Fun On the Coast and on the River...

I wanted to do a better summary on the weekend's tournament at Goodnews Bay. First and foremost, many thanks to the people of the village of Goodnews Bay, who came out to support the competition, and also donated food items for the excellent meals that we enjoyed while we were there.

Second, I want to thank Chris Carmichael and his staff at the school for putting on a wonderful event. Every thing that we needed was attended to, down to providing transportation to the store for kids that wanted to go. We walked over as a group on Thursday after we got in, and there was a little bit of grousing from the flatlanders at all of the climbing that the trip involved. They were just jealous because they were having a hard time keeping up with an old man...The staff did an excellent job of coordinating departures, despite the confusion caused by the ground stop in Bethel for a big chunk of the morning. Many, many thanks to the school, staff, and village for their gracious company.

As it turned out, we only got back about three hours later than we were supposed to, which was not bad under the circumstances at all. I got to catch a couple hours of napping before it was time to hop on the trusty snowmachine for a trip to Bethel for some grocery shopping and dinner at Dimitri's with Eric, Sara, and our pal Erin Kavanaugh. The river is getting sloppier as the weather warms. I am writing this at a little after 6PM on Sunday night. It is 46 degrees, and the sun has been out all day long. Last night, there was a little snow/rain mix falling, but that did nothing to make the ice stronger or thicker. It is still good, but there are some serious puddles beginning to form on top.

For today's festivities, we convoyed up to Bethel to take kids for the Rose Urban/Rural exchange program. The kids from Fairbanks were here back in February, and now our kids from PKA are headed to Fairbanks Ben Eielson high school. We had three sno-gos, and three sleds behind. Some sleds held bags, and some held kids. We got 'em there, but I do think that some were drier than others. I was driving one of the machines (!), so I got to keep much drier than any of them. It was so warm today that I drove wearing a baseball cap and my foul weather jacket over a hoodie and some overalls. I was very thankful for my trusty Muck Boots, because it was real wet and real muddy at the river bank where we pulled up to drop off the travelers.

After the kids and Chelsea were safely away in two taxicabs, Eric, Adam and I walked over to Swanson's to do some more grocery shopping. Eric and I are bachelors for the week, and Adam is one on a more full-time basis. After shopping, I needed to make a gas run for the little beast. The snow has melted pretty thoroughly in Bethel, and I ended up hightailing it down a gravel road to get to the gas station. Adam's advice on my return was to hit every puddle that I could find in order to wash out the undercarriage. I did my best on the return trip to Napas to comply. Messy, high-speed fun. I really want my own machine now, but someone thinks that a boat is more important. Hmmm.

Tomorrow is the day off that we were going to have had after Easter. Tuesday will be the first day back after a week of testing and cultural week. It marks the first really serious lesson planning that I have done in a few weeks, and it will be an attempt to return to normal classes as the sun shines longer and the weather gets better. The last five weeks will be interesting...