Wet Fun...

No, not that kind...it has been raining here fairly steadily since Friday night. The intensity of the rain actually increased this afternoon. I put the picture up here because, flowers aside, that is what the area resembles. Everything is swimming in water. There is water everywhere. Needless to say, the condition of the river has been shot straight to hell. It is difficult to say when we are going to have enough cold weather to salvage travel conditions on the Kusko. Folks that were commuting to work from Bethel are stuck back there again. A number of people that went up on Friday or Saturday on snowmachine ended up leaving their equipment there and flying home.

Wet, wet, wet...and then we got the phone call. On Saturday, when it became clear that we were not going to Bethel for groceries, my beloved placed an order at the AC store. It was not going to get here until Monday, and today it seemed very unlikely that anyone was going to fly. We got some shipments in, but our orders did not arrive. Or so we thought.

At about 8:00, we got a call from Earl, who is the pilot for the troopers out here. He had landed recently out at the airport and saw a stack of boxes sitting in the rain. We were lucky that he decided to check out the shipping labels on them. Off we went to grab a couple of dollies from the school, and then we walked as rapidly to the airstrip as we knew how, both of us cursing Yute Air all the way. Sure enough, they had delivered our groceries, including several frozen items, and simply left them there without bothering to notify anyone. What the situation would have been by morning is anyone's guess, but the options that I can think of would not have been especially lovely. We also picked up another package that had been left for a friend of ours and brought it home to keep it out of the rain. Great service from an organization that is famous around the delta for it. There are nice people who work there, to be sure. But sometimes the lack of follow-up can be appalling.

The important thing is that we got it taken care of, and we did it together, and we had a laugh about it. The other important thing is that the groceries were not ruined. We now have our supplies for Thanksgiving, and we can celebrate the holiday properly. Who our guests may be shall eventually be revealed, and we can be thankful for home, and hearth, and puppy dogs.

And after all was said and done, we shared another strange little part of life out here on the big river. Now it is time for hot chocolate, and cookies, and eventually, good night.