Break - up , break - out , Break a leg

Well the editorial staff here at Mile 14 hasn't got any of those three things going on. The traditional Alaska break-up is late, we'd love to break out of the house but we can't and with all this ice you gotta be damn careful to not break your leg...just like Mexico when we do our daily walks you spend the entire walk looking down so you don't hurt yourself, the good news is that when you look down you find things like a nice pocket knife the other day. In Mexico  this season I found a nice bracelet, a cell phone ( which I got returned tot he owner ) car keys ( which I got back to the owner ) and a couple years ago I found 2 american C notes, yahtzee.  Here's pic of MP on our walk yesterday so you non Alaskans can see what we're up against snow wise.

We walked 8000 steps which was an hour and 15 minutes. Of course we talked about what everybody is talking about so we take our good cheer whenever we can find it, Soldotna's most cheerful fire hydrant.

My friend Dan sent a picture of the river open and flowing below his house 20 miles upriver from us. Usually when the river ' goes out ' we wake up to the sound of Ducks and Seagulls but like everything now days, 2020 is acting different. It's moving our way and the open leads we're seeing are sort of news but by jiminy it's open water and we'll take it.

With break up also comes clean up. The roads are sanded so often that tons and tons of it has to be collected. The street sweepers kick up dust that's just horrible and until the job is done just the everyday traffic creates a dust storm, it's one of my least favorite things around here... tree hugger alert ...  there's got to be a better way , look at all of this that ends up in the River we all love under the bridge in Soldotna.

The first week of December 2001 Toby Keith was in Alaska and added a show at the Kenai Auditorium. He was new on the scene and just had the red album, Dream Walking out. We were on our way to Las Vegas as we routinely went to the National Finals Rodeo to watch  Country music acts so we bought cheap seats on the balcony and listened to Toby... he was great and played this song for all of us that were experiencing post 9 / 11 . I think it stands up today.

Today is the day after we got the news. People like me all over the USA are playing John Prine songs one way or another, here's mine.....damn.