Man makes plans, and God laughs.

I was pregnant. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. We meant to do it, and had talked and planned for a long time.

When we were talking and planning, I thought being pregnant would mean I’d slowly get larger and then be sorta clumsy and slow. Maybe during the first bit, I might be morning sick.

When I acutally was pregnant, at first it meant my feet hurt—like the many little bones in my feet might pop out of their perfect jigsaw puzzle fit with each other and I’d have to limp and say ‘ow! Ow!’ to move to where I needed to go.

And then it meant I was RAVENOUSLY hungry. Like, I had to eat, and I couldn’t eat fast enough. When I finished eating something, enough to make my stomach extremely full, I would feel a drop of strength that left me so weak I had to lean my whole body against the nearest wall. My head would loll against the wall and I’d shut my eyes to let them roll back. It took too much energy to see things, and the only solution I knew was to get food in my body now—NOW—so I could stay upright and conscious.

Soon the hungry turned into just tired. That lean-against-the-wall, the air-is-as-thick-as-cake-batter-can’t-move-through-it sort of tired.

But we had an adventure planned!

Chris said “Maybe we should cancel our trip.”

We had the frequent flyer miles and I was set to go over the summer solstice. THAT was the auspious time to go. One thing I remember fondly in the lack of night in the summer. Days that stretched into each other with no night.

The frequentl flyer staff were pretty good. They gave us a long layover—practically two days!—in Juneau. I liked that idea! I didn’t know Juneau at all, so that would be a new thing for me too. The downside was, the flights were very redeye. But hey, we adventurous travelers. We could handle that.

We landed in Anchorage at 2 am. And then they changed the flights, and it was 2:30 am.

“Don’t worry!” I told Chris. “It will not be dark.”

His logistical nature was kicking in, thought. Would the car rental place be open at 2:30? And if we were landing at 2:30, it would not be worth our money to get a hotel for that night. We’d just have to rough it through until we could check in for the next night.

Same thing on the return trip from Juneau. We left at practically midnight.

His verdict: “I guess we’ll save money on not having a hotel room for the first and the last nights.”

So, here’s the thing. Of course Chris knew that I was from Alaska. He’d known it from the start, and I’d known that he was into hiking around nature from the start. We were going to go to Alaska, Denali especially, eventually.

Chris was the one to plan the vacations, though. He picked great places, and he was so good at it.

Really, he always thought of everything, making the vacation from start to finish a complete escape even if were only for a weekend. My trips and getaways with him accumulated and I had got to wondering what it might be like to see Alaska with him.

But I still was not ready to go. I was not anxious to go. As a matter of fact, I was anxious TO go. But maybe with Chris it would be okay. Maybe we could plan it into a good adventure.

We went on lots of adventures and then seemed only to get better and better.

When he was planning the next one, sometimes I would bring up Alaska as a possible choise. He always had a different spot in mind. It finally occurred to me that _I_ would have to plan the trip to Alaska.

With 10 years and my husband between me and the last time I stood on Alaskan soild, I figured I coulud do it. We had some frequent flyer miles, and it was time to show Chris I wasn’t making it up. All that stuff about Anchorage and Wasilla and the woods and the water.

Plus, Chris loved national Parks. And Denali was the big one. That was worth seeing. Right?