July in Glennallen is something to behold. We went to the 4th of July parade here in town and it was fun. Glennallen only has about 450 people and the only real street in town is the Glen highway that does directly through from Tok Junction to Anchorage, so for the parade they just closed the highway! Probably some unhappy travelers. The leading vehicle was a state trooper throwing candy. Pretty much every one in the parade threw candy. State troopers are the only law enforcement we have here, so they started and ended the parade. The last trooper was the one that was stopping the traffic on the west end. Anyway, of all the entries in the parade I liked the guy with the "honey wagon" the best. Most everyone here has their sewer tanks pumped all year long because they can't have an actual cesspool that drains due to permafrost, anyway the honey wagon guy threw individually wrapped toilet paper! And behind his tank truck he was pulling an outhouse on a trailer with no door and there was a guy sitting in there....(I said sitting in there.) After the parade we went to the free salmon bake in the park. They grilled salmon and had baked spuds, corn on the cob and beans and garlic bread. It was pretty fun.

Salmon season is in full swing here now. The first run of kings is about over then there will be another run after that. There as sockeyes going up now too. The fishwheels (see the photo at the top right of this post) are going strong on the Copper River. Fishwheels originated in China and have been around AK since the early 1900s. If you are a resident you can get a fishwheel permit, as this area has subsistance fishing as does most of AK, primarily set up for the natives, but any resident can get a permit for a fishwheel. They scoop up the salmon in the baskets then have an angled shoot that drops the fish into a holding tank. The wheels are all home made, as there is no manufacturer of them. The amount of fish you can take with your permit is determined by annual income and need. They range from 49 fish to 500. How sick of salmon would you get if you got 500?? Anyway, I found the fishwheels very interesting. Residents can also dip-net on the Copper River as well.

We just found out yesterday that our lady boss has cancer. She had a stroke last year and suffers from Lupus and now a biopsy showed she has cancer of the intestine and stomach. No treatment plan yet, but that will all have to be done in Anchorage, so it appears that Barry and I will be running the park a lot of the time the rest of the summer.

I don't know if I told many of you about our friend John Richardson in Northern California whose 19 mo. old grandson was shook and banged up againest a wall by his baby sitter. Anyway, that happened in May and the little guy is doing better, they operated and took out a piece of his skull to accomodate the swollen brain. He is able to walk a little bit now with braces on his right leg as his right side doesn't work very good yet. They haven't given them a prognosis yet until the swelling goes down. He is still in the hospital in Sacramento but gets to go home the 13th of July. He will continue with therapy and hopefully they will be able to put the piece of his skull back when the swelling is down. I'm not sure how that all works, if they save the piece of his skull or if they put something else in. Anyway there is a webside for him, http://www.babykai.com/ that shows pictures of him. Unbelieveable. If you go there, you put Kai in as the password and hit enter. His father committed suicide about 6 months ago, so his poor Mom has really had a hard hard time. Hopefully all will work out for the little guy.

Well, so aren't I just a ray of sunshine in your life? I really got on a kick there with horrible news. Guess we all should just count our lucky stars that our lives are going as well as they are.

Barry and the dogs are fine. He is getting to be pretty darn good at week eating, although this week he has been running a chain saw too! Yipes. Bet you all are scared now! Yesterday he and the boss man had to dig up the sewer pipe as someone had put some rocks in it about the side of a baseball and that pretty much screwed it up. Anyway they got it fixed and smelled no worse for their work! (Although I did have the urge to pour bleach over him when he was in the shower! :)

It has been raining here quite a bit lately, and the temperatures have been lovely, especially compared to some of them that I hear about in the lower 48, (the locals here call that "the outside". We actually ran the fire place today awhile after being outside in the damp weather. it is about 55 degrees now and don't think it got over 65 today. Great sleeping weather. The days are getting shorter here. It now gets almost a little dark about 1 in the morning but it doen't last long.

The over 1000 flowers that I planted in early June are going great guns! All this day light sure makes them grow. My tomatos don't fair as well, due to the cool nights. I had to build them a green house. I only have 2 plants, so I took the wire dog cage, turned it on one end and covered it with plastic. Works like a charm, although it looks a little weird. Oh well, in Alaska anything goes. Our friend up here told us this is the land of half-ass stuff and he is right. There are lots of houses (or shacks) that are not quite done or not even close to done that people live in. I think the summers are so short they just do what they can and call it good.

We went to the half-way to Christmas party June 23rd at the Gakona Lodge. (See the picture on the left at the top of this post) It was pretty fun. Because so many people leave during the winter and it is so damn cold for the ones that stay here all year, they just have their Christmas parties in the summer, complete with Christmas decorations! They hired a band and he played outside the bar at the lodge. I took the attached photo at about midnight and you can see, it wasn't anywhere close to dark.

OK, well, I'm done til next time. Love to all.