Alaska Hopes

This is our seventh day in Alaska. I told my sister Alyx I wanted to see three things here: a moose, a fish on a line, and the Northern lights.

Last night we saw three moose grazing on a neighborhood lawn. One down.

I now understand when the pink, silver and red salmon return to the streams where they were born. For the pinks, it's any day now. So we'll go down to the park again tonight. Art will bait his hook and we'll stand in the hours-long dusk watching the sky and the water greet each other, listening to the gulls and the sand cranes and bald eagles calling out, noticing the tide come in minute by minute, and wait for a fish to jerk a line.

So far, the only thing caught in that park is a case of pushki (cow parsnip) rash on my hand - looks a lot like poison ivy, itches like crazy, and required a trip to Walmart for calamine lotion and bandages. But I'm optimistic about the fish on the line.

Northern lights, if they've been there as a result of Sunday's sunstorm, were hidden behind the clouds. But today the sky is mostly blue, so I'm hopeful about tonight's sky.

Otherwise, we've spent the last six dinnertimes with family - my sister and her husband and two cousins and their spouses. Lots of wonderful food, conversation and laughter.

And because we're away from home, without the to-do list, we've done a lot of reading and sleeping. Almost like Ground Hog Day, but in a good way.

In my extra time, I'm doing the assignment for Module 4 of my ESL class - the creation of two lesson plans. This is a first for my lifetime, so it is a little scary.