Brad was with us when we signed the closing papers, so he took a picture of us in action. We needed to get the papers to Anchorage ASAP, so Alex took them to the airport and paid $60 to have them flown there. We were walking on the tundra later that evening (more pictures below) and were able to photograph the plane that was responsible for the epic paper transport.
I think the one thing that is probably the best feature of the new house is the playground set that is in the front yard. Brad has had more kids come over in the past 2 weeks than in the past 8 years. And speaking of kids, they are everywhere. I have to ask the name of a new kid in our yard every time I turn around. Bethel is full of kids and they are always outside running around. Brad asked to be put to bed over the weekend (granted it was 10pm) because he was so tired after spending all day outside. It doesn’t matter that it’s 47 degrees and raining. It doesn’t matter that he comes in with feet soaked from running in the tundra. Not much matters as long as he’s got kids to play with. He also gets to take the bus in the morning now and knows many of the kids on the bus.
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| Waiting at the bus stop |
Alex was able to travel to Tooksok Bay early August. It is on the Bering Sea and from the pictures, is a quaint little village. The airport is a gravel strip with a shack for a terminal. The shuttle to the accommodations is the back of a pick-up or a 4-wheeler. He went looking for the herd of musk ox, but only got to see the big hills and some fog. The pilot of the return flight was only certified to fly using sight, not instruments so he was keeping the plane at a cool 500 feet.
The clinic was built with funds from the Denali Commission (similar to the clinic in Akiak that I was able to visit in July). I was given a tour with the help of FaceTime and from what I could see, it was beautiful. The exam rooms are nicer than what the hospital clinic has. There is a big room for dealing with trauma or emergency childbirth. Tooksok Bay is a Sub-regional Clinic (SRC) and is staffed with a PA and NP as well as Community Health Aides. I wish I could have been there too because it looked so peaceful. There weren’t a lot of cars or trucks and the ocean view was pretty.
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| Getting on the plane in Bethel |
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| Does he look a little apprehensive??? |
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| Up close and personal with the pilot |
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| And they come in for the landing |
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| The terminal at Tooksok Bay |
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| Airport shuttle |
I wish I could say that the roads are really great here and there are biking and hiking paths, but that would not be truthful. Brad and I biked in the tundra on a 4-wheeler trail one evening, only to have the trail turn to sand. And then we biked past the shooting range, and I wasn't sure which way the bullets were being fired. Why didn't we turn around, you ask? Because I don't think it would have been any safer to go back the way we came. We did find a tire graveyard, and we made it home safe and sound. Alex biked with us the next time we went out and we avoided the sand pit.
The weather the last week of August was so beautiful that I considered not going to work all week. The high was in the 70’s and there were days that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We hiked in the tundra, which is not as easy as it looks. At first glance, the tundra looks like it would be a great place for a nice stroll. This is entirely NOT the case. The ground is squishy in places and other places are very firm. One step has you sinking down on a spongy surface about 6 inches and then next step there is no squish. Once you have that mastered, you need to figure out how to avoid the large clumps of really hard dirt that are scattered all over the place. Those are the “ankle-twisters”. Throw in a blueberry bush to tromp on and it makes for a great workout. We were out one fine evening and Alex found a pond and insisted on skinny dipping. Anyone who knows me will know that being naked is not enjoyable, and being naked in water that has unknown things in it is terrifying. Brad and Alex had no troubles jumping right in (there will be no inappropriate pictures in this blog!). The hike we took 2 days later did not have any nakedness in it.
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| The Killbuck Mountains (about 80 miles away) |
I’ve talked about blueberries in every blog, I think. But they are amazing. And huge. And they seemed to grow constantly. But now they are done. It’s time to pick “red berries” or what are also known as wild cranberries. They are pretty tart, like Ocean Spray, but not as big.
There’s always something going on in Bethel. I was informed by a very reliable source (Grant Litts) that the entire “Alaska State Troopers” episode last week was all about Bethel and the heroin problem. I guess the Troopers were arresting buyers and sellers. I do know that there is a very big heroin problem here in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta. It’s no different than any other place in the country. But I think here more people are aware of it because it’s a smaller community and most people are related. Some villages are not really close, but what happens there affects people here. There were 3 heroin overdoses in the same village in one day; two people were able to have the Medivac pick them up, but one 19 year old died.
About a week after the overdoses, two planes collided in the air about 50 miles north of here. 5 people died then. It took several days before the investigators could get to the planes and recover the bodies. They needed the help of local villagers to bushwhack and cut down trees—in fact they had to cut a half mile path through trees and bushes. It’s pretty rough up here.
But on a lighter note, there are good and fun things to do! I did post awhile ago on Facebook the Zombie Run that took place. It was so cold and windy and rainy that I really didn’t want to even leave the house. But we did and Brad and Alex were turned into frightful zombies while I was just a runner. The whole thing was well organized. There was no fee, and everyone received a t-shirt and free food after. And there were also medals and trophies handed out. The race was sponsored by the hospital and the Diabetes department.
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| Dress rehearsal the day before and with no rain |
The Kuskokwim campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks is located right here in Bethel and offers continuing education classes. Brad will participate in Judo and I’m enrolled in a ceramics class. I have been able to make several items including 3 bowls that I made on the wheel (just like Demi Moore in "Ghost"). It’s really cool to take a ball of clay and turn it into something. Next week, I’ll get to glaze what I made and maybe make the things pretty.
Despite all the iPad use, Brad has maintained his creativity. He made me a Lego coffee cup one evening. It didn't hold any liquid, but was a pretty good build.
The days are definitely getting shorter. The sun is not up until after 8:00, but it is light before that. The sun sets around 9:30 or so. It’ll be interesting to see the daylight hours quickly wane after the autumnal equinox. It’s been chilly here, but there are no big temperature swings between the morning and evening hours. It may be 48 when we leave the house at 7:43 (I drive Brad to the bus stop to get on the bus at 7:45 because I can’t get him out of the house early enough to walk. It’s on the way to work, so it’s not really an inconvenience) and 55 when we go to bed. The evenings seem to be warmer than the days. That may change come winter though.
We have started to settle into Bethel and it is slowly becoming “home”. I’ll get up and go to work and then come home and putz around the house, just like I did when we lived in Michigan. And then sometimes it hits me that we live in ALASKA. We are so far away. We seem to be doing ok, though. I thought it would have been like Christmas when we finally opened and unpacked our stuff from the shipping container. It was like Christmas—the worst one ever. Like when you get old socks and an ugly sweater. Or when all you really want is one thing and Santa doesn’t bring it. I asked several times “why did we pack this?” We have boxes of food in the living room because there is no room in the pantry (I have 3 large bottle of soy sauce in glass jars that I had to pay by the pound to ship. Am I nuts??). I have clothes that I had completely forgotten about so why did I bring those? Alex decided to donate/throw away about 30 pairs of socks and he also realized he had 15 pairs of jeans. I am fortunate for all that I have, so I should share my fortune with others. My message is this: either don’t ever move, or pack early and pack lightly.
Here are some beautiful sunrise and sunset pictures of the tundra, and some other random photos.
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| Water delivery |
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| Views from the office window |
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| On my way to work . . . |
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| Sunset from our porch the first night in our new house |
These pictures are from a trip we took up the river. The sunset was beautiful. Alex plowed the front end of the boat into the silty bank of the river and we climbed a hill to watch the sunset. And then I dropped the camera into the water and killed it. I'm glad the memory card was ok!
There's a sale at the grocery store this week: save $1.50 on a gallon of milk. Sale price is only $5.99.
