The Headstone Is Finally In

It doesn't seem possible that Jan has been gone for almost a year now. Over the weekend we heard that the headstone had finally come in. The weather has really been nasty - cold, foggy, light rain. You name it, and we have had it. Well today dawned bright and clear. It even warmed up to a nice 50 or so with a blue sky, so I went out to the cemetery and took some pictures. The stone is simple but very nice. I particularly love the crystal structure of the granite - it is very pretty - though the photos don't do it justice.

Viruses

When I was at the doctor's a month ago he stabbed me in both arms. I got the flu vaccine in one arm and one for pneumonia in the other. I should have taken my laptop in at that time and have him vaccinate it for viruses because that is what happened - my little friend got sick. She caught a virus and was sick in bed for 4 days. I finally had to take her to the computer hospital and they treated her with the most modern medicine available and made her as good as new. In the end I was out some money but didn't lose any data (plus I had backups of everything anyway.) My biggest loss was losing a whole week of missionary service. I have tried to make it up with extra emails over the weekend.

Visiting Sister Jacobs

Sister Darlene Jacobs is the Assistant Mission Leader directly over me. Since she lives in Murietta and Barbara wanted to see Eric Roweton and Jeanine Harrell, who live in the same community, we decided to see if we could visit with Sister Jacobs. The only down side to this mission is that you almost never actually meet in person the people you serve with side by side. We had an enjoyable 2 hour chat before taking off to see Eric and Jeanine. This was our rest day (Sunday) but we did put the miles on the car.

Thanksgiving Means Turkey?

Well this year Thanksgiving meant DISNEYLAND. Just think of it - two straight years of going to Disneyland for the old folks. This year we were smart and didn't do the days consecutively but stuck a day in between (Sunday) were we "rested" by traveling to see friends.

We stayed at our favorite (Embassy Suites) and I treated the family to such a rare sight (eating eggs - an omlet) that a picture had to be taken to memorialize the event. Aimee had never seen her dad eat an egg. Hey, with ham, bacon, onions and cheese in it, I probably ate through a week's worth of fat, and it even tasted OK. With us were Aimee and her family and Maree and her family came for the second day we were at Disneyland. I never did get any pictures of Maree's family but did get some nice ones of the Wards.Here in New Orleans Square while we ate lunch, Maddy and Emma were picked to take part in the entertainment. All in all, it was a fun trip albeit expensive. Oh well, you can't take it with you. Might as well have fun now.

Birthday and Thanksgiving (almost)

We went over to Aimee's house the other evening to celebrate my upcoming birthday with her and the kids. Here is a video of Bennie singing a Thanksgiving song he learned at Pre-School. I had a laid-back birth day. Went to the Dr. and had stitches taken out of my knee, got gas at Costco (wow - paid less than $2.00 for the first time in who knows), got a sprinkler for the yard, went to the gym for an hour and a half, to the bank for $$$ for Disneyland, and did the yard. All before 11 AM. Yes, I have learned to fly. Did my missionary calling from 1 to 5 and then to dinner with Mom. Yes, I know, just oh so exiciting. I thought you would all enjoy knowing how a 40 year old spends his birthday. (I wish 40....) Here is my Bennie Man -

Companions for a Day

We were in Linda for the weekend to see Josh's last soccer match of the year, celebrate Laura's 12th wedding anniversary, see the Jon and Josh in their primary sacrament program, and of course let mom see Jillian. You know mother and babies.

But for me it was a special weekend as I finally got to meet someone from my mission. Elder Lawrence Cole and I have gone through training together and still meet weekly with our "West Coast" buddies from training. So this was a kind of reunion of two missionaries who have never met. We turned a few head as we went around to the three meetings of the block together with our badges on. Laura - thanks for taking the pictures.

Mission Progess - Not bad. I took 14 phone calls in 3 days and have done 3 emails today. Strangest call - a lady concerned about a genealogist who contacted her grown daughter on Facebook and had the family genealogy down to a marriage 2 weeks ago. Her husband was sure the Church was publishing their private lives. I assured her we weren't and gave her some tips on where to look to see if their data was posted somewhere online.

Prop 8 - The update is an up and down thing. We won! But the battle is just beginning. Protest marches everywhere. Chaples and temples picketed and spray painted. This may become a good test of faith precluding the last days. I am sure we will all have more to experience on this topic.

Birthdays comming up: Heidi the 14th and Maree on the 16th. Hey, have great birthdays daughters. Don't even breath a word as to your ages - it just makes me feel older. Funny, we started and ended our family on the same week of the year. Love you all!

California Proposition 8 - A Must Yes Vote

Probably the most important election day in my lifetime will be tomorrow (Tuesday, November 4th). It is essential that we, and all we know, actually go out and vote tomorrow. Today's Fresno Bee had two entire 1 page adds supporting Prop. 8.

We had a visiting GA in our ward yesterday, visiting his son who lives in our ward, Elder Tad Callister of the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy. The entire teacher's quorum went up as it was Testimony Meeting. The son of our 2nd councilor in the bishopric is a jokester and went on and on about Prop 8 and then said don't forget to vote NO and then paused. I wish I could have read Elder Callister's mind at that moment - then the youth said - Just Joking - Vote YES. It was amazing how many of the youth have taken an interest in politics for the first time because of this issue. Here are two links about Prop 8.

This first one is from the web site Protecting Marriage.com - go to

http://protectmarriage.com/tell

The other Maree sent showing a mile and a half of Poway Road near her house being "signed

by supporters of Prop 8 -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7mZo-I_HTY

Are we headed into the last days? You would have to have your eyes and ears closed to not realize this is an obvious example of where our society is headed. Put with it the shaky credit situation our nation is in and the signs become clearer every day.

Hey, but don't be discouraged, just do what is right and let the consequences follow. I heard that somewhere (Ha, Ha) but it is the right advice.

Grandpa Jim is 100!

Today would have been my father's 100th birthday. It has been almost a quarter century since he died. Time has really flown by. The sad thing is amost none of us even remember him in this life. I am going to post some pictures of him in his memory today.

Grandpa Jim had a rough life as a young man. His father died in a mine accident when he was just 10. His widowed mother went to live with her mother in the Pima Valley of Arizona and also lived in the Los Angeles area around the time the LA Colleseum was built. He went to high school in the Pima Valley and they got a car. He charged kids from around their home a fee to cover the cost of the rides so that they could afford to have the car. He went joy riding one day during school with the stake president's son and got pulled over by the cops. They were taken to the town magistrate, Spencer Kimball, who read him the riot act. He said one lecture from Spencer was sufficient.

If you have a grandpa Jim story feel free to add it.

More On Maycee

Here are a couple of videos taken on my little Flip camera last night. You've got to love her and yes 6 pounds 9 ounces not the other way around.

So day when Maycee gets an Emmy or Oscar she will remember she made her screen debut on this web site!

Newest Family Addition - Maycee Renae Givens

Today (Oct. 16) Rob and Cody presented us with grandchild 11 - Maycee Renae - at 4:44 PM - weight 9 lb. 6 oz. and 19 3/4 inches. She is adorable and so mellow. She hardly cried the entire time we were in the room. Plus she is sooooooo cute.

California Proposition 8 (Preserving the Definition of Marriage)

The November general election is a significant event in California because of Prop. 8. I hope everyone who reads this blog entry and vote in California will consider voting yes on this propostiton so the traditional definition of marriage can be returned to law in the state of California. I encourage all my family members to blog this important topic on their blogs too. We need to get the word out in California. This might be the most important vote you ever cast come November. This proposition isn't aimed at descriminating against anyone, it is strictly about defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. Vote Yes on 8.

No Longer a Trainee Missionary

Maree asked me in an email how being on my own is going and this was my answer. I decided you all might enjoy it.

On my own is taking a little time getting into full swing. I have had some computer ISP trouble and we pinned it down to our DSL modem beginning to die a slow death. Because of that I have been reluctant to take live phone calls as I HAVE to have access to the online data base (Kanisa) where all the knowledge documents with answers to questions are found. My Mission Leader Assistant (the one in Murietta who is visiting taught by Sophia's mother - not Sophia) says she is happy to wait too. I was going to switch TV to Dish TV today but called ATT about the modem and they talked me into going with their own fiber optic TV package and bundled a higher speed internet with it giving me a free new modem and $200 back after three months to do that. They also lowered my phone bill and must have put caller ID on because my first phone call was from Aimee and the phne announced in a voice that Aimee's charter was calling me. Wild! Anyway they will be out Monday afternoon to install all this so it will be next week before I probably take phone calls live.

In the mean time I have been picking up a couple of emails each evening to work on. The first two I picked up on Sunday night. Wrote out my replies and then had to email them to my MLA for her to review before they could be sent out. She was very impressed with them. They answered the questions correctly and were written well. Hey, 39 years of teaching grammar - I should be able to write. Anyway she said I could take other emails and after researching them at my leisure I can (if they have a phone number attached call the patron with the answer. This doesn't need her supervision as the finding of answers is the hard part of the job. She feels confident that I can actually find answers - and that is the big problem with new missionaries.
So last night I picked two more emails out. I do this at night because during the day there are hundreds of missionaries working and the emails get snapped up quickly. In fact according to the tracking numbers they got over 1000 yesterday alone and this doesn't count the phone calls which outnumber the emails.

When you pull up the email to work on it, it goes into a program called Clarify. The clarify screen shows the case number, name of the patron, email address, phone #, etc. and gives you a place to record the topic the request is on and guides you to the answer and and a place to compose the answer and send it. SO - when I opened the second email I had randomly chosen based on the subject line of the message I was floored to find it was from Kathy Burrow's mother Barbara Hammond in Indiana. You should know the Burrows. Kathy is a really good friend of mine since we travel in the same genealogy circles.

I had attended (in an Adobe Conference) a devotional last week where the speaker said as missionaries we would be guided to the patrons who needed us specifically to answer their questions. I think this was a case of that but to show me (not the patron) how that works. No matter what it was bizarre. I am going to call her (and the other patron from Canada that I picked up last night) this morning and discuss with them how to solve their problems. The church really wants us to make contact by phone as the satisfaction level of the patrons goes way up when they are contacted by phone. I get a bonus if I do that because I don't have to be reviewed by anyone right now if I call them back so it is a win - win for everyone.

So that is how it is going.

Where has Dad Been??

Once upon a time I thought retirement was when you got up late, did what ever you wanted to do and had all this leisure. How could a part-time mission mess that up. Easy - every day! You all know I like to teach. Well I have decided teaching is so much easier than being the student.
Weekly (CYP - Check Your Performance) activities are a source of fear. Using several very technical programs simultaneously while your trainer watches every key stroke on his view of your desktop is meant to drive you crazy.

Here I am at my favorite activity - talking on Skype. Rob and Cody came over Sunday afternoon to visit (and get fed) but I was in the middle of a 3 hour practice session with my fellow trainers. We broke into two groups. One half "played" missionaries and the other half were patrons and we went through the whole process of creating a case, solving it and then did a critique of the process. Then we reversed roles and did it again. Then we spent another hour trying to find knowledge base documents to answers that were posed to the group. At one point we actually had 9 people in our conference call. Our trainer said we would never be able to continue the group with more than 3 but we showed her!!!

This is a weird experience. I have never met, fact to face a single person in this group. Thursday is our final day together and it is truly sad to see that day come. Many of us are really good friends now. It probably is like when full time missionaries leave the MTC. Not ever having had that experience I am only guessing.

This mission has quite a chain of command. I don't actually know the mission president - though I do remember seeing pictures of the presidency on the wall in the Joseph Smith building when I was back there this summer to meet the recruiter who processes me into the program. Our Department Supervisor is Sister Mary King. Our Team Leader is Sister Diane Carter - I don't know where either of these sisers are located. My Missionary Leader is Sister Jean Evans of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada and her Assistant Missionary Leader is Sister Darlene Jacobs of Murietta, California. I'll have to ask Roweton if he knows her. All I know is I better behave with all these Sisters over me. Where are the Brethren???

I never thought I would reach a place in life where I have three headsets that would rule my life. But I do love it - other than the stress. That reaches the apex on Wednesday when I start taking live phone calls (with my trainer spying in the whole time.) Pray that I survive. :-)

What's my grandson doing in a Missing Person Ad

Sunday Grandpa and Ruby (the sweet little dog - OK JJ?) came over for Sunday dinner. Grandpa had this ad from the paper to show us. It sure does look like a certain grandson of mine, who shall remain nameless. I just want to know how they got Squashbottoms picture? It does look like him.

(OK, I took a terrible picture. But you have to love it.)

Grandpa also had an announcement for his cousin, Flo's 80th birthday party. Hopefully Bonnie can get him to go back there. It would really do him good to be able to get back there. He goes in Wednesday to have the plastic surgeon finish up the job on his head and make sure they got all the cancer. I guess he had three more spots biopsied the other day. That makes 3 known cancers and 3 spots to be looked at.

Ruby is so funny. She never has liked me. I have been "dropping" pieces of meat for her at dinner. Now she comes in and sits right there expecting to get fed but that is it. Can't get her up on my lap for love or money. Crazy but cute doggie.

How is my mission training going?

It doesn't seem possible that I am 6 weeks into training for this mission. My how the time flies. Anyway, I have been keeping busy. We have from 2 to 4 group meeting a week using Adobe presentation software so the 25 of us who live all over the world can meet together, listen to a live lesson - see it on powerpoints delivered to our computer - and even participate orally in the presentation. Then there is the lesson material we have to study and practice activities we have to do.
Here are some computer programs I have to learn:
Skype
Clarify
Kanisa
and, Siebel.
I am sure many of you have heard of Skype. I use it daily to keep in touch with our trainers and with eachother, get questions answered and assist eachother.
Clarify is the churches system for answering email requests that come into Salt Lake relating to products (like new FamilySearch, Ancestral File, PAF, indexing, etc.), research (actually answering research questions, and operations (like family history center problems.) I have actually answered three email from the real data base with my trainer watching my every move. Soon I will be out there on my own.
Kanisa - This is the knowledge base that the church uses to place documents that answer questions to "all" the things people write or call in about. Unfortunately it doesn't answer all questions and the intuitive nature of the progeam leaves a lot to be desired.
Siebel - This is my newest tool to learn. It is the telephone answering program the church uses. I can log in to Siebel and tell it I am available for phone calls and it will automatically transfer calls that come in for newFamilySearch support to me! This is one I have only played around with so far - practicing answering calls from other trainees but by next week I will get to answer a couple live.
Trainers - Sister Tychonievich (better known as Sister T for obvious reasons) - is our lead trainer. She lives in eastern Ohio. In fact the other day we had to have a substitute because good old hurricane Ike wiped out the power in the area where she lived. She had to drive to a neighboring city were they had power just to get an email out telling everyone she wasn't available. She is in the Primary presidency in her ward. Brother Russ Perry is my personal assistant trainer. We meet weekly for performance checks, he can answer my questions, and he watches what I do in live activities using a desktop capture tool. He lives in Roy, Utah, and is the stake clerk in his stake.
All in all this is a great experience so far and will only get better when I can actually get to do something.

Another Sunday Night

I don't know what it is lately about Sunday night dinners but that is all I have been blogging.

What don't I want to blog about? Well NOT Fresno State's tanking against Wisconsin. Too depressing to even write any more about.

As most of you know Gandpa Birdie (AKA Bob Blessing) has been having a tough time of it. His physical health hasn't been good. He still misses Grandma terribly; and, now he is have skin cancer problems. I took this picture of him and Ruby last Sunday so you can see the scar on his forehead and possibly the one on his arm. He is going in this week for a whole body scan and in another week to the plastic surgeon who will reopen the head wound, make sure all the cancer is gone and put it back together better.

Ruby the crazy dog. As you know Ruby is Grandpa's little child. They go visiting together. Sunday night Ruby decided to climb up on the couch and just park there and then went and hid behind the cushion. Crazy dog!

Sunday Night Dinner

We always try to host Barb's father for dinner every Sunday. This week I made my homemade enchaladas and Spanish rice. We invited Heidi and Rusty, Rob, Cody and the two babies (dogs.) This was almost too much for Grandpa and he left early.

Here are Rob, Cody and family - Missy, Buster, Maycee (due Oct. 15th).

Here are Heidi and Mr. So Big (Rusty.)In honor of my mother we had Pepperidge Farms cakes for dessert. Heidi especially appreciated that touch.

Retirement

Hey, this is fun. It did feel strange for a couple of days. Barbara would take off for work and I was left at home. With training for my mission, scanning pictures, digitizing genealogy, and going to the gym daily time flies. There is even a few minutes for a nap after lunch if you feel like it. I could get use to this life.

Friday I went to lunch with my old work buddies. I just hate these 40 minute lunches. Those are no fun at all. I am already to talking all the time I want.

Saturday I presented two programs for the area DAR downtown at the main library. They had at least 50 people there - I was quite impressed. I got offers for next year to present in Sonora, Bakersfield and Modesto. That is great as this is what I hoped to do after retirement.

This is a picture of all the paper I will throwing away today because it is all digitized. That represents about a gig of memory.

San Diego Vacation 1945

Well since nostalgia is setting in I went looking for really old pictures of Oceanside and thought these were of Oceanside until looking closely and I realized these were in San Diego - probably out at Coronado.
The first picture is of the following (l to r): Jim Givens, George Damron, Christie Damron, Evelyn Rogers. The Damrons were my dad's parents - George was his step-father, and Christa was his mother. Evelyn Rogers was George's child from his first marriage, so she was my dad's step-sister. The Damron kids were like my dad's siblings since he had none of his own.
This picture must have been taken by Dad and shows: Mom (Betty Givens), Christie, George, and Evelyn.This one must have been taken by Evelyn and shows: George, Christie, Mom and Dad.Dad had to go fishing everywhere. Here he is with what looks like a small hallibut.

Jim Givens - Jennie Elizabeth Hale Honeymoon

Jim and Betty were married on 25 July 1942 in Silver City, New Mexico. Here is the court house where they were married.
They honeymooned in the mountains of Arizona - as best as I can tell from the pictures they took. Here is a couple of pictures of the car Dad had taken at Greer, Arizona.They took these pictures at Oracle, Arizona while sitting on rocks.They also went to Luna Lake in Alpine, Arizona. The fishing must have been good.

Jim Givens and His Parents - Joe and Christa Givens

These pictures are from the collection of my sister, Lenore Busby.

There are very few pictures of my father when he was young. These pictures were taken when my father was about 6 years old. It is cute to see him in dress up clothes.His father was a gold miner and I think the pictures I have of him I could count on the fingers of one hand. He died in a mine accident when my dad was 10. He had to find unexploded charges when all the charges didn't go off. One day he found one and it exploded and killed him. Grandma eventually married George Damron and that is why she was known most of her life as Christa Damron.

Milestone

With the addition of Laura and the Keith Family the entire "Givens" Clan is blogging. Maree's wish has been fulfilled! Hopefully this will help us all keep together more than in the past. I for one have enjoyed seeing what is happening around the family.
I have some goals to work on right now - training for my new calling and trying to continue digitizing all my genealogy. That helps in two ways - reduce the paper inundation around the house and to make it easier for me to have my genealogy with me 24/7 where ever we might go.
As I do this I will try to digitize a packet of pictures each day and post one or two to this blog kind of like a Family History Moment or a running family history of someone or something in the family. I hope you will like it.

Pioneer Day - July 24

Hey, in Utah this is THE big thing. I loved the news this morning. To quote, "The Pioneer Day parade is the 2nd largest parade in America following the Rose Bowl Parade and the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. You figure out the math - only in Utah. We were bummed by it because we are using public transit to get around - saving a ton of money and the transit is free - yes, free, in downtown. But with the parade the Trax trains weren't running and we are 6 loooooong blocks from the Family History Library so we talked the hotel shuttle into driving us as close as he could get which was 100 S and West Temple. Pretty good - saved a long walk. Even though the parade goes down 2nd East they stage it on West and South Temple so we got to walk past a bunch of the floats. They were really very well done.And when the day ended we got to see fireworks. We missed it on the 4th when we were in Canada. So this was kind of neat to watch out our hotel widow and see several shows at once.

Look What I Have

I did have one other object in coming to Salt Lake. That was to meet Bro. Darryl Nilsson the director of the World Wide Support (part time) missionary program. He isn't a mission president, this program is under the Salt Lake Temple Square Mission. Well that isn't the correct name but you know what I mean. Here is my official badge - even though I haven't been set apart yet so I am not "official" yet.

Genealogy and the Choir Again

The rest of the week will be devoted to genealogy (of course) and a little choir too. I won't bore you with the genealogy but we did get to see the Mormon Tab again on Tuesday night. This is the week of Pioneer Day (the 24th of July) and in Utah that is a BIG thing. The Choir is performing on Friday and Saturday nights in their annual Pioneer Day program, this year with the Osmond Family. This is historic too as it is billed as the last time the Osmonds will perform as a family. Well, we went to the rehearsal practice. Donnie and Marie weren't there but the other brothers were. That was cool.
Here are the brothers on stage. The one in the white shirt and dark pants came in a wheel chair - he obviously has had a stroke or something. The two on the ends are the ones that are deaf.

Off to Salt Lake City and Provo

We had a purpose in going to Utah. My Carter ancestors were pioneers in Utah and helped settle Provo. In the early days there many little children were buried in the cemetery there without headstones. They probably had wooden markers but they have long since decayed. The family decided to pitch in and pay for a respectable monument in their honor. I got to have a part on the program and did the dedication of the bench. It is very nice and is right next to Hannah Knight Libby Carter's grave. Since she is the matriarch of the Carter clan in Utah it is a very fitting location for the bench.Yes, check out the typo. You pay good money and include a typo. At least I wasn't part of that. It was fun to meet all kinds of cousins I have never seen before. That was fun.

On Sunday we went to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing. (And I forgot the camera!) It was a historic performance of Music and the Spoken Word - it was the program that began their 80th consecutive year of broadcasting. They had a special group of Japanese-Americans there who were from an organization seaking reparations over being put in camps during the Second World War - the choir sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic for them after the broadcast. Of course Mom was in second heaven as it is her all time favorite song of theirs. It is interesting how touching it is to others. There were 4 visitors to Salt Lake in front of us - two couples - and all four were wiping away tears after that song.

30 Hours to Catch the Next Flight Out

We got back in the evening of the 16th of July (7:30) to be more exact and had until 11:00 AM on the 18th to get in the car to get back to Sacramento and catch our flight to Salt Lake. Guess what had to get done in between. Here is a portion of the laundry that needed doing.Isn't blogging great? You can even blog about dirty clothes. Actually we did one thing while there. We went with Laura and the kids to a little water park that the city of Yuba City has. They don't have a lot - a real competition pool, a play pool (real pool), one real water slide like you find in a regular water park and a water park jungle gym with little slides, etc. for the kiddies. I forgot to take stills but did take video - unfortunately I have no clue how to put it in here. Another skill to learn.

Back to the Lower 48 States!

All good things must end. The end began with a 4:45 date to put our bags outside the room and a 5:45 call to get on the shuttle to the airport. We had a three part flight out - 8:45 from Fairbanks to Anchorage, then from Anchorage to Seattle, and finally Seattle to Sacramento - arriving at 7:30 PM. What a long day of travel.

While flying to Anchorage we flew right by Denali and the pilot didn't even mention it. I guess it is an everyday thing up here.With this we say good-bye to our most glorious vacation. Hope you enjoyed seeing it on our blog.

Fairbanks - Last Full Day In Alaska

Our last full day in Alaska started with a bus drive to Fairbanks. I took this shot of our tour guide, Lane. He was really wonderful and earned his money doing all the paperwork that keep us going and organized. He was from Idaho and knew about Givens Springs!We again got to see Denali - even all the way up to Fairbanks - over 120 miles away. We were very bless in this since only 30% of the tourist to Alaska actually get to see it. We saw it on at least 3 different days. This isn't a good picture - we were too far away and my camera isn't the most advanced or with a big telephoto lens.
Entering Fairbanks we stopped to view the Alaska Pipeline up close.Sign posts - I can't resist them. Note just 22 miles to the North Pole and only 198 to the Arctic Circle. It never really got dark here - even after the sun went down at 11:30 or so. It stayed more like twilight than dark until 3:30 or so when the sun began to come up.
Lane also gave us his famous good-bye waves in front of the statue in Fairbanks. I think this is an Alaskan thing. The statue is in the part where the city was founded.After lunch in Fairbanks we took the Discovery Riverboat Ride on a paddle wheel boat - Discovery II. We stopped to visit with a musher at his dog camp, entered another river, and stopped at another recreated Indian village. It was really well run. We learned about reindeer, their homes, sled dogs, and making of Indian clothing. The clothing exibit was Mom's favorite - she wanted this parka. Thankfully it wasn't for sale.We arrived at our last motel at almost dinner time. Our "little" room was actually a converted pipeline workers' digs. It was over 700 square feet - had a huge living room with two couches, big TV, full kitchen, dining room, big bathroom, large bedroom with a huge walk in closet. Too bad we got so little time to be there.

These we cabbages they were growing at the motel. The Alaska record is a cabbage of 95 pounds!I practiced running a sled for the next Iditarod