I am beginning to understand in my adult life why there's the old saying of "let me sleep on it;" things can look so much different in the morning!  I haven't changed my mind on the Alaska plan, but it looks much more daunting this morning.  Hmm...

When we spent the summer up there in '92 we flew to Anchorage and ended up spending about 4 days.  During that time we got to do a day trip south to Portage Glacier.  I've read in the news that it has since broken through the shoreline and is receding up away from the water!  Anywho, from Anchorage we went northeast to Glennallen, where S.E.N.D. International of AK has their mission headquarters, as well as Alaska Bible College.  We spent the next 10 days there in intensive training to go out into villages all over the place for the next two months.  I could write an entire book on our adventures that summer (I actually started said book, years ago....never got it off the ground and it sits partly written on a floppy disk somewhere).  In a nutshell, here is where our team (one of 4) went:

1 week of VBS in the remote homesteading "village" of Slana, about half-way up the Tok Cutoff.

2 weeks in Dawson City in the Yukon - one week of overnight camp and one week of projects at the church in town.  Spent a weekend in Eagle on our way back from Dawson, having taken an amazing 2-day trip down the Yukon River...!

1 week of VBS in Tok, followed by 2 weeks of overnight camp at Shen Bible Camp just outside Tok up the Taylor Highway.

2 weeks back in Glennallen doing projects around the campus.

When all the teams got back together again at the end, we took a trip up to Denali and spent 3 glorious days in the park.  And after the initial rain on our arrival day, the Mountain was out and shining in all its glory - absolutely breathtaking.

If we had known then it would take SO long to return, we'd have turned in our ticket home and never left in the first place!!!!!

Live and learn.

So what I'm facing this morning is, how do you go from living in a 3-bedroom house to living out of a van and camper?!?!