On the Road from Fairbanks 10/28/2016, progress on Spirit House and Charles, an ENT (Lord of the Rings Trilogy) I met this summer.

Dear Friends,

My apologies for being such an irregular poster to this blog.   Alaska summers tend to be all consuming, make hay while the sun shines seems to be the norm because winter is right around the corner.  Work really began for me last September with a decision to tear down an abandoned garage on a lot next to

 Progress to date with first snow in October

SH and try to begin cleaning up a massive amount of other stuff there besides.  After many sled and pickup loads the garage and all it's contents were gone.  Stuff that could be recycled or reused where taken to the appropriate places.  There's a lot more yet, 11 cars.  We got one out.

What made all the toil worthwhile in the end was finding a box of Barbie dolls in one far corner of a makeshift room inside the garage.  These went to children of a Cuban friend I met in 2014 and were much appreciated.

From April on to just a few weeks or so ago I worked on SH with few breaks.  One of them was an overnight kayak/canoe trip on the upper Nenana River where I found Charles, the ENT on an island where we camped.

What I got done this summer was the deck, a permanent EPDM, flexible rubber roof, finishing the interior ceiling and the skylight.  I blew in nearly two feet of fiberglass insulation over a base layer of R13 batt insulation between the ceiling and rubber roof.  All of that was preceded by finishing off the ceiling, first with a vapor barrier then a nylon fabric and cover strips over each of the 38 deep joists to hide the seams.  The last push of the season was finishing the skylight and setting it in place.  Three of the same friends that helped me get the 350 pounds of rubber roofing hoisted helped me get the skylight up and set in place over the center "hole."  It has a double walled UV resistant plastic for panes which is light weight but is not clear like glass.   This was an advantage making it easier to hoist but less than desirable aesthetically.  I may just replace four of the panes with clear glass in a future project.

Charles embodied in a White Spruce tree

One of the few breaks I took was an early June Paddlers Club canoe/kayak trip on the upper Nenana River. I never thought there might be "real" ENTS, of course,  until I met Charles on his island home. Curiously my dad's name was also Charles, dad?  So what did Charles have to say?  It's this, you humans are screwing up the planet and if you don't reign in CO2 emissions from burning of fossil fuels we will all be "crispy critters."  My brothers and sisters can only suck up so much C02 while you keep cutting us down as if we had no role to play in the maintenance of this planet.  Your ignorance of our importance will be the death of all of us unless you wake up and there is not a lot of time left.

On the home front I now have a part time job as a tour guide with the Northern Alaska tour coupany driving a van or coach as need be up the Dalton Highway.  In a few days taking a needed break to visit friends in Cuba and Panama.  I have two kids bicycles I'm taking to Cuba.  More down the road.

Peace Rider