Saturday, June 28, 2008

 

Deaune spent most of last night trying to kill a pesky mosquito, one time even smacking me in the head in her attempt…I think it was just her way of hitting me and having an excuse.

 

Woke to mostly sun and cool temps.  We were hoping today would be a big mileage day, but 14 miles down the road we stopped to take a picture and discovered a leak in a tire on the camper.  This was an ordeal to repair due to the maneuvering we had to do way back on June 12^th (we had made repairs with what we had available, but now our “repair job” made it difficult to remove the tire – stripped lug nuts. 

 

While we were waiting on the tire repair, the repairman’s wife told us about the time she had to shoot/kill two grizzly bears in two consecutive days because the grizzlies were living in the brush right behind their house which was right beside the repair shop where we were.  The grizzly bears were a male and female.  The bears became aggressive by trying to get into their house one night and the people couldn’t get the grizzlies to go away.  I guess the grizzlies thought that it was their home too.  This couple had lived at Fort Riley for a time 20 plus years ago when the man was in the military.  They moved to Alaska with the military and then retired and stayed here.  They really like the pace of life in Alaska, all the wildlife they get to see and owning their own business.  They said they like to garden but it doesn’t work well at their house because the ground is silt not dirt and plants don’t grow much in silt.  They have plenty of rain and sunshine but the ground just doesn’t have the nutrients that plants need to thrive.

 

Three hours later we were on the road with