We finished off our time in Bethel and then spent a week traveling around south central Alaska with one of Bethany’s friends, Shannon, who flew up from Phoenix. It was a great way to end our time in Alaska. I’m still working through all the photos, but will get round to them.

After Alaska, we flew down to Bethany’s parents in Iowa and spent three weeks or so in + out getting ready to move to St Louis. We went to the Iowa Conference UCC annual meeting in Grinnel, headed off to meet some of Bethany’s friends in Omaha, Nebraska, then planned our first trip to St Loius for a few days. First, we needed a car, and we got a great deal on a 2001 Ford Taurus SES with only 63k miles on it:

Once in St Louis, we managed to find a really nice two bedroom house for rent in Maplewood, 10-15 mins from downtown, and I got to see the sights of St Louis. The following week we came back down to finalize things and check out some more places, and then moved for real on July 1st. The U-Haul we rented was ridiculous, but worked out really well:

By chance, we had the Alaska detail on the side of our truck It was a good drive down though and we managed to get unpacked okay, and slowly got things we needed.

Job hunting has been slow, and I’ve been setting up to work as a freelance IT consultant which gives me the freedom to work on college classes as I need and not be tied in to working certain shifts. I got to head to Chicago for the first time as one of my projects, and finally sampled Chicago style pizza (it’s all upside down…). It’s working out good though.

A pretty hectic weekend flying out to Seattle for a wedding and re-union of a bunch of Bethany’s peace corps friends rounded off our planned traveling, so we were then able to finally get a puppy

He’s a 10 week old yellow labrador retriever we named Kenai. After waiting so long for a puppy, it’s great to have one around the house now. He’s settling in okay and has his first vet visit tomorrow morning!

So, on Monday I flew in + out of Kwethluk, Tuesday I hit up Toksook Bay and flew back to Bethel via Newtok, then Wednesday I flew down to Kwigillingok and then on to Kipnuk where I camped out overnight at the school before coming home on Thursday. After getting things squared in the office through Thursday afternoon and Friday, I then helped figure out next week’s installs So, this Monday I fly to Mekoryuk (where it wouldn’t be awful I got stuck overnight…) and then Tuesday I’m scheduled for Kasigluk to do installs at Akiuk and Akula, before then heading to Atmautluak on Wednesday. Phew!

It was really nice to get back to Nelson Island again and spend the day in Toksook Bay, and then getting down to Kwigillingok and Kipnuk on the coast was great after being out here 4 years and Tunt being fairly close to them. It was quite, quite different to what I expected. It was a lot more desolate than I thought it would be – pretty much every day direction was completely flat and devoid of shrubbery or elevation change. The climate was also totally different. Kwig had 4ft high snowdrifts alongside the boardwalks where they’d plowed the way, and Kipnuk had boardwalks impossible to walk on at times because of the snow! I rode a snowmachine back to the airport on Thursday and really got cold in howling winds, before then driving around in Bethel not two hours later with sunglasses on, window down on the truck, and no snow to be seen at all! I’m quite intrigued as to what Mekoryuk will look like, as Nelson Island was still covered in snow.

I’ve got one final paper to write for my GOVT101 class, and finished off my PHIL101 class a few days ago. I’ve got ENGL111 and SOC101 coming up this Summer for 6 weeks, and I’m registered for four classes this Fall at St Louis Community College which I’m really looking forward to. Not quite sure how I’ll handle 12 credit hours whilst (hopefully) working full time, so we’ll see. I’m sure it will be okay, and will at least know to only try 9 for Spring if it’s too much.

I’m definitely loving my iPad which I bought on our way through Anchorage a few weeks ago Combined with the Kindle app, it’s fantastic. I’ve read half a dozen books on it, and it’s great to have Whispersync go between my iPad and iPhone so I can pick up on one device right where I left off. I’m eagerly awaiting Barnes & Noble releasing their dedicated iPad app, and think it’s very smart Amazon and B&N are focusing on still delivering eBooks to the iPad, which is where their primary market should be (selling books).

At the moment, we’re looking at figuring out plans for June. It’s starting to look pretty busy! The plan is to be moved in to St Louis by the start of July

Anyways, Fairbanks was a little different than we expected. Was good though once we got used to the layout. Downtown was pretty run down and not much going on, but elsewhere was fine. We headed up to see the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, something I’ve wanted to see for a long time:

Something else we both wanted to see was the Northern Lights. On our way north of Fairbanks, I stopped to watch the Ice Road Truckers make their way home:

A little after midnight, we finally got to see the Aurora:

We were like 40 miles north of Fairbanks and totally on our own. It was pretty awesome! We got a couple of short shows which kept us happy:

On Friday we headed 20 miles or so out of Fairbanks to North Pole, which was quite a surreal place. The street lights were colored like candy canes, trees had lights and decorations on them, streets were named ‘Santa Claus Lane’, etc. No trip there would have been complete with going to Santa Claus House (though Santa himself was on holiday…):

To get over North Pole, on Saturday we drove out to Chena Hot Springs, which was just awesome. It’s nestled away in the mountains all by itself, and has geothermal hot springs which feed a couple of pools. The outdoor rock pool was very, very relaxing. Surrounded by snow capped mountains and trees whilst in the warming pool was great, and it was about 45F out, so even lying on the rocks in the sun kept us fairly warm. It was also nice to then wander around the resort and check out all the old and rusty machines and gold panning area and stuff:

For more photos, check this flickr set of Fairbanks

Overall, it was a great few days. Felt weird once we landed in Anchorage and were waiting on our flight back to Bethel. Would be the last time I would be flying out here (assuming I don’t get roped in to helping with Cama’i for Pat’s final year next March). Plus, it matched up that 7 weeks to the day I would be flying back in to Anchorage from Bethel for the last time, and then 8 weeks to the day, I would be leaving Anchorage to the lower 48. I’ve flown to Bethel something like 20 times over the past 5 years, and will be weird leaving. Last night I sold my snowmobile, and have my boat up for sale too. Hopefully that will sell soon. I’ll be mailing off the last few boxes in a couple of weeks when I’m done with my desktop computer and winter clothes and stuff, and then that’s it

I’ve got it parked at Pat’s house and will put it up for sale next week once I’m back from Fairbanks. Seemed weird to be towing it away knowing I’d be selling it. I always looked at life out here as experiencing things whilst I could, and buying a boat was simply a case of being able to buy a boat and use it until I moved. Was a good experience

Has been weird shipping all my possessions off to Bethany’s parents, but figure they’re pretty trustworthy So long as Jericho doesn’t try to eat my Playstation or something… It’s also been a good excuse to go through things and get rid of things I just don’t use/wear. I donated 4 trash-bags of clothes to the Catholic church along with a couple of big blankets; have some canned and dried foods to donate to the Lions Club; and threw out 8 bags of trash. Some things like a mass of flying magazines were tough to get rid of (though the FAA has just adjusted their stance on medications meaning I’m not totally ruled out now), but overall it’s been good. Means I’m starting out a fresh. And have less things puppies will chew when we’re able to get a place in St Louis where we can have dogs.

So, as of today I’m now all moved out of my old house and living with Bethany for a few weeks until we move. It really doesn’t seem like a year ago I was moving in my old house! Other than the cost of heating, it was a nice house, and all the space and light was great. But, as much as I know I *can* live in these conditions, I don’t *want* or *have* to, so it’s time to move on. I have my desktop computer for editing photos since I have some Iditarod photos left, Cama’i photos, and whatever I end up with from our Fairbanks trip in a few days, but pretty much everything else has been mailed off or gone one way or another. I’m hoping to be able to sell my boat, snowmachine, and truck okay, I’m not stressed about it. I have a lot of money tied up in rental and utility deposits and vehicles, so will be a nice chunk of change by the time we head south.

Alaska Air were running a sale on tickets last week, so we got our plane rides sorted. We leave Bethel on Sunday 30th May and have a week exploring Anchorage, Kenai and Mat-Su Valley with a friend of Bethany’s from Phoenix, then fly to Minneapolis and drive down to Iowa on Sunday 6th June. The plan is to have a house sorted in St Louis and be moved by the 4th of July weekend Exciting times, just a lot going on at the moment what with my college classes too!

I made sure I got to photograph some of the dancers though, one of the advantages I guess is seeing which groups are really cool when they first perform so I could get down by the stage to photograph them later on in the weekend These are some from the first batch I processed last night, starting out with the amazing Mary Ann Sundown of Scammon Bay:

Well dressed dancers from Marshall, including the elder sitting at the front (of which I have some more close-ups to come):

I checked out St Mary’s a couple of times as they were quite lively. This is an overview of how we had the stage, lights and video projectors set up:

And bear in mind, this is a pretty big high-school gym where a district-wide basketball tournament was held a couple of weeks ago!

Tomodachi Diako Taiko Drummers were really impressive, a group of Japanese immersion students out of Anchorage:

One of their leaders was very friendly as we hooked up a wireless mic for him, and his flute playing was awesome:

And here’s one of Marty starting to look a little tired by 8pm on Sunday evening:

Overall, it was a great festival, and as with last year, I really enjoyed being part of the sound + light crew and being able to help put on such an awesome show. Pat is retiring next summer and leaving Bethel, so Cama’i 2011 will be his last show after doing it for 25 or so years. He’s already trying to convince me to fly back up for it!

Here’s Mitch Seavey, two-time K300 champion taking a corner weaving through University Lake:

With the trail fairly narrow, mushers often ended up close together and with no way of passing. Here, Dallas Seavey, son of Mitch, pulled over to let Sonny Lindner pass. As the teams aren’t racing, I guess Dallas was just wanting to enjoy himself and take his time:

Aliy Zirkle, along with her trailing-sled rider also enjoying herself:

Rookie Dan Kaduce:

A good looking and happy team of Tom Thurston:

I’ll finish off processing the photographs from Sunday’s official restart in Willow over the next few days. To check out more of what’s online so far, head over to this Iditarod 2010 set on flickr

As they can’t sweat, their tongues swell up to allow them to cool, which is quite safe.

You then had this guy who just wanted to keep running, not stop on the trail for a minute or so whilst the musher untangled some lines:

Peter Kaiser of Bethel was running his first Iditarod, with his father, Ron, riding the second sled:

Mike Williams Jr of Aniak is also running his first Iditarod this year. Both are currently doing well in the middle of the pack.

Up in Willow, we got to mill around the teams as they were setting up thanks to the press passes we had, which got some great candid shots of the puppies like this one after sneaking a little snack from a way-ward food tub lid:

Some mushers were more stressed out than others as they got ready for the start of the ‘real’ racing, such as Martin Buser, barely able to contain himself:

And once everything was underway, great to see all the mushers and teams make their way across Willow Lake to begin the journey, such as DeeDee Jonrowe:

I’ve processed and uploaded around 50 or so photos now, with hundreds more to go. I’ll slowly be uploading them as I go, again, check this flickr set for more now and over time. Any stand out ones I’ll also post here. I’m really going to miss photographing sled dogs. I guess that’s why I did so much with the Kuskokwim 300, Bogus Creek 150, Akiak Dash, Holiday Classic, and now Iditarod the last couple of months. I just love being around the dogs! I had been hoping to get up for the Akiak 150 this weekend, but there’s a little too much going on at work to have taken more time off so soon after the Iditarod. Hopefully I’ll be able to get another local sled dog race around Bethel before the end of winter.

After dinner on Saturday evening with friends Beth + Loren, we snagged their press passes which meant we could wander around amongst the mushers and teams setting up for an hour or so which was awesome! We then headed over the lake to where the teams pull off and in to a little wooded area. It was really good fun seeing the teams start their Iditarod journey, and I’m now resigned to following the race progress via the GPS tracking on Iditarod Insider.

Today we had a lazy day around Anchorage as the weather wasn’t too good for heading down Turnagain Arm, but it was still good fun. Back to work tomorrow, and with 3 x 8Gb memory cards full of photos to process on the evenings. At least it’s Spring break at UAS so I don’t have much college work to get done over the next week or so and have time to process them. I’ll have photos on flickr as slowly over the next few days hopefully.

I haven’t packed any clothes yet, but at least am checked in on-line and have my camera gear packed I’m taking a little more than I had for the K300 races and Holiday Classic where I stuck with the 18-200 the whole time, as I’m hoping to get a little more landscape shots done around Turnagain Arm and such, we’ll see. My poor MacBook is rapidly running out of space and will barely hold one 8Gb memory card, let along the three of them I carry! So, it might need to wait until I get back to Bethel to post some photos.

Of course, it’s blowing snow and IFR here in Bethel right now, and the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and Alyeska Resort are closed along Turnagain Arm due to severe weather, but hopefully we’ll be okay and have a great weekend! If nothing else, will be nice to get out of Bethel for the weekend. Heading up to Fairbanks for 4-5 days at the start of April, so at least gives us a couple of trips out of the delta to keep us going as winter rolls on.

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ibegantoneedamuletohaulallmycameraround
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ibecameweirdlyaccustomedtodrivingontheriverinmytruck
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ihaveanothertripbookedtofairbanksatthestartofapril
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I will try to blog more. I usually can’t be bothered and end up with short updates on twitter or Facebook. If you’re wanting to keep up, that’s probably easier. And my flickr photo stream.

Winter is definately coming too, I guess we’re officially in to fall now, and given it was 28F this morning with a good thick frost and hasn’t risen above 38F today, that figures. As much as the fall colors are nice, it really is kinda an in-between season – not quite warm enough for boating or walking around exploring, but not cold enough for a good freeze-up and snow for snowmobiling. The down side to all this is although I love my house, the big windows and lofted living room don’t do much for keeping heat in As a test this evening I brought the heating up to 70f then turned it off. Within 2 hours the temperature had dropped 5f. 62f is about the lowest I can keep it at, 64-65f is about as low I can go and stay fairly comfortable, so with the temperature only being 38f outside, I’m not looking forward to what will happen when it’s -38f outside!

The PFD amount was announced today, an annual payout for Alaskan residents from investments of monies gained from the mining of minerals such as oil. This year it’s $1,305 and should hit my bank account on October 8th. Nice little delayed birthday present! I’m hoping it will help pay for flights somewhere at Christmas, since my Vegas tickets (7 weeks tonight, but who’s counting?) are all paid Won’t be heading back to England, am trying to wait until next summer when I could fly return direct from Anchorage to Frankfurt for like $800.

I never really think back on my times in Tunt and long to be back or wish for things to have turned out differently, but have thought a few times over the summer how different it must be for the teachers that find themselves stationed around Bethel in Napaskiak, Oscarville or Napakiak, or up around Kwethluk; or west coast sites like Mekoryuk, Toksook Bay or Tununak. The southern coastal sites like Tunt, Kong and Kwig are quite, quite different, and feel a lot more remote and desolate. I couldn’t imagine trees like I’ve seen around the Kwethluk or Gweek Rivers, and even small rolling hills or the abundance of bird life or fishing when I was living in Tunt. A year ago this past weekend I was spending the Labor Day weekend moving up to Bethel, and I can first remember feeling something not quite right after my second day on the job here whilst phoning back that the evening.

Contrast to today where I was calmly balancing so many district-wide servers, networking and licensing issues, whilst also taking my first college class through UAS where I’m enrolled on a bachelor’s course, and tonight have been running Facebook and Skype through my iPhone. I own a truck and a boat, and my snowmobile came back home last night and work started on replacing the rear suspension assembly for the coming winter. I would never have believed I could have found myself living in such a situation.

My first political science class went really well and seems like it will be pretty interesting. I spent the rest of the evening working on my readings for next week. The first of my oceanography classes is Monday afternoon and I have some readings to do over the weekend for that.

I also finally got an iPhone up and running out here today It’s taken a lot of patience, but other than the same restrictions on any cellphone out here in Bethel with regards to lack of data coverage, it works great. There are a few apps I’ve installed such as Facebook, Tweetdeck, Skype and Shazam which are cool, and I have a friend coming in to town next week that am sure will point me in the direction of even more. It really is an awesome little device, and even things like text messages bring on a whole new meaning when it’s formatted like iChat conversations. Very happy with it!

This fall semester I’m taking two classes, both of which are a little different, but that’s the whole point. Classes are ‘Intro to Oceanography (OCN101)’ and ‘Intro to Political Science (GOVT102)’ through the Ketchikan campus of University of Alaska Southeast (UAS). I have a 3 hour class each Monday afternoon for Oceanography and a 1 1/2 class each Wednesday afternoon for Political Science, and work has been accommodating shuffling around the couple of hours in early finishes to be made up elsewhere in order to support it. I guess it’s all in their best interest anyways. The rest of the class is self study at home, which works great for me and is how they run mso of the distance courses. Will see how the course load goes with two classes per semester like this, and hopefully register a little more in advance for spring classes, as Cultural Anthropology which I initially tried to register for was already full.

Fun times, and I’m quite excited to be doing something other than computing. I guess the hardest part has been actually doing something about it – applying, getting registered, etc., as is so easy to just do nothing and get by with things as they are.

That weekend I found out one of my best friends from school had died in a car crash. Finding out by reading such seemingly meaningless posts on Facebook and having the comments going back and forth made it all seem so impersonal and frustrated me a lot. Partly why I haven’t blogged for a while. The one plus point was at least I had some kind of a connection, regardless of how impersonal it seemed.

A few days later, a friend made it in from Anchorage to photograph local events for the paper. That was fun, and gave me an opportunity to try heading home from work on a sunny day, hook the boat up, drop it in the water, and go play for a couple of hours. Knowing I have that kind of freedom makes such a difference, so we had fun going down to and exploring Napaskiak and Oscarville. Plus, she also made a good photo of me:

Since we’ve had a few good spells of weather and fishing opportunities, we also headed out with Captain Macy (and Erin…), Brian and Bethany to go fishing.

With four of us out there, it was a fun afternoon, though the little noseeums gave me some grief! This is me fishing with Bethany:

Last weekend Jeff and I decided to go explore the Gweek River in anticipation for moose and bird hunting. We did a little fishing, but not much around there except pike, but we had a good day exploring a new area. An hour and a half out of Bethel, quite a way’s up the Gweek, we stepped ashore and found a bunch of moose tracks in an area quite unlike anything I expected of the delta, and very reminiscent of Scotland:

The photo’s don’t do it justice as I just had my little point + shoot, but it was quite a beautiful area. Jeff is certainly going to return in the 10-day moose opening from September 1st onwards.

I also then purchased a Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun this past week to get out bird hunting. The act of purchasing and owning a gun doesn’t phase me anymore, but to walk in to the AC grocery store on a lunchtime and walk out 20 minutes later with a gun was a little weird. So, Wednesday night Jeff + I took a walk out across the tundra just getting used to it (he’s been great in going over the safety aspects, the gun components, hunting methods, etc. and is looking forward to a partner this fall), and Nikko ended up leading the duck count, managing to retrieve an already injured white-fronted goose. Bird hunting doesn’t officially open until September 1st, so we weren’t really looking at doing much ourselves, but again, is nice to have more options for getting out on an evening and weekend now.

This weekend Erin is moving, which is helpful, as Bethany is then moving in to her old place the following weekend. Means Iain’s Moving Services are required for two weekends, but beer and pizza are good forms of payment. If this fairly okay weather holds that we have today, am sure Jeff will be forcing me to go out on the river too. Which would be just awful I have a few more snowmobile parts coming in soon too to get my Indy 500 ready for the coming winter. The temperature dropped below freezing and gave a good frost a few days ago, so we’re definately easing out of summer.

We hauled in 33 salmon, 31 of which were silvers, in three main drifts of around 5 minutes After heading back home and sorting out the boat, I then headed home with 17 silvers. I can see the appeal of fish camp to give you somewhere to cut fish if nothing else! It gets messy. This was my two rubbermaids after unloading the truck:

I’d been picking up fish fish here and there from the Tundra Center, so already had a 3 silvers, 2 reds, and maybe half a dozen chum, but I just about managed to squeeze in the 17 silvers from today! This is one full freezer, and also staring to see the appeal of a separate freezer:

Overall, a fun afternoon, if leading to a long evening spending hours cutting fish!

I also then called up the immigration department after not being able to check the status of my green card renewal online or on the phone for a week or so. I had received a request for additional information which was due back by July 23rd, and I was getting concerned the mail had messed up and they hadn’t received all the paperwork I sent them. After being transferred up the chain to a supervisor and starting to really get worried, I then had to explain my problem again, which the very helpful lady didn’t seem to understand. She casually informed me my case had been approved on July 22nd and that the new green card had been queued for printing and mailing out Well, that certainly was a lot better than I was expecting! I think I had to ask her to repeat it, just to make sure!

Hopefully it arrives pretty soon, as I’m still a tad nervous until I actually have it in my hand. Would much rather still be able to see the status in writing online as being ‘approved’ as with previous cases, but certainly sounds like it’s for real! Within like two hours this morning I’d tied off the last couple of major things with being over here and getting through the renewal on my own. Has also gone through incredibly quickly if so, given I didn’t file until the end of March, but then I had got a biometrics appointment within 3 weeks, and everything seems to have moved smoothly. Will see what I get in the mail over the next couple of weeks.

Last night I went to fill up the gas cans for boating and literally as soon as I stepped out the truck the heavens opened! As I’m filling up the cans, I say to the guy at the next pump doing the same thing: “You going out boating tonight?”. He looks up, dripping wet, smiles and says “Nope. You?”. I look up, dripping wet too, and reply “Nope”. Regardless, Jeff and I decided today we were going, rain or no rain!

That was my truck + boat at the top of the small boat harbor south ramp waiting to lower in to the water. I’m slowly getting better at reversing the truck with boat trailer, but am glad Jeff is around to help and is patient! It’s quite difficult trying to learn to reverse a trailer in the first place, let alone when you’re going downhill and in to water, the last part of which your brain tells you is stupid!

Anyways, we’d wanted to go run the Napaskiak River so we knew where it came out and what it looked like, as it’s on the main Kuskokwim channel between Church Slough and Kwethluk, the primary marine highway I guess. Here’s a rough map of our explored areas now:

Red was today’s play time, yellow was our camping trip a couple of weeks ago. The others have been shakedown runs of Jeff’s boat and mine or from exploring the Kwethluk River before our camping trip. The Gweek River is next up, the one just starting at the top directly north of our red route from today, which is meant to be quite pretty and good for wildlife. The Kisararlik (sp?) is also a planned trip, past Kwethluk and heading off in the top right hand corner, which is a good fishing river apparently.

Gas wise we got to within about a mile of the boat harbor coming back before I ran out of gas. There was still a little left in the tank, but that whole red run was done on 6 gallons. Not bad for a 2-stroke. As a comparison, Jeff’s yellow run was done round-trip on about 12 gallons, so there’s seemingly not much between the 2-stoke 30hp and 4-stroke 40hp, though Jeff is pushing an 18ft boat loaded up wih gear which then shows how fuel efficient it is. But, even at $5.10/gallon, that’s a good 2 hours or so on the river today for $30, and fun going exploring some new waterways

It’s ‘92 Chevy S-10 4.3l V6 4wd pickup which for a Bethel truck is in a pretty good condition Will haul my boat to the harbor and back and get me around town rather than walking in the rain. Quite pleased with it!