End of the Year

"Manaqing" with the Steve's (and LouAnn)

Last weekend was a blast.  Justin Steve and I had been talking about going “manaqing” for a few weeks so we finally set a date and time: Saturday at 11:00–he promised to come get me.  I woke early, boiled water for the thermos, made two peanut butter and honey sandwiches, a bag with nuts and choc chips, and also went to the A.C. quick for some yellow yard gloves for driving the Yamaha.  A bag of sour patch kids found their way into my cart, also for the upcoming adventure.  11:00 came around and rolled by into noon.  I decided to set out and find Mr. Steve to get this day started.  Hailey was biking down the street.  Upon seeing my pole, she inquired of my activities and informed me that Justin had been spotted with his brothers driving toward the other end of town.  I drove out in search of my fishing partner, found him and Mikey, Jason, and LouAnn, and we all zoomed back to his house to gather jig sticks.   Justin, Mikey, Jason, and LouAnn all clamored onto my ride and we drove off for a little bit of fishing and a lot of fun.

We tried fishing (very briefly) down the hill behind Bill’s, but then relocated to the boat beach closest to Standard Oil.  We parked and walked all along the beach, over the rocks, along the cliff side, atop the ocean ice (still thick), through the puddles to the barge docking beach.   There we shared our two sandwiches between the 5 of us, ate our snacks and, though I forgot to bring cider or cocoa or tea or anything, we even drank the plain hot water.  We found drift wood and tall dry grass and made a pretty fantastic fire.  Justin did practically all of the work and deserved the credit. Bunny (Elizabeth is Justin, Jason, and Mikey’s mom) came out with her sister, who is LouAnn’s mom and visited for a little bit and took some video of the kids.  Jason left with them to go hunting with his dad.  The fire just got better and better so we used an old board to roast our fish food (sliced hotdogs) for the full picnic atmosphere.

Later that night, shortly after returning the Steve’s and LouAnn to their homes, we all loaded up for a bonfire down at North Beach.  Mike went down early to collect a nice sized wood pile and Carrie and I hauled a couple loads of people to join in the fun: Krystin, Bert, Jessie, Cody, Sara, and Tim.  Jodi drove her own honda and brought noodle salad and cake to share.  The sun stayed shinning like it does in a good Alaska summer; the fire crackled warmly; life is so difficult.