July 16 - “Threes ... many threes”

Early morning again.  We had to have our luggage ready by 6 a.m. for transport to our next destination.  However, human beings didn’t leave until around 8.  Our group of six left around 8:02 ...

Our mode of transportation this day was train.  We headed out to Talkeetna, a site famous for being the inspiration for the television show, Northern Exposure.  Never saw it.  The TV show, not the town.  We saw the town.

Back to the train.  Very nice experience, comfort-wise.  Plenty of leg room - kind of like first class on an airplane.  We also had breakfast.  Well, by the time we got served it was lunch.  Good flapjacks, though.  That’s the Alaskan word for pancakes.  Working on my foreign language skills.  It was also great that you could walk around any time you want.  Oh, and we made a new friend.  A moose.  Strangely enough his name is Moose.  Isn’t that a wild coincidence?  Now along those lines, I have to say that I have been further convinced of my belief that there really is no such thing as a moose ... really.  The whole thing is actually just an invention by some ingenious PR firm working for local politicians to increase tourism in Alaska.  The closest thing to a real live moose I have seen so far was a tiny little dog that reminded me of Freddy back home.

So Talkeetna was a tiny little tourist town.  Shops and such.  We got pretty close to some river.  Chris wouldn’t let me touch it.  Sisista River, maybe?  We thought we might have seen Mt. McKinley.  No idea which mountain it was, but one of them disappeared into the clouds, so we voted it in.  We had some pie with the gang.  By the way, Jim and Jeanne are now part of the gang.  They adopted us.  Now I’m the Daddy and he’s Grandpa.  Welcome to the gang, guys.  Rhubarb and two different kinds of berry pie constituted the menu.  Chris and I split a cinnamon roll.  Ever the rebels.  After pie we just roamed the streets with the rest of the antique hoodlums.  We did find our way to the National Forestry Service building so Chris and Kay Lynn could get their books stamped.

I checked my phone and saw that I had two random FaceBook friend requests.  Someone named Victoria and another named Melinda.  Actually, rumor has it that those two girls may come from Spray-ish roots.  Enjoy the blogs, girls.

When we arrived at our next destination, a resort property on the way to Denali National Park, we saw Mt. McKinley for real.  Well, part of it among the clouds.  Pretty impressive.  Chris took one or two pictures.  Supper there was good.  Crab cakes.  Salmon chowder (Nope.  Didn’t eat the chunks of that nasty fish floating around).  Dessert was chocolate mousse.  Only moose I’ve seen around here.

The card games began again after supper.  I would say they lasted well into the night, but it never gets dark here, so who knows how long we played.  And the game?  Well, think threes ... many threes.  See, there is this game. A card game.  Called Hand and Foot.  Without going into the minutia of details about the rules, suffice it to say that it is bad to have a number 3 card in your hand, especially a red one.  No idea why the game originators chose threes to be representatives of Satan, but threes are bad.  Evil.  So why do I belabor this point?  I seek only to understand.  For one of our number, dear KayLynn, in a fit of rash non-normalcy, deliberately added to her hand not one, not two, but no less than three threes to her hand.  And there might have been more that she was not revealing.  Strategy?  Perhaps.  Perhaps she knows some secrets from the dark side of the Hand and Foot Universe that as yet have not been revealed to the rest of us unsuspecting mortals.  Perhaps she has mystical powers associated with the number three.  Perhaps it is something as simple as having a favorite number ... three.  Or perhaps she was simply caught up the girls’ agony of defeat.  Sigh.  Not a quick fix, I’m afraid, for in spite of a gracious effort on the part of three wonderful gentlemen (who shall remain nameless) to to allow the ladies to experience a taste of our thrill of victory, they soon reverted to their old, set ... losing ... ways.  Yet .. we love them.

Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Father, thank you for, well, every part of our trip so far.  Can’t wait to see what is next.  Amen.