The End

Team Leslie mantra: Do it all!

GOOD FOR THE SOUL. Earlier this Spring, Team Leslie decided to get our adventure groove back on in full effect:

Water taxi reservation? Check.

Remote cabin rental? Check.

Three sets of backcountry skis, boots and poles? Check.

Enough food, clothes, and games for three days? Check.

Secret American Girl ski set and outfit to surprise Indigo once we were out there? Check and check.

Mavis, our newest rescue kitty, really wanted to come...

Indeed, everything went as planned. The sun came out, the seas were mellow, and we arrived at the Spruce Glacier cabin in Thumb Cove on our very own Resurrection Bay by midmorning. An hour or so of slogging bins, bags and boots from the beach to the cabin, and we were in. 

Just. One. More. Bin...

What followed was, quite simply, good for the soul. Having to find and cut up wood for the fire, hours of Quibbler by candlelight, and beautiful ski tours up into the mountains behind the cabin. The American Girl Doll gear was a hit, and the video and photoshoot tucked in a sunny glaciated valley couldn't be beat. Our meals hit the spot, and there was plenty of fresh snow to melt for drinking water.

"Let's go that way..."

Cabin living.

Firewood success!

Talent dropping...

Sunset shenanigans.

Gotta get up to get down...

From Sea to Summit to Sea.

Heading home...

2020. First, did you see how I did that? Just started blogging like it was no big deal? Didn't even mention that whole wild year that just went by without an Alaska Adventure peep? That year of chaos and uncertainty that threw all of us, far-Northerners, far-Southerners, and everyone between for a loop-di-loop and then some? Yup. Pretty smooth.

You see, our year had its ups and downs, but overall it was (gulp) good. Sometimes brilliant. Turns out our family really enjoys each others' company, so hunkering in for awhile worked out pretty well. Rooms got painted, pets got loved up, and we put our energy into playing and being in our sweet Alaskan town, doing trips like the Spruce Glacier cabin. 

Indigo's newly painted room!

Climbing high on Mt. Alice.

Sometimes Seward is like Hawaii with a little bit of snow.

Bring on the bikin'!

Yup, we still pack raft.

Interestingly, Phish "Dinner and a Movie" night brought an exceptional amount of joy to our weeks at home. 

We found some new local favorites!

And visited the old local favorites.

Yup, we still ride fat bikes.

And Covid-safety-wise? We were strong. We made the Leslie Family Covid Safety Plan with a mission statement: "We will keep our family healthy and safe, and responsibly protect our community." We created categories for home, van, public buildings, restaurants, outside and hotels. The whole thing lived on the fridge and we all held each other accountable. Then Alaska became the first state to get everyone on the vaccination train - I got my two shots, J got his first, and it was all going great.

Until it wasn't.

AH, THE IRONY. You see, J started coughing a little bit the first night at the Spruce Glacier cabin. Despite rallying to ski and join in the games, he complained of feeling low energy. By the time we were loading up the water taxi to head home, he knew he'd better stay outside the boat, just in case. 

Let's look at this pic again: Not just out here for the scenery...

A few days later his Covid test results were back: Positive. 

What followed was the real deal quarantine with friends rallying for grocery deliveries, PO Box runs and surprise fun coffee drinks from Rez Art. J got one of those finger clip oxygen monitors and we both became pretty quick wish-we-were-experts on symptoms, severity and cells with ACE-2 receptors. 

Then Indigo became lethargic and fever-y. Although her tests came back negative, the finger clip oxygen monitor's "you're below 93%" incessant beeping said otherwise.

How did Covid sweep through our family despite what we thought were some pretty strong healthy practices? We have no idea. An unfortunate place in line at the grocery store or post office? A gas pump visit without enough hand sanitizer? The significant portion of Alaskans who didn't believe Covid was real and refused to wear masks in public? (Grrrr...) We'll never know.

A NEW CHAPTER. For now, it appears we weathered the storm. J and Indigo feel back to 100% and most of our community of friends has hopped on the vax train, opening up more opportunities to be social, especially outside on the sunnier and sunnier days up here in AK. 

Just yesterday J and I decided to take advantage of a sunny morning coupled with lingering snow in some places to go for a bike and ski combo adventure. The river fed by Exit Glacier is still iced and snowed over near the toe, so we were able to bike the gated road into Kenai Fjords National Park and then transition to skate skis for the final approach to the big white-blue monster of moving ice. The balance of warm sun and frigid water was glorious. J even packed a gold pan "just in case." (?!?!)

Yet another ski carrying formation - gotta clear those fat tires!

A little too far to leap...

"Anyone have a gold pan?" "In my back pocket!"

Enjoying that Spring sunshine!

So long story short, despite the writing hiatus, Team Leslie is still up to our old shenanigans and plans to continue loving and living well on the Last Frontier for some time to come. Phew.

THE END. Blog-wise, I think this may be the end... now that you know we're still alive and all (tee hee). Blogger tells me the email subscription feed tool is being phased out in July, and I clearly haven't been a dedicated writer in the past couple years, right? Perhaps I'll be inspired to pick up the keyboard again, and if so, I'll certainly let you know. Pinkie-promise. 

So many moments, so much beauty, so much discovery about this place and ourselves. And so much gratitude. Thank you for coming along for the ride!

Cheers.

Kim

Kim celebrating the Alaska Adventure.

Secret Love Shack

"Love Shack, baby, Love Shack... "

SECRET. A few years ago a friend told us about a cabin called the "Tin Shack" here on the Kenai Peninsula, easily reached by trail from the road and offering access to fun hiking and skiing terrain. We'd never heard of it.

"Ooooh, is it a Forest Service cabin?"

"No."

"National Wildlife Refuge cabin?"

"Nope."

"Non-profit hut to hut?"

"Nuuuuuuu."

"Private VRBO sort of thing?"

"Nuh-uh." 

"???"

"It's not rentable. It's not on a map. It's secret." 

 "Whooooooooa..."

Honestly, it felt great to know that in this world of Google and GPS, a secret cabin could still be a thing! But of course we wanted to find it. With a line of questions involving pull outs, gates, power lines and old mining roads, J pieced together a sense of things and successfully found the Tin Shack on a solo mission last year. Yes! Then, this past weekend, with snow flurries forecasted in the mountains and no real plans on the calendar, we decided to make it a day-trip adventure for the whole fam and one of Indigo's heartier friends.

LOVE SHACK. The hearty friend choice was a good one, because at first J couldn't remember quite which pull out was the right pull out... and then the promised 1/2 hour hike up to the cabin turned into an 1 1/2 hike up to the cabin. Did we mention it was 15 degrees? Indigo was not impressed. Upon arrival, she declared, "we hiked all this way, for this?" Unlike the newly build rentable cabins we usually visit, this was far more rustic. Built in 1929 by a local miner, the cabin was pretty bare bones with holes in the floor, aluminum foil stuffed in cracks of the 55 gallon drum wood stove, 2 benches that doubled as bunk beds, and a lot of graffiti. What's more, she did not like that there were no reservations; her friend noted, "but someone could pop in at any time! You could be sound asleep at 11 PM and a party of 10 could arrive and you'd have to share!" Apparently the spontaneous communal fun of that is completely lost on eleven year olds.

However, as many parents know from experience, hot food and sweet treats can turn a shack into a mansion for a few minutes, so that's what we did. While J lit the stove with the kindle and wood he'd hauled up in a sled, I broke out the thermoses of noodle soup, mugs of cocoa, and chocolate chip cookies. Within a few minutes, Indigo and her friend were smiling, and even laughing when I found the B-52's "Love Shack" on YouTube (for better or for worse, the Tin Shack has excellent cell service). They especially liked the "Tiiiiiiiiin Roof! Rusted" pause in the song and giggled their way out into the winter wonderland.

"Wearin' next to nothing 'cause it's hot as an oven..."

 "Everybody's groovin' baby!"

A little later, with everyone warmed up and fed, J and I were able to climb the meadows above the cabin and make some turns while the girls built snow forts and played UNO below. Yee ha!

(I spy the Tin Shack!)

And by the time we left, the girls were all smiles. But despite their fun, Indigo insisted she didn't want to come back, her original sentiment flooding her brain.

"Oh Indigo, we have a feeling when you're a teenager you're going to decide the Tin Shack is a fantastic place to come with your friends. You'll climb up here and have a blast, and then, when we ask about it, you'll claim you slept over at a friend's house... but we'll wink at each other, and say: Tiiiiiiiin Roof!! BUSTED." 

"Love rules, at the love shack"

And with that final wave of giggles, we scratched our initials into the metal siding, packed up, and began our slide and ski down (which, for the record, does take about a 1/2 hour!).

"A funky old shack [but] I gotta get back..."