Alaska #6

1. There is some unspoken rule up here that every Sunday is super windy. It makes it kind of a pain to walk to church. I should have brought heavy straight skirts instead of flowy ones. It's especially bad for the first part of my walk down the big hill to Healy. I usually end up bunching as much of my skirt as I can into a ball at my side and hold it so I don't end up flashing everyone on the highway.

2. I just tried to get some lotion from the bottle we have at the front desk and it squirted past my hand and onto the paperwork for today. That was fun to clean up.

3. Keith assigned himself as my home teacher. I guess he figured I would be an easy one to check off his list each month since I am over at their house at least once or twice a week. So now he is my home teacher and Jess is my visiting teacher. Works out great :).

4. More housing woes. You have to pull the string for the lights about 50 times hard every time you want to turn them on or off. Even then sometimes it gets stuck halfway and the lights flicker and then you have to pull it another 50 times. It's really annoying when you got to go haha :). Also the toilets make noises like they are going to eat you. I'm not sure what that means.

5. Both Lucy and Miles do these type of jobs year round, just moving from place to place. Miles was in New Zealand and Australia not too long ago, and Lucy is going to spend this winter in Hawaii.

6. We all dread people reserving the train combo special. Not only do we have to get all their information to book at the hotel, but we have to call and make their reservations at the train station. So when we get one of those reservations, it easily takes up the next hour of our time, with a lot of that time spent being on hold with the railroad.

7. We have this guy that came in on the railroad (so we provide his transportation with our shuttle) and is staying here for 10 days. He is from South Africa, and he keeps cancelling his plans because he thinks it's too cold here. So he has ended up spending most of his time loitering around the hotel. I just think that's such a waste.

8. Jess and I went on a 4 wheeler ride last night. It was so fun! She has been going around with Keith and knows all the good places to go. She took me to this lake out in the middle of nowhere that I am definitely going to have to go back to when I have a camera. After that we decided to explore and take a road neither of us had been on before. It would around for a little bit, then went straight up. We ended up by the cemetery, right up the road from the hotel. Who'dve thunk? :)

9. It froze for the first time the night of July 30.

10. Healy has a current infestation of black bears. They have been killing pigs, sheep, and chickens and dragging them off. We are finding scat in places that we would rather not (like right behind our kitchen trailer). A lot of guys in the branch are doing a bear hunting expedition. They are getting a little too close for comfort.