Now that's a weekend

The long Memorial day weekend has always been one of our favorites here at Mile 14. It signals the traditional start of summer, plant the garden safely without fear of frost and the first salmon arrive. Then you have car racing and Seattle Mariner Baseball and the birthday celebrations of people I love...makes for a great weekend. And of course it's not lost on me why we remember on this weekend.

Like most men who came of age in the 1940's my dad served in WW 2. He got a battlefield commission at the Battle of the Bulge serving in 'B' Company of the 325th Medical Battalion in the 100th Infantry Division. Earned himself a Silver Star and went on to serve 27 years and retiring as a Lt. Col....Here's a pic of a true hero with my mom on his way to war.

This Weekend we celebrated MP's birthday, shes's.........ah forget about that part. She's doing great and her sister Cathy and Husband Jim brought along their friend Ken from Montana to help celebrate. It's always cool to have guests from the 48 who kind of help us get re-excited about this place and our unique lifestyle. I took a pic at our morning walk on the river.

The b-day cake was Mint ice cream with mint Oreo's, oh baby. I started the weekend out 3 pounds smaller than I am today.

I don't have to tell Alaskan's that when our moose are calving they can get pretty aggressive in protecting the young. And as we built our town right in the middle of their calving grounds these cute little guys are everywhere. I took this pic on our walk and this mom of twins was busy and wasn't the least bit disturbed by us....but then about another 1/4 mile down the trail we come across a single female. She's off the trail and we don't see a calf so we decide to walk by her by about 25 or 30 yards. Well she puts her ears back which is always a bad sign and then we see her calf.....oh oh...She first went to the calf which separated us by another 25 or 30 yards and then turned and charged full speed right at us. I gotta hand it to MP, she looked like Carl Lewis leaving the blocks. We ran and the moose stopped within 10 feet of us and I have to say, my adrenaline ran strong the rest of the day. We waited a couple days to do that same walk again and came across the signs. I wonder who else had a close encounter.

So the Mariners lose 3 in a row to the Twins, who have the worst record in the American League.  And even with that weekend performance it's a wonder of all wonders that we're in 2nd place with one of the best records in Baseball....go figure, the Seattle Mariners a contender ? And at Indy which promised to be the fastest and most exciting 500 in a long time a rookie named Alexander Rossi won by using less gas than everyone else. I remember the great Dale Earnhardt after losing a race the same way saying " we might as well all be racing damn Honda Civic's ".

My youngest son Samuel John showed up for a High School reunion so we also had a chance to celebrate his birthday also. He's turned into a steady man and you know that's the highest compliment I have for anybody. Here's a pic of the three of us at the picnic me and MP were invited to, what an honor to be the only older folks. Of all the things we wanted  Sam to be he is those and more. What I never really didn't see I guess was the culture of music that he grew up with so I'll leave you with a minute of video of him jamming on that Stratocaster he lets me keep in the garage. Normally we'd do a duet but stupid me only had one operational jack in the house. For me there's nothing better, sharing home made music with Sam.

And I'm going fishing....So next week I'll have pics of magic, and maybe even a fish. As for our local Early King's, the counts are very encouraging so I wouldn't be a bit surprised if somebody somewhere who is in charge of all things fishy actually lets people fish for King Salmon in the Kenai River. For all of you who might stumble across this blog while looking for a guided fishing trip in June.... I think it's going to happen, the numbers over the sonar are the best in many years.