It's easy,

if I could be in two places at once you know where they'd be. Right here at Mile 14 and on the sandy beaches of Mazatlan of course. But life don't work that way so on Friday we jumped the jet and after a long 3 flights with a few close calls due to delays we arrived in Anchorage 14 hours later. I'm not a big fan of the flight experience so when our friend Chris offered to upgrade us it made a long day soooo much easier, thanks again buddy.  So we close the book on Mazatlan 2016 / 17....Party over from our new favorite eatery, Todos Santos on LaMarina Blvd next to the Soriana, all you guys in MZT need to get there.

We walked an hour our last morning. MP never missed a day with her girl friends and I go fish. But lately the fishing was so slow that we walked that morning and shared our thoughts . You can kinda tell she 's a ready to go home girl with a big smile . I turned and snapped this pic of her and our friend Linda Kolbo.

With about 4000 peso left over we decided to hit the airport early for a game of Scrabble and some airport food. We do this so routinely that we know the staff at our favorite place. So we pick our first 7 Scrabble tiles and MP has the first play and she's sniveling about here letters....yikes....who places a questionable word not once but twice and gets the 50 points for using all the tiles ? We've played a lot of Scrabble through the years but this deal was like hitting a inside the park home run. But I hunkered down and when we folded it up for the flight I was ahead...but not by much. Did you know that the word 'mismal' is a weather term and a cross between dismal and miserable ??? I didn't either until I started playing Scrabble with MP.

As we waited for our luggage at the Anchorage Airport I noticed something that all of our Alaska Board of Fisheries members either missed or more likely could care less about. These are all the local Chamber of Commerce Visitor Guides trying to sway an important segment of the Alaska economy to come to their towns and maybe.....fish.....sport fish....It looks like the B.O.F. meeting which ends today has been a real slap in the face to an important growth industry here in Alaska, tourism and sport fishing. With a tight grip on Alaska politics the commercial fisherman continue to not just keep the status quo but to also convince the decision makers that they need more and more and more fish...like they own them. Never mind that this is a non-growth industry and that they stand against all the rest of Alaska industry and continually  lobby against oil, logging, mining , tourism....Feeling the frustration of a B.O.F. meeting years ago my buddy Randy Berg leaned over to me and said " hell of a way to run a railroad ".....and it sure is.

Readers of Mile 14 might remember a pic I took at the Anchorage Airport  of a guy with a new scoop shovel flying home, Alaska is unique. So where else in the world does your commuter Airline have a spare prop waiting in terminal just in case it's needed....' we'll be about 20 minutes late with flight 21, gotta change the prop folks '...

So we get to Mile 14 and we need to move snow to get the car out of the garage. As I was doing it I realized I was really enjoying it, the privacy here, the clean and crisp air and the fact that I do everything myself like most Alaskans. What a place, when we left in November we were losing 5 minutes of daylight a day and now we're gaining that same 5 minutes back.  It's gorgeous here, it really is.

And how could you not feel at home and a part of small town Alaska when you get up the first morning and your newspaper is waiting without you having to call an 800 number and activate your subscription to an electronic voice. AND, it has this sticky note on it.....

This selfie didn't work out so good a few hours back on our first walk down the river but I want to print us together, happy and one day past our 39th wedding anniversary. To our Mazatlan friends we say thanks for everything, thanks for being you. And to our Alaska friends we say ' see ya around town, swing by for a song and a beer'.....we're back....

The Tuesday before we left we went to the Carnaval parade and this year the Floats were exceptional. I'll post pics in just a few days....no editorials mixed in, just cool Mardi Gras like pics....