Airplane taking off from the Kuskokwim River in Bethel, AK

Tour de Bethel- Part II

 Our Alaska Airlines airport! It's wide this way, but it's narrow the other way.  In other words, it's definitely not big.

 The Vietnam Memorial Cemetery.

 The Tundra in the summertime is very green, although now it's starting to edge towards fall colors already.  The weather this summer went as high as 67 degrees one time.  Most of the weather has been wet, a heavy mist.  It didn't seem to get humid at all though, for which we were grateful.  The mosquitos got bad at first when it was dry and warm-ish, but when it rained again for a few days, they disappeared and didn't show up again until it was warm for several warmer days in a row.  The seemed to reappear several times, but for the most part after they disappeared the first time, it was much more bearable.

 This is the house we lived in when we first arrived in Bethel.  If you remember the picture Jeff sent first with the plane sitting on the snow, this is the opposite view.  The lake is nice and wet instead of frozen.

Apparently, the person who owns this house is the grumpiest in Bethel.  This road that goes straight goes all the way through to the houses in the distance (where our house is).  The owner of the house owns the property the road is on though, and there was some kind of problem which hasn't been resolved with the city using it.  So he blocks it off.  And people have to drive an extra long distance to get to the other side of town which can be a pain.  People are grateful when the lake freezes up because they create an "ice road" and skip around his property.

Tour de Bethel- Bethel City Fair

Sorry it's been so long since we've written.  We've been busy off and on, but it's just enough that we keep forgetting. 

This weekend, we had the Bethel City Fair.  They had it in the cultural center, which is also the library.  That actually had several different events all day Saturday, including bird viewing, a Saturday market, fair items to view, a Fun Run/Walk, bird demonstrations, photography show,  tours of the Community Gardens, games and activities, skateboarding/BMX contest at the skate park and a potluck and Fiddle dance.  Quite a few activities packed into 1 day really.  The pictures below are things from the fair.

 The coat was a submission by someone, which got first place. The detail is really beautiful!

 Vegetables grown here in Bethel.  There are about 2 farms up here, where they grew some of these.  One of the farms has a green house and even does a "Saturday Market" where you can buy vegetables.

 This is a belt buckle made of moose horn.

 These are homemade native shirts.  Women and men wear them all the time around town.

 There were homemade boots, hats, gloves and headdresses.

This is where people sold stuff.  All kinds of ivory carved into animal shapes, earrings and other jewelry, furs and other things.