BACK BABY BASICS

Living in Alaska after spending years in hot and HUMID Florida is causing drastic changes to my system. All of which seem to be making me revert to infancy. The fact that the aging process has already given me a huge jump in that direction with the potential need for diapers and bibs somewhere down the road, I am well on my way to the need for drinking from a bottle. (Which if I think about it I am already doing every afternoon at about 4:00 when we break out the Bush Lite!) The most problematic of this move to Alaska regression to infancy is my skin. My skin has gone from baby soft to alligator sucked dry. Which is just the opposite of what I am writing about in my reversal to infancy. In Florida my skin seems to stay hydrated, perhaps from all the humidity, sun screen, swimming or sweat? Whatever, I have no problem with dry skin. Travel north for one day and I and dry out like a prune in the Sahara Desert. Travel west 8 days and it gets dryer and dryer until we arrive here in the flat plain valley that is Fairbanks in the middle of the state of Alaska.
I am aware that when I travel my skin gets super dry so I travel with all sorts of lotions and creams. This trip I decided to bring all 42 of those tiny bottles from the hotels I have stayed in on past trips. Every hotel has them and you use them once and think, "Hum, if I leave it they will just throw it out so I'll take it with me" but then you get to the next room and do that again and before you know it you have 42 of them. I have yet to find that any of the lotions are really effective but they will make a difference for a short time and then you can toss the little bottle when it's empty. And if the lotion really is horrid you aren't stuck with a vat of it. Well, by the time we arrived in Fairbanks I had completely exhausted my supply of mini bottles of lotion so now I was in need of some serious skin cream. Our first venture out for shopping was to the Army base PX where I came upon the the family size supply aisle. There stood a pump bottle of good old fashioned BABY LOTION in that familiar pink plastic bottle. If you close your eyes I bet you can smell it. You know the smell, it kicks back memories in all of us. The ENTIRE BOTTLE, all 64 ounces, cost $1.00 !  How could I resist.  I figured at that price I could take a bath in the stuff, pour it on twelve times a day and even if it didn't do anything for my skin I would at least smell good. So I bought it.  The stuff is FABULOUS !  I will never waste my money on any other skin cream again. These baby lotion folks know that babies need the best stuff and that's what they make for our little ones.  The very nicest, most efficient and effective product for our babies.
Sooooooooo, if I am slowly returning to infancy I need not fear. I just have to buy all products made for babies and I will be living like a princess.

ALASKA LIFE

I am really enjoying this change of pace life style here in Fairbanks. Although living with Dwayne causes me to forget that I am in Alaska and not living on the equator. For some odd reason this man has the metobolic rate of a dead box turtle. His body temperature remains at minus 300 degrees and he never gains an ounce of weight. Both of these facts are counter productive to me since my body temperature usually runs at about the boiling point of molten lava and I gain weight just looking at food. We are a terrible match ! Yet here we are co habitating Dwaynes son's beautiful home. The weather is great, a perfect 55 degrees for about twenty hours a day. It drops into the 40's for the four hours of darkness and then warms right back up when the sun comes back up. I'm loving this, as are the three dogs. But not frosty the box turtle.  The man travels with a small space heater !  It is always at least 90 degrees in any room Dwayne is residing in and he will be wearing a flannel shirt besides. I, on the other hand, am sitting in my bathing suit dropping ice cubes down my neck.  So we arrive in Fairbanks and I think,"AHHHH, finally, cool weather!"  NOT.  Well, the weather is cool but because it it cool Mr. D is COLD so his loving son builds a fire in the wood stove and the house is now 88 degrees and so dry the Saraha Desert is calling to ask for heat.  I had to buy a vat of baby lotion to keep my skin hydrated because my skin was drying up so much I could no longer bend my knees or fingers.  After living in swamp covered Florida all these years this dry air is just sucking the life out of my skin. I am turning into a petrified mummy being baked alive.  I am  tempted to move out onto the back deck but the pigeon sized mosquitos sort of discourage that. Yesterday it rained and I wanted to strip down to my undies and run around in the yard letting the rain soak into my skin. I now know why the Scandinavian folk enjoy saunas so much. It keeps them warm while hydrating at the same time. Then they run outside and throw themselves into the snow. I know the Man wold take a pass on that part while I'd be out yelling GERONIMO !
But in spite of our differences we are having a great time so far. Good food, good people, good times, good adventures, good sleep, good laughs and good grief would some one open a window and let some of this heat out !

GOOFY CANADA TRAVELS

Lets start with with the forecast of SNOW !  Four days into this trip and I thought the weather driving across the plains of Canada would be hot. NOT !  Windy yes, hot no.  It hasn't been freezing but it hasn't been overly warm. Which is a lovely change from the encroaching summer in Florida.  But today we came across the province of Alberta and are steadily heading north as we go further and further west on our treck to Alaska. Once we got to the motel this afternoon and FINALLY settled in we started making our reservations for the next leg of our journey. Tomorrow we head into the mountains and if it seemed chilly today I better hold on to my butt for the next couple of days.  When we called ahead to Fort Nelson for tomorrow's motel room the girl at the desk said it had stopped snowing so we would be fine. HOLY MITTENS BAT MAN. . .  Where did I pack my muckalucks ?

(What ever the heck they are!)   Have I really thought this trip through? Driving cross the US and Canada in May is not the same as doing this trip in late August early September. The packing alone was daunting because the temperatures in mid summer in Fairbanks COULD be in the mid 80's but today I am facing possible snow. So in my suitcase are a range of clothes from sweat shirt and jeans to tank tops and shorts. All that cradles the bottle of vodka that is already half empty and we are only 4 days out. Could it be that travel in Canada encourages drinking ? If you were to ask Dwayne that question you would get a resounding YES !  

It all started in me arriving in Michigan with a full blown cold. Right there we knew we were off on a bad start. Friday we left town on schedule and all was right with the world. Made good time to our first stop,checked in, slept pretty good and Dwayne woke up not feeling great. (Maybe it was the 6 beers and basket of fried mushrooms he had for dinner last night, maybe not. I'm just saying.) The day improved, we drove on and by the time we got to our hotel on night 2 we collapsed, had a bowl of soup and fell asleep at 8:30 PM. So far so good but then we are still traveling across the good old USA. Day 3 brings us to the Canadian border where we left our home turf and headed North. The day was warm and lovely but talk about boring . . .  O . M . G . YAWN.     Nothing and I do mean nothing but flat flat plains of DIRT.  Yes, I said DIRT.  Or rather I should say mud.  It seems that May is Mud season in Canada. Mud mud and more mud.  Just lovely!  So as we are driving along we decided to call Dwayne's son using the truck's ON STAR system so we wouldn't accumulate huge phone charges but for some reason the on star wouldn't work. Surprise!  It seems that Canadian On Star has switched from 2g to 4g and Dwayne's truck can't handle the 4g so the On Star won't work in Canada.  Travel in Canada is exactly why D has On Star so what is the point?  The comedy of errors has continued all day yesterday and today from doors not opening, the cover on the back of the truck suddenly flying open as we are driving 60 mph down the road, the phone in our room not working, the heat in our room not working, the hot water in the room taking forever to get hot, the ice machine being on the top floor when our room is on the first floor . . . Just crazy stuff . . . 

But we are together,  we ARE having fun and we will be in Alaska in another 3 days.