It's real!

I just went to the mailbox this afternoon to pick up yesterday's deliveries. My information pack from Arctic Treks and the receipt for my deposit arrived! In August of this year, I'll be rafting for 10 days on the Nigu River on the North Slope of the Brooks Range in Alaska. How did this happen? It's a strange story to tell (but short). What's happened since? It's stranger still...

My mom received an invitation a couple of years ago to the 80th birthday party of her childhood friend, Margaret Schlickman. She had given up driving some time before and was somewhat sad she couldn't go. I offered to take her and she was delighted. I hadn't seen Margaret, who was my godmother, for over a decade and it would be good for the two of them to visit. (Both were showing signs of memory problems even then.) Margaret's oldest son, Andy, was at the party and we visited a bit as well. We thought it would be good for the two of us to help our moms stay in contact and exchanged e-mail addresses.

Andy and I exchanged a couple of e-mails over the intervening time and then in a more in-depth way over the first couple of months of 2011. In one of my "introduction to my kids" paragraphs, I mentioned a trip in 2009 with my son Chris to New Zealand for fishing and sightseeing. Andy then picked up on that, let me know he'd been flyfishing for trout in Wisconsin for years, and the two of us decided to get together at least twice this summer, once on one of his home streams and one on mine. He sent me a list of "bad dates" to start off the discussion and mentioned that the last 3-week period in August was when he was going to be fishing and rafting in the Arctic. He mentioned he had a spot left on the trip and wondered if I was interested.

This dovetailed nicely into another plan-gone-sour to repeat a trip with my buddy Lyth. For my 40th, Cindy sent us on a 10 day trip to Yellowstone NP and Montana to flyfish. The initial plan was to go to British Columbia to fish for Steelhead together. However, Lyth had a fair number of professional conflicts right over the time the Steelie's were running so the whole thing kinda petered out. However, this seemed like a most excellent substitute, albeit without Lyth, so I broached the possibility here at home.

Cindy graciously dubbed it my 60th birthday trip and I let Andy know, sent off a deposit to Arctic treks, made air reservations on Delta, and booked nights at a B & B before and after the trip departed from Fairbanks.

Today I have the receipt in my hand for my spot. It's real!