Monday - July 27, 2009

Please pray for my dad. He seems to be starting some dementia. Please continue to pray for our safety on the roads. The frost heaves on the roads are tough to put up with. It really wears us out. Today we're taking a break from that.Pray for Ashley's work this summer in Guatemala also. She was not able to go to Honduras as planned because of all the problems as you probably know. The Lord really worked it out for her to go to Guatemala at a wonderful orphanage there.
She just had a few days to change her plans and he really worked things out in a hurry. As for Alaska:We were on some terrible roads the last couple of days. If you've never driven on frost heaves you don't know what you're missing. We drove on lots of them the last two days and it really wears you out. We're resting in Valdez today. We saw a beautiful glacier yesterday, Worthington Glacier, that you could drive up to and walk to get even closer which we did. Alaska has more glaciers than anywhere else in the world and I believe it. We've seen so many. It seems like you see them at every turn. They are beautiful. They're are also many waterfalls. We saw two very pretty ones yesterday--Bridal Veil and Horsetail. When we were at the Hub of Alaska, which is an intersection for Hwy 1 and 4 I think, the information center told me to go to Dayville Road and we would see grizzlies. We did that last night and didn't see grizzlies but did see lots and lots of salmon spawning near a hatchery. We also saw harbor seals for the first time this trip. We were told that a grizzly (by the way they call them brown bears up here) comes out every morning about 10:00. We stayed at a campground near there and got up this morning at 8:00 and saw the bear playing around with the fish. It was so entertaining. Then he started roaming up to the road so we followed him in the RV along with some other people and we got some good pictures as he crossed the road. We also saw a brown bear in a creek right along side the road (on my side) so I was able to get a pretty good picture. We were so excited!!! To backtrack a few days, on Saturday, July 25, we met a man on the border between Canada and Alaska on a bicycle. That's not unusual because we've seen lots and lots of bicyclists. What was unusual was that he was traveling with his dog Star. He had a little cart he was pulling behind him with his gear and he put the dog on top. And it was a big dog. He said sometimes he runs alongside him. Can you imagine the extra weight. He had started in Fairbanks and was from Oregon. He was a pro lifer and was promoting a "Nationwide Car Wash" which was to raise money for pregnancy centers around the country. That's just one of the interesting people we've met along the way. By for now!