed into totes for the return trip. I overslept and when I got up at 7:30 Roger was already loading the trucks. I finished packing all the treasures in the totes and we were on our way to the landing by 8:30. We got everything loaded and tied down, machines fueled, and on the trail. It was forecast to be sunny but that didn’t happen. We had flat light for a lot of the trip, couldn’t see anything. It was very difficult to keep it between the white lines. A lot of the time we just felt our way along. At our first stop Roger asked if he was travel too fast. I said “No, let the hog eat.” About 20-22 miles an hour is a good speed when pulling a freight sled. The trail is excellent this year. Some years I have made the trip at 7-10 miles an hour because the trail was so rough. We moved right along passing the familiar landmarks, The Deshka, Rolly Creek, Scary Tree, Luces, Yentna Station, Moose Creek, The Kahiltna, Imm’s, McDougal Lodge, Lake Creek, and Fish Lakes Creek. Roger peeled off to go to his place, I continued on by John’s Slough and on into Silty Slough. Up the ramp, through the woods and home again. Unload the 8 totes of supplies and get them inside. The propane can wait until tomorrow.
Kari got the Christmas cards addressed. Tomorrow at 9 she and I are going to be 5 miles up river at the Skwentna Post Office to get the cards on the mail plane. BTW I couldn’t find any boxes of cards in town. I did find some cards and a bottle of white out in the hangar while I was looking for wrapping paper. So if you get a recycled card please understand. 124 miles by snow machine and 190 miles by truck to get you a Christmas card and me a home made fruit cake. I guess it is the thought that counts.
Roger texted Saturday to see if I wanted to make a fuel run to the landing on Monday. Sure….but that’s for another view.
From the asylum on the bluff high above Silty Slough, we wish you a very Merry Christmas!!
Thank you Lord for a safe trip.
I’ll be in touch
Blue skies!!!
The View from the Outhouse 