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July 21, 2025: There’s No Place Like Home

And Dorothy got it right. There is no place like home. We got back here at 10:00 p.m., took the short route, the Parks Highway because Pete was fretting about the truck transmission. And he was right – if the truck broke down on the return trip we would have been in a shitload of trouble. We’d have had to have the truck towed someplace – and it would have taken weeks to get a new transmission. And I am not sure what we would have done with the horses and the trailer.


I didn’t allow myself to think about this because it would have been too overwhelming. So Pete did my thinking for me. He called truck fix it places immediately upon getting up at 8:00 a.m. and of course discovered that they would not be able to take a look at the truck. These places were not as they should have been, encouraging. One fellow said that we’d be just fine if we made it to Nenana which is 50 miles distant from Fairbanks and after a hilly stretch of highway.

Once at home, we put the horses in their enclosure and all rolled. Then after unpacking a few things, I let them out into the yard to graze for a bit while I cleaned the trailer. I felt for them on the final few miles home, to be stuck inside a moving box that is getting increasingly stinkier. They remained in good spirits, which would not have been true of their human counterparts.

In between coming and going - -we went to Forget me Not Books, which is associated with the Alaska Literacy Council, and checked out their operation. It’s located at the far end of a large parking lot –a one story building with a bookstore, bookshelves of books for sales, library carts, on line sales, and a back area where books that come in are kept. To the side of the rear building is a loading dock where books are dropped off. Some of these boxes of books are on orange scaffolding.
Volunteers were at work unloading a Conex full of books – they were to further organize them and put them back in the Conex. They were from Georgia, a part of a methodist church group.

Interestingly, I felt more at home talking with Amanda about the book project and the person doing the online sales than I did the other day, talking with the literacy staff. I would of course like to do it all, but if I am limited by time, I would choose to put my energies into our book project and all related to this and also into teaching nonfiction writing classes.

Amanda, the new manager, has taken on a huge job, given that bookstore moved from its former location last week. I said that I’d like to come up for a week and do an internship.

We talked about backhauling some of their books here. No, there is never going to be any shortage of books for us, ever.

We need more space.

On the drive home I read Horse Speak, which is about horse/human communication.

I have got to find a balance between my horse and book lives, and now I’m at a loss about how to go about this.

Next: 198. 7/22/25: Endless Summer

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