In a very good way. There was just a lot to do. I mailed off some more stuff to the AKT2 folks, so I hope that they will be happy, at least for the moment. We needed groceries, and it was a good excuse to stop in town for sushi, so we did. The maneuvering in Bethel is getting to be very tricky on a snowmachine, as much of the snow has melted from the shoulders. It is tougher to find any place to ride near the roads, and crossing them is an exercise in snogo abuse. I made another run up in the evening, after a brief snowfall, and things were a little better, but the season is quickly changing, and it won't be long before it is just time to park at the seawall and walk or call one of our many fine taxis in Bethel. I may have mentioned this before, but Bethel has one of the highest taxi-to-human ratios in the country. Not bad for a place with less than five miles or so of paved roads. This from the Bethel Chamber of Commerce:
" ROADS: The city of Bethel maintains 21 miles of mainly gravel roads within the city. The state of Alaska maintains approximately 5 miles of paved road, as well as an ice road on the Kuskokwim River that can exceed 100 miles in the winter months."
And there is this helpful offering from the Wikipedia entry for Bethel: "The town's single paved road—about 10 miles—supports a surprisingly large taxicab industry. With 93 taxi drivers, the town has more cab drivers per capita than any other city in the country, making it the unlikely taxicab capital of the United States. Just as surprising, most local cab drivers are Albanian or South Korean immigrants lured north by reports of good money.[12]
For anyone with an interest in what it looks like on the extensive road system, there is this offering from someone on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVFZAXDFwFU.
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