Where has the time gone????? We have loved staying in the Alaska State Parks but it doesn't help with the blogging... It is impossible to post anything with dial up.. I KNOW YOU REMEMBER DIAL UP! Oh My Goodness it is sooooo slow! But that's ok because we are not here to be on the computer, we are in "The Last Frontier" and loving every minute of it! Since our detour to Talkeetna we have been to, Palmer, Thunderbird Falls (an actual water fall, not a town), Anchorage, Portage Glacier, The Russian River, Ninilchik and now Homer. We are going to be here for at least 7 days. So I should have good wifi signal in order to update you on our Halibut fishing trip that we have not booked yet but we will, after all, that is what Chip has been waiting for.

But for now I will give you an update on what we have done and seen in the last 14 days.

We went to a "pour" at the Alaska Museum in Palmer. Evidently a "pour" is a big deal in Palmer, maybe in Alaska. A "pour" is where Iron ore is placed into an oven (of sorts), and heated until it becomes a molten metal that looks like lava from a volcano. Once the ore becomes liquid it spurts out of a opening in the side of the oven. At that point people start to cheer, a train type whistle is blown and everyone working the "pour" starts hustling around. 2 people dressed in space suit looking gear grab the ends of a T shaped bar that has a heat resistant bucket in the center (the bucket is approx. 3.5 ft away from each carrier). The carriers hold this bucket under the spout, that has been blocked by a heat resistant material, this material is chipped away and the red hot molten metal comes flowing out of the oven into the waiting bucket (bystanders start to cheer again). That bucket is then carried over to molds that had been designed earlier by some of the onlookers and local artist and the metal "poured" into them. People get so excited at this process! I guess if I had designed something that was being created by the "pour" I would have been excited also. The large items could not be displayed because of the intense heat that stays in the metal long after the day is over. Those are de-molded (I don't think that is a word but you get the idea) the next day. There were small items that were finished while we were standing there. Those looked like 6" square tiles with designs on them. Bystanders seem to be asking for them but I didn't know what I would do with one so I didn't. I could imagine one sitting flat on the ground like a stepping stone in a garden. But one winter and it would look like a rusty tile, I didn't get it! It may have been more fun had we gotten there earlier to listen to some music but by the time we got there everything was pretty much done for the day. Of course we didn't know that and the lady that took our $20 didn't tell us either. One thing we have learned since being in Alaska is that all "events or attractions" are on a much smaller scale than in the lower 48!

~~~ Sorry we have no pictures of this! I think this may have been the only time we didn't take our camera~~~