Where's the heat

Hello everyone,

Today is Sunday and mom is leaving on Tuesday; well I guess that depends upon what Mother Nature has planned. Time has flown by. I remember mom saying last week "what are we going to do until Tuesday?" Well my answer was a lot and a lot very slowly. Alaska has two paces; slow and slower. I know I am a very ancy person and always have to be doing something but, doing "it" slowly is kind of nice.

The Tinko-Kodiak house looks amazing on the inside as well as the outside. We had "the girls" over for Mexican night on Friday and they couldn't stop talking about how put together the house is. Funny how it is the same furnishings and art work as we had in Atlanta and Nashville but, just in a new place. We are very lucky to have 2 very talented artist friends; Michael White and Matt Lively. These pieces of artwork give off a warm and friendly reminder of our friends and family in the lower 48. (The lower 48 is a HUGE coluqual phrase used here in the Great White north).

When we are not decorating or running to the only "department stores" (WalMart and True Value), I am trying to get mom exposed to as much of Kodiak as I can. She has been a trooper, let me tell you. She went up Old Woman Mountain, which is right behind the house in her $20 keds. I repeatedly told her that the view of our "hood" was great and just right around the corner. After about 20 minutes of serious hiking for anyone, let alone someone in their 70's, I told her that we could turn around and I would take a picture for her. She wanted to go out that night and buy a pair of $100 hiking boots but, decided that a picture just might be cheaper.

Today I took her to Fossil Beach but, it wasn't quite as beautiful in the rain as it was in the sun. We did see black tailed deer and bison along the alomst 40 mile journey. Keep in mind Kodiak has less that 100 miles of paved roads. It still really pretty. We did see a shark on the beach, yes ON the beach. From what we can gather it was caught in someone net and left on shore.

The temperature still hasn't gotten over 65 degrees since Andy and I have arrived. Today it got to 57 and that was around 6pm. I hope that our friends and family in the lower 48 are staying sydrated and safe.

Andy wanted me to tell everyone that he LOVES being on the ship but, misses everyone dearly. His first week out he saw a lot of whales and even an amazing killer whale but, of course did not have his camera with him. We expect him to behome sometime in September.

The pictures I have attached (in no order) are a view of Barometer Mountain from the front porch of our house. A picture of the bison from today and a picture of the shark.

I'll try to update the blog a little quicker next time.

Thanks to everyone for all their support and friendly comments.