Still Searchin': Half-Baked Alaskan

I hadn't seen my friend Chuck in years. In fact, I pretty much gave up on seeing him. The last time he was here was for work-related training and he said then that he had pretty much reached the end of the classes for his line of work and he wasn't sure when or if he would return. Then, a couple of months ago, a mutual friend asked for my new address and how to get there so that he could pass it on to an old friend that wanted to come visit. Chuck's habit in days past was to just show up out of the blue. Sometimes school would last just a few days, other times it would be for several weeks. One Sunday morning as I was getting ready to leave for church, I went out the garage to check on something and I almost ran into him as I walked out. He grinned and said, "Am I too late for church?" Good times, good times.

Well it's been a long time, and this class was only a week long, but we were able to get together for a couple of visits while he was here. He came on Thursday evening the day before he flew out again. We had bratwurst and potato salad and Mountain Dew for dinner. I guess we've had that or something like it every time we get together. Then we spent the evening catching up on each other's lives. He's been to Iraq a couple of times, not to fight necessarily, but to help provide for and maintain the troops that did do the fighting. He went on a trip to Israel, (all of these adventures were with the guard reserves), and had some great stories of the holy land and some of the things that saw while he was there. He brought back some salt crystals from the Dead Sea. He said that the salt forms big crystals and sinks to the bottom and you can feel them with your feet, but even in only waist deep water you can't bend down far enough to pick one up with your hands. His kids, like mine, have grown up in the years since we've been together. He was shocked to see how big my 3 had grown. Each of them are now taller than he is, (although that's no great achievement, he's not very tall). He showed me the website of the church in Wasilla and some pictures of their youth group trip snowmobile riding and sledding. Time passed too quickly and soon we were saying I'll see you sometime down the road. I really hope to one day take a vacation to Alaska and visit him and his family there, fish for some salmon, or maybe do some other hunting, but definitely tour the mountains and glaciers with camera firmly in hand.

Some friends defy distance and time. Who knows when we'll meet again, I sure don't, but I'd bet when we do we'll pick up the conversation just like it was a day or two ago that we had seen each other and not months or years. Some other friends and us are talking about getting an RV and driving up to Alaska for a week or two. So far it's just talk, silly talk even. But who knows, sometimes talk turns into action and maybe one day we'll head North, way North.