By Rachel Drinkard
Turnagain Times Correspondent

It’s shoulder season again. Last year at this time I was putting in my two weeks notice at a vet hospital in Midtown Memphis, extracting myself from a relationship (we had chickens together), and trying to talk my 19-year-old sister into moving to Alaska with me.
It was just for the summer, I said. It would be and adventure, I said. And so it was.
She and I and my Dad piled into his Chevy Impala, a company car with a company gas card that didn’t work in Canada, and we drove North on Mother’s Day. We laughed, we cried, we proselytized, and oohed and aahed over the four-day trip (yes, 4,000 miles and change in four days. Don’t do the math).
He feigned horror when I declared the vodka and the carton of cigarettes I had stashed at the border. We didn’t get a single speeding ticket, only three nicks in the windshield, and didn’t hit a moose. He dropped us off at Denali and drove home.
Three months later my sister left me. Denali closed up, boarded windows and tumbleweeds and all, and I headed south to Anchorage for a bit, then San Francisco where I met a boy named Sam Adams, then home to visit Memphis.
Somewhere in all that, I got homesick in that last shoulder season. I was ecstatic when Alyeska called me up and offered me a job. I accepted hastily burning bridges at Mammoth Lake where I had already accepted a winter position. I came home, and I guess this will continue to be home for awhile.
But, shoulder season is upon us again, and somehow spring feels less bleak and too brief, but it also sends me back to Memphis none-the-less, where I will listen to crappy punk bands in smoky bars, drink PBR in bottles, sweat a lot, and collect my guitar and my espresso machine—two things I don’t know how I lived without.
Meanwhile back in Girdwood, on to the scene.
With most of the usual activities suspended, I’ve narrowed it down to some bullet points.
A reminder that Maxine’s will be closed until the May 16, with plans to have their outdoor stage area complete before reopening.
Up at Alyeska, Glacier Express will be closed May 1-10 during tram maintenance. Seven Glaciers will be closed through May 15, with the exception of Mother’s Day. The Aurora Bar and Lounge will be debuting their new menu and restaurant during this time.
Saturday May 3
Little Bears Pancake Breakfast at Chair 5
8:30am-11:00am
Menu includes pancakes, sausage, eggs, home fries, coffee and juice. Adults are $8.50, kids are $5.00, and a family of four is $22.00. Tickets will be available at the door with all proceeds benefiting Little Bears Daycare.
Sunday May 4
Girdwood Chili Cookoff at the Girdwood Fire Station
Live music and good food, compete in the cook off or just come to sample to the entries! Prizes will be awarded for best Meat Chili, best Vegetarian Chili, and People’s Choise, all proceeds go to support the Girdwood Chapel Youth Group’s mission trip. For details on how to enter, check out one of the flyers around town, or call Julie Doepken at 783-1165.
That’s the limited schedule of entertainment for this issue. But summer venues are briskly being booked, and many bands are coming our way soon.