On Saturday night, some of us got together and enjoyed a "Progressive Dinner" in which we all contributed some part of the dinner (mine was quite a small contribution... a bit last minute) and moved from new place to new place to see all the cool things people have done to their new homes. It was very nice, a good mix of people. That night we were all introduced to Jeremy, the new PA at the clinic (his wife and daughter are unfortunately out of town, so we haven't met them yet). He has snow shoes, Kira has snow shoes, I just like to snow shoe, so the three of us made plans for a Sunday Morning Adventure (hence, the title). He brought an extra pair for me, since I don't have any (yet).
Kira woke me up a little past 10am in the morning. I was reluctant, but I agreed to go forward with the plans to hang out. I am so glad she made me do it. :) Jeremy picked us up in his sweet Jeep and drove us out to the very very end of the 14 mile road. The snow was quite icicly, so we x-ed the snow shoeing idea and just decided to hike it. We hiked for quite a ways - it was so beautiful outside!
Along the way we found lots of tracks - moose, bunnies, fox, even bear! Jeremy and I studied them closely - he knows tons about this sort of thing, so it was cool to learn more.
This is our first group picture. Guess who's in the middle?? :)
This was the farthest we hiked to. The stacks of stones there have a Yupik name - I think it starts with an N - but I don't remember what it is. It's supposed to represent a person, I think, and also act as a marker, a known location in the middle of the tundra.
That's the coolest thing about here - when you are out, you are really OUT there. It's not even like hiking in a national park. There aren't rangers here. We're pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. It's great. :) (Don't worry, we stayed on a trail. Snow, especially when it's not windy, makes it easy to stay on track.) Once we started to go into bush areas, however, there was definitely more noise on our end. Jeremy was ahead of me, and I called out, "Maybe you should start singing now." "Yeah," he replied, "I'm calling for bears right now."
After our hike out, we decided to start a fire for lunch. Fortunately, I was prepared for this very sort of thing. :)
That's right, I had my handy dandy survival kit (thank you, Kim Hanisch), and I was able to start a fire using flint, steel, and a cotton ball coated in Vaseline. With some finagling, after only a few tries we had a blazing fire. We sat and ate and chatted for a while, munching on granola bars, apples and cheese, and hot chocolate.
It was a fantastic way to start any day! We were out for a good 5 hours or so, driving included. On the way back we did a bit of off-roading in the Jeep, up a big hill over the gravel pit. So lovely! The three of us had a great time!
There are some back pictures that I haven't quite uploaded yet, all from my trip to Anchorage. That will come later... sorry it's taking so long! This week will be good, also. It's Inservice week, so about 400 teachers from all over the district will be gathered here in Unalakleet for professional development classes and, of course, great social time. :) I'll have a full house myself, but I'm looking forward to good times with good people, and learning new things. This is my favorite week out of the whole year.
