Kreider Khronicles

This week has been a warm one. Almost everyday was in the mid to high 70’s. Felt great till you stand in the direct sun for awhile and it gets hot. The one thing that wasn’t great was the mosquitos. My ankles have been swollen all week and continue to get worse. The main way to not get eaten alive is to use bug spray with 98% deet which isn’t the best for you but gets the job done.

Monday, started out with cleaning our entire house. With it being so tiny it gets cluttered fast. Have to always be on top of it before it gets to out of hand. With mostly all the snow melted from the mountains we decided to go on a hike. We went to Angel Rock. Last year when we were here we did this hike and it still had snow covered areas. This time it was all clear. The views from the top are amazing. You can clearly see the Chena River and there is this little blue house along the river that I adore. We were glad we did the hike mid morning because as we went back down there were so many families making their way up.

After our hike, we decided to try and fish along the different parts of the Chena River or ponds on the sides of Chena Road. Our first stop we didn’t even leave the truck because of the amount of people alongside the pond edge. We drove down the road some more before stopping again. This time there were very few people. So we got out, everything set up to fish and walked alongside the bank. Benjamin kept going into the water until if he went any further the water would go into his muck boots. His very first cast on the fly rod and he got a fish. The first fish any of us caught in Alaska. Was very exciting. He caught a small artic grayling. Later on he got another one and that was the end of the fish we managed to get.

To end our memorial day weekend we met up with Cade, Nicole, Will and some other friends at Chena Lake. This is where my ankles became a snack for the mosquitos. Benjamin played spike ball with the guys and I was on mosquitos killer duty.

With the temperatures in the high 70’s all week it heats the house up quickly. We don’t have air conditioning so we had to find out a way to get the house cooler. So we opened all the windows and placed the box fan at the window in the living room to move the air around. It worked great until the fan died. So we made an trip to Fred Meyer at 8pm to get a new fan. We splurged on two, a box fan for the living room and another fan for the bedroom at night. It has been working great.

We also went fishing on Wednesday to Chena Lake but at a different spot than before. This time I managed to catch a fish and Benjamin didn’t. We did catch a lot of weeds. Friday evening we checked out the local dirt track to enjoy some sprint car racing. Sprint car racing is something we enjoyed in PA. Here it is different, only about 5 sprint cars instead of 20 to 30. We have been spoiled by Port Royal Raceway. It was still fun to enjoy the race scene again. This was their first race of the season.

Saturday started with the usual, grocery shopping. Right now there is road construction pretty much everywhere you look. The quick way to fred Meyer is down the Steese but that is closed for a section. Lots of figuring out what side streets to take to get to where you want to go. So far managed to figure it out. Saturday evening we went over to Cade and Nicoles house to hangout with them, Will, Lizzie and Blaine. The boys went fishing to try and get trout for fish tacos and us girls hung out at the house. Out of the four guys fishing, Benjamin out fished them all. We had a blast with all of them. Had fish tacos and hung out by the fire. Then Baine fileted the trout and put it over the fire. I am not a huge fan of trout by itself but would have probably enjoyed it in the fish tacos.

We finally left at midnight with the sun still up and shining. Still boggles my mind with how light it us all the time in the summer. We have enjoyed the warmer weather but this week it is suppose to cool down which will be nice so the house stays cooler. Talk to you all next week!