Thursday, January 26, 2006

The geriatric snowman


No, he doesn't have wrinkles, walk with a cane or have osteoporosis. But he's the oldest snowman I've ever seen (being that in Washington the average life expectancy for a snowman is about 3-5 days tops, and this guy's been around for months).

That's Alaska. Well, that's Fairbanks anyway. It was so different from anything I've ever experienced. People were totally undaunted by the snow/ice (which I know is to be expected, but not something I'm used to). Fairbanks is freezing or subfreezing for 6 months out of the year. My friends have a cooler on their porch that serves as their freezer--more effective than most deep freezers! People in Alaska drive like the roads are bare. The snow sticks to the trees, rather than just sitting on top of them. The buildings are much more spread out than they are here (even in Bonney Lake, where we still have a few stretches of forest on the main highway). A mall consists of 10 stores sandwiched between a Safeway and a Michael's. Crazy.

I had a great time--we stayed inside and scrapbooked for most of the weekend. We were working on my friend's wedding album, and she wanted my "professional opinion". Gotta love that! It was way simpler than anything I've done in a long time, but came together much faster and turned out beautiful. Beautiful pictures and a beautiful story do help a lot.

Now, my goal is to get started on mine, as my wedding was over 6 years ago...

3 comments:

Cat said...

Think about Iceland... now there have got to be some seriously old snowmen there. Maybe this could be your *thing*... snowman pictures. Travelling the world over in search of old snowmen...

How nice that you helped her with her wedding album! Glad you're back safely from the land of snow!

Mimi said...

I'm glad you had a good time - I'd love to go to Alaska.

Anonymous said...

whahaha! the geriatric snowman!!! that cracked me up. :) sounds like you had a great time, too!