Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig!

Back in Alberta again!

6 days short of 11 months - and our "year" in the wilds is over. There were days that it went way too fast, but a few days that I couldn't get back to Alberta fast enough. We spent the last two weeks of our time there at our "happy place," our claim cabin. It was wonderfully quiet, except for the buzzing of mosquitoes, of course! We returned late one night from going to our last mail day, expecting a mosquito free cabin, since we hadn't been going in and out all day only to find that they had found their own way in! There were hundreds of them! Thankfully I found an old can of RAID that made it's way out there somehow, because I don't use the stuff! We fogged the cabin and hid under blankets for almost an hour, then climbed out into only mildly toxic air and went to sleep! It was that or wear OFF! to sleep - I figured the RAID was the lesser of two evils.

The last few weeks flew by, there was packing to do - we had to unpack and repack a few things at the claim, goodbyes to say, and a few groups of friends visited from home. "Jerry" the backhoe hitched a ride back to Grande Prairie and was sent to auction. There will likely be no mining this year unless a good deal on a new piece of equipment is found. Of course, when gold is the highest it has been in years - we are unable to get any. When it was $200.00 an ounce not too many years back we worked our tails off on our summer holidays to get a few ounces! That same few ounces this year would have been worth a whole lot more!

We are spending time at my parents' place until the end of July when our house becomes available again. Tim has been busy doing some repairs to my truck, and the kids are having fun playing at Grandma and Papa's. I am happy to be back again. It was hard to leave, but we are ready for the next page in our lives. We want to build a house in a year or two and need to find somewhere to do that.

I never wanted to mention any names of our good friends and neighbors out there to respect their privacy - but wanted to give them all an individual goodbye - I think I can do this safely: Goodbye to Bart, Belle, Brew, Bunny, Coco, Cohen, Cooney, Gaylord, Kiera, Little Bird, Lucy, Nina, Noble, Simba, Trigger and Tykie - and to your wonderful owners - we had a blast and you helped make that possible! From the kids - a special goodbye to Bart - he knocked them over a few times and got busy on them - Nola wanted to know why Bart was "digging" on them. Too funny!