We’ve been making plans for our summer trip to Alaska which involves details, details and more details. We purchased our tickets months ago but now we’re into the nuts and bolts of things. It’s our first trip to Alaska so we decided to go right before the summer season (End of May, early June) before it gets too crazy with tourists. We will be flying into Fairbanks to visit with Bob’s sister Rita and family and also take a 10 hour train ride into Anchorage for a few days.

Last night Bobby was talking to his nephew (Lars, who is 18 years young) and Lars was asking if we had any type of fleece lined parkas. Bobby responded, “I have a long black leather trench coat”. I could tell by the conversation that it struck Lars in a funny way when I heard Bobby say “I can tell ya already that we’re not going to look like we’re from around there”. We need to go shopping as our long heavy coats and hiking don’t blend.

Rita has plans to take us hiking and we’ll both need some sort of hiking boots. So we began our search for stores (online last night) in the area that carry camping supplies. Bobby and I both keep laughing as this type thing is new to us. And on top of it we can see those Alaskans laughing with us, no doubt.

OK, so between our outbursts of laughter and getting down to business, we were trying to think for the life of us what the name of that big camping great outdoor store is called. All I could think of was the Bass Pro Shop, but that isn’t the one we’re thinking of. We still couldn’t find it in our search so I went on over to Jennifer’s Blog. I remember her posting waaaaaay last year about John taking the kids to that sort of place. Low and behold I found her blog where she talked about “Gander Mountain” but the ones in TX are too far from us. Hopefully we’ll find what we need before our trip. Oh, and if anyone can think of the name of the “Great Outdoors” store that we’re trying to think of, would you be so kind to refresh our memories? We’re really looking forward to our new adventures in Alaska next month and want to be prepared.