Alaska Day 0 - Travel & Dallas Layover

Next up, we headed to Alaska! This trip was a lifelong dream of Bill's dad, Jim, and we were excited to experience Alaska with him and Bill's sister, Mary. Major props to Mary for organizing so much of this trip! 👏👏👏

Our travel day happened to fall on Zadie's 6th birthday! We'd celebrated with family over the weekend so she wasn't feeling super "birthday girl" this day. Or maybe she was just tired - my cheap flights had us waking up at 2:45 a.m. for an early departure. We ended up scrambling when several ride share attempts fell through, eventually driving ourselves to the airport. Apparently not many drivers on the road that early (/late?) on a Monday morning!

We landed in Dallas just after 7:00 a.m. and then had about 9 hours to kill before our next flight. Bill and the girls had never been to Texas, so we spent the day in downtown Dallas. The DART train took us directly from the airport to downtown Dallas, very convenient. We had lots o' coffee and breakfast (including plate-sized pancakes, yum) at Cindi's NY Deli, then visited Dealey Plaza to see where JFK was shot. Many of the museums and attractions are closed Mondays (Sixth Floor Museum open but not ideal for Zadie), so we'd planned to just walk around downtown, visit some parks, and get a sense of the place. Zadie's favorite was the splash pad. She promised that she wouldn't get too wet, but here's how that turned out:

Fortunately we had plenty of time so she could dry off! After a few more parks, memorials, and sculpture gardens, it started getting a little too hot to walk around (90s), so we caught the train back to the airport.

We got some lunch at the airport but didn't eat a ton figuring we'd get dinner on our flight. Seven hour flight leaving at 4:30 p.m. - that seemed like a safe assumption to me, but I was wrong. They gave us only a packet of pretzels and cookies; we were very glad for our pre-packed snacks.

We landed in a rainy Anchorage that night and got a ride over to our comfy AirBnB apartment where we met up with Mary and Jim. All in all, a good travel day with no major problems, and we were ready to rest up and start our Alaskan adventure.

Before & After - Front Door

Quite the transformation with the new color scheme! Since our house is located in a historic district, the colors had to be approved by the historic district commission. Front Door After The colors and products used here are (not affiliate links): Door - Sherwin Williams Cajun Red ( link , a pretty red-orange in real life, looks slightly more brown here) Siding - Sherwin Williams Rookwood Blue Green ( link ) Trim (white) - Sherwin Williams Pure White ( link ) Trim (teal) - Sherwin Williams Still Water ( link ) Porch floor - Sherwin Williams Pewter Tankard ( link ) Brick foundation (not shown) - Sherwin Williams Rookwood Dark Brown ( link ) Mailbox - Ecco E4 in Bronze ( link , available via Amazon and elsewhere) Similar Craftsman-style Door With Dentil Shelf ( link ) Front Door Before

Alaska Day 8 - Wasilla

The second to last day of our trip, we had a relaxed travel day back south with the goal of ending up somewhere near enough to Anchorage for us to turn in the RV on time the next morning. Jim did some fishing (no luck), we had a leisurely breakfast in our boondocked RV, and wondered when exactly a huge moose pooped so close to our RV during the night. Fishing by our boondocked RV We didn't have a campground reserved for the night, but knowing that Anchorage campgrounds are primarily super expensive parking lots, we decided to stop 45 mins north in Wasilla. The city might be best known as the hometown of Sarah Palin, and it was covered with Palin signs. We later learned that Alaska was holding elections this Tuesday (Palin lost). In more entertaining news, Wasilla is also home to the Iditarod Headquarters and Museum. The Iditarod is a long-distance sled dog race covering over 900 miles in 8+ days. The headquarters had dog houses but no dogs visible during our visit, so we looked ar...

Votes on bath layout?

I hated this bathroom so much. The drop ceiling, the vinyl wood parquet floor tiles, the plastic sheeted fake tile walls. It was very exciting to destroy it. Our original plan was to keep the sink and toilet where they were, but swap out the tub for a smaller shower in the corner. Once everything was gone, we realized we had enough room for the sink on the same back wall rather than across from the toilet. We weren't positive if we had enough room, until the shower base and sink base were delivered this week. Now, I'm thinking this is definitely the way to go. There's so much more space to move than before (it was tight when I was pregnant)! Here are some shots of the bathroom, pre-demo: The after-demo pic below is the view through the doorway (same as the shot above), with the shower and sink bases roughly in place. On the far left, the newspaper template shows the actual toilet measurements. The blue tape on the wall is where we think the beadboard will end (same height a...

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