Waqaa (Wah-kaa) "Hello"!
It has been an exciting few weeks with a lot of activity. Since I last posted I have been in six different states (Alaska, Washington, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, & South Carolina), attended a concert, celebrated my birthday, and as you can see from the photos...
This is just a frost...no snow yet. I am getting ahead of myself...lets rewind to October 2nd at approximately 9:00 PM AKST (Alaska Standard Time)...
Phoenix:
I was very excited to spend my first 48 hours in the lower 48 with my family. I took the red-eye so I landed in Phoenix around 10:00 AM PST on Wednesday. The pets were very excited to see me:
It had been raining quite a bit in Phoenix before I got there, but Eric promised me perfect weather...and he delivered! I am not sure who you had to sleep with Eric Myers, but it was totally worth it!
Miss you TONS!
Atlanta:
I flew out Friday morning and headed to Atlanta. Found my friend Faye at the airport, picked up the rental car and headed to Highlands, North Carolina. This trip was special because I was meeting some Air Force buddies for an impromptu reunion. We were all stationed together at Iraklion ASN, Crete Greece in the late 1980's.
We will start this section with some blast-from-the-past photos, please feel free to snicker at our big hair and funny clothing:
We were young, carefree, and contributed significantly to the destruction of the ozone layer.
Such a great bunch of friends and I am so grateful to have stayed in touch all these years. Thank you Facebook for making this possible.
I also want to thank Kodak. If it were not for all of the photos that we all took during our time at Iraklion, I am not sure many of us would remember anything about our time there. Did I mention we were young and carefree...and there always seemed to be a bit of alcohol involved.
Here we all are now, still young (compared to some) and carefree:
Top left: Mike & Danny; Top right: Faye, Michaela, & her husband Ron
Middle left: Erin & Danny; Middle right: Faye, Ron & Danny
Bottom left: The group; Bottom right: Me & Erin
When I got the invite to join the group in NC, I was not aware that there would be hiking involved. Thus, I was NOT prepared and only had one pair of shoes with me...and they were not tennis shoes. Danny being the gentleman that he is (no sarcasm - it is true) offered me a pair of his sneakers to use. So my choices were:
Luckily, the hikes were not very difficult and I was able to keep up.
We stayed at a wonderful location called Mitchell's Lodge & Cottages. There was a sign at the check-in desk, "Bears in the area - Please do not leave food in your vehicles or outside of your Cottage"...to think...I have a better chance of being eaten by a bear in NC than I do in Alaska it seems.
Scenic hikes: