last week i got to go to my parents cabin/shack/shed with several members of my family. the cabin itself used to be a small greenhouse that never quite got finished at my parents' old house. when they got the property in talkeetna, alaska, they took apart the greenhouse, brought it out to the property, assembled the frame and threw up some plywood - viola! a cabin! i know this isn't the greatest picture of it, but it shows the uniqueness of the shape - a hexagon that's up on stilts. while we were there we replaced one of the stilts since it was starting to rot. here's a picture of the guys levering the cabin up enough to squeeze the new stilt into place. later there's a picture of me peeling the bark off a tree which became the new leg of the cabin.
a little side note, to get to the cabin it's a 10-mile four-wheeler drive
through in-the-middle-of-nowhere forest. the trail is predominately
covered in water/mud that can get quite deep. it usually takes 2 hours
to drive the trail but i remember several years ago when it took us 6
hours. this time it took us 4 hours to get to the cabin. some of the
machines got stuck in the mud several times, one of the machines oil
line came out of the clamp (oil everywhere), and the small trailer kept
popping off the hitch. it's an adventure and no matter what happens on
the way out, i always love every minute of it. so when you look at this cabin, realize that everything that is out there had to be brought in by four-wheeler or snow machine. i remember bringing in the plywood for the walls of the cabin. those are quite large pieces for a small four-wheeler trail. we had them strapped onto a small flatbed trailer and at one point the whole thing flipped right over. it was a bit of work to get the whole mess flipped back over and to the cabin site without any other major mishaps. because of the difficulty of bringing things out there, my dad uses a lot of the trees as building materials, especially when they're leaning - the beginning of the falling down process. he's got a log arch to drag the trees with and a chainsaw mill to cut the large logs into flatter boards/beams. it's quite the process and doing this through the years has really made me appreciate how difficult it was to settle a new land (and we've got the chainsaws, four-wheelers and modern tools to make it even easier!).
okay, so am i boring anyone to tears? i'll get onto our real trip instead of just rambling...
as i stated in a previous post, the colors out there were just "popping". it was fantastically beautiful! here's shawn and remi walking down the trail on one of our little walks. i love this picture! the leaves are just starting to turn and fall - especially in the past two days. when fall comes up here, you better enjoy it because it only lasts a couple of weeks. remi did incredible out there. i was a bit worried that he'd have a hard time navigating over all the sticks, roots and uneven ground but he did great!
here's some of the other crew that came on the walk to the creek. from left to right, cayden, catheryn (you can't see her head), martina (the townsend's czeck exchange student), cassidy and curtis townsend. this bridge used to be much more narrow and creepy. this bridge is paradise!
here's my mom with her "feathers". her hat/glasses combo made her hair stick out just perfectly to resemble feathers or fishing flies.
and mom and cayden, the fire bugs, faithfully keeping the fire going.
here's me! i'm peeling the bark off of a birch tree. and i know i haven't really officially internet announced this, but i'm pregnant! i'm due december 16th so that makes me... ummmm... (okay, i had to look it up) 26 weeks along. i haven't really paid that much attention to counting every week this time around. i've been busy with my little boy and all the other projects that i have going on. i know my due date and that works for me.
so here i am peeling a log, pregnant, and a sleeping baby on my back. yeah - that's an alaskan woman for you! haha! and btw, i showed this picture to my dad the other day and he said "are you barefoot?" how rude!
during the ride out (and in for that matter) i didn't have my camera out because i really didn't want my camera ruined with mud and water. i keep it safe in a dry bag for the whole ride - otherwise i would've had pictures of the trail. we all dress in rain gear from top to bottom because you really do get mud soaked. i choose to wear hip waders under my rain overalls and some family member always seems to laugh at me when we're getting suited up. and then there's always someone that the water goes over their rain boots. i can then laugh back. :)
the following picture is of the townsends back in the parking lot at the end of our trip. most everyone had already taken off their muddy rain gear - i got my camera out too late to get good pictures of the muck.
and here's me, shawn and remi. we had remi ride in the six-wheeler in his car seat. mom said that he did great and even slept part of the way. the only part he didn't like was when a wave of water came over the top of the six-wheeler and covered his face. he didn't like that part at all. not one bit. and i'm ashamed to admit that i was the one driving the four-wheeler in front of them that caused the wave. what a great mother i am! :)
