Today mom and I went to dinner with Ingrid at Ivory Jacks, out in the Goldstream Valley where my family used to live..I miss that drive, it's so pretty! It feels weird going by the turnoff to my parents' old house. O_o We sat at a table next to the door, and this magpie (I think) flew onto mom's chair! Mom was talking to it and it was cocking its head and surveying the scene. It was so cute! Mom must have some Disney princess in her, because animals love her..one time in London, a pigeon just jumped into her lap and stayed quite awhile there! The waitress eventually shooed it back outside, but it was a cool moment. That's actually the first time I've seen a magpie north of the Alaska Range! Maybe they decided to migrate haha

After that we went down the road to Running Reindeer Ranch, which I'd never even heard of until Ingrid mentioned it the other day (and I lived near there for awhile too!). The family started the ranch in 2007, and it has expanded ever since. They also host Music With Reindeer, where a musical artist comes and performs (Google said that started in 2008! How had I never heard of it until recently??), and the audience gets to sit among the reindeer while listening to the music. You can pet them if they let you (except for the antlers, which are super sensitive. Their fur is so soft!), and they just eat and chill and lay down amongst the people. It was pretty cool! The artist who performed was The Forest That Never Sleeps, who plays multiple instruments and played guitar for us today. I wasn't a huge fan of her music style, but it was alright..she sometimes included the reindeer in her songs too, which was fun lol. Definitely an Alaskan experience. :P Sadly Ingrid has to go back to Tennessee tomorrow, but it was fun getting to hang out with her these past few weeks. Hopefully her dogs will be happy to see her haha

( pics from the day )

5. Your favorite restaurant: Olive Garden, Geraldo's, Starbucks (vanilla bean frappuccinos!!), etc

6. A letter to someone you need to forgive: Ugh, I hate these letter prompt ones lol

A book that centers on video games: Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (Jun 26-July 1)

A book about K-pop: I'll Be the One by Lyla Lee (July 1-3). I was dreading this topic since I have no interest in K-pop (though I do like "Gangnam Style" LOL), but this book was actually pretty good! The main character had a lot of fatphobia thrown at her, but she won the singing contest she was in anyway..nice! This is the earliest I've finished the reading challenge too..also nice haha

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (July 4-9). Strike and Robin are a great pair of detectives haha

Deluge by Tate Harley (July 10-11). I read the first one earlier in the year. Disaster survival stories are riveting!

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (July 12-22). Nooo there are only two left! Please write another one soon! Haha (the TV show is good too, and pretty faithful to the books!)

The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria: The Sinking of the World's Most Glamorous Ship by Greg King (July 23-26)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (July 26-28). I'd been wanting to read this for a long time, but the author doesn't use quotation marks in his books, which drives me CRAZY haha. Finally I was like "I'll put them in myself!" It took twice as long to read, but it helped lol. The book wasn't THAT good though..the conversations between the father and boy were annoying (these are the first lines of dialogue: Can I ask you something? Yes. Of course. Are we going to die? Sometime. Not now. And we’re still going south. Yes. So we’ll be warm. Yes. Okay. Okay what? Nothing. Just okay. Go to sleep. Okay." Ugh). I do want to watch the movie though, especially because Viggo Mortensen is in it LOL

System Collapse by Martha Wells (July 29-31)

Last night mom and I went to the state fair, and it was a PERFECT evening for it..not too hot, not too cold, sunny. Of course I had to find something super unhealthy to eat, and I went with a mac and cheese burger and chili cheese fries, then got Dippin Dots and later shared an elephant ear with mom..I was SO full by the time we left haha. I also pet some sheep (they were pretty much melting from me and mom's attention haha), super soft bunnies, blue curtains, a duck, etc. I also got a cool blue rug. All the political stuff was annoying though (Trump 2024 hats and stuff like that..ugh). I was exhausted when we left, but it was a nice evening!

28. Are You a Perfectionist? Hmm..maybe somewhat. It takes too much energy haha

29. Should People Give Money to Panhandlers? Not necessarily, you never know what they're going to use the money for, and I've heard about fake ones too. I tried giving one food once and they said they'd rather have money. It's definitely a hard life :(

30. What Would You Put in Your Emergency ‘Go-Bag’? Spare clothes, a book, meds, water, etc

31. How Much Do You Know About History? Depends on the time of history..I know a lot about Antarctic history, but for other things (Chinese history, for one), I only know a little. History is interesting to learn about though!

August 1. What Do You Gain From Pursuing Something You Want Really, Really Badly? A paying job at the bookstore, satisfaction, etc

Last night, Carmen did my hair! She has a little salon in her house, which is cool. She did a very good job, and my hair was so soft!

Today we went back to Castillo Serralles..it was built during the 1930s for Juan Eugenio Serrallés, whose family owned a distillery (still do, actually). It's a museum now. In the gift shop, they just gave you samples of their alcohol to try..that would never happen in the US!! Their rum was SUPER strong, and kinda made my lips numb! Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures inside (we had to take a guided tour, and that would probably slow the tour down), which was unfortunate, because it was GORGEOUS, and the antique furniture and items were so cool! There was even a four-poster bed!! I actually gasped when I saw it LOL, and mom was like "uh oh, Heather's melting!" I had a feeling there would be one in there. ;) Thankfully, there's a picture of it online that I saved. After that we went to the lookout point nearby (Camilla joined us after she got out of school), which gave nice views of Ponce, the mountains and Caja de Muertos. Then we went to the Japanese gardens, which was pretty. It's really sad, but there are a lot of stray animals running around..mostly cats and dogs, but I've seen horses and chickens too. I wish they had homes. :( Then we went back to the house to pack...

...because today is our last day in Puerto Rico (where does the time go??). It's a pretty place with nice people, but too hot for me! I'm definitely going to miss all the fresh drinks I've gotten (orange juice, lemonade, etc), they are SO good! It's normal here to wish someone "buen provecho" (enjoy your food) when eating, even complete strangers. We were eating ice cream at a park and two people who walked by said it! It was cool to meet the rest of Jo's family, and see a new place. It's weird though, because I've slept better here than I ever do at home! Usually it takes me a long time to go to sleep, but not here. Maybe because the room is air conditioned, and I feel cozy under the blankets? I'll be interested to see how I sleep when I get back home lol. We're actually staying the night in Seattle tomorrow, since we have an eight hour layover, so we'll get to Fairbanks on Saturday. It might be hard to go back to winter, but it'll be nice to see Abby again. <3 It was a great trip!

( pics from today! )

2 – Stress Awareness Day: How stressful is your everyday life? How well do you deal with stress? Do you have any tried-and-true strategies for handling stress? It can depend, but usually it's manageable. I might have to just wait it out, or take Clonazepam if it's really bad

Today we went to Yauco, 15 miles from Ponce. Here are pics of things we saw!


A little park we explored. The humidity from the rain we keep having makes it SO humid!

( more )

We had dinner at a restaurant that served traditional Puerto Rican food. I can't remember the name of everything we had, but it was cool sampling the different foods. Mofongo (made of plantains) didn't really do anything for me, but the mashed malanga (a root vegetable) was SOOO good. It's kind of like mashed potatoes, only more flavorful. I hope I can find more of that on this trip haha. Then we went back home. I've noticed there are
stray/feral cats and dogs around..it makes me sad they don't have homes :(

24 – United Nations Day: Is the UN still an important international player? Do you think the UN Security Council membership should be expanded? I'm completely the wrong person to answer that lol, I don't really have a political mind :P

1. Who was the last child, unrelated to you, you personally had a conversation with? Not sure..
2. Among things most children aren’t permitted to do, what should they be permitted to do? Stay up late..I always wanted to when I was a kid lol
3. Some people say there are (generally) animal people and children people. Which are you? An animal person
4. Which children’s books do you remember enjoying most? Where the Red Fern Grows, The Giving Tree, Harry Potter, My Side of the Mountain, etc
5. When did you last see koi in person? *shrugs*

We were going to go to a museum today, but Dean suddenly spotted bees swarming around a tree in his yard (he has a hive in the yard). We all rushed out to look..the bees were so loud! They all were piling on a branch in the tree. Cindy and Dean explained that when bees swarm like that, the queen has left the hive and with the other bees, is looking for somewhere else to make a hive. She's not a very good flyer though because she's heavy (even though the worker bees starve her for a couple days), so she has to rest, and all the bees pile on top of her so she's safe, and scouts go off to look for a good place for another hive. Dean got a box and suited up, then clipped off the branches with the bees and put them in the box. There were still bees flying around, but flew into the box once they knew the queen was in the box. Dean co-owns the hive with his friend, so he called his friend and his friend said to take the box to his house and he'd do something with it (Dean didn't want those bees anyway, since he thought the queen was getting too old). When Dean got back home he checked the hive, which had a lot of "queen cells" in it, which queens hatch out of in a couple weeks. That's why the old queen left: there wasn't enough room for all those bees, so half of them left to find a less crowded spot. When a queen emerges, she stings the other queens still in the cells (there can be only one!), so Dean split the hive and put some cells and bees in another box, so now he'll have two hives! I learned a lot of cool things about bees today..they're so smart! It was cool to see their intelligence by watching them swarm (they have to plan in advance!). Hopefully Cindy and Dean will have lots of honey this summer haha

( 12 – Limerick Day: Do you like limericks? Do you have a favourite? )

Today mom and I drove to Denali today, because why not. :P We found some geocaches, went shopping, had yummy pizza, and drove to the Savage River hiking trail. We saw two caribou, one of which had a huge rack! Both of them crossed the road right in front of our car, which was super cool! We didn't do the whole trail because we thought we had to get back in time to take dad to the airport, but it was still nice listening to the river (we saw one of the caribou again on the way back!). We got ice cream and then drove back to Fairbanks..we weren't going to get any geocaches because we didn't think we'd have time, until dad called us and said the flight was canceled! We laughed at our now unnecessary rushing and then found two more caches haha..we found seven in all, yay! Fun, but tiring :P

( some pics! )

30. Do you mostly do specific chores on specific days each week (e.g. groceries on Saturday, laundry on Wednesday, etc.)? Yeah, I usually do laundry on Saturday, and grocery shopping on Sunday. Other chores wait till I have the spoons to do them lol

Here's a pic of the snow this weekend:

It's pretty, but it always feels like it's too early, even if it is October :P (most of the ducks have left, but these guys are enjoying the food dad's giving them lol..I wonder if any of them are the Armada of Nine?)

The covid situation is scary here..the hospitals are so overwhelmed the doctors have to decide who lives and who dies..that is awful and terrifying D:

( oct. 2-3 )

Yesterday morning Jo had to do something for work, so mom and I took Ryan to see Valdez Glacier Lake and the fish hatchery at Allison Point. The tide was SUPER low! The hatchery breeds salmon and lets them go, and in a year or two they return to spawn..there were lots of fish, but there's a weir preventing them from going any farther (a guy at the hatchery said the fish weren't ready yet, and when they are they open a gate and let the fish in to these tunnel things to spawn. They seemed ready to me, it was hard watching them work so hard to jump over the weir and get nowhere lol). There was a sea lion in the distance catching fish, but not much else was happening, so we went back to the B&B, had lunch, and then went bike riding! We rented the bikes from the same company we rented the kayaks from. The bikes were electric, and you could either peddle or use the throttle. The throttle was fun (especially since I'm out of shape LOL)..the bikes could go 20 MPH, but the highest I got on mine was 16 I think. We biked to Old Town, where Valdez was before getting destroyed by a tsunami after the 1964 earthquake. I'd never been there before, but here wasn't much to see, except for a couple poles in the water and the foundation of the post office. Then we biked on some trails (which had bear scat D:), and stopped at a place a geocache was, but it must have fallen down the pole it was in, because only tape was left on the cover of the pole..darn! We went out to Allison Point again, this time at high tide, and there were a whole group of sea lions getting a very easy dinner haha! It was cool watching them, and watching the seagulls swarm around them when they were trying to eat lol. Then we biked back to the rental place..I think we did at least 11 or so miles! I needed wipers on my glasses lol, since it rained the whole time, but it was still cool..we all need bikes like that haha. Walking seemed very slow after that. :P Then we had dinner, finally found two geocaches (they were done with construction for the day, so we grabbed the opportunity) and played Betrayal at House on the Hill..after the traitors were revealed (mom and I), Ryan and Jo went to Safeway (the traitor(s) always have to be in a different room so everyone else can strategize in secret). I saw the lamps shaking a bit, and then an alarm blared on our phones, and when I looked I saw this:

Mom and I were just like "WTF?!?" We checked online and saw that an 8.2 earthquake had struck near the Aleutians, and a tsunami warning was issued for the coastal areas, even as far as Hawaii! This earthquake was largest earthquake in the United States since the one in 1964!! We were totally freaking out..the B&B owner said the "safe spot" was the high school, so when Ryan and Jo got back we grabbed important stuff and headed there (the tsunami wasn't expected in Valdez for an hour or two, but we didn't want to wait till it was too late!). We hung out there for a couple hours, till we saw them downgrade all the warnings. The earthquake was shallow and occurred underneath a shelf in the ocean, so it didn't displace very much water. The biggest waves were only a foot above normal..wow, talk about luck!! I'm not sure I needed that experience, but it was still interesting lol. I'm glad it happened in the middle of nowhere, with minimal damage!

Today we went on a wildlife/glacier cruise. It was pretty nice out, with some blue sky! Jo was looking at the map they gave us, of the route and various named places, and then was like "hey! That 'unnamed' glacier we flew over after Shoup, that was Anderson Glacier!" You can see Anderson Glacier from Valdez if the weather's good enough (there were clouds covering it this morning). Indeed, when I looked at the map, it's right near Shoup (only higher up), in between Shoup and Columbia! We HAD to have passed over it. That made me SO happy haha, it has a name!! Someone should tell that pilot. :P You can see very little of Shoup now from the boat, sad! All that awesomeness just hiding so close by! We saw lots of wildlife..sea otters, sea lions, bald eagles, puffins, a pod of orcas, a humpback whale, jellyfish, and other various birds. There were a lot of kids on the boat, and they were SO funny..when one saw the orcas, she was like "I see its nose!!" haha. When one saw a dirty iceberg, she said "it looks like chocolate, I wanna eat it!" Oh good, I'm not the only one that thinks some glacier look like chocolate and ice cream mixed together. :P We saw Columbia Glacier, but we didn't get very close because they said there was too much ice..it didn't look THAT bad to me (the other guy would try, but then he has a smaller boat), but then I saw that instead we were going over to this cove with a bunch of other glaciers, which used to be connected to Columbia. I'd never gone over there before, but I imagine it was covered with ice before! The mountainsides were absolutely barren and covered with moraines..so crazy to see such new land!! We got half a mile from the face of Columbia's remnants, and we also saw some kayakers SUPER close to the face of one! That very glacier then calved awesomely (I will never not jump up and down and squee when that happens haha), and we saw the kayakers paddle away like crazy! There was one kid who was just SCREAMING in terror..their tour guide (I imagine they were a tour group) should NOT have let them get that close!! I hope they were ok! It was cool being surrounded by glaciers haha, and I always get weirdly sad after leaving them. I always feel like we don't spend enough time with the glaciers, though I imagine it's longer than I think. Then we just went back to Valdez..you could see Anderson Glacier this time, and I was like "yup, that's the one we flew over!" *points to familiar-looking ridge of ice* When we docked, I saw the Saga, a Deadliest Catch boat..cool! Now we're just relaxing..tomorrow's our last full day here, awww :(

( more cool pics! )

28. Musician you would like to see live if you had the chance? Of Monsters and Men, for one

29. Have you ever met an online friend in real life? Yeah..Dana, Aimee, etc. It's so cool to see them in real life :D

One fun thing about my parents having a lake in their backyard..

..feeding the ducks (proper food, of course)! We've tried feeding them in the morning, but they're not too interested (they're not "morning ducks" LOL), but in the evening, they love it! There were probably around 75-80 of them on Friday night..it's fun lol. I wonder where they go when the lake freezes..

This is the cats' new favorite spot:

Dad came back home on Friday and must have left the blanket there, and of course the cats claimed it for themselves. :P Dad thinks the house is too cold, but I think he likes it otherwise. Now he has pretty painful osteoarthritis in his hands, and mom had to get him a wheelchair for the days when it's too painful for him to walk..he was amused when he saw it haha.."does it drive fast??" I'm glad he can still find the humor in his situation lol

A snowstorm is coming, and my body is feeling it..yayy being sensitive to weather changes is fun :P

( oct. 10-12 )

Today's trivia: Mob boss Vincent Gigante used to wander around New York in his bathrobe to convince the police he was insane and avoid capture

Today we went kayaking at Three Sisters Springs, which is just off the road..they're so clear and beautiful! You'd never know all of that hidden beauty was there from the road! Before we left we had to watch a short video on not disturbing the manatees..I feel like that should be obvious. :/ We went early (8:30, bleh LOL) so we'd have a better chance of seeing the manatees, and we saw lots of them! They're so cute and docile hehe. There are places roped off where you can't go, called "manatee sanctuaries"..manatees can't survive in water lower than 68 degrees, so they come to the springs, which are always 72 degrees. Mom and I pulled up to the edge of the sanctuary to see the manatees better, and all of a sudden a lady on the boardwalk (which you'll read about in a little bit) was like "YOU IN THE KAYAKS, GET AWAY FROM THE SANCTUARY, YOU CAN'T BE IN THERE!!!!" OMG wow, calm down, we were on the EDGE of the sanctuary, sitting there and doing nothing harmful..jeez. You can swim there as well, and she wasn't yelling at THEM, even though they were at the edge too! We saw more manatees as we kayaked down the channel, and they even swam under our kayak! Awww (they're not aggressive at all, so it wasn't scary lol). There were lots of tour groups there, and as we went by a bunch of swimmers and their guide, he was like "has everyone had a chance to touch a manatee? Move over if you have!" OMG WHAT. Did you not just watch that video that says NOT to touch them??! Ugh, leave the wildlife alone! I'm sure they're used to humans (and will come up to you if you're still), but you still can't harass them! Ugh. I also loved identifying the various trees along the canal (yep, I'm a nerd LOL). I saw probably the biggest magnolia (it smelled amazinggg too) and golden rain tree I've ever seen! Funn :P

After we kayaked for a couple hours, we had lunch at McDonald's (they've gotten really high tech..you can order from a sign without even talking to anyone! I couldn't believe I got three things for $5.00!!! In Alaska it would be like $10), and then took the trolley to the boardwalk, which goes around the different springs. We got to the sanctuary part, where we saw the lady that yelled at us, and yelled at a lot of other people while we were up there too..wow, that must be a fun job. :/ The Manatee Police are watching you. :P The trail continued down the roped off part of the canal we couldn't go to in the kayak..there were LOTS of manatees there, awww! I love the pretty water in the springs too. That was a cool experience :)

After that we stopped at grandpa's house for a few minutes to check on Reese, and then went shopping downtown..my bank account hurts now LOL ( I wanted to go to the bookstore I went to last time, but it closed a couple months after I left :(). It was fun, but I'm glad to be relaxing now :P

( pics from today! )

November 23 - Did you shop for Black Friday? I did go shopping, but not because it was Black Friday lol