Steve and Judy's Travels!

… our Alaska trip looks like every other trip we’ve ever taken from Texas.

The Great Alaska Trip map

Miles and miles of Texas.

We had a plan.  We were going to do something different.  We were going to go east through Houston to the Louisiana border, then go north through East Texas.  We don’t spend much time in East Texas.

Problem.  There is severe weather every day through that route.  Instant change in plans.  We headed west.  Now the plan is to head north from Junction and stay west of the weather.  We’ll let you know how that goes.

Wildflowers along the way.

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3,996 miles to Anchorage.  We lost a little ground with this diversion.

We got to spend the day together.

Tacos, enchiladas, charro beans, and a blurry photo for dinner at El Chaparral.

We’ve finally put a dent in that 4,219 number!

We drove through some serious storms to get here.  No problem.  During the worst of it, we pulled over at a truck stop and let the most severe part pass. Otherwise, an uneventful trip.

Now we’re San Antonio-ish.  An afternoon walk along the Medina River in the Texas Hill Country.

Chicken fried steak at the Old Spanish Trail.

The Great Alaska Trip map

Look how much closer we are!

The big trip to Alaska has begun.  The house is clean and empty.  The bus is clean and full.

Here we are at our first night’s stop.

We’re spending the night in the bus at Sandpipers on the 300 row.  No longer do we have 4,219 miles to go to get to Fairbanks.  We’ve cut that down to 4,218 ¾!

He had a tough year in gymnastics.  His wrists were hurting enough they needed treatment.  Six weeks in casts.

When the casts came off, he couldn’t do any exercises for another six weeks.  Then he couldn’t do any high impact or high torque moves after that.  All he could do was go to gym every day and watch and do conditioning.

So he didn’t compete at all the first half of the season.  Then he only competed on three out of the six events for the second half.  Then came the State Competition.  He did all six events for the first time this year, and advanced to Regionals in Long Beach.  He competed at Regionals and advanced to Nationals in Reno.  He did the first round of all six events on Thursday at Nationals, but didn’t advance in All-around.  He did advance in Floor though, and will compete again, just on Floor, on Sunday.

Go Alex!