The path not taken... #1

 The snow is finally gone.  There was a little mound of snow in front of the front door as little as two weeks ago.  The grass is beginning to pop out and turn green.  The birch trees turned green with leaves a couple of weeks ago, too.  They go from bare to green overnight on one particular day.  It is greening up day.  Kate told me the day it would happen.  The trees turned green for them one day before they popped here.

Mother's Day weekend, I had asked Rob and Kate to take me on a tour of the houses. These were the homes that they had looked at during the house search for my new home.  We had talked about it before COVID interfered.  Last summer we were mostly in lockdown.  We did not get together much at all during the summer and when we did it was quick in and out visits.

Rob and Kate were in town for several events.  I had hoped to spend Mother's Day doing the drive around, but Kate thought it better to tack it on at the end of their long day, so that is what we did.  Rob did not have a chance to make a plan for which houses to look at, but we managed to hit some of the ones that we had liked and that we considered seriously, so I was happy.  I am still hoping that we can make another trip or two to see others.  These were all in and around the center of Fairbanks and out to the area where I did end up living.

The first home we drove to was the split foyer house that they had put a bid on.  This is the one that they backed out of the contract once the Inspection was complete.  I had my camera with me, but the new owners were sitting outside in the driveway and I did not even attempt to take pictures.

This is one of several 2-story houses that they checked out.  Rob had started the search trying to find a single-story home so I would not have to deal with steps.  We will see a couple of these in the other photos.  

This house that they finally bought is going to be the house that they move into when enough time passes (they have a timeline in mind) or when health issues might dictate a move earlier.  So the house had to be large enough to accommodate my craft and fabric stash as well as my Happy embroidery machine.  In addition, it had to be suited for all three of us to be under the same roof without being in each other's way.  The house above was one of the first 2-story homes they investigated.  It did not make the cut!!

This is the only house that was actually located in downtown Fairbanks. This house was the biggest one by square feet.  It was also the most interesting.  Rob liked it because it had solar panels so the cost to run the house would have been less.  The house was big enough that we could have lived in it... all of us... and would never have crossed paths for days.  This house had nooks and crannies, stairs, and odd rooms in different places.  The lower floor that you see in the stone was a section of the house that could have been an office and a storefront.  It was accessed by going through the garage from the main house.  The master bedroom was on the top floor.  It was huge.  There was a small kitchen-like area, a glassed-in porch where there would be lots of room for sewing machines and light to make sewing easy.  There were a couple of other bedrooms.  The kitchen had been redone and the living room had lots and lots of places to have books.  I think this house had started as something smaller and over the years had additions added.  It was unique and I thought it would have been an interesting place to live.  It did not sell until after we had settled on the current house, so it was always on my list.

A view at the other side.  It was a corner lot but there was no yard for the dogs.  And the steps would have been difficult for Winston.  The dogs could have gotten lost in this house easily.

The light-colored house is one side of a duplex that the Realtor thought we might like.  It was on one of the sloughs so it was considered waterfront.  The unit they looked at was on the other side of the trees.  There was a fenced-in yard but I could see the dogs getting into trouble all of the time because of the water.

Rob moved up past the trees.  The street dead-ended right beyond the duplex.  The garage on the left would have been mine and the entrance to the house was on the side inside the fence.  It had enough bedrooms, but all of the sewing stuff would have been in the living area.  It would have driven Kate crazy and there would have been no room for Happy or my quilt frame!

This is another duplex that was on our list.  The entire inside had been redecorated and it was lovely.  There was a loft.  The great room could have held sewing and maybe the quilt frame, but not Happy.  We have no idea why there was a dividing beam on the roof.  The yard would have worked for the dogs.  But there was just something that did not suit us, so we kept looking.  I think this may have been the last one where we concentrated on single-story homes.

There are still some other ones that I want to see.  An A-frame that I liked but Rob thought it was too remote as well as others.  So there should be another drive around later during the summer.  But based on what I saw, I think that this house that I am now in was the perfect fit!!!

A fire and memories...

 Saturday I woke up to a text message from Sharon DiNardo.  Obviously, she was at Indian Acres for the weekend.  There had been a fire in the park that she thought might interest me.

For those of you who do not know, my late husband, Rudy, and I had a "place" at Indian Acres from 1993 until I sold it in 2012 after he died.  It is a campground... with the difference that instead of renting a site, you actually own your lot(s).  We had started out with 2 lots, then added one more to give us a big corner lot.  A few years later, we added the two behind us giving us a really spacious area with a covered concrete pad to store our boat and became a wonderful area where we hosted several big parties every year on holiday weekends that often had as many as 100+ people coming and going, eating, drinking, chatting, playing horseshoes, and many, many games of cornhole.  At many of the parties, we had a DJ, adding dancing and "singing" to the fun.  There was always a congregation of golf carts surrounding the back lots with lookers and partiers coming and going all night long.

When I sold the place, I sold the front three lots to one family and the back two lots to a good friend with other lots across the street from the back lots.  He eventually sold those lots to someone else, who kept the covered pad to keep his boat and placed his trailer along the long side of the lot.

Sharon's news was accompanied by a picture.  Late Friday night there had been a fire on the back two lots.  A car, boat, and cover structure had burned.  That fire had caused the siding on the house structure that Rudy had lovingly built around our trailer giving us a two-bedroom bungalow to melt!

The structure on the left is the bungalow that Rudy built.  The car is obviously burned, the other damage is not as noticeable.  It was so sad to see a place that had brought so much fun and loving memories in my life so damaged.

Later in the day, I got a Facebook message from another Indian Acres friend, Anna Marie Leonetti-Gorman, along with more information and pictures.  The talk around the park is that the couple who owns the back two lots had been having an argument that night.  Here are a couple of pictures that she sent showing a bit more detail on the fire.  It is under investigation as a suspected arson!

Cudos to the Cecilton Fire Department for preventing the back of the bungalow from catching fire as well.  Rudy would have been so sad to see this.

They also kept the propane tanks from exploding.  Not sure what was behind the car, but it certainly is worse for the wear.  Had to be quite a hot fire to actually burn the ground!!!

As sad as this was to look at, it brought back almost 20 years of good friends, good times, great food, adventures fishing, and crabbing, days on Ordinary Point enjoying the sun and cooking burgers on the beach, crabbing with either traps or trout lines, my precious Red Hat ladies, crafting and sewing with friends, and parties, parties, pig roasts, and parties!  I will remember those days fondly until the day I die... and beyond!

May 3, 2021 Snow Pictures

 Yes indeed, it is May in Fairbanks and I still have some snow on the ground.  We had snowfall here on the 30th of April.  I had a dusting, but areas all around me had as much as a couple of inches.  It has all since melted since we are getting springlike sun and temps during the day.

And, speaking of days of light, today (May 4th) these are the stats for the sun's activity:  

Sunrise Today:	5:05 am↑ 47° Northeast
Sunset Today:	10:32 pm↑ 314° Northwest

We are officially no longer having night!  I took Miles out last night just before going to bed a little before 11:00 PM and I had no trouble seeing around my area without any extra light.

In the meantime, here is the progress on my snow melting...

Looking towards the front door, the mounds of snow are coming down.  The deck and steps are no clear and dry.  There is a small patch still in this section of the driveway, but it was really hardpacked and what you are seeing is more ice than snow.  Rob and I will sometimes take a shovel to the edge and chop off chunks to facilitate melting.  It should be gone in a couple of warm days.  This area is also the first section to go into shadow in the morning, so the heat of the sun does not hit it for a long time, as you can see.

The fence rails are now free of the snow on the driveway side.  The yard side is still quite mounded.  There is still a lot of melting happening in my front yard.

The driveway is clear.  Now that I have my summer tires on, driving on this cleared surface is much quieter.  It is amazing how loud studded tires are on dry pavement.

Still ponding on the left side.  Over the weekend, Rob was here and did some new placement for the pump.  He dug a deeper hole for the pump to sit in.  It will allow for more clearing of the water from the land.  Standing water around here breeds our "state bird", the mosquito.

A closeup at the melting area.  This is the area that Miles will use this summer as his potty spot.  I may put down some grass seed to fill it in for him.  Everything over there now is pretty much a swampy mess of drowned weeds.

Every day, our Alaska summer gets closer and closer.

April 25, 2021 Snow Pictures...

 First of all... Happy Birthday to my brother, Andy Lepp.  He was having a busy day working in the flower gardens in front of his house.  His birthday dinner will be coming from Texas Roadhouse.  Sounds yummy to me.  Hope it was a great day, Andy!

It has been several days of not taking my snow pictures.  It cooled down to where there was little noticeable melting happening.  Today it is back in the '50s so I have some new pictures.

So, the front steps to the front door.  The fence rails are getting cleared but there is still a small patch of hardpack in front of my garage door.

Looking up the driveway, almost all of the second rails on our fence are now visible from this view... from the house, not so much!

Looking along the other side of the driveway.  Notice the small dark area peeking out from the snow up at the curve. It is part of one of our raised flower beds.  In November, when the first big snow happened, my very kind neighbor had his plow driver clear the top part of the driveway.  The driver pushed a tad too far and clipped one of the raised beds that the previous owners had left behind.  We will not see which one and how badly it was damaged.  It will match the broken fence on the other side where a road grader backed into the fence during hardpack removal just a couple of weeks ago.

This is the area where the melting snow forms the pond.  The little Water Bug pump has been preventing the water from getting out of control.

A closeup of the pump setup.  The snow has melted enough that the PVC pipe is no longer pushed through the snowbank but now rests on the bottom rail of the fence.  It took Rob a good while last year to set up his monitoring system so he can view conditions from his home.  Over the past summer and winter, he refined his device and has been tweaking it every time he comes to visit.  I bring the pump in every night as it still gets below freezing and then in the morning, I put the pump back out in the middle of the pond.  Just keeping a known source of water from getting into the garage.

These pictures were taken at 1:45 PM.

Copy Me That....

 I am a foodie!  My mother was a spectacular cook and she taught me to always try fun and new foods.  For the most part, I have never dismissed a food without trying it first.  And there is not much that I have not found good enough to eat... except maybe liver and onions...

One of my favorite things to do online is to cruise recipe sites for new and interesting recipes to create dishes, sides, desserts, etc. to try in order to please my palette.  I found many interesting things on FaceBook and when I am faced with preparing a dish to take to a potluck, I will look through my old recipes or search for things on the Internet to try out or take with me.

Years ago I used to use a recipe program that I purchased.  It made it very easy to copy and paste recipes that I found on the Internet.  Living Cookbook allowed me to copy and paste into the different sections of the proram which saved me lots and lots of time from trying to type them into a form!  The last update was in 2013 and then it appeared as though the company went belly up.  No updates have been made and no customer service exists.  If any of the Windows updates makes the current version unuseable I would lose a lot of recipes.  I should start moving the more important ones to the new program.

So which program am I using now??  Glad that you asked.  It is more of an extension that is loaded on my browser than an actual program.  It is called "Copy Me That" and it makes adding a recipe into a cookbook file just for you and saving it out on the Cloud as easy as counting 1, 2, 3!!!

I have been copying recipes to Copy Me That for quite some time.  At this point, I have close to 1,800 recipes in My Recipes.  I can get to them from my computer, or on the app from my cell phone or IPad as long as I have an internet connection or my phone is on a network.  I can print them out from my computer to cook them and then if I make adjustments, I can add my different ingredients or procedures or times so I can recreate those same results.

Most online recipes are really easy to add to your cookbook.  When you find a recipe that you want to add, scroll down through the normal step-by-step instructions, and usually toward the bottom you should come across the actual, condensed version of the recipe like it has been in a cookbook.  If you find the recipe in that form, then all you need to do is click on the little icon that will appear in the area beyond the written address line and the program will take all of the information... and a picture if there is one... and create a beautiful recipe page.  The 1st draft will allow you to click on each line that is selected to add.  If the program has picked up a line that you do not want, then you can unclick it so it will not be copied. 

You save the parts that you have clicked and look at what you have.  If there are parts of the original recipe that you want to add, you can click the Edit (Pencil) icon and it will reopen the entire recipe for changes, either to what has been saved or adding things like a description or including notes that the original save did not catch.  You can also add your own information.

And as long as the recipe is in your file, you can keep adding and deleting.  You can even take pictures of the dish that you create and add them to the recipe.

If the recipe is included in a FaceBook post, it will still copy the recipe.  All you have to do is highlight one of the ingredients and then click the Copy Me That icon and it will still create a recipe.  If the system cannot make a recipe, it will give you instructions on how to make it work.

When you bring up your recipes you will see pictures of the dish and the title so you can decide what you want to make.

There is a free version that is fairly robust.  It gives you a chance to play with it and see if you like it.  There is a premium version that gives you full use of all of the many extras. And the cost of the Premium version is only $25 for a lifetime!!

So, now you know my secret for finding and keeping recipes.  I hope you will give it a try.  I think you will find it fun and easy to use.  Let me know when you get more than 1,800 recipes in yours.

BTW, you can delete the ones that do not work out or when you find you have seventeen recipes for macaroni and cheese!!

April 20, 2021 Snow Pictures...

 Today was a busy day for me.  I was out and went to the local Petco store to make an appointment for Miles to go get his nails clipped.  It has been quite a while and he is beginning to get his sharp, long nails caught in the carpet.  His appointment is tomorrow afternoon, so he should be doing so much better walking after that.

Then I headed to Alaska Industrial Hardware to find some rain/mud boots.  I have been using Rob's to walk into the puddles to set up and remove the water pump.  They had a nice selection and I was able to find some nice boots for my needs.  Rob's are much heavier, but out where he and Kate live, he needs boots to deal with more puddles and muck.  I also found a floor jack so that it will hopefully be easier to remove the tires on my car when we do the tire swap.  It was not what I had gone in to buy, but they were next to the boots, so as I waited for the salesman to find my size in the back room, I noted the jack and my salesman helped me to pick out the right one for the job.  Hopefully, it will be easier than the tiny bottle jack we used last fall.

The last stop was at Fred's for groceries.  I had made a list in the Fred's app and it made things so easier to find stuff.  I just had to put in the things on my shopping list and it ordered the list by the aisle where things could be found.

The weather today was a little cooler than the weekend weather had been so there was not nearly the melting happening.  The changes were less noticeable.

These pictures were taken around 3:00 PM after I finished my errands.  Some changes but nothing major.

Again, not much of a change.  Still have the snow hardpack in front of my side of the garage.  The car coming in and out all winter packs this stuff down more than the rest.  That plus it gets shady here first... it will take longer.

A tad more was melted.  I am just happy that it never got big enough to flood the garage.

The pump has really been doing a nice job of keeping up with the melting snow.  When I put the pump back out this morning, the bottom of the pump could not be seen.  At the time the picture was taken you can see the bottom and areas where the grass is above the water.  The snow melting slower might also help the water level staying lower.

See you tomorrow!!

April 19, 2021 Snow Pictures...

 This has been an odd day for me.  I had a fairly restless night, I slept initially and then I woke up around 4:30 AM and could not close my eyes.  I finally turned off the alarm system, got up... put Miles out, fed him, and crashed.

I felt like I was walking in a fog.  So as Miles was eating his breakfast, I laid down and woke up to find it was almost 11:30 AM.

To say my day was shot at that point was an understatement.  The bad thing is I am still feeling fatigued.  I know that COVID has a fog brain component, so I am suspecting this may be a side effect of the vaccine. But by the same token, the two previous nights were also tossing and turning nights, so this morning may just be my body catching up.

I did finally go outside and took my daily pictures of the"Breakup" that is going on here in my little part of Alaska.

In picture 1 of 6, you can almost see the entire fence that is next to the garage.  And the snow inside the area in front of my bedroom window (the big window on the right) has shrunk so you can now see the entire rail around the front of the little deck.  It was almost completely hidden in the first picture.

In picture 2 of 6, the big ice patch in front of the garage door is all that is left on the driveway that I can see.  The next time Rob comes to the house, we will do the tire swap from studded to all weather.

In picture 3 of 6, you can see the top rail of the fence all the way down the driveway.  This is exciting!

Picture 4 of 6... This is the snow that is still piled up on the left side of the driveway.  With temperatures in the '50s during the day, these piles should be gone in no time.

Picture 5 of 6 shows the trouble area as far as our breakup goes.  Since the temps get well below freezing at night, I have to go outside, shut off the pump, disconnect the hose on the top, and unplug the pump so I can bring it into the garage for the night to keep things inside the pump from freezing.  Then in the morning I go back out and reattach the hose and plug it back in, and turn it back on to keep the puddle from growing to flood into the garage.

Picture 6 of 6 shows the close-up of the little yellow pump (in the shade so hard to see). The snow along the fence line behind is melting quickly.  Another couple of days in the '50s and the PVC pipe may be laying on top of the snow pile instead of being pushed through the pile.

See you tomorrow!!

April 18, 2021 Snow Pictures

 So, I am catching up on my daily blog of snow melting.  Is it an interesting thing to do or do you feel like it is watching paint dry?  This is only the 6th daily blog since I started the process and I think it has really begun to melt away and allow for our spring to begin.  Today was in the '50s and tomorrow promises to reach the 60-degree level.  I may have to break out my shorts!

These pictures were taken twice today.  The first time I did not realize that the SD card was still plugged in my computer.  So these are the second set, taken around 2:45 PM ADT.

Today I took 5 pictures.  This one is toward my front door.  The step tunnel is shrinking.  The steps are no longer covered with snowpack, although down on the stone steps there are still some icy areas along the outside edges.

This is straight out the driveway.  The bare spots on the asphalt are becoming larger.  During the day, if a car comes in and out, it is helping to break up the hard-packed snow.  I only have about a tad less than 2 weeks before my studded tires are required to come off.  My subdivision has had the hard-pack removed, so those roads are back to asphalt and all of the main roads outside have gotten back down to the asphalt, so when my driveway is no longer ice, the tires can come off.

This is one of the extra shots  You can get a better view of the melting going on.

This looks past the second garage door.  The mounds of melting snow are melting nicely in the sunshine which is actually producing heat now.  It does not always do that when the angle is so close to our horizon.

This is a close-up of the pumping setup.  The little yellow thing is the "Water Bug" pump.  The intake is on the bottom.  You can add a hose either to the top (where our hose is connected) or the side near the bottom.  Rob tells me the entire pump can be submerged.  He has dug a small hole underneath the pump so the floating grass and debris do not clog the intake area.  It is really doing a nice job of keeping the melting water at bay, otherwise, the water would be all along the front of the garage pushing inside and the outside corner would have water all long the storage shelves and anything underneath the shelves on the garage floor would be wet.  No good for the long-term health of the garage.

See you again tomorrow!!!

Good News... the sun is now out longer!!

 We are now out of the darkness and into the light.  We have been seeing daylight pretty much as the rest of you enjoy in the lower 48 states.  It is wonderful.  I do not mind the darkness.  Some people cannot tolerate it, but I find it gives me a sense of peace and calm.  Plus, I can pretty much go to bed at any time and fall asleep because my brain knows that it is dark.  But at my age, it is not a guarantee of a good night's sleep, but that is for another blog.

Today, April 18, 2021, we will have Daylight, 6:03 am to 9:39 pm for a total of 15 hours, 36 minutes.  There is a website called timeanddate.com that allows you to map out all of the daily variables in your day for days and nights based on your location.  I was going to try to get you a picture to insert into my blog, but it is too interactive to allow that to happen.

But you can see your individual days and times for different solar events and you can also see the entire year at a glance.  By June 21st, our glimpse is nothing but daylight.  So in another 2 months, we will be at the other end of the total darkness to total daylight.

I will be taking a class next weekend on how to grow tomatoes in Fairbanks.  I am gathering it is not as simple as putting a plant into the ground and making sure it has water.  The long days are not kind to tomato growing.  I will let you know what I learn... once I learn it.  I will be getting a tomato plant on May 1st so I can try to grow tomatoes here in Fairbanks.  Wish me luck as I really missed not having a tomato plant to make bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches using really freshly picked tomatoes.

April 17, 2021 Snow Pictures...

 Here are the pictures for Saturday.  Rob and Kate had come into town to pick up the order from the Russian Bakery.  My freezer is now full of lovely delights from the Seattle-based bakery.  Rob and Kate will take home the items they want to try any time they come to town.  They remained in town as we were having our first in-person Dungeons and Dragons night since our first lockdown in March 2020.  It was amazing and yet scary to be in the same room as other people without masks.  We had all been fully vaccinated so we felt comfortable with the seven of us getting together again.

I took pictures of the driveway melting progress just before we prepared to go over for our D and D dinner and gaming night, so it is a few hours later than the normal mid-day pictures of the last several posts.

The tunnel continues to get smaller and smaller.  The bottom rail of the fence closest to the house is finally becoming visible and the top rail to the left is beginning to show.  Actually, all around the fenced part of the yard, little sections of the top rail are revealing themselves.

The left side of the driveway is becoming more uncovered.  There are pronounced puddles in the driveway area that freeze during the night when the temps get down into the '20s, but during the days it gets up into the '50s.  You can also see much more of the top rail on the right side.

This is the flood control area next to the garage.  The two sawhorses are keeping the hose up out of the water and giving a more level run into the tube and out beyond the fence.  Rob brought over a little electronic monitoring device that he created that will help the pump self-govern itself when the water gets too low for the pump to operate or to stop when the temps near freezing.  He spent most of the day working on tweaking the settings.  But this year we did not have any of the floodings into the garage we experienced last year as we knew what was going to be happening and got set up before it could happen.

I will update today's progress in a post later today.

April 16, 2021 Snow Pictures...

 I did not get this posted yesterday, but I did get the pictures.

Every day, more and more fence is showing and the step tunnel gets smaller and smaller.

Every day there is more and more driveway!!

And the pond is ever-growing!!

Rob came over today to set up the pump in the gathering water.  You can see the hose and some supplies.  He is already running the extension cord and preparing some PVC pipe to help run the hose through the snow that is still piled up along the fence.

A closeup of the pond.  Left un-pumped, the water would end up in the garage.

The gray pipe is the pipe that will go through the snow so the hose can go to the other side of the fence to dump the water into a ditch!!!

April 15, 2021 Snow Pictures...

Another sunny day in Fairbanks, AK.  It is 1:35 PM and the outside temperature is 49 degrees.

Yesterday there was a continual dripping from the snow melting on the roof.  Miles did not like going out because the drips would hit him going out and then coming back in.  But it was a nice sound to me... indicating that the spring breakup season was in full force.  The forecast has temps getting up towards 60 degrees on the weekend and staying in the mid-'40s and 50's the rest of the time for the next two-week period.

Today, you can clearly see a difference in the amount of rail fencing that is becoming visible.

The amount of driveway and grass (even though it is not green) is increasing as the smaller depth of snow melts.  The main driveway still has the hardpack on top.  This is a hard and very condensed amount of snow that has become like rock.  Now it is also slick across the top as the melting refreezes at night when the temp goes below freezing.  Thank goodness my car will have studded tires for the next week or so!

This area is showing signs of melting and the start of flooding.  The shiny section at the base of the snow just below the fencing is the ponding that has begun.  Soon I will have to have a pump sitting in the water and pumping the water over the fence that you see into the ditch in the natural foliage behind the fence.  Once it is dry, it will be where Miles will be spending his time, enjoying the outside in the summer.

Pop-ups in Alaska...

One of the things that I have found in Fairbanks is that while it is the 2nd largest city in the state, there are many, many things that it does not have that I was quite used to in the lower 48.

Shopping-wise, there is not nearly the abundance of nationwide stores that one would think would be everywhere.

There is 1 Walmart Supercenter.

There are 2 grocery stores.  Fred Meyer is from the Kroger chain.  And there is a Safeway which is from the Albertsons Company.

There is 1 Joanns.

There is 1 Michaels.  No A. C. Moore, no Hobby Lobby.

There is 1 Barnes and Noble.

There is 1 Ulta.

There is 1 Home Depot and 1 Lowes and they are in the same general area so getting something from one and then going to the other is quite easy.  There is a local Building Supply store, Spenard's, but their roof collapsed in the last dump of snow so they are out of commission for a bit.

There was 1 Pier 1 when I arrived, but it closed just after Christmas.

There is 1 Costco.  It opened just before I got here after Sam's Club closed.

You can get car parts at NAPA Auto Parts, O'Reilly Auto Parts, or an Auto Zone.  You can have your car serviced at a Midas shop, American Tire, or at any of the standard car sales sites like Ford, GM, Subaru, etc.

There is an Old Navy store.

We just had a Sonic open where a Carl's Drive-in had been and for the first few months, the wait in line to even get into the parking lot could be an hour-long!

We have McDonald's, Denny's, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Fast Burger, Great Harvest Bread Company, Firehouse Subs, Dominos, it appears there is a Wendy's but I have not noticed it as it is in the area I do travel a lot, Subway, a Little Ceasars... but again, I have not seen it, and Pizza Hut.  Locally there are an abundance of Asian restaurants, Thai and Indian establishments.  There are some really great Italian and Mexican as well.  Lots of pizza places.  I have not yet tried all of the ones close by.  You can also find Barbeque eateries, Pub style food, fine dining, and one place (Ivory Jack's) that has a killer, BIG Prime Rib on Friday.  You have to remember that this is a college town, so there are a plethora of small eateries to choose from.

There is no Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, or Red Lobster, no Fishbone Grill, Chillis, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, or Outback Steakhouse, not even one Buffalo Wild Wings, Red Robin, Carrabba's Italian Grill, Cheesecake Factory, Cracker Barrel, or Longhorn Steakhouse.  There is only one Burger King but it is in the middle of the local Army Base so unless you have a pass to get in, no Whopper for you!

No Kohl's, no Target, and no Sears... although there was one at one time it is long gone.  No J.C. Penny's, no K-Mart but there was a Ben Franklin in North Pole but COVID was the death knell for that store.  There is no Macy's, no Nordstrom's, no Bloomingdale's, no Belk's, or no Boscov's.

One thing that does happen in Fairbanks, from time to time, are Popup events where stores in the lower 48 or from other places in Alaska send out a notice in advance of their coming and offer the residents of Fairbanks the chance to order items, usually food, and have a set date to go and pick up their orders in a vacant parking lot.  Last fall Rob and Kate got an order of fresh, frozen fish for the freezer.

The newest popup is from a Russian bakery located in Seattle called Piroshky, Piroshky.  They have one of their shops located in Pike Place Market on the waterfront of Seattle.  In the article from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, it explained the basis of the bakery's fame:  "As its name suggests, the bakery specializes in piroshkis, a Russian pastry. Gallant explained that piroshkis are stuffed with both sweet and savory fillings. Flavors include everything from cherry white chocolate to meatball marinara."  Rob, Kate, and I placed a joint order for things that we wanted to try.  Rob will be picking up the order on Friday and we will be putting the items in the freezer to try out in future meals.

In case you are curious, here is the website for Piroshky, Piroshky.

Ham, Cheese, and Spinach Piroshky

It might be a one-time thing, but from time to time these Popups shops appear.  So this is something that I can look forward to here in Fairbanks.

April 14, 2021 Snow Pictures...

Today is April 14, 2021.  The temperature is 48 degrees.  And here are the changes in the snow in just 24 hours here in Fairbanks, AK.  Same time of day... 1:37 PM.

Not much of a change looking towards the front door.  You can see a tad more of the fence.

You can see a bit more of the driveway along the outside of the driveway.

This area shows the most change.  The puddle is beginning to set up in the side yard and the area closest to the garage is clearing up quickly.  Rob and Kate will be here on Friday, bringing food from a popup Russian bakery from Seattle that we have bought to try. We are going to get the pump set up so that we can move the water away from the garage as the breakup season continues.

See you same time tomorrow...