Here's Roxie Bender rolling in the grass at Valdez last summer. She had been on the ferry in the truck for awhile and was really glad to get to the grass. Wind was really blowing too.

We stopped by a rushing "stream" on the Denali Highway last year. It was loud and and fast.

These movies are loading - so I am going to load a couple more. This is a short video of McCarthy Alaska back last sumer when we went to see our friend Carmen. McCarthy is at the end of a long dirt road which is a three hour drive at 20 miles an hour. Tom is taking this video. I am actually on the porch of the building but you can't see me.

Cupi'k Dancing
This video is from Christmas. I have only now gotten to a connection fast enough to load it. These kids are in the third grade.

Welcome to Kodiak! Tom and I are here for a library conference. What a great place to have a library conference. We have enjoyed eating Halibut and visiting a couple of museums and riding around the island seeing some outstanding scenery.

There was an Out Loud Fisher Poets show with real Kodiak fisherman telling stories and singing songs. Really authentic and great entertainment.



You are seeing only a small portion of the boats in the harbor. They were so beautiful in the sunlight.

Dozens of Eagles flying about.

We enjoyed touring the Coast Guard Base. We got to see watch some of the planes and helicopters take off for training.

You may be able to make out U.S. Coast Guard on the boat.

The snow arrived and just piled up - softest, lightest snow I've ever seen.

We went from beautiful, sunny, bright weather to a foggy snowfall - just covered everything.

It was a major trip getting here. We actually went out to the airport four times to catch the bush plane out of Chevak but fog kept the airplane from landing. Well, once around 4pm it did land and we got on - but a pregnant woman needed a seat and Tom and I gave ours up. It was a little funny because there was too much weight for any baggage - it would have gone in on the next flight. But when Tom and I got off and the pregnant gal got on - well instead of a second passenger - they decided to load ALL of the baggage and take it with them. Tom and I were the only ones who saw the humor.

When we finally flew out around 6pm, we arrived in Bethel only to have that flight delayed as well. We actually got into our hotel in Anchorage at 12 midnight. We got only about four hours of sleep before we got our separate flights to Kodiak. The last 15 minutes of my flight was horrendous - I felt like I was on a shaky bullet headed into Kodiak.

The first few days here were great. We saw some great scenery and loved looking at the boats in the harbor. There are lots of Eagles here - we have seen as many as seven at a time. We are now in a small blizzard - well nothing to compare with Chevak - maybe we'll call it a snowfall. Our flights to Anchorage have now been cancelled and we are spending yet another night here. It is a great place to be stranded.

Tom walks Roxie during the blizzard.

Our neighbor across the way, Jeff, shovels snow from his front door area.


Roxie is play ing on snow that covers our connexes - they are about 8 feet high.


If folks have a snow machine AND a four wheeler - they have pretty much let the four wheelers get buried in the snow. There's no place to shelter them.




We having a little blizzard today. No planes. Nobody outside. A wedding was postponed. I don't even know how to describe this weather. C-c-c-cold, heavy winds, blowing snow, quasi whiteouts coming and going. If you try to open a window to get a bit fresh air - it might just blow off the hinges. Roxie does her business really fast when she goes out side. Several people were trying to get out for a conference and only one plane was able to fly in yesterday and it had just six seats. So they are stuck here in this awful weather when they thought they would be in Anchorage in a nice hotel for the weekend. A couple of the teachers have only been out about once this year - so this is a trip they don't want to miss.
I'm well now. Tom is so relieved. He is a wonderful caretaker.

Whew - high winds and blowing snow. I'm posting a few photos.

We have not yet taken down our Christmas lights.


We have several ball teams and the principal out of town (well out of village) and they can't get back in. No mail. No eggs. No powdered sugar. And Roxie does not want to go outside - not to mention Tom. Last weekend we had the big annual HoopFest. Teams from all over Southwest Alaska came in to have a big basketball tournament. I made - let me count - 96 cupcakes and four regular cakes. I have been trying to get back into my cake decorating which I used to do in the 70's. Was it that long ago? Anyway, I am pretty rusty - but got a rather good looking heart cake made for the food sale at HoopFest. Some ball player saw it and special ordered one for her friends birthday. It brought back such great memories of when I took those cake decorating classes in NC and then taught the cake decorating classes in Costa Rica. The teams filled up every classroom in the middle and high school wings and camped out. Chevak ended up winning the championship. This is quite a social event since people get to see friends and spend time with people they know from other villages.

I have been sick for five days now - but keep trudging along to school. It hits me in the evenings - chills and aching bones.

Tomorrow it will be an especially rough trip to school since we have these huge snow drifts - many are up to 12 and 15 feet near the houses. We will certainly be climbing though snow banks tomorrow on the way to school. Tom has it rough cause he has to push and pull me along. Not really, I do pretty well.

It is ice-cold around here! The last week or so has been interesting to say the least. Lat Saturday morning a friend called to find out about the earthquake in Alaska. We had one that morning just after 9am and I didn't even know it. It was near the Cook Inlet.This past week has been a Volcano watch for part of Alaska across the water from Homer. Terry and Dee and Mary - you guys saw Mt. ReDoubt when we made that stop and looked across at that long line of dormant and sleeping volcanoes. They expect some ash to be falling around Anchorage if it does blow.

My aide is out with a new adopted baby and I am alone for six weeks. It has been quite a while since I shelved and checked out books. Very boring....

It is a cold, clear, and quiet New Year's Day in Chevak. We had fireworks twice last nice - out on the lake. They were just beautiful - the whole place would light up. The first set of fireworks was around 9pm - a couple of teachers did those, I think mainly so the kids in teacher housing could see before they went to bed. The second set started at midnight. We heard the pop pop pops and went out on the porch to see. I told Tom, "I hear them but I can't see them." Tom laughed and said, "Those aren't fireworks honey, those are gunshots." Seems people all over the village were just shooting guns in the air - and it was obvious that there was at least one automatic weapon shooting rapid fire. Wow! Then the planned lighted fireworks started and people were running around on 4-wheelers and snow machines and I could see little kids with little fireworks going off all over the lake in addition to the Big Show and the gunshots. It was like a bizarre movie scene.

Happy New Year!