We moved!

We moved into a new house at the beginning of April.  Our car is sounding like it's on it's last leg and the rent is quite a bit cheaper.  It's also alot smaller!  The kitchen and living room are really one room, broken up only by the sofa.  It's puny.  Then the bedroom is a loft so we have to climb up a ladder, and the ceiling is a little low so we can really only crawl around upstairs!  At least it's only the two of us!

But, we have a great view of the lake from our house!  It's only about 10 feet from the side of our house, and has alot of ducks and I saw a beaver the other night!  It's pretty neat!  It's also only about 4 minutes from work, so we're even close enough to walk to work in 10 minutes.

 Here's our lake!

 The walkway around our house... by the lake

 Say Hi! Jeff!!!

That's our house on the left!

Village trip in March-ish

Wow, sorry that it's been so long since we've posted anything, but we've been having problems creating new blogs!

About a month ago, our good friends Charity and her husband took us on a trip on the ice river to see a village, something I was especially excited about since I have never been to a village.  We drove on the river to the village of Napakiak.  The road was only one lane plowed, barely wide enough to drive one car on.  The road is used for both directions o traffic, so if there's another vehicle, both kind of scoot around to the side in order to pass by each other.  About half an hour into our trip, we came across two women in a small suv who had gotten stuck, high-centered on the snow.

We spent probably an hour, pushing and spinning around, and finally managed to get the car turned around in a full 180 so she couldl go back the other direction.  We all gave her a running start and she was able to drie.  Then as we were walking to our friend's car, I glanced over and saw that she had again gotten stuck because she went off the plowed part too far.  We drove down to them again to help, but they waved us on because they didn't want to keep us.

 The above is the village of Napaskiak in the distance.  The road there wasn't well plowed so we didn't go there.

 This is where the two women got stuck...

 We turned that vehicle all the way around, just using manpower because the tired weren't appropriate for driving on ice and snow.  The 4 wheel drive was also broken which also didn't help.

 The first store we went to in Napakiak.

 This is their post office.

 And the second store we went to.

 The ship graveyard

On the river, the etiquette is if a person is stuck, you help them, or get them help because it's easy for people to freeze to death in the winter here.  But they let us go on!

We continued on to the village where we drove on their two roads to see the village.  We also checked out the store to see what they had.  They were fairly well stocked, and had alot of the items that the stores do in Bethel, but more of the basics and less of the extras.  People in the villages make hats and jewelry to sell at the stores for a bit more of an income.  They're quite talented!

Kuskokwim 300 (K300) dogsled race

In January, we had the Kuskokwim 300 dogsled race!  Everyone drove down onto the river and parked in two lines leaving a space in the middle for the sleds to go between.  They had huge lights set up because it was already dark and everyone was dressed up in their warmest winter clothes.  It was around -20 that night and there was a windchill so everyone was prepared; except me I guess.  When I got out, I was so cold and only got about 50 feet from the car before my forehead started hurting really bad.  I guess my hat was not meant for extreme cold.  I went back to the car but Jeff continued on.

The excitement there was palpable.  The dogs were tied up in their teams; yipping and jumping into the air.  They knew something was going on.  It was a great experience!

 Did I mention that it was cold...?

 Is he crying BECAUSE it's cold...?

Winter's here!

This morning, we only had about a half inch of snow on the ground.  The weather had turned too fast when winter officially came, so we got a tiny bit of snow, but alot of ice, and then just really cold weather.  On the ground, there is about a solid inch of ice on the ground.  It sure makes walking treacherous, we had to buy some cleats after I slipped on the ice, landed on my behind and smacked the back of my head into a curb!  I'm fine though.

Well, today, the weather people were predicting a blizzard; 1-4 inches of snow! The storm came in around 1 with some icy cold wind, and then around 2 the snow started.  By 5, we had nearly two inches of snow, and can barely see our neighbors house.  It's great!
  
Unfortunately no pictures today.

Winter travel in Alaska

One of the things that would only happen in Alaska:

When people travel by small plane up here in the winter, they're required to wear all of their winter clothes (snow pants, heavy coat, hats, gloves, etc.) in case of a plane crash, so that they have a chance at surviving in the extreme cold.  When Jeff flew out to the village on his first trip, he was fully clothed for winter just in case.  High school sports teams often travel from village to village for games, and are required to do the same.

Now, the river is frozen enough that people are driving on it, but there are still alot of good sized holes, so they have to drive carefully to avoid them.

We have a lake here called H Marker lake, which when frozen in the winter time, makes the road system in Bethel an actual loop instead of a horseshoe shape.  The other day, I took a taxi to church and the driver had to go over the lake to drop someone else off first.  It threw the three of us passengers for a bit of a loop when he veered off the "road" and did some donuts on the ice!  So then later Jeff and I had to do it too!  We're not the only ones; we have a good view of the lake from the house and often see people do the same thing.  I've never done donuts before, anywhere, so it was alot of fun!

Winter is definitely here!

Well, winter is definitely here, as the current temperature is 2 degrees with a real feel of -29.  And it's only November!  We've all shifted into the winter jackets and long underwear and gloves.  The unfortunate part is that the amount of snow on the ground is such a small amount, I'm not sure it can actually be measured.  :/  Everyone is hoping that it "warms up" soon, so that we get more snow.

Last weekend, we had freezing rain and by Wednesday, everything was soo slick!  We hadn't gotten our winter tires on yet (had an appt on Saturday) so driving was treacherous.  By then, the ice over EVERYTHING looked to be about 1/2 an inch thick.  It's very dangerous.  School was cancelled on Tuesday and Wednesday because it was so bad.  There were two school buses that had slid off of the road and on the way to work, we passed a couple of taxi's off the road too.

Our driveway has a slight hill in the middle of it and it's slightly crooked, and on Wednesday morning, we couldn't get the car to go over the hill because it kept on sliding so badly.  Even worse, we have a fairly large ditch on the other side of the driveway that's filled with about 3 feet of water (probably all ice right now), and every time the car started sliding on our crooked driveway, it was toward the ditch.  We ended up taking a taxi to work that day and Friday and by Friday night, we were able to drive the car around the house where it was flat, so that we could get it to the appointment today to get the tired changed out.

When I left work that evening, I slipped on the ice landing on my back and my head smacked into the curb, so Jeff decided that I was too much of a klutz not to have cleats on my shoes.  So we invested in two pairs which helps get traction.  It's not so bad now. (Oh, and I'm fine thanks.)

Perspective?

Interesting!