Today, we leave for Alaska. We will be gone for three weeks. This means packing and tying up a lot of loose ends before 12:30, when we have to leave for the airport.

As for the packing, we don’t bring the usual vacation stuff. Swimsuits and suntan lotion? Not so much. Instead, we bring lots and lots of meat.

There are no stores where we are going, so anything we want to eat while we’re there, we have to bring with us. It will be a 36-hour journey from our house in Chestertown to our house in Alaska. I hope the meat stays frozen (or at least mostly frozen) until we get there.

What else do we bring? Some clothes, mostly for Alden, since she has grown a lot since last year. Kato can wear the clothes Alden wore last year. August can wear the clothes Kato wore last year. And Robbi and I can wear the clothes we’ve been wearing for the past ten years, because we’re all done growing (for now, at least).

Instead of packing our clothes in a suitcase, we pack them in a cooler. Because on the way home, we’ll be filling the cooler with frozen salmon!

In fact, we don’t take any suitcases. Just coolers. The more coolers, the more salmon we can bring home.

The only thing that doesn’t travel in a cooler is Iggy.

As Iggy is quick to remind us, she is not a thing, and, as such, requires ventilation and a nice soft bed to lie on.

As for the loose ends? There is a whole list of them.

As you can see, we save a lot for the last minute. It’s a family specialty. Not the least of which was checking the final proof of The Imaginary Dragon so that we can give the printer approval to print it while we’re gone.

But we had to be extra special super duper sure that we hadn’t spelled anything wrong and that everything was in the right place. It’s always an anxious moment, the one right before we approve the file for printing.

To make sure everything is JUST RIGHT, Robbi compares our version of the file…

…to the one the printer is using to make the final book.

It’s never perfect science, but we get it mostly right most of the time.

Once we give the green light, it’s out of our hands, and we have to let it go.

But look!

Last night, there was a beautiful rainbow.

We think it’s a good sign.

Wish us luck! We’ll write you from Anchorage, the capitol of Alaska, and the last place we’ll be able to get on the internet for a while.