This past Thursday felt like the first few weeks of painful struggle and tug-a-war with the kids that I faced in the old school. By the end of the day I’m not sure who was counting down the seconds until the bell would ring more: the students or myself. The kids kept saying things like, “I hate school,” and “I won’t come tomorrow” under their breath and outright and I felt like joining in with the chorus. But Friday was a new day and when I came out in the morning to greet kids as they were eating breakfast, I couldn’t help but run back to my classroom for my camera to snap a picture of Susie and Lydia serving food in the lunchroom. Check out what is hanging out on the floor in the background. Pretty classic taste of AK bush.
On Friday, Trevor and I took off as quick as possible to do a little winter camping. We had Scotty and Brian drop us off at the canal and then made tracks south across the water toward the mainland; our goal was to get as close to the mountain as possible. When we set out it was already dark. We had cloud cover, but it was a pretty bright walk due to the two day old full moon, and the clouds kept in some extra heat making the temperature about 25 degrees. The next day was 10 to 15 degrees cooler, but while we were out and about moving around I felt pretty toasty, so I was pleased with that (I was testing out a parka that I’ve had for just over a week now). At night, though, I was a pretty chilly kid, so I’m trying to think about how I need to prepare for my next winter adventure, whenever that may be. I am thinking a sleeping bag liner may be a smart purchase. More than anything, it was nice to get outside and away for a day to enjoy the frozen tundra.
Walking on Ocean Ice
This is a picture of our tracks behind us as we walked back toward town Saturday afternoon. To the left you can see the small hill that sticks out from the rest of the horizon: the mountain we were shooting for when we set out Friday night. As the picture portrays, it was a pretty nice day to be out and about: a slight wind but all and all, pretty great.
Below is Trevor also excited to be outside.
I ended Saturday night by having Charlie come over to make some home-crafted pizza. To do so I had to pick up some ingredients from the AC, pizza sauce was one of the ingredients on the list. We had a blast putting the pizza together (even made a pepperoni map of the state including St. Lawrence Island and Kodiak), but I didn’t realize until after the pizza came out of the oven that I completely forgot to put on the pizza sauce! Problem solved by making a dipping bowl for those who wanted sauce for their cheesy bread pizza.
Well, that is the most recent! Hope everyone is doing well :0).