AK here I come! :0)

Dear Diary,

Been noticing the days passing by faster and faster and my life  flashing by.
Have wanted to visit my best girlfriend for many years now and what's kept me from doing so was the distance and my late husbands health. NOW, it's just the distance and STILL I procrastinated!   UNTIL, yesterday when I came to the conclusion that she or I might be dead next year and THEN looked online for the umpteenth time in as many days at all the flights and hours involved and time for takeoffs and landings ( keeping in mind that someone on her end would have to pick me up,  so 1 a.m. was not a good time) and FINALLY this time my eyes rested on a flight that did not involve 3 and 4 hour layovers and landed and left AK at a decent hour. :0) When that happened my hand hesitated above CONFIRM and I called my girlfriend to get the NOD that all was GO!
I leave home the 7th of next month and leave Houston,AK the 21st and arrive home in the morning of the 22nd. 
Never have I made such a decision on this scale. I was scared....but Ed has been great support and says that I needed to do this FOR ME.

Going to be busy getting things ready. I expect many calls will be made to ask what kind of clothes to bring (what she wears this time of year.)  Her husband Norman had a stroke some 3 or 4 years back and she is his Care Giver. Just being able to sit and chat like old times will be enough for me. She doesn't live in  a city or town. She's deep in the woods an hour or more drive away  from Anchorage on five acres, as does her closest neighbors.
Nancy and I are ten days apart in age and have similar backgrounds. What's different about us, is that she is the Pioneer type woman and has shot her dinner, while I prefer my meat from the store.

Between now and after the 22nd. I'm going to be busy.
Ed and I are camping this weekend. Next weekend there is a big cookout being planned by the residents in Leisure Time. We have a great group of seniors here. :0)

On a sad note, Ed, Jill, Gil and myself attended a funeral last night. My hairdressers daughter Laura died the 16th. She would have been 28 on Sept.18th.
The black box that held her ashes was so small.
She was a drug addict. Her drug of choice was Percocet, but she's take anything.
My daughter Jill and Christine worried who would lose their child first.
On the evening of the 15th she fell asleep on the second couch in their living room after saying she didn't feel well. Chris continued to watch tv and listened to her snore as she always did. She fell asleep on the second couch and when she woke around 5 a.m. she saw her daughter face down on the floor in front of the couch she had slept on. Rigor mortis was very present and her skin was mottled.
Laura had accompanied her mother to my house many times and sat at my table as her mom did all of our hair.
Blood was taken to be tested to see what combination of drugs she took. Doesn't matter....she is dead.
As I looked at the collage of her that was made of her time here on earth, I read Laura Ann, born 9-18-85 and passed away on 8-16-13.
My dad was born 9-18 and died on 8-16.

(((hugs)))

That's All Folks!