I love this picture of my husband, Richard, from yesterday. He looks happier than I've seen him look for a very long time. He's taken to northern life like a duck to water. He loves the views, the majesty of the mountains, the exploring to be done, and he secretly loves to chop wood. You can tell because his most frequent question is, "Do we need more wood chopping?" You can also tell by the way he admires his new, strong biceps.

We've heard over and over, "You either love it here or you hate it," from locals, many of them recent locals themselves. Then they peer at us intently and say "How do you like it here?" I'm always slightly surprised they need to ask, I'm sure it must be written all over the silly grins on our faces. We love it.

Yesterday was another one of those days. One of those great days. We took a road trip to a place we know very well from our cruise ship days. More about that later!