Concrete is Done! Yeah!

We are done! Yeah! The boys have worked so hard and learned so much. I think all we have left to do is painting. It is a good thing because we leave in two days. Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts. There has been plenty of opportunity to be injured and the hospitals are hours away! Thanks again.

We are back to laying concrete. John-John spent all day lifting 94lb. bags of cement mix up that ladder along with many other jobs as well. I captured this picture of him collapsing for a very short nap on the pallet of cement bags! Poor guy... he has worked so hard. They have to mix their own concrete because the cost of someone else mixing the concrete and bringing 2hrs. is too cost inhibiting.

Grizzly Sighting

Cari is acting scared by this small stuffed Grizzly Bear - some get as tall as 12ft. tall! This is the way to see a Grizzly up close and personal! This restaurant had many other stuffed animals - bison, porcupine, linx, king crab (15 lb.), and black bears. This was a fun experience.

Chapel on the Hill

This is the oldest log chapel in the Copper River Basin -Chapel on the Hill. Vincent J. Joy and his family came to Copper Center in May of 1937. This was the first contact with the gospel message that this area had - Athabascan natives, white settlers and lonely GI's. Grandma Tansy remembers the first men that were saved...she said they were really nasty characters - and that it was so evident that their lives were changed dramatically. Praise the Lord! It was the testimony of these men that had such a huge contact on this area. What amazes me is that my friends lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren were impacted for eternity because of this family and their committment to endure the harsh frontier. Besides preaching the gospel...he found himself serving as a medic, mortician, mechanic, musician and army chaplin. The Joys' founded the mission of SEND International of Alaska.

Moose!

Here they are - moose!! Finally, you had to endure pictures of moose tracks and moose poop, now you get to see that they really do exist in Alaska! Cari and I were traveling from Fairbanks to Copper Center when we happened upon 3 adult moose and 1 baby. It was quite the sight! Pictures can not even begin to describe how incredible this was. God was so good to allow us one more peek into his creation! Unfortunately, the boys were not with us - they went back to Cantwell to continue working on the concrete.

-50 Below Zero

We survived -50 degrees F. below zero!!!!! Some even survived with no coats - obviously not for long though. We had the opportunity to go into a freezer to experience what a winter in like in Fairbanks, Alaska. They threw a glass of hot water into the air and it evaporated into snow immediately. We hammered a nail in with a banana that was so frozen that it was as hard as a hammer! Some of sat in an ice chair...talk about cold! This was a fun, unique experience. I survived as well - I am the one taking the picture.

Bears Keep Out!

This is called little building on stilts is called a cache ("kash").
They would put their food in these elevated cabins to keep it away from bears and other wildlife.

Totem Pole

Back up to Fairbanks... this time we had the opportunity to go to Pioneer Park. This is a great place with several museums, older buildings that have been moved there and lots to see! Cari and Michael are outside of a Native American museum (fascinating).

Michael caught this picture of two ravens. It is awesome! Click on the picture if you want to see it larger. The ravens are huge and spooky when they squawk. I told you before that Grandma Tansy belongs to the Tlingit tribe. The tribe is split into two clans - the raven and the eagle. Our friends are ravens. They have so many interesting customs and stories. The Tlingits are a southeast Alaska tribe - near the shore. She grew up in a fishing village and ate things like "stink eggs" (salmon eggs put in a jar and buried outside for days) and "stink heads" - salmon heads that are put in a gunny sack and anchored in the water for the tide to go in and out - then they eat it! She said she liked the eggs but didn't really care for the heads!

The whole gang is working really hard to try to get this concrete done before we leave. Because of the short summers up here, there is a short window of opportunity to lay concrete. Also, it has taken 3 trips back and forth to Fairbanks (6 hr. round trip) just to get the amount of concrete we need for the job. Pray that we will have the strength, good weather and thing would run smoothly. We have less than one week left to get the job done.

Much to learn

Grandma Tansy is teaching Cari and all the other kids how to make cinnamon rolls.

Back to work!

Back to work in Cantwell. Johnny is helping Grandpa weld the screen that will filter out large rocks in the cement making process.

Our Route

This is a route of all the places we have visited so far. Some of these roads we have traveled more than once! If you forget anything or get the wrong part...it can cost you anywhere from a 90 min. trip to a 6 hr. trip!!!! Not much is close...and what is is expensive. At least the drive is always scenic! This is a stunning land. You can click on the map is you want to see the map larger ( I recommend it!).
A. Anchorage
B. Cantwell
C. Copper Center
D. Valdez
E. Fairbanks
F. Seward

The Clark Boys Great Fishing Adventure

What a blessing to have a day like this! Anytime you try something completely new and unknown, the opportunity for unrealized expectations is high. However, our wildest expectations were surpassed when we caught our limit(18!!!) of salmon, and one halibut apiece(the three biggest caught!). Words really cannot express the fun We had,and the nature We saw. By the way, Mari wanted me to footnote the fact that Michael is trying to look like this buggy-eyed rock fish. I love it!!!! -John

Alaskan Wildlife Cruise

On our boat ride we saw sea lions, a humpback whale and it's calf, lots of seagulls, puffins, starfish and weird black birds with long beaks. The puffins were really funny when they dipped under the water. We didn't get good pictures because they kept dipping under the water. They are really cute. They sort of remind me of penguins, even though they fly and are colorful. They are pretty small. The humpback whale is the 5th biggest mammal in the world. It was one of our funnest days! -Cari

Seaside Exploring

After Cari and I dropped off the boys at the dock, we had some time to kill so we went exploring. On the edge of the bay Cari found clams, snails and what we think is kelp.

Silver Salmon - Coho

Michael's Silver Salmon. This isn't his biggest, but his expression is priceless. What a blessing that all my men could have such an incredible adventure. I know they will never forget this day!

Shark Attack!

At this one fishing spot, we were hoping to catch some halibut...but instead we caught sharks! They were circling us. They were everywhere. Every time someone reeled in a shark. We caught six sharks all together. Our captain told us that they were called Dog Sharks. And Dog Sharks in big groups can attack halibut, so when the captain pulled up the anchor and we were about to leave... each of us had to pull in our lines and when I was pulling up my line I got shark, too! The shark in the picture is trying to bite me! I still have all my arms! -Michael
(I think Michael is training to be the next Crocodile Hunter!! I don't think I like this training! You know I wasn't on the boat!)

The Biggest Catch of the Day

My dad, John-John and I went fishing in the Pacific Ocean! We had to wake up at 6am and then we went to the docks and met our captain. His name was Captain Marty and our boat was The Hope. We went out of the bay and it took a long time to get to our first fishing spot. And when we got there we each got a big fishing pole. And then it took a couple minutes and my daddy caught a salmon. The bait we used was a little plastic squid with a small piece of herring, too. In a little while, all of us caught our limit of salmon which was 6 salmon each! After that we went halibut fishing. We got shorter poles but they were really thick. We used salmon heads and other salmon body parts for bait. In a little while, my daddy caught a halibut and the waves were really big. Lots of people were throwing up...but not us. Thank the Lord! The halibut I caught was taller and heavier than my sister, Cari!!!!! It was the biggest fish caught in that boat that day. It was really hard to reel in the big, fat halibut! I love my halibut! -Michael

Oh Halibut!

This is my BIG fish! No, no, no... my HUGE fish! It was 40 in. and 40lbs. That is pretty big! Bringing up a fish that size from 270 ft. below the ocean surface is no picnic. My arms were about to fall off. For all I knew I could have been bringing up the Loch Ness Monster! I had a great time. No, no, no... an awesome time! -John-John

Camping? NOT!

This crazy family decided to save some $ by camping in our car one night (thankfully the Tansys let us borrow their van instead of their car)! It was a little cramped, but check out the view! It was right on Resurrection Bay in Seward Alaska. The beauty was once again overwhelming. We laughed and laughed. Cari said she felt like a hobo! The biggest problem was that it didn't get dark and that we were so afraid of oversleeping and missing our fishing boat at 6:45am.