Tuesday, January 2, 2018

JANUARY 2017



We began the year by hanging the photo cube mobile Ari made for us over our dining table.






Then we invited our neighbors, Stewart and Tina 
for a moose meat dinner



On 25 January Jack departed for his annual 6 weeks in Thailand. He was extra eager because Robin and Ari planned to visit him there for a week in February. Envious, Karen started trying to think of how to compensate herself.





FEBRUARY 2017


She came up with the perfect plan: spend two weeks in Costa Rica -- the first with college friend, Sandra, and the second visiting Seth in his mountain village. The latter would enable her to meet Seth's lady, Jessie, whom Jack had not yet been able to meet.


Sandra, Seth, and Karen on walking tour of Alajuela
After spending a night in Alajuela, Sandra and Karen drove a rental car to the west coast where they visited Manual Antonio Park and went on a whale watch --- no whale sightings but we got some ocean time. Back in Alajuela, Seth met us. After seeing Sandra to the airport, he accompanied Karen on the bus ride to Miramar. We stocked up on food for the week and took a taxi up to Seth's house in the cloud forest where Jessie waited. 


Jessie and Seth point out a bird as they process coffee beans.
Besides enjoying meeting Jessie, Karen got to help a bit with Seth and Jessie's harvest and processing of their organic coffee beans, observe lots of birds, and visit around the village.



Bagging up coffee beans for Karen to take home





Meanwhile, Jack enjoyed sharing Thailand with Robin & Ari. That included feeding and riding elephants and time on an island beach as well as lots of photo opportunities for Robin.




 


























MARCH 2017


If March went out like a lion, it was on very soft pads. Karen seems not to have documented much after her return from Costa Rica. Maybe life was just too quiet with Jack recently returned from Thailand? His jet lag was very pronounced and got us talking about whether the annual Thailand journey involved too much of a time change for him. We started thinking we might both spend some time in Costa Rica in early 2018 -- Jack for 4 to 6 weeks; Karen for a shorter visit. 


Late March involved us both in preparing for our 4 April flight back to Fairbanks.


APRIL 2017

As usual, our return to Fairbanks had us scrambling to catch up on our social life while preparing for Spring Tozi Time that we were planning for mid-May through mid-June.


We caught up with Jay and Nit by joining them for Easter Brunch at Pikes.


Jack, Nit, and Jay at Pikes after Easter Brunch

Jack, Karen, and Nit
























MAY 2017

We always feel honored when Seth arranges his return to his summer job at Toolik, a UAF research facility on the North Slope, so he can spend a night with us. We invited Jay over to share time with Seth who is one of our kids whom we did not teach to use a spoon, but who is always happy to help his elders with tech issues.








Spring thaw had brought the snow/ice pack from our roof in Fairbanks crashing down on the deck as usual.  What was not usual was a chunk that steered clear of Jack's carefully placed boards on the deck to break the impact. It busted through one corner of the deck railing which can be seen in the photo to the right.


You can also see Jack in the upper right of the photo taking a photo of another of our spring visitors, a hungry cow moose enjoying the fresh greens on the bushes in our yard.







Among our many preparations for Spring Tozi Time was the manufacture of an axle to replace the one that broke last fall on the trailer we depend on to haul our freight from the airstrip to our Tozi home. Our Tozi/Tanana/Fairbanks neighbor, Russ, helped us with the necessary welding.




On 24 May Jack flew commercial to Tanana where he was greeted by Tom, Barb, Stan, and Alex, giving him a chance to visit while waiting for Karen to fly to the Tozi and to send the plane to shuttle him out to join her. Tom flew out with him to spend time at his place downriver and give us a hand with some of our projects.




One of Jack's first chores once we got all the freight hauled on the not-yet-repaired trailer was to clean the 4-wheeler's carburetor so we could get the boat in the water.



















Success! It's the end of May and the carburetor's clean, the 4-wheeler runs, the boat's in the water. Now it's time to put that new axle on the trailer.





JUNE 2017


Oh, but we needed to get that tree off the roof at North Peaks camp which we plan to put back into use for guests. Tom came up to help with that. 








And then there was our 51st Funniversary for which Karen baked her first cheesecake. Tom also came up to help celebrate and partake of cheese cake.





On 15 June Jack finally got to work putting the new axle on the trailer. As he was doing that, a big wind came up and he heard a crash. After a while he turned around and realized a tall spruce had fallen onto the bear fence with its top a couple of feet from where he stood.


Spruce tree fallen on the bear fence

Jack was unaware the tree just about fell on him














The axle was finally in place on the trailer.
Deanna and Jack at The Tap House
We returned to Fairbanks on Summer Solstice and resumed what has become a Friday afternoon reunion with Trevor and Deanna and their GripAll crew. We meet at either HooDoo Brewery or The Tap House down town.









JULY 2017

We celebrated Independence Day at the GripAll shop with Deanna & Trevor & their family and co-workers; we enjoyed watching the kids at water activities on the gravel pit lake.

Trevor gives daughter Roxy and niece Lux a paddle board ride.

On 5 July we flew to Tanana to join the Fliris family and Tanana neighbors for a memorial for Bill, one of our earliest Tozi neighbors, at his former fish camp on the Yukon River. His two sons returned his cremains to the Yukon as his wife, daughters-in-law and granddaughter along with the occupants of several boats lashed together looked on.

Boats gather at fish camp
A final farewell to Bill












It was good to reconnect with Tozi/Tanana friends and neighbors from four decades at the picnic held at the fish camp.

Jack rode with Tom to fish camp
We are grateful to Tom and Lee for transportation and to Charlie and Ruth for letting us spend the night in their home.

Lee hauled us on his trailer to Charlie & Ruth's


Charlie and Ruth's home



We visited Pam's bench at Creamer's
In mid-July Mary visited from Anchorage. She and Karen spent time at the Georgsson Botanical Garden, took in a musical event of Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, and enjoyed walking around at Creamer's Field and downtown.


At Botanical Garden

Traditional photo with "First Family"
Robin has decided to build on the Tozi! We are thrilled at the prospect of our dream enduring. No log cabin in the woods for Robin, however, (Been there, done that?). No chainsaw milled lumber, either. He purchased a band sawmill that was delivered to our garage in Fairbanks  on 25 July.


Backing into driveway

Approaching garage



1150 lb. package revealed



The plan was for Jack to unpack the mill, assemble it, try it out, disassemble it, and get it to the airport in time for our anticipated Fall Tozi Time in August. Trevor had offered to help with all that which was a great blessing. He even brought over a birch log for sawing the first board. 


AUGUST 2017


Once again, Seth was in town for R & R when we were there, overlapping by a day with Robin and Ari's arrival. Robin plywood to package for shipment to the Tozi via Tanana. Seth helped with that. 



Later Trevor joined us for a pizza send off, providing a photo op that Karen likes to call "My Three Sons."


Robin, Karen, Trevor & Seth


Ari's ready to go
Robin, Jack, Ari, and Karen departed Fairbanks on 17 August for Tozi. Jack and Robin flew commercial to Tanana to await a shuttle of the plane that flew Ari and Karen directly to Tozi.












Strapping young man removes fallen tree from trail
Sometimes getting from the airstrip to the house entails challenges that make it handy to have a strapping young man along to remove obstacles from across the trail and to figure out how to get the load back on the trailer that dumps when the 4-wheeler driver who will not be named tries to negotiate a bump in the trail at high speed.


Umm?


Almost back in business
19 August Dale Erickson showed up in his hovercraft with daughter, Steevie, a friend from Anchorage, and dog, Tucker. 

Robin, Jack, and Dale
We've hoped Robin would get to meet the Ericksons who own the store in Tanana and were an immense help in receiving and storing freight for the several shuttles required to get the sawmill, all of Robin's plywood, and other supplies out for the fall trip.
On 21 August the charter with 750 lb of sawmill arrived. We have 4+ minutes of video not included here showing Robin, Jack and pilot, Bob, carefully extracting it from the heliocourier onto the back of the 4-wheeler. Robin drove it to the site he'd selected for it while the plane shuttled to Tanana to pick up his colleague Andrew, neighbor, Tom, and the rest of the mill.

Moving main mill part from plane to 4-wheeler

Heading to its new home
Over the next two weeks the guys would assemble the mill and get a start on sawing lumber for Robin's Tozi house
Meanwhile, Ari perfected her bush life skills including, but not limited to

Archery

Pie-baking

Wood-splitting

Fishing
That's a 6lb. pike she played perfectly and then glided into Jack's net, fulfilling the prophecy of the Lego figure with which she presented us on her arrival in Fairbanks:

L to R: fish on Ari's line, Grandma, Dad in center wearing a pack, Grandpa driving the boat



SEPTEMBER 2017





3 September was departure day for Robin, Ari, Andrew, and Tom. 

Jack, Ari, and Robin at the site where Robin plans to build.

Robin and crew: Andrew, Robin, Tom


Time to go back to NY and school

And they're off!







Robin and Andrew had put up an extension to the retaining wall we'd constructed last year. We were left to finish attaching the geofabric and fortifying the wall with rocks collected from the gravel bar. 

Retaining wall extension
Rocks, rocks, and more rocks

Geofabric and rocks in place




Happy Birthday, Jack!
With our departure scheduled for  the day after Jack's birthday, we decided to celebrate the weekend of the 16th-17th -- a good decision as the weather turned rainy on the 18th. 



We had one last campfire on the riverbank and enjoyed Tozi TV.

Downriver Tozi TV
Wishing Robin's sawmill a good winter

Waiting for our charter on 19 September, we added some foam padding and a second tarp to the covering of the sawmill, hoping no trees fall on it. Robin plans to build an open air shed over the mill next year.














Our return to Fairbanks allowed us to spend a little more time with Seth on his last R & R of the summer season and see him off for his winter season in Costa Rica where we hope to visit him and Jessie in February 2018. 
We also managed to FINALLY, after many years of missing Gordon and Sara as they passed through Fairbanks between their camp at Stampede and their home in Juneau, manage to meet them for lunch and to see them off at the airport. We hope to continue coordinating our schedules to see them at least once a year in the future.




OCTOBER 2017



We always try to celebrate Jack's and Jay's same year birthdays with the Worleys. On 20 October we shared a meal at The Thai House and then wandered over to McCafferty's coffee house where the musicians always pass out bubble stuff and play "Tiny Bubbles" when there's a kid present. (And where Karen learned how difficult it is to photograph soap bubbles!)




Silas, Aaron, and Erin at The Thai House

Nit and Jay at The Thai House

The birthday boys enjoyed the bubbles at McCafferty's.


NOVEMBER 2017


A common criticism of holiday newsletters is that they are full of the year's happy times and accomplishments and skip the hardships. Our letter has never been accused of that. We've had some bright spots at the end of this year, but we're inclined to view November and December as "the season of our discontent." We are grieving some losses.



  IN MEMORIAM


Phil Campbell
In late October we learned our son-in-law, Kim's awesome partner of many years and husband of the past four, was in ICU with serious head and other injuries as a result of a beating. We flew to Arizona 6 November and on the 7th Jack received word that Phil was to be taken off life support. He boarded a flight to St. Louis that night and spent the next ten days supporting Kim through this dark time.









     
Dianne Blume Bell

We had known for some time that Jack's youngest sister and Kim's godmother, Dianne, was in hospice care. Barely a week after Phil's death, she also died. By that time we had arrived in Florida to spend Thanksgiving week with Robin & family and Jack's family graciously gave him a pass on Dianne's funeral.

            


We are grateful to all those in St. Louis and elsewhere who have provided support, expressed their condolences, and, in Phil's case, contributed to an online site to help with expenses. 













We spent a week at Thanksgiving with Robin, Meg, and Ari on Captiva Island on Florida's west coast near Fort Myers, enjoying a welcome respite from a challenging autumn. In the past the kids have braved holiday traffic and airline hassles to divide their holiday time at Christmas and New Year's between Meg's and Robin's sides of their families. This year we agreed a week at Thanksgiving with us would enable them to spend Christmas-New Year's week in Connecticut with family there.

That turned out to be fortuitous for us as we, as we'll tell later, had "other fish to fry" at Christmas time. Meanwhile, we enjoyed the ocean, the spacious condo & pool, and the birds for which Captiva and Sanibel islands are known as well as Thanksgiving dinner with Meg's uncle Gordon and Aunt Cindy and family in Ft. Myers. 


Robin and Ari spent several mornings "shelling" as it seems these islands are also known for the ubiquity and variety of shells washed up by the tides. Ari seems to have never met a beach she didn't love. A pool will do for a change. She's a water rat like her dad.


















Meg and Robin are officially residents of Hamilton, NY, home of Colgate University where Meg is visiting faculty in economics. Robin continues to commute and telecommute between Albuquerque, Hamilton, and wherever his position as principal scientist at Sandia National Labs takes him. He accumulates a lot of air miles.




Ari is in the fourth grade in Hamilton where the elementary school encourages students to play a musical instrument. She has added the trombone to the viola she started last year. We miss the drive between Sun City and Albuquerque that allowed us to enjoy so much of her time, but are happy to see her on the Tozi each fall with her Dad and enjoyed spending Thanksgiving with her and her folks.



DECEMBER 2017

Arriving back in Sun City, where temps have averaged 10 degrees above normal this season, we settled into what we expected to be an uneventful, but relaxing, holiday season. We put out some Christmas decor, baked some cookies to distribute to neighbors. Jack made some chocolate candy without help from Ari, and we got off a few gifts to the kids in NY.

On 14 December we were about to have shrimp & scallop brochette  as pictured below


when we received a call from our friend, Brian, who is staying in our house, telling us he'd returned home from work to find our house had been burglarized. Once the Alaska State Troopers and State Farm had been notified, we started to consider which of us would be best to make a quick trip to Fairbanks to assess our losses. There had been little damage to the house other than a broken hydraulic door closer; thieves seemed rather focused in what they wanted -- guns, furs, Jack's mineral collection, ivory pieces.

Once again, "we took a vote and Jack voted twice." Karen scheduled herself for flights to and from Fairbanks for Christmas weekend and got to witness how pretty frosted Fairbanks can be in winter. Jay and kids, Trevor, and Brian all made the trip as pleasant a social event as it could be given her assignment. Sleep deprivation and spending time on four airplanes in three days resulted in Karen bringing home a cold she shared with Jack.



We canceled scheduled social events for New Year's weekend, including bridge with Deanne and John, and dinner/visit to botanical gardens with Randi and Bill. Instead we stayed in our jammies all weekend, watched the ball drop on TV, and toasted with Randi's recommended Prosecco. New Year's morning we had Jack's "heart attack eggnog" for breakfast. Sweet!


We remind ourselves that the bulk of this year has been filled with blessings and fun adventures with family and friends and that so many people world-wide and within our own social circle have traumas and hardships more than what we've experienced during this "season of our discontent."



On that note, we wish a HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND PEACEFUL 2018 TO all who have made it through this newsletter. We hope to visit with and hear from many of you in the coming year.