Day 83: Girdwood Forest Fair Again

July 6, 2014

Today, unfortunately, was just as the weather people had predicted. Rainy. It started raining about midnight and rained intermittently the rest of the day and it continues tonight. The high was in the mid 50's today. Cool and damp. It is funny how the Alaskans say “finally a break in the heat. It has been oppressive all week. We couldn't sleep it was so hot.” We know that their homes do not have air conditioning and are made to hold the heat in and cold out, but we thought this past week was gloriously beautiful weather. We certainly haven't had the air conditioner on and have used the furnace most mornings. We just had to laugh. Of course you can tell the tourists from the locals. The locals have on shorts and tank tops and us tourist have on long sleeves, long pants and maybe a jacket depending on the time of day.

Today we went to services at Girdwood Chapel UMC again. It was officially Pastor Sandy's first Sunday and her first message to the church. There was a sort of meet and greet brunch before the 10:00 service. The brunch and service were good and we again enjoyed visiting with the people and learning more about this area. The people here are just so welcoming and nice. I mentioned that to one lady and she said “Well, if they aren't they probably aren't Alaskans.” She is likely correct.

After church we walked down to the Forest Fair for another visit. Today we were there just as it was opening. We went by all the food vendors again thinking we might try something different, but settled on another "authentic" gyro. Once again it was very good. Because of the reduced crowd we were actually able to see what the vendors had to offer. There were some really nice items. We didn't purchase any of them but very nice. If one of the people who did quilted wall hangings (very nice work) had the colors to match Fred, a purchase just might have been made - but guess we will just keep looking. Again it was a great day for people watching. Interesting. Very interesting! (You can make up you own captions.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We again enjoyed our time at the Fair and then worked the church parking for about 2 hours. Just as we were about to leave a black bear came right up to the church. She had 2 cubs, but we weren't able to get pictures of them and stay safe and try to get them to change directions and not go into the lot and street where there were kids. We did decide it was time to close the church doors as one bystander said the sow tried to enter the back of the church before she came around to where we were. Then as we were driving out of town there was another larger black bear eating the flowers along the road – right beside the sidewalk where lots of people leaving the Fair were walking. Fortunately everyone stopped and got out of it's way. The last we saw it was just lumbering straight down the sidewalk toward the Resort. Didn't expect today to be a bear viewing day, but we will take it. Sorry the picture aren't great. The lighting was not good and then we had other things on our mind – like safety.

Very seldom do we see bears around our church at home

That's about it for today. We are stuffed with Fair Food – just like at home and will be straightening up Fred and getting ready to leave – heading back south hoping to find some salmon and do a little more touring of the Kenai Peninsula.