The long and winding road

Thursday night TH (the husband), and if you are wondering, I do call him that in real life, something that New Leaf got a huge kick out of, asked what we had planned for Friday.  Planned?  Me?  I rarely, if ever intentionally plan anything, as I enjoy just taking each day as it comes.  But I married a type A, Class 1, Gold Star plated planner.  At times, I actually think he would be happiest if everyday for the rest of his hopefully long long life was planned out, and marked down in some giant tome.

It turned out that TH had the itch to go....someplace.  He wanted to go to Tok, its a nice long drive, read about 5 hours or more one way.  Never having been to Tok before, I wanted to wait until summer, more daylight ya know?  After kicking places around for a while, we decided to head up the Steese, to at the very least Central.   Friday we were up and out of the house before daylight, now before any of you get all excited that vampire me, was up at a ridiculous time, we left the house at 9 am.  The sun came up, well UP is a relative term in the winter, as the sun has a low horizon in the winter.  So, as we wove between mountains we were alternately bathed in sunlight, and then around the next corner doused in twilight.

I had packed sandwiches and drinks into our cooler, added a roll of t.p. and headed out.  We ended up at Circle City.

And while I know its hard to believe, while in the one store in Circle, asking to use their restroom, found out that the owners and TH had friends in common!  Yeah, thats what's it like traveling around with TH.  The kids and I all swear that if he has enough time when he meets a fellow Alaskan, he will somehow have some connection with them, especially with long time Alaskans, sourdoughs if you will.  The bathroom turned out to be in the "washateria" across the street, which is very common in small Alaskan communities.  It had 3 washers, 4 driers, and two bathrooms complete with showers with coin operated hot water.  Many Alaskans live without running water, and depend upon washateria's for clean water both for bathing and for hauling home for cooking and drinking.

For whatever reason, I love caribou, and yeah they are mightily fine eating as well.  My eyes were peeled hoping to see some along the way, and luck was with us, as we most likely saw close to 100!  

It was nice chatting along, enjoying the rare sunlight, the companionship, and doing some decision making about what we have planned for the coming year, I told you he loves to have life planned out!

We talked about his fears about me attending the conference in Boston, he was sure I would come home ready to begin the transition process as soon as Son  #3's wedding is over.  My ability to keep my girl suit, he has grave doubts and doesn't trust me to keep my promise, his lack of confidence in me has thrown me into a spiral of depression again.  Leaving me once again to find my way back out of this dark place.  But, I've done it before, and I'll do it again.  When I asked a good friend a while back, how he manages to stay mortal, he answered, "Sheer bloody mindedness".  I liked his answer and have stolen that idea from him, it's just one more twisting turn on my long and winding road.