Traveler's Comment

Emailed to JW from DJ on 6/14 and 6/20:

My trip was officially ended on Sunday when I brought Lassie back from her visit with her owners in Ithaca. It turns out she was with them most of the time I was gone. Surprise. I never touched my laundry until Saturday. I at least gone the grass under control down to Sheldon's. So while I done't feel caught up, I at least feel that things are under control and can start getting back to a "normal" life.

I agree with DW. I feel like I saw Alaska and it was great, but I don't feel like I really had time to absorb it all. We did a lot of going here and there. And I don't regret doing anything. I remember Dad said the first day on the ship. "We might as well go to the dining room to eat because we don't have anything else to do." If that one room where we played name that tune had not been a smoking room, I think we (the cousins) might have spent more time in the evenings just hanging out there. It was a nice view to look at while sitting around and talking.

Mom is actually handling the after affects better than Dad. In fact I think she handled the entire trip as well as Dad, if not better than Dad. Mom always tires easily anymore, but Dad was also getting tired easily. Tired enough that there will be no garden this year. It didn't help that we drove straight back from Newark at 12:00 AM, but I'm glad we did. It did take mom about three days to get all the laundry caught up rather than her usual one day.

I do have pictures to add if I can ever get them organized. I just found some this morning I didn't know I had, but I believe they're from DW's camera anyway. I moved, copied, downloaded, uploaded, deleted so much during the trip, I've got stuff all over the place. I've been to my trash more than once already looking for something. And somehow I believe I've lost completely the video clip I took of JW walking on the tundra (although I may have inadvertently moved it to someone else's card/camera).

Dad walked all over the place in Alaska, but last week he was doing something on his little trailer, tipped it, which in turn tipped him and now he's one very sore man. He's refusing to say that anything is broken and he is feeling better now, but he didn't move much for a couple of days.

Time has gone by quickly. Last weekend I went to collect Lassie in Ithaca. This weekend was Fireman's Field Days and D&AW family came up. They came up to pick up a van. AW's dad is more in to cars than CW if you can believe that, and he picked out a van for them to buy and they just came to collect and do the paperwork. D&AW didn't want to take their two kids with them, so that left them in my care for almost 3 hours. I knew about this and had told AW to bring discardable clothing for them, but I do believe I exceeded her expectations. The kids had a blast though. Sunday we went to Aunt Ruth's to see the new baby goat. It was a big hit. TW's dogs were not such a big hit. Harmless, but intimidating.

People ask me about taking the trip and I say go with a group. Having all of us there was probably one of the best parts for me.