No, Alanis...

Not ironic (dontcha think?), just bummeriffic timing.

So of course, the weekend after we sell the snowmachine, I have no fewer than three people ask me if I want to go along hunting with them. Where were they last weekend? Ugh.

Though I suppose the family we sold the machine to hasn't actually given us any money for it yet, so I should just call them and ask to use it...but I'm a little too socially awkward to do that. Besides, I'm sure they're out on it hunting anyway.

Ah, spring on the tundra.

Happy Trails

You know, it's amazing how much of a difference a little less drifting can make.

I took advantage of the long Thanksgiving weekend to take a ride into Bethel on Saturday to pick up some groceries and a new mattress for Isaac (he's gotten too good at climbing to be just in the co-sleeper at night). The plan worked out well, as a few of our neighbors flew in early to visit the craft fair, and the husband of one of the fliers wanted to ride along, as he had never been into Bethel by snowmachine, so I didn't have to ride alone.

Last year, the trail was so rough from the light snow and windy weather that the 26.3 miles from my front door to the AC store was anywhere from a 2 to 3 hour ride, most trips. The best we did all last year was to run a pace that would have gotten us there in around an hour in the early spring when the weather was warm and the trail was flat and slick, but unfortunately the warm weather and our...aggressive pace...caused my co-traveler's machine to give out (to the tune of a couple new pistons and cylinders :-/ )

This year so far, knock on wood, the trail is much better. I don't know if it was the early freeze or how much snow we've had so far, but the trail was better Saturday than it was at any point last year. We made it in only an hour and fifteen minutes, which is pretty darn fast considering it was Jim's first time on the trail. Even heading back pulling a mattress and boxspring on the school sled, we got back in less than an hour and a half. That is, minus a tail light (from sled impact) and a chain clip pulled apart like a paper clip (from the weight of the sled), of course.

Unfortunately, it's been snowing and crazy windy for the past few days, so the trail could be wrecked by now. I guess I'll find out next time I go riding :-P

Five. Five-dolla. Five-dolla foot longs.*

*(Unless you're in Bethel. Then they are nine-dolla foot longs)

Well! What's new here, you ask?

Not too much. Can not believe we're coming up on December and the end of the semester already! Maybe it's because I've been at home with Isaac and not teaching, but this year is just flying by. We'll see how next semester goes once I'm...knock on wood...back to working part time (or maybe even full time? Rumors are afoot...)

I got to make a surprise trip into Bethel last weekend. It's actually kind of funny, because on Sunday morning while we were watching the Packer game, Sara made a joking suggestion that I snowmachine into Bethel to get Subway. You see, Subway is the only national-type chain within a good 450 miles, and sometimes the lure of the TV advertising does its job. I, of course, replied to her suggestion in the negative, stating that with the trail conditions as they were, it would be 4 hours until I returned with her sandwich, by which time she would have surely eaten something else. We considered the matter tabled.

Well, little did I imagine that later that day, we would receive a call about our Principal being stuck in Bethel due to weather and planes not flying, and asking if I'd be interested to ride in and help pick him and his bags up. Of course, having yet to get out and "stretch my legs" farther than to Kasigluk so far this winter, I jumped at the chance. The trail had actually improved a little bit due to a few inches of light, fluffy snow that fell over the weekend (and without wind to drift it about), and we made it in at a decent pace...about an hour and 15 minutes.

So we picked Garry up, made it back before 9 (which was a plesant surprise, considering we didn't leave 'til after 5), and Sara ended up getting her Subway after all.

Pistons, Pitchers, & Pike

Well, spring is almost here, and I'm less than a week away from heading into Anchorage for the big event, so what this blog needs is one last good adventure story from this winter. Right?

So on Friday afternoon, Maria asked if I'd like to go fishing. "Of course," I said, not realizing (though I should have) that she didn't actually mean fishing around here, seeing as the pike haven't made their way this far upriver yet. She meant down on the Kuskokwim, as I soon learned. Either way, I was definately up for doing it, considering the snow and ice are fast melting, and that my remaining snowmachine days this year are numbered, and I'd pretty much take any excuse to get out and ride and do something fun before weather forces the machine into hiding for the summer.

The plan was to meet Christina and Erin in Bethel A.S.A.P., head down to the mouth of the Johnson past Napakiak, fish, and get home before dark. It was a good plan.

We got dressed and our stuff together, gassed up, and headed out. It's been pretty warm the last few days, and the trail was as smooth as I've seen it. And smooth, of course, equals fast. So we're making good time, and just a little past 2/3 of the way into town, when all of a sudden I see Maria fall off behind me. Her machine just died. Started to sound weird, then just lost power. So we check it out, and right away it looks bad, but we though maybe she'd just overheated. We let it sit for a while, and it got better, but still wouldn't stay running. Long story short, a guy that happened by did an impromptu test of the cylindars, and yeah, looks like she dropped a piston. Which sucks. So we knew we had to get her machine either back to Nunap or into Bethel for repairs, and so it didn't get stolen or stripped if left it on the trail overnight. We tried hauling it with my machine, but pulling it, with both of us, was really straining my engine and the though of having both machines broken down on the trail was scary enough for me to convince Maria to hop on with me and head into Bethel and figure out a solution from there.

When we got to Bethel we met up with Christina, as well as some folks we didn't know were going to be there. Not to mention, certain refreshments we weren't expecting, as well. So after, ahem, refreshing ourselves, Maria and a small crew headed out to wrangle her machine into town, while the rest of us continued to...refresh. At this point, we knew we weren't going to be doing any fishing Friday night, and after comtemplating heading back to Nunap, I decided to head down with Christina, Erin, and Maria to Oscarville and crash there. We still didn't know how Maria was going to get her machine fixed, or exactly how she'd be getting back to Nunap, but we did still want to try to get some fishing in. So, after a slight gas issue in the parking lot of the Bethel post office, and a visit with Bethel's finest out on patrol, we made it down to Oscarville around 2am and caught some sleep.

On Saturday morning, Maria got a hold of the repair shop (where she had just had her machine tuned up a week before!), and got them set to pick up and work on her machine, as well as getting a hold of our Principal, who with her husband was going to be headed to Napaskiak and back to Nunap in the afternoon. We made tentative plans to meet up with them and ride back together in the early evening, so we knew we had a few hours to head out fishing. We got our stuff together and headed out down the river about 10 miles, past Napakiak to where the Johnson comes into the Kuskokwim. There were probably half a dozen spots where people were fishing, with dozens of families out at each spot, but eventually we found who we were looking for and settled in to try to catch some pike.

One of the reasons I was really excited to get out ice fishing for the first time this spring, was to try out my new hand auger that I'd gotten back a little while ago. So I un-strap it from the back of my machine, screw it together and start drilling. And drilling. And resting. And drilling some more. Well, I don't know how deep was in the spot where I was drilling, but it was at least 44 inches, because that's the length (I measured) from the tip of the blades to the handle, at which point I couldn't turn it any more. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself! But luckily, the people we met up with had some extra holes cut, so we just hopped on into those. It was a nice day on the river, and the fish were biting at a steady pace. Not an overwhelming bite, but enough to keep it interesting. I got five in the hour and a half or two hours we were out there, including a couple pretty good sized fish (nose to tail about the same length as my pole, so about 24"), and everyone else was catching at roughly the same rate.

After a couple hours, as I said, it was time to head back to meet up with our Principal and her husband to head back to Nunap. Maria rode in the sled they'd brought stuff down in, and proceeded to get drenched as there was a lot of water on the trail. But it was another smooth, fast ride, spooking up flocks of ptarmigan every few miles. Had I been thinking, I'd have brought my shotgun along too. But all in all, I was really glad that despite the drama and the "quick trip" becoming an overnight adventure, it was really great to hang out with Christina and Erin, to get all "refreshed" with Lee and some other coworkers, and definitely worth it to get out and do some fishing. Because hey, I leave for Anchorage on Friday! Not only is this likely my last snowmachine outing of the season, it's my last spontaneous trip before fatherhood strikes!

So yeah. Good times :-P

Following the North Trail to the Yukon

We had a three day weekend for Easter, so I decided to ride along with some folks that were headed up to the treeline by the Yukon river. I had never been before, and it was something I've been wanting to do for a while, though every time the opportunity arrives I seem to come up with an excuse not to go. It's a ways, about a 2.5-3 hour ride each way, and I'm always a little over-concerned about whether or not my snowmachine is up to it. Not to mention, it can be a bit of a gas hog, and it's not like there are any other villages (not to mention gas stations) along the way. This time, however, I just said "why not" and decided to give it a try.

So we got started and headed out around 8:30 Friday morning, and I have to say it was a beautiful ride. After about the halfway point you start to see scattered trees, and all of a sudden you come over a small ridge and see trees everywhere. Which I know doesn't sound like all that big of a deal to you Wisconsinites/Minnesotans out there, but here on the flat, treeless tundra, it's like seeing an oasis :-) Even the trail conditions, which last time I rode to Bethel were horrendous, have really improved due to a bunch of powdery snow over the last couple weeks. The ride was a little bumpy, but nothing compared to the concrete-hard drifts a month or so ago.

The big difference in snow, really, was after we got up there. Down here where there is much wind and no trees, all the snow that doesn't pack down and drift just blows away. Well....now I think I know where it goes. As you can sort of see in the top picture, the snow in the trees was deep. Very deep. Like, when I got off my machine to walk into the trees, I immediately sank into my waist and didn't touch the ground. Which made cutting trees (and more notably dragging them out to the river) quite difficult.

I rode up with Carey and Maria, who wanted to bring back a load of wood for steaming, and with Matthew (the school's Site Tech, Community Advocate, and general jack of all trades/glue that holds the school together) and one of his sons. Matthew had brought a chainsaw, so he went about cutting down dead trees, which then had to be de-limbed and de-nubbed, tied to the back of our machines, and drug down to the river where we had left the freight sleds and our stuff. It's quite an operation, and a lot of work dealing with the waist-deep snow while cutting, axing, dragging, and towing. Not that I did much of the work, seeing as I was mostly along for the ride and just to get to the Yukon and see trees...but still. I helped a little, with what I could.

One thing that we could not have done any better with was the weather. The forecast had made me a little nervous, calling for the wind to pick up and snow to move in, but it stayed perfectly clear for us, warmed up to about 10 or 15 degrees, and what wind did pick up was at our back the whole ride home. So, we got back home around 8pm or so, a little sore, but having avoided and of the misfortunes or misadventures that seem to usually plague my snowmachine/airplaine/boat travels around the tundra. Carey attributed our luck to the "evil eye" stone she brought along to ward off evil spirits. Normally, I wouldn't put much stock in such things, but after the poor luck we've had in the past, to go on this lengthy of a trip without anything going wrong....well, I'm certainly not going to question it.

Weekend.

Ever see the movie Memento? Let's work backwards through the weekend that was:

Sunday

How about we just not talk about the Packer game. It's just. too. soon.

Saturday

What the heck is up with this weather?? By the end of last week they were predicting a major storm for the weekend, with a blizzard "watch" in effect until Sunday. Well, the system showed up, but instead of 25 degrees and snow, it was 35 degrees and rain. The wind was crazy...on the left is a picture of our weather gauge from sometime Saturday afternoon (bottom two readings are sustained wind and highest gust). And our wind speed reading is typically about 10-15 mph low, depending on the direction the wind is coming from (darn buildings), so who knows how high the gusts were actually getting. Either way, it was crappy out...mostly because we went from having really nice, deep, powdery snow cover to having a few piles of crappy snow and foot-deep puddles of water everywhere. Good times.

Friday

Now here's a funny story.

Remember, oh, last fall or so when we had a bit of an adventure with taking the boat for a ride over to a neighboring village? If not, it's ok. Just a bit of an adventure...one of those things that are a little frustrating, even scary at the time, but you have a sense even while it's happening that it'll make a pretty good story later on. Assuming you get through it.

Ok, I'm being way over-dramatic, I'll admit it. But it's still a good story.

So our friend Sara was planning on hitching a ride over to Akiuk from Napaskiak in order to retrieve the snowmachine she had left there in the spring, and was looking for some of us to ride back with her (the trail pirates are back....shiver me timbers!) Of course I said I'd go, I've been looking for an excuse to head in to Bethel and try out our sled and the new rig we hooked up to it. The original plan was to make the trip on Saturday, during the day, but Friday afternoon we all saw the weather forecast, and worried about getting caught by bad weather, decided to head out right away after school. We knew we'd probably be headed back after dark, but better the dark than in a "blizzard", was my thinking.

Well, everything started off well, except for getting a little later start than we expected. Which was troublesome, considering Christina was planning on meeting us in Bethel at AC at 5:00, and we didn't leave the gas station and get on the trail 'til about 4:45. But that didn't concern me *too* much...she knows we're poky, and probably wouldn't too worry too much if we're an hour or so late. So Carey, Maria, Sara R. and I headed out into the dusk, and were making pretty good time when our first little snafu happened...somehow, the bolt holding her hitch on came loose and the sled came off. I was riding behind her, with Maria behind me, so all three of us stopped and tried to figure out a way of hooking the sled back on without the bolt. In the meantime, Carey hadn't realized the rest of us had stopped behind her, and had kept going, so Maria went on ahead to catch her, and I stood by being very little help as Sara got her sled reconnected using some rope she had with her and the snap clip I still (luckily) had connected to the tow rope of my sled. By the time we were done and good to go, Maria and Carey got back to us and we all headed on, having lost a little time and one bolt, but with no real harm done.

Next comes the embarrassing part for me. So as I believe I mentioned before, our new tow bar for the sled was made to break down into pieces to allow us to bring it up here, in a box, from Wisconsin. Well, when I put it together last weekend, I did so on the living room floor, considering it was mighty cold outside, and I wanted to do as little of the work outside as possible. The problem, however, is that I failed to notice that I had put the bolts on the rear portion on upside down, that is to say, with the nuts on top when I put the thing together on the sled. In my defense, I had every intention on fixing them Saturday morning before we left (per the original plan), but in the rush to leave Friday afternoon, I kinda forgot. That is, until we stopped to fix Sara's sled and I noticed I had already lost one bolt, and the nuts on a few of the others had rattled darn near off as well. So I tightened them the best I could with my fingers, which I then crossed as we headed off to Bethel. By the time I got to AC I had lost two more bolts. Everything was still holding together, but only by a thread.

So Carey and Maria had headed on to Napaskiak with Sara, and I had broken off to Bethel, partially because of my precarious sled situation, and partially because at this point, we were a full 2 hours late meeting Christina and her roommate Erin, and someone needed to let her know we weren't stranded or hijacked somewhere. Here would be a good place to point out that when I arrived at AC, I parked by two snowmachines. This will become vital information in a minute.

But in the meantime, I chatted with Christina and started my shopping (including some extra tools to allow me to shore up my sled before heading back.) Carey and Maria showed up, having gotten Sara to Napaskiak, and were doing their shopping when Christina and Erin (who had been at AC for, oh, three hours at this point), decided it was time for them to head back to Oscarville. Or so they thought. I got a sick feeling in my stomach as soon as I saw Christina walking back down the aisle toward us, which only got deeper when she said something along the lines of "well, now I can top your guys' story for tonight"....her snowmachine, which I had parked next to only an hour or so before, was no longer there. Stolen.

So! Our new plan: Erin has her snowmachine there, but they both have groceries, and no way of hauling them back, so we'd all head the 6 miles down the Kusko to Oscarville, drop her off, and head back. Which is precisely what we did after everyone was finished shopping (and I made my...ahem...sled adjustments). The only problem on the way down was that I was riding 3rd in a line of 4, and the two machines ahead of me kind of...well...took off on the clear, wide, flat Kuskokwim, while I and my sled, better attached but not 100%, and feeling like a parachute behind me with the added weight of everyone's groceries, couldn't go much over 25 or 30 mph. But, Christina was on Maria's machine behind me, and thankfully passed me up and lead me to Oscarville after I had missed the turn off the river trail.

So we warmed up for a few minutes at Christina and Erin's, I called my lovely wife, as it was now about 10pm, 6 hours after we'd left and around the benchmark time we'd earlier set at which point she was "allowed" to start worrying. Luckily, she had been sewing some cool stuff (how domestic! Seriously, she should post about it...you all need to bug her to post on her blog, mmkay?) and hadn't really gotten *too* worried just yet.

A few minutes after 10, we headed out from Oscarville, thinking we had about a 15 minute ride back to Bethel, and then a roughly hour long ride back to Nunap (depending on how quickly the sled would allow me to go). However, none of us being familiar with this particular area, there were "issues" finding not only the trail, but the right direction to head. I'll leave it at that :-) Suffice it to say, after a little bit of wandering around the middle of the Kusko in the dark, and one frightening run-in with an overflow (yeah, I had never seen one in person before...damn...) later, we got on the trail, in the right direction, and back into Bethel to fuel up for the ride home.

At this point it was 11:20. We found the H-marker after a little detour, and we set out, breaking trail as the storm was starting to kick up and it was windy and drifting, despite clear sky above, all the way back. Despite the bumps and the worry about the sled, the last 20 miles were really quite a nice ride...the moon was out, the wind was mostly at our backs, and due to how late it was, there weren't any other machines out on the trail. We rolled into Nunap right at 1am, a little cold, a little stressed, but really happy to be home with our machines, or groceries, and ourselves intact.

**********

Happy ending postscript: So Christina's stolen snowgo? Well, she reported it to the Bethel police, of course, right away, and they took down all the information, etc. And guess who got a phone call from Bethel's finest around 2am? Yup, they found her machine, out of gas, about...oh...a couple hundred yards from where she had parked it. Nobody can figure out what happened, if the thieves took it joyriding, and then just happened to run out of gas at the video store next door, if it was all someone's idea of a joke, if someone was just drunk, or what. But hey, whatever the scenario, the machine is back with its rightful owner, and Christina will be able to ride over and visit Nunap this weekend! Hooray!!

Edited to add: If you're interested (and, unlike me, you live somewhere where you can access Myspace), here's Christina's blog entry about her super-fantastic snowmachine theft adventure!

Our new toy

Well, I promised my father I'd post a picture of the solid (yet collapsible) tow bar he made for us while we were home over xmas break, once I got it attached. We brought it back on the plane with us in a box as luggage, with clothing packed around it for cushioning, and amazingly, it made it all the way to Bethel with just a minor hole poked in the box. And, even with my shaky measuring efforts in the snow a month ago, it ended up fitting darn near perfectly on the sled. So go team.

I've just taken it "around the block" so far after getting it hooked up Wednesday night, but after pulling the sled with a rope a few times this fall, the difference with the solid rig is unreal. Thanks dad!!!

That's not just snowflakes in the air...

Snow is on the ground, river's freezing up (or it would, if people would stay off and stop busting it up it with their boats!), and it's getting to be that time of year...

Got the snowmachine out of storage last night...still have to go through it good this weekend, but after a quick check it started up no problem.

So when does the trail open to Bethel? :-D

April Fools

Yes, the apostrophe was left out on purpose. That's plural, not possessive.

So around here, people don't do much on Sunday. Store is closed, not much hunting or fishing or anything goes on. They go to church and that's about it. Religion is taken pretty seriously, which is understandable, considering the timeline.

Us kass'aq teachers aren't really bound by such restrictions. To us, it's the **weekend**, and we want to get out there and make use of the time off however we can. Sometimes, this means heading out for some hunting on our precious last day before the new week begins.

Sometimes this choice to disregard the fact that Sunday should be a day of rest....well, it comes back to bite us in the butt.

The original plan for the weekend had included a trip up to the treeline by the Yukon river to collect some wood for this week's school bonfire. I've never been, but supposedly it's a 3-or-so hour trip each way, and a pretty rough one at that. However, the weather didn't seem to want to cooperate, as the temps had (finally) gotten up to a couple degrees over the freezing mark, which made for some pretty thick fog and pretty slushy snow conditions. Not exactly the best riding weather.

So, the treeline trip scratched, Peter and I decided to take a quick trip out beyond the village to poke around for some ptarmigan. Not too adventurous, but it beats sitting around the house watching TV, etc. Little did we know what the fates had in store. First, Peter manages to dive his machine nose-first into a gully between drifts, getting hung up and monumentally stuck. After trying to dig for a while with hands and sticks, we decide to give pulling it out with mine a shot. Now, knowing the snow in front of his machine is going to be similar to the snow he's stuck in, I'm not feeling too good about where this is headed, and the prospect of having both machines stuck a few miles outside of Akula is making me a little nervous. As I pull in front of him, I feel my track getting sucked down, and after momentarily getting stuck I'm able to gun it out....and right over an 8 foot drop. Next thing I know, I'm flying through the air, off my sled, and I land on my back on the snow with my shotgun planted barrel first down to the trigger guard about 10 inches from my ear.

It's at this point I start wondering about the Sunday + April Fool's Day combination we're dealing with.

But, my machine is still free, and we've proven that pulling Peter's out isn't going to be an option, so after shaking the cobwebs from my head we get back to work digging. This is when we decide that larger sticks might be more useful, so Peter whips out his trusty Leatherman to use the sawblade....and promptly breaks the tool. So after digging for a while and trying to lift the back end out with no luck, we decide to head back home to grab more help, some shovels, etc. So after we get my machine all rigged up with out stuff and both jump on, and then finally decide with the help of GPS and a compass which way to head through the fog, we get on our way. On our way, of course, meaning needing to get out of the area of deepish, melting slush we've been digging through. I decide to try to move pretty quickly to avoid getting bogged down, which worked well, until the fog and lack of contrast between the air and the snow caused me to bang headfirst into a drift that turned out to be a pretty sweet jump...had we been prepared for it. Peter banged his face into my back, and we hit so hard that the GPS around my neck actually snapped off its strap and went spinning through the air in slow motion. Luckily, we didn't land on it.

So, after getting back and grabbing shovels and a couple people to help, we headed back and got the sled out...embarrassingly easily, in fact. I contend that we had loosened it up before we left. There was a little bit of an issue with getting separated on the way back, and having to double back and look for people, but at that point my machine was starting to not like the >32 degree weather, so I limped home before adding an overheated sled to my day's list of woes.

Moral of the story? Maybe there is something to this "no hunting on Sunday" rule. I'll definitely think twice next time, I know that.

Blatant Narcissism

Peter just sent me a couple pictures that he took during out hunting outing on Friday. I feel a little funny posting two shots in a row of my pudgy, sub-arctic self, but I figured maybe there was someone out there who would like to see them. Hi mom.

A-hunting we will go

One Friday afternoon, two Pointer ex-pats, a couple of snowmachines, a .22, a 12-gague, and 28 miles.

This is all we saw -------------->

But we saw a TON of them...so we know the birds are around there...somewhere.

At least it was a nice day for a ride :-)

Spring Fever

It must be the daylight...there've been a lot more in the way of outdoor-type activities going on the last week or two. The temps are definitely still mid-winterish, but with the sun staying up late now that daylight savings time came early (it's light well after 9pm already), there's plenty of time after school to get out and have some fun without having to wait for the weekends. Here are a few pics of our goings-on of late...

Meet Seeker, E.P.'s sometime-lead dog. She had no problem jumping up on the sled and posing for a picture when we headed out on Friday. Eric wanted to do a quick 6 mile run, so a couple of us went along to help...and to take pictures, apparently.

Yet another good reason to come along...Peter bought a new .22 and wanted to try it out.

Here's Eric mushing. Cool, huh? Supposedly there's a local race this week sometime that he's asked me to help out with and be on his "crew"...I'm excited. Did any of you down in the lower 48 follow the Iditarod at all? Some interesting stories this year. I was surprised to see how many mushers from Wisconsin were entered. Very cool.

As I mentioned the other day, we rode into Bethel this weekend. We had a marriage-prep appointment on Sunday and decided to head in Saturday afternoon and stay the night. Anyways, this is a shot of the gas "station" on the river when we stopped to gas up on the way out of the village. I took the picture because it was an unusual sight...two cars! Mind you, these are two of the maybe 5 cars in a who-knows-how-many mile radius, so it was kinda funny to see them both at the gas station. Or not, I dunno.


And here's a pic of the tundra landscape taken from the same spot as Sara's pic in my last post. Boring, perhaps...but I've got to show you Wisconsin people what the real "frozen tundra" looks like, right? Actually, this shot gives you a good idea of how little snow we actually have on the ground right now. It's just been too cold to snow much, and what we've gotten has all blown away in the wind. Makes for some bumpy and icy snowmobiling.

Kickin' it in Bethel

Coming at you live from the White House B&B in sunny Bethel, AK!

We rode in yesterday and stayed the night just for kicks. I'll have a nice photo-post coming this week, as I've managed to take a bunch of pictures the last couple days, but for now, here's a preview shot of Sara on the trail with our friend's machine. Notice the bare ground...yeah, despite (or rather, probably because of) the cold, we've had very little snow this winter, so riding around on the trail at the moment is mostly on bare ice, sometimes a little packed snow, and even some bare frozen tundra. Eat your heart out, Lambeau.

Don't get me wrong, it's still fun zooming across the tundra, but I wish we had more snow for the sake of the machines, not to mention a smoother ride...the bumps get a little tough to deal with after 20 miles or so.

All's well that ends....well....

Just a quick Friday post to link to the story of Sara's snowmobile adventure over the last 24 hours or so...

I'm just glad she made it back safely and in good spirits :-)

Randomosity

Pic from one of the high school boys games here last month vs. Akiuk. The league tournament was this weekend, and from what I hear, it's coming down to a coin flip to decide who gets to move on to districts in 2 weeks.

We took a couple rides over to Akula this weekend...this is Sara (near) and Carey (far) on Friday afternoon. We'll be headed back soon, I'm sure, to check out their hardware store (!!!)

Like a mythical creature, we had heard stories about the hovercraft that occasionally delivers people and goods from Bethel along the river. Yesterday we finally caught a glimpse.

What's been up.

It's been a while, so I'm going to do this post list style. Cool?

1. It's a bit surprising how warm 14 degrees can feel when there's no wind. Seriously.

2. Been fighting of my first real illness since I've been up here, it seems. One of those colds that just vaguely makes its presence known, then lets you beat it back with vitamin C and other such weapons, then *wham* hits with a vengeance. Luckily, I made it to the weekend, so I was able to sleep for the next 48 hours if need be...in theory, anyway.

3. Did a lot of snowmobiling a couple weekends ago. Went out with some folks bird hunting out on the tundra on Saturday, and out to help with mushing again on Sunday. Lots of fun. Had a bit of excitement Sunday when Eric was knocked off his dogsled by a "mechanical failure" and after I doubled back for him we had to chase down the now-runaway dogs. After catching up to them (not always with both skis touching the ground, I might add), we had to figure out a way to get them stopped...yes, even at the time I was aware of the similarity to the cowboy movie cliche. But, after some proper russlin'...and untangling...and attempting to herd/tow the pack home...all ended up safe and sound, no worse for the wear. Except Eric, that is, who was a little sore from the initial fall. Excitement all around.

4. You know what else is similar to herding cattle? Teaching elementary school. Seriously. I'm not going to go too far into it or complain too much, I promise...but damn. And really, it's not been all bad, I'm just a wimp. And some of the kids are really great, but not great enough for me to not end up wanting to stab myself in the ear with a pencil 4 times a day :-)

5. This past weekend was pretty laid back, thankfully. Slept a lot (or at least as much as Loki would let us), and did some stuff around the house. Took a ride to Atmau just for fun on Sunday...there was a tentative plan to go to Bethel, but the weather was just too bad, so we just went out to see how the trails were, etc. Managed to get a little frostbite on my face...not too bad, but enough to remind me to bundle up whenever I get on the machine...heh.

6. Ended up making that trip to Bethel yesterday after school. It really is amazing how much faster the trip is when you're traveling with just a couple of people and not a whole group with 5 or 6 sleds. We managed to make it there in less than an hour...the first time we rode in, I remember it being close to a 3 hour trip. Of course, the trail was pretty bad then, too. Anyways, it was good to get in and go grocery shopping. Even hit up Subway (the only chain-type eating establishment within, oh, I don't know how many hundreds of miles)....very nice indeed.

7. A big ol' CONGRATS! to Eric and Sherry on their new baby! Looking forward to meeting the little guy :-)

And that's the Cliff Notes version of my last couple weeks...sorry, I've jest been so busy during the day with my class that once it's time to quit for the day I just want to head home and decompress for a while. I'll get back on the posting bandwagon here, I promise. Even have some pictures to post...some which may be to gory to actually put here...we'll see :-P

Me, me, me...it's all about me

Here I am after getting back from the ride on Sunday. You can tell it's pretty warm out by the fact I wasn't wearing a facemask :-P

How I spent my Wednesday

Or at least a good chunk of it, anyway.

When we returned from sunny, almost-tropical Wisconsin last weekend, we were reminded with no undue subtlety that it had, indeed, actually been winter in some parts of the world. The chief symptom of this "actual winter" condition (besides near-total lack of satellite reception...grr) being the crazy amount of snow on the ground. Which, all in all, is pretty nice - things seem a lot closer and easier to get to in the village when you can just travel in straight lines, not worrying about boardwalks and such. However, when you've been gone for a month and your snowmobile has been sitting outside, unmoved for at least that long...well...let's just say I was happy we could see part of it sticking out of the snow and didn't have to go searching for it.

So, after a couple hours of digging, I extracted it yesterday. And really, it was a nice enough day to be out...sunny and well enough into the 30s that water was starting to drip off the frozen powerlines. It was hard to get a decent picture with the shadows, but here's the crater from which the bugger was extracted. If I had been thinking, I would have taken a "before" picture, with just the windshield sticking out of the snow.

But, obviously, I wasn't thinking.

Our new wheels...er...skis

Check out that sweet, sweet ride.

That's right, a 500. Muhahahaha. Don't worry Mom and Dad, it's just for hauling us both around and towing, that sort of thing.

Yup, electric start, reverse, grip warmers, thumb warmers...all kinds of fancy schmancy buttons and switches. Still getting used to these new-fangled sleds...only ones I ever rode were *ahem* older models.

26.3

That's how many miles the trail is from the AC store in Bethel to our house in Nunap. How do I know this with such precision, you ask? Well there can only be one answer to that question...we got our snowmachine! Oh glorious day!!!

We had been kinda-sorta planning on flying into Bethel today to pick it up, but our neighbor and superstar-teacher Eric called at noon yesterday and told me that with the weather being so nice, he and Kenny had decided to ride in that afternoon, and suggested I call and see if there were any flights I could still get on in the afternoon so I could get the machine and meet up with them to ride back. I called around and had no luck, at which thought I figured it just might not be meant to be. Then, he suggested that it might be possible to borrow someone else's machine, and if Sara and I both rode in, one of us could bring it back while the other rode ours...common sense, of course, but the thought hadn't crossed my mind. Would anyone let me drive their snowgo to Bethel and back? And could Sara get out of work for the afternoon? All I could do was ask.

So with Eric warming up his machine for himself and Kenny, I ran up to school to see if we could figure out a plan. Sara was in a class, which I rudely interrupted, and she was down with taking off and riding in. So now a ride. She had happened to be in Carey's class at the time, so we asked if we might be able to borrow her sweet, sweet Ski-Doo...and she graciously let us (thank you, thank you, thank you!!!)

With that, and after gathering a few things and bundling up, we were on our way. Eric with Kenny in the lead, and Sara and I following. The trail is pretty well defined, and a bunch of the markers are up, but I'm really glad I had someone to follow. Riding the trails here isn't exactly like trails back home, with maybe a mile or two between bars and roads and houses all along the way. 8 miles or so out from Nunap you go by Atmau, but other than that there's nothing until you get to Bethel. Other than that, it's a pretty nice ride. Not too bumpy at all, no major obstacles, only a few tricky banks to go up or down when going on to or off of water. Snow conditions could have been a little better...the snow from last weekend's big snowstorm had been turning to slush during our 30 degree days this week, refreezing overnight, and leaving a lot of packed ice on the trails. Being the uber-rookie snowgo driver, I just followed Eric whenever he went a little ways off the trail into the fresh snow to be a little nicer to the skis and treads.

So, an hour and a half or so later, we were on the outskirts of Bethel. Eric and Kenny's real purpose for the trip was to head down past Bethel to Kenny's old village, Napaskiak, to get his snowmachine, so it was time to split up. Mind you, I've been to Bethel a grand total of three times, two of which were just flying through, and neither Sara or I have no idea where to go or how to get there by snowgo. But, we could see where the airport was, and with some pointing in the direction of the correct trail from Kenny, we just headed that way and played it by ear, agreeing to meet Eric and Kenny at the AC store whenever they got back from Napaskiak.

All was fine, we followed the trail to the highway, which we crossed after a little confusion, and finally got ourselves to the airport. Now, I don't know if I've ever explained the Bethel airport here or not, but here's the problem. It's basically a long strip of hangars and terminal buildings for individual little charter and air cargo services, all lined up along the side of a runway long enough for a large jet to land. All we knew about the location of "Everets Air Cargo", where our machine was located, was that it was at the airport. Somewhere. So we started along, riding on the side of the road, looking for a sign saying Everets. Just a building or two in, and we were at Grant Aviation, which I knew from Sara's stories was pretty cool and usually very helpful, so I stopped and asked if she wanted to go in and see if she could find out where exactly Everets was. She did, and when she got back the directions were shaky at best. "The other end" was basically the jist, so we headed down the road expecting to eventually run into it. Until we got to JP Air (and brats...yeah, it's on the sign), which is basically the end of the row. Confused, I went in and asked for directions. And then drove around for a while. And came back to JP. And drove around again, the same direction, but a little farther, at which point we found Everets and got our sled. (Note: Yes, I said sled. For you upper-Midwestern folk, you know what I'm talking about. It's slang for snowmobile. Here, I've slipped and said "sled" a few times and people have just looked at me funny. Probably because here, people often tow actual sleds behind their machines, hence it not really making sense to use the same colloquialism. Even "snowmobile" isn't used here. It's snowmachine. Or snowgo.)

So, half the battle was won - we found our sled at the airport. Now for the other half of the battle...getting into Bethel proper and finding the AC store to meet up with the guys. So we backtracked to where we had split up before, and headed towards town in the other direction, simply aiming for what looked to be a commercial part of town. Not that there's that much of Bethel to choose from, but still. Anyways, I soon saw what I thought I remembered to be the slanted roof line of the store, having passed it in a cab a couple times, and we made it there having to travel only a couple of blocks on the side of a fairly busy road. After about an hour or so, Eric and Kenny got back from their extended trek, I picked up some coolant and oil, and we got on our way. We had originally hoped to get back before dark (maybe an optimistic goal, considering the limited amount of daylight available this time of year), but the sun was well set before we left the AC parking lot. No matter, there were four snowmachines now, meaning plenty of headlights, and with Eric leading the way we made the haul back just fine, and no worse for the wear.

And with that, we have our smowmachine. It's pretty darn sweet, if I do say so myself. It's a 2000, but it's in great shape, and it just rolled over 1000 miles on the way back last night. Not to mention, I could definitely tell the difference right away driving the 500 compared to Carey's 380 on the way there. Lots more "getup", if you know what I mean. No pictures yet, unfortunately. But I'll be playing around with it this afternoon, and I have to go get gas and stuff, so I'm sure I'll have pretty pics to post tonight or tomorrow.