Backpack Modifications

 The Boys and I got Pelican cases for our carry-on luggage a couple of years ago.  Actually, I have had mine for about 8 years now and it has always served me well traveling in the rural villages.  Like the luggage man's quote in Joe vs the Volcano ". . . you travel the world, you're away from your family, all you have to depend on is yourself and your luggage".  I have taken that to heart over the years and have always liked good luggage.  For my purposes, Pelican cases have done the job and looks good too.  So, for traveling internationally, I got both boys the 1510 Pelican Protector Carry-on Case.  Zach and I have a black one and Sam has the tan colored case.  Renee didn't want one, so she uses a different type of suitcase.  To make each case "our own" the boys and I have decorated our cases with stickers.  Like the steamer trunks of old, we find stickers from places we have been and products we support and apply them to our trunks . . . suitcases.  They are coming along and are constantly evolving.  Recently I added a organizer to the lid for both the boys cases and engineered some straps for the outside.  The straps will come in handy for when we are out in the rural communities walking on their boardwalks, or just running through the airport, or overseas on cobblestone streets.  The straps just give us a few more options to wear the case like a backpack, or just pull behind with the handle.  I got the straps on Amazon and fashioned the connection point with sailboat hardware from West Marine.  I think it turned out pretty good and the boys liked it too!

Covid fiannaly caught up with us!

 Well the plague of the 21st century finally caught up with the Huntman crew in Alaska.  Seems that Zach caught the virus after spending time with friends in Girdwood over New Years.  I heard that a lot of teenagers were infected and that a lot of kids were out that first week back to school after break.  Oh well, it was bound to happen eventually.  Neither Renee, Sam or I caught the Covid.  Just Zach.  Right before Christmas break, I went in and got my booster.  Renee got hers not too long before that, probably sometime in November.  Zach was suppose to go in with me to get the booster, but at the time they were only allowing people 18+ to get boosted.  I am not a big fan of masks, unless it is like the one pictured, but I definitely think that the shots and boosters help.  We didn't get sick and Zach only got mildly sick.  Things could have gotten a lot worse.  In the meantime, I treat Zach to room service "he calls it prison food" while he is confined to his room.  Trying hard to keep him isolated to keep the rest of us healthy!!  

Ring in the New Year!!

Despite hearing 2021 was a terrible year in the media, from our perspective we had a great year!  2022 holds the promise of an even better year.  Right now I am deep in the planning stages for the upcoming years projects.  Kivalina landfill clean-up, Bethel Brown Slough Barge Removal, Donlin Kuskokwim Backhaul among others are in the que.  Zach goes off to college this year, still not sure where he is going, but he is still holding out for Montana State.  Sam is going to try out basketball at Goldenview Middle School this winter, so that should be fun to watch.  I made a new years resolution to learn my bass guitar this year, with the hope of joining some sort of group maybe this time next year.  Just not really up for skiing anymore, so I need to do something that is entertaining in my free time.  Still trying to get the Humvee registered and I need to finish that project.  We just got back from Florida and had a lovely time with Mom & Dad and Lisa and her crew.  The weather in Alaska has been cold and snowy, so we thought flight delays may effect our travel.  They luckily did not!!

That is all for now.  Trying to get slightly back into this blog.  It is nice to look back and see where I have been.  If I ever have time, I will try to fill in the blanks from years past.  Looking back at the beginning it is cool to see Sam as a tiny baby. He is so tall and fun to be around now, and wow, how the years have flown!!  

Take care and I hope that 2022 treats you well!!!

Peace

Our Florida vacation is finally here!!

 We have been looking forward to traveling to Florida for vacation for about 6 months!  Haven't seen the family since last summer with our visit in Colorado.  Packing seemed to go smoothly, although we all waited until the last minute to pack (like usual)!!  We all piled into the Subaru and had Renee drop us off at the airport while the boys and I checked in.

First stop is always McDonalds at the airport!  Good way to kick off a va-ca!

The travel portion of the trip got off on the wrong foot from the very start.  A few weeks prior to the trip, Alaska Airlines moved our flights around, so on our layover in Seattle, instead of having 4 hours to make our connection, we had just a little over an hour.  The flight from Anchorage ended up leaving 50 minutes late (it was late coming in from Hawaii)!  Before we left Renee talked to the help desk and had a flight set up for the next day, just incase we missed our Seattle connection.  

Yep, before we even left the ground, it was pretty apparent that we were going to miss our connection.  We boarded 55 minutes late AND then the plane circled the runway before we got in line to de-ice the plane.  I think we took off an hour and a half AFTER our delayed flight was suppose to take off.  Just great!  Looked like day one of our trip would now be spent traveling.  We landed in Seattle 7 minutes AFTER our flight to Orlando took off.  It was a bummer for sure.  I will say that Alaska Airlines took care of us.  We were able to get $98 of food vouchers and they put us up at a nice hotel for the night.  We ate at the Pho restaurant in the N terminal and actually had a really nice time.  The shuttle took us to the hotel and we got a fairly solid night sleep.  The kids said that Renee and I were snoring a bunch, but other than that, all was good.  

My favorite part of staying at the Double Tree is the warm cookies!!

We put this up on my Instagram page hoping that Double Tree would give us a like!  Either way, the cookies were great!

Because we had a 24 hour layover, I ended up buying a year pass for the Alaska Airlines lounge.  I had a sneak peek to the lounge a month earlier on a work trip to Seattle.  The lounge is super nice, the food/drinks are free and the cost $350 is not bad considering how much we travel for fun and work.

We got a seat right by the runway.  Awesome to watch the planes take off while we had a light lunch.  The kids said that we were "next level" travelers now.

It was a good afternoon in the lounge and our travels were not delayed after the initial 24 our set-back.  

Beautiful sunset

Making our way!  Florida here we come!!!

Goldenview Winter Band Concert

 Sam's Band Concert WAS enjoyable!! Zach and I walked up from the house and Renee met us after a while.  We sat in the first row and were treated to an excellent band concert.  Sam was great on the clarinet and looked like a pro seated in the band.  I love these concerts and seeing the kids like music.  I wish Zach had continued with the clarinet, but his schedule did not allow for senior year.  Maybe he will pick it up again someday like I did, or maybe not.  I still enjoy playing clarinet with Sam and we have been practicing more as of late.  

* It was snowing after the concert and the kids decided to run home and try to beat Renee in the car.  I decided to ride along.  Of course the kids won.  It was a fun night.

Revisiting Blogging life

 I dont know where the time goes.  Life is still going great.  Snowing like crazy today and it has been a productive afternoon behind the computer!  Going to Sam's band concert tonight, so that should be enjoyable.  

WALL-MT 2.0

 Purchased my second Bobcat MT 85.  These are great little machines and I am buying this one to either sell, or send to Bethel for my backhaul program.  I recently did a presentation for ADEC on the use of small equipment in the landfill for a backhaul program.  The ADEC presentation was actually in requested after a talk I did at ATCEM on the same topic.  Seems like a lot of people are interested in purchasing this equipment for use in their villages.  I actually have 4 brand new MT100's on order and found out that Craig Taylor had this MT85 come off of rental from Fairbanks.  It was a good price, so I picked it up and brought it back to the property on the Red Dragon.  Looking forward to cleaning it up and putting my own decals on it.  Should make like a lot easier during the summer backhaul projects. 

No Swimming Pool Needed

 These guys are nuts?!?  We recently got a bug dump of snow and for whatever reason, Zach really wanted to dive into the snow.  I suggested he try to "swim" in the powder and then his brother wanted to join in as well.  I had to of course record the event and made it into a hilarious TikTok video.  I will just post a few stills from the video, but go check out on that platform to see the entire thing.  Both boys were really red by the end.  

 I like this photo.  I am just going to leave this here.

Checking in . . . It's been a while.

I don't know if I am going to periodically update this blog, or not.  I love looking back at all of the adventures we had and following up with the stories from the photos.  Now it seems like all we do is Instagram, Facebook and sometimes SnapChat.  Kind of the same, but kind of not.  Our busy lives forced us to simplify things and while still documenting our adventures, just not to the same level of detail as with this blog.  The blog, honestly never took off.  While I was writing the stories primarily for me and for future me to enjoy, at the same time it was a lot of work to maintain and only a very few people every really enjoyed the site.  So now, with Instagram I get a few more followers for a lot less effort.  Idk, seeing the blog makes me want to get back to it . . . so we will see.  I am going to update my profile for now and publish a few of the articles that have been sitting in Draft form for a while.  That is all for now, time will tell what happens next . . .

Fourth of July weekend!!

A look back at July 2018!  This was a fun month and a lot was going on.  I will begin this series by trying to tell the story of each month in 24 photos.  A lot of time has past and there are a lot of good stories to tell.  Will do my best at updating the past few years worth of life.

 Here we find ourselves in the back bay of Surprise Cove on a very sunny perfect day.  These are the days that I think back on when I go to my "happy place"  This was one of the first times we got the Paddle board out!  I got this for my 48th birthday!  Zach is giving this a go in this photo.  

Sam was more interested in his pretzel float than the paddle board.  He is still learning to swim at this point and the water is cold, so a life jacket is essential!!

Renee really got the hang of the paddle board and was much better than I am at it.  

The paddle board is fun for the whole family!  The whole crew got in on the new paddle board.  Sam was diving off of the paddle board and of course trying to make me fall in.  That water is cold!!!

We headed into Whittier from Surprise Cove for the 4th of July fireworks.  The fireworks are usually held late on the night of the third.  In my opinion they are some of the best fireworks in the state.  Whittier is only a 30 minute boat ride from Surprise Cove.  While we were headed in, a cruise ship was also headed in!.  So cool to see these large floating cities.  A lot of people were on the railing looking down at us and wishing they were in our little boat.  We, on the other hand were wishing we could enjoy some of that chocolate buffett that the cruse ships are known for!!

I don't exactly remember what we were doing in this photo, but if I were to guess, we were filling up with water for the next day.  Here we are parked in the Whittier harbor before heading out for the fireworks.  It can sometimes be tricky getting into the transient docks.  It is always nice to set foot on land for a bit tho.

Here we are back in the harbor getting ready for the fireworks.  It really doesn't get any better than this.  This is about as dark as it gets, but event so, you can see the fireworks and more importantly HEAR the fireworks as they echo between the mountains.  Sams favorite spot is on top of the boat.  I have to stay at the helm and keep an eye on where we are floating.  There are usually a few boats out in the harbor. 

After the fireworks we headed back out to Surprise Cove.  The next morning we were greeted with another stellar day!!  I absolutely love waking up on the boat during days like this!

We did a bit of exploring on the kayaks while enjoying the beautiful weather.  This photo is right at the entrance to Surprise Cove.  The kids were always looking for "caves" to explore.  Not too many "caves" but plenty of places to walk around and hike.  

Sam loves catching the starfish and checking them out.  There are a lot of them on the rocks as the tide fluctuates around 18 feet.  The starfish are often exposed during low tide.  He always puts them back after looking at them.

The boat never has a shortage of snacks!  We typically have orange cheese balls too, so I am surprised not to see them.  We had a quick lunch and then headed back to Whitter to pull the boat.  There is more to do during this busy weekend and we decided to split our time between Whittier and our cabin in Girdwood this year.

The Forest Fair is always scheduled to correspond with the Fourth of July weekend.  The Forest Fair takes place in the park by the Girdwood fire station and is a well attended event.  It has many aspects of the Alaska Fair, with many of the same food vendors.  I would say that the other vendors, like gifts and shirts and stickers, etc. is more interesting here than at the Fair.  It is a bit more organic and homey.

There are always a ton of people attending the Forest Fair in Girdwood.  It is nice that our cabin is a short walk from the fair!  We can avoid all of the traffic and just relax as the people walk back and fourth to the fair.  Our gas fire pit is pretty cool.  Unfortunately it did not last too long, it quickly rusted away in the damp Girdwood environment.  We are going to replace it with a wood burning Solo Stove set-up.  The benches work good however.  It is a cool spot to hang out.  Nice having a bit of a yard in Girdwood.

The cabin is another happy place for sure!  I love this view of our cabin from across the street.  Here we are lining up for the parade that passes right in front of our cabin.  The road shuts down at 9am for the parade, so it is nice that we are already in place.  The drive from Girdwood to Anchorage is typically packed with lots of traffic, so it is nice we ar there the day before!

Another perfect day for a parade.  It is not always like this of course, so you truly appreciate the wonderful days.  

Our friend Karen giving Sam a hug.  She has been a good friend for many years and at this time, I was still working with Karen at the Alaska Forum.  She walked down with her family to enjoy the parade.  We have the best spot to watch the parade. 

I love all of the floats.  It is a very homey, old timey type parade.  Reminds me of growing up in the mid-west.  The floats in the parade in Anchorage is not allowed to throw candy.  Only the Girdwood parade.  I get a tow truck in 2021 and will find an excuse to participate in the parade like the tow truck pictured.  Maybe I can do something with Delta Backhaul Co., or possibly the Church.  

Zach and his haul of candy!! It is cool to be right there and get a stash of candy.  Sam has a similar sized bag of loot!

After the parade we head back down to the Forest Fair to listen to some music and enjoy a funnel cake, or two.  

It was a great weekend with family.  Lots of activity.  We were able to spend time in some of our favorite places in Alaska enjoying some of the best weather of the summer!!  Happy family = Happy life!

The Beginning of the Backhaul Program

 This is where it all began with the Green Star Kuskokwim backhaul program.  Here we are in Aniak on Day one of the trip.  The boys joined me on this adventure as we worked our way up and down the Kuskokwim collecting household hazardous waste.  This trip eventually lead to me leaving Green Star as a full-time employee and starting Delta Backhaul Company.  What an adventure it has been.  Cool thing is the boys STILL come out on the summer backhauls and we make quite the team!  

Fish in the boat!

 This is one of my favorite photos from 2017!  Seems like not that long ago.  As you can see we had a great day of fishing, crazy good weather and smiles all around.  

I don't know why Sam wanted to be strung up on the crane, but who am I to say no!!  He got on his rock climbing harness and clipped into the crane.  Fun times to say the least. Sam is always full of energy and willing to go out on a limb to have some fun.  Lots of fun years ahead with this one!!