A book outside your comfort zone: It by Stephen King (Mar 30-Apr 22). Yeah this book definitely made me uncomfortable. D: Bill's stutter hurt my brain and enthralled me at the same time haha (it's much worse in the book than in the movies). I had read Wrong Side of the Paw before this, so I was thrown off by another character called Eddie haha (not a cat this time!). The last 100-80 pages were WEIRD though, it felt like King had been on an acid trip when writing that part. O_o I was kind of relieved when I finished it, being so emotionally invested in it was exhausting! Now I can finally say I've read a book by Stephen King :P

A book about a granny hobby: The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst (Apr 23-30). The main character had a jam shop. Danae really liked this book, so I decided to read it on my Payson trip! I loved the sentient cactus (Meep) the main character accidentally made, they were so cute hehe. Of course I loved the winged cats too hehe. I like cozy feel-good fantasy over other types now, it makes my soul happy lol

( the topics )

Reading super long books (It is over 1100 pages long) makes my reading lists look sad, but the accomplished feeling kind of makes up for it. :P Here's a book survey too!

Today is our last full day in Payson. Why do vacations go by so fast, question?? I love opening my curtains and seeing the awesome view of the Payson scenery against the blue sky. I definitely shouldn't wait so long to visit again! I hope Curti remembers me, and purrs a lot when he sees me tomorrow hehe

May 1: Describe a moment from today that you want to remember always: It's still earlyish in the day, but seeing the view of Payson after waking up

1. When did you last enjoy some Asian cuisine? Yesterday
2. What’s something you’d like to do in South America? See Perito Moreno Glacier
3. What’s a popular tourist thing in Europe you have very little interest in? The Tate Modern in London..I find art museums kind of boring
4. Which of Australia’s strange animals do you find most fascinating or adorable? Platypuses are pretty fascinating, like the fact they're venomous mammals!
5. What’s something interesting you just learned about Africa? *googles* Sudan has more pyramids than any other country on earth (223)

Danae has definitely lightened up the bookstore! Since we opened last year the atmosphere has felt oppressive and heavy, which she noticed as soon as she walked in the door the first time. Now there's music playing and another happy presence around! Tomorrow is Juella's last day..I always felt her to be unnecessarily strict and was constantly watching me, which was uncomfortable. Danae and I are also very alike, I'm pretty sure she's autistic too..we even have the same eyeglass prescription! The store has gotten busier, we get donations every day now (I'm so happy when I can say yes when someone asks me haha), and the customers are much happier. It's so cool they still support us and haven't forgotten us, after everything that's happened. Fairbanks has such a great community..if the store was anywhere else, it would have shut down months ago. After the awful summer/fall, it's great to see everyone happily shopping again! Danae and I will definitely keep the fun/positively going :D

My family has been taking turns going to Payson, since dad's feet have gotten worse and can't really travel right now..Ryan and Jo just went, mom and Ryan are going in April, and I'm going with Jo at the end of April. By that time, it will have been a year since I traveled anywhere..way too long! I haven't been there since 2021! Hopefully the weather will be nice

( jan 24-30 )

Yesterday we arrived at Payson! Getting up at 5 something was totally fun..yuck (you know you've gotten up too early when you put your glasses on and your vision is still blurry LOL). I wish I could have seen Denali or something, but between the darkness, clouds and moisture on the window from the de-icer thingy, I could hardly see anything lol (yeah I know I've flown around it many times, but I never get tired of seeing it :P). When we landed in Anchorage we had to RUN to our next flight, since the plane arrived late in Fairbanks to begin with (they let everyone who was going on that flight get off first..thanks Alaska Airlines, you are awesome!!). I hadn't run that far in years LOL. We made it just in time, phew. The captain of this flight was a woman, heck yeah! She was super awesome and nice and funny. I looked for glaciers after we took off, but I only saw one for sure. I wish I knew which one it was (I couldn't get a good pic with my phone, booo)..it's so hard to tell when you're not exactly sure where you are and when everything's so snowy lol. It was pretty big and ended in water though, which was cool. I wanted to see more, but apparently when you fly directly to Phoenix you go over more of the ocean than land (direct to Phoenix is almost 5 hours from Anchorage). On the flight I watched Kubo and the Two Strings (very, VERY good movie) and Ice Age: Collision Course ("the ice is too icy" LOLOL)..pretty ridiculous but still amusing lol. After we landed and got the car and stuff we ate at a yummy barbecue place near Phoenix and then drove up to Payson..it was cool seeing everyone's Christmas lights! Sleeping was nice lol (Also after I opened Pokemon Go at the airport like 10 Pokemon showed up at once haha..lots of Ekans and Sandshrews here lol..I got at least two new ones, yay! At the BBQ place there were two Pokestops right on top of each other! I'd never seen that before :P)

Except for going to the store, today's been pretty lazy lol. Ryan has a cold, ouch. I hope he doesn't give it to us! Being sick on vacation is awful. The weather's cloudy and it's supposed to snow this weekend..noooo, I came here to ESCAPE the snow, not find more LOL

One thing I love about coming to Payson is reading stuff I wrote when I was a kid and stuff, even if I read it last time I was here lol (dad put a box by my room that had school binders in it..pretty sure I had written on every inch of those things haha). I found a school journal entry that I have to share here:

Feelings about The Diary of Anne Frank: I learned that you should have a positive attitude no matter what situation you are in. Anne Frank always had a positive attitude. Even when she was in the concentration camps she never gave up hope that she would get out of there. While she was in hiding, she never gave up hope that they would go back to their normal lives. I think everyone needs to have a positive attitude like Anne Frank had

Wow..WOW. That's deep for a middle schooler!! I guess I got my positivity from Anne Frank then..there aren't enough "wows" in the world to describe how I felt after reading that..

( lastly, some pics! )

I came across this picture when looking through that other guy's pictures (Debenhem I think was his name). It was just captioned with "expedition member" and something about the penguin, but he looked an awfully lot like Cherry to me..I was comparing other pics of him to this one, but I still wasn't 100% sure, even though the shadow (beard?) on the side of his face was the same. Finally I just decided to Google "Apsley Cherry-Garrard skinning a penguin," and what do you know, it IS him!! OMG that made me squee so hard LOL. So happy!! *flails* I'm getting good at recognizing him ;)


Cherry's on the left holding the horse's face. Good thing this one was captioned, I was thrown off by the guy in the white jacket again haha!


This is actually the picture I was talking about that I hadn't seen before when I was watching that one documentary..I believe Cherry is in the back row, third from right


Awwww, the ship's cat had his own special hammock *squees some more* LOL

So I was inspired by this picture...:



...to take one of my own! That honestly took some courage, I don't really like taking my glasses off cause it freaks me out how bad my vision is haha (sometimes I'll even close my eyes if I have to for whatever reason). Also, WOW, I look WEIRD without glasses haha!! My face is naked!


Today at work I found a book on Antarctic explorers..there was a pic of Cherry in it, so I went up to Denise and was like "that's my guy!!" haha. She must have recognized him from my Facebook posts, because she was like "oh, Cherry-Garrard?" The book had his whole name, so I was like "yep, Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard!" and she nodded and empathetically (is that a word?) said "CHERRY" haha!
I also came across Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson when cleaning books, which mentions him a lot..yeahhh I was a bit distracted at work after that :P

Mom, Ryan and I are going to Payson in December and the beginning of January! Mom mentioned having Christmas with Aunt Cindy, which would be cool :)

( Day 6: Post a picture of you at a party/wedding/convention/organised social event )

Today's trivia: When a male penguin falls in love with female penguin, he searches the entire beach to find the perfect pebble to present to her (d'awww)

Yesterday we finally arrived at Payson. On the redeye flight to Seattle I watched American Sniper and on the flight to Phoenix I read, dozed and did a crossword. I do NOT like the airport at Phoenix..it seems outdated and disorganized. The drive to Payson is nice and interesting, though kinda painful when you're tired lol. The weather was beautiful, nice and sunny! We at at Chili's when we got to Payson and took a much needed nap when we got to the house and just relaxed online (mom said it was weird not having cats trying to crawl all over us haha). We recently switched to Verizon and got new phones, so the service is sooo much faster than the just Alaska company we had before. I can go online through the hotspot on mom's phone, and that is so much faster too. I'm glad I don't have to go to Safeway or the library for fast Internet lol

Today we had lunch, found a couple caches and stocked up on food. It's weird..in Alaska you open the outside door into an enclosed entrance before opening the door to go inside (it's to keep the cold air from getting inside). When we walked into the restaurant I was expecting to open another door before going inside, and it felt weird to just automatically be inside haha. Today is another nice day..I hope the sunsets are as nice as they were last time I was here!

1. What dehydrated foods (meant to be consumed that way) do you enjoy? Not sure..
2. What’s your favorite dish made by stuffing one food with another? Turkey and stuffing
3. What’s your favorite dish made by rolling something up? Burritos, etc
4. What’s a meal you frequently consume primarily because the cleanup is quick? Microwavable pasta and stuff
5. What’s a food that’s made much better because of what you sprinkle on it? Oatmeal

Next month mom and I are going to Payson for a couple weeks! Dana and her fiance Matt are going in December too, so she invited us to come if we wanted to (it's still so crazy to me that we bought a house in the town Matt's family lives in haha!). I haven't seen Dana in person in a few years, so it'll be cool to see her again and finally meet Matt. Yay!

( An album you hate by an artist you love )

The drive to Santa Fe yesterday was interesting..I LOVED driving on the Mogollon Rim..it's so pretty!! I loved the ponderosa pine trees. There was quite a bit of snow too. When you leave the Rim, the trees suddenly disappear and it gets pretty arid. But we drove through the Painted Desert and past the Petrified Forest..the red rocks were so pretty!! We also drove past an extinct volcano, which was cool. We ate lunch in Albuquerque (yikes! Too big cityish for me!), found a couple caches and continued the drive to Santa Fe (around 60 miles from Albuquerque). I think we found 11 caches in total! Most were on the Rim..it was lovely caching up there. Santa Fe is definitely more relaxed and nicer than ABQ. It was nice to see Cindy and Dean and their new dog Blanca and relax haha

Today we had breakfast and explored downtown Santa Fe. The architecture is really cool! I think the buildings are made of adobe. There are a bunch of shops there too..we looked in one and went to a couple churches..pretty! Cindy and Dean also went caching for the first time (their name is "chilipup" haha). One was in a hotel and you go up to the counter and ask about the cache and they bring it out to you..weird! I've never found a cache like that before haha. There's a certain area where Native Americans sell the things they've made (it's regulated, so they can't sell cheap knockoff stuff) and we checked that out. I'm wearing a Payson shirt, and they kept commenting on it haha! There was a LOT of jewelry, but I found a magnet and these cat things made out of clay or something. It's nice to support local artists. :) After that we found a couple more caches and walked to where Dean would pick us up (he went back home to check on Blanca). Well at that spot was a used bookstore!! I definitely had to go in haha. It was actually pretty nice and organized. I didn't have time to look at everything I wanted to, so I think I'm gonna go back. There was also a brochure with the used bookstores in Santa Fe, which is definitely useful haha. Then we went back to the house..tired haha

( here are the pics i've taken so far! )

Yesterday when I woke up it was SNOWING! Ahhhh..I came to escape the snow, not see more! Haha. It didn't last long though. We looked in a couple thrift shops (I was really looking for a bookstore, but there doesn't seem to be one just for books), saw Zane Grey's house, found a cache and stocked up on groceries. My room has a nice view, but it overlooks the airport, and at night the beacon shines through the curtains and onto the wall..so annoying! Haha

Today we went to the Tonto Natural Bridge. It's one of the largest natural travertine bridges in the world (travertine is a type of limestone). Some of the trails were closed cause they had a big snowstorm on Jan. 1st and excessive melting is going on. The bridge was pretty cool though..you could stand on top of it and then walk down to it. The trails were pretty steep, which made my lungs feel like they were on fire from the altitude when going uphill haha. After that we had lunch at the nearby town of Pine and found some caches, then drove back to Payson..we're using the wifi at Safeway haha. I can plug mom's phone into my computer and use it as a hotspot, but it's annoyingly slow. I'm glad there is a close easy place we can go online for awhile though :P