Alan and Harvey's 2024 Alaska Trip

Alan's father Harvey has a sister, Mavis, that has lived in Anchorage, Alaska since the 1950s. Mavis has regularly traveled down to Florida every Spring to attend a big family reunions. Unfortunately, her health has started to slip as she approaches 93 and this year was the first where she was unable to make the long trip down south. In response Harvey promised to start travling to Alaska to see her there. Harvey's health has also hit some recent challenges so Alan convinced his father to fly from Florida to Colorado and then the two of them flew up to Alaska together to spend most of a week with Mavis. This was a family get together, rather than a vacation, so there wasn't any sightseeing, instead we spend every day with Mavis at her home in north Anchorage. Many stories were told, lunches where shared together and evening meals spent with Mavis' three grown children Lynn, Howard and Chris. A quality bit of time spent renewing family connections.

Here are some of our favorite photos from the trip (each photo is a thumbnail linked to a higher quality picture.):

1) Anchorage, Alaska, October 21, 2024 - Our first full day, after arriving late at night the previous day, was spent catching up with Mavis, helping her run some errands and then having dinner that night with two of her kids (and their partners/children). This photo is of Mavis, Harvey and Alan at the restaurant where we had dinner.

2) Anchorage, Alaska, October 22, 2024 - All five days we were in Anchorage were spent with Mavis and Harvey swapping stories from their childhood and early adult years. To aid the process, an old photo album was unearthed from a downstairs closet. We went through the album page-by-page trying to identify the photos and then following the stories that flowed from the memories that were remembered by each one. (Unfortunately, both Mavis and Harvey are suffering from degraded eyesight and even using a magnifying glass didn't help identifying some of the photos. Alan, of course, wasn't even born when these photos were taken and couldn't be much help either.) Add in poor hearing and there were some funny moments trying to figure out who or what was in a given photo...

3) Anchorage, Alaska, October 22, 2024 - Alan's favorite photo from Mavis' photo album was this picture of Harvey as a child sitting on a bicycle. That is one mischievous grin!

4) Anchorage, Alaska, October 22, 2024 - One neat thing we got to see was this sign in a park across the street from Mavis' house. She and her late husband Howard spent a couple of decades volunteering with the Anchorage city park system maintaining parks around the city. In return for their years of service the city put up this sign acknowleding all their work. It was touching to see them recognized in this way.

5) Anchorage, Alaska, October 25, 2024 - For our last night Mavis' sons Howard and Chris, along with their partners/family came over for a big pizza dinner. We spent even more time sharing stories, catching up and enjoying each other's company. It was a fitting end to a great trip.

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Alan Fleming