35 Days

Oh yeah!! First Sprachmeister of 2nd grade...he had to speak German for 35 days to receive it! That is a lot of hard work!

All Things Red

Red day.....Sam had to take something red to school for show and tell, so his favorite octopus made the trip with us today.

Zach had to wear a red shirt as the different grades had to wear red, yellow or black today. There was an all school picture today and the kids were forming the German flag. We are looking forward to seeing how it turned out!


Doug got home today! Zach and Sam were excited to see him and to climb on the back of the truck.

Almost it for the flowers this year.....winter is just around the corner!

Aleutian Trip - Part 2

Finally . . . after SIX hours took off for Cold Bay. Clouds on the way there were awesome.

Landing under partly cloudy skies. I always take a picture when I take off, land, leave the airport, or make it home or get to my destination. This helps me keep track of where I've been and the times I have worked.

Long day . . . I am staying at the Cold Bay Lodge. It is a B&B, verdict is still out on weather I like this place or not. I usually like the animosity of a hotel room. The people her are older and like to talk. After landing I got cornered into talking for two hours. It was fine . . . but I was tired. May be a long week.

Next morning partly cloudy but not much wind. So far I have been lucky with the weather. Taking a small plane over to King Cove.

The night before I had noted that the runway seemed really nice and really long. I was right. The main runway is 10,000 feet and the crosswind runway is 5000 ft. All of this for 65 full-time residents! Without the runway the town would not exist. This runway goes back to WWII. It has been updated over the years and is now state of the art. It was on the list as an alternate for the Space Shuttle to land. Due to Cold Bay's location midway between Asia and the lower 48, it also serves as an emergency landing area for planes that may have a problem, or need more fuel. As a result, the residents have lots of stories of interesting planes landing and stopping in Cold Bay for a quick stop-over. Recently the new Boing 787 Dreamliner spent the afternoon making touch and go's over Cold Bay. Other stories include the second largest cargo plane in the world stopping for fuel, lots of Coast Guard flights in and out as they look over the Bering Sea crabbing fleet, and a pair of F-22's with full armourment that had a mechanical problem.

Nice shot of the bay flying over to King Cove.

Welcome!

Not sure how many people live here, but so far I like this community the best out of the ones I have visited. With the fishing fleet in town and a huge cannery that can service up to 7 different fish lines at a time, there is a lot going on.

Another town . . . another landfill. This one wasn't quite as good as Sand Point, but still way better than what I am used to seeing in the Kuskokwim. Great view though!!

Two hardly used new Tok burn units. The town uses them to burn cardboard.



Driving around town I thought this sign was funny . . . unless it's your kids playing near the bears. This region is kind of known for its big bears. Lots of brown bear hunters in town for the season.

Beautiful new school. Cold Bay and False Pass barely have the minimum of 10 kids to keep the school open. King Cove has over 100!

Kind of like Girdwood. Lots of dogs enjoying the day.

After the landfill inspection and a tour of the town, my host Joe, had to get back to putting out fires (figurivtly) and he set me loose with one of the city trucks to explore on my own. Look out! I only got lost once.

I found myself trying to follow directions like "take the curvy road past the lake on your left, turn at the yellow rock and look for an ugly green building. From there look for another green building that used to be the old city building but is now owned by the tribe. Under the stairs is a yellow door and there you will find the Chinese restaurant. You can probably already guess what I ordered.

After lunch I walked around the boardwalk overlooking the Bering Sea. Looks nice today.

Another cheesy self portrait.

After a walk I drove over to the small and large boat harbors. Many of the small boats had been pulled out for winter, and many of the large boats were still out fishing.

Thousands of crab pots all over town.

This boat was a sad story. It had run aground after a Green horn fell asleep at the wheel. The boat is less than a year old. It ground on the rocks for 3 months before the salvage companies were able to get her back to King Cove.

The bottom is completely gone. There is no propeller, and I am sure the engine is toast. The story is that the owner bought the hull back from the insurance company for next to nothing and is going to take the next 10 years and rebuild and re-power the vessel. Pretty ambitious project.

After the harbor I drove back to the airport. The clouds and the sun against the mountains made for a real pretty drive.

Plane was on time for the trip back to Cold Bay. The propeller barely stopped spinning before . . .

. . . the mob of cars waiting for passengers, freight or to board the flight mobbed the plane.

The flight from King Cove to Cold Bay is only 20 minutes. Despite the close distance between the two villages, the only way to travel between them is a small plane or boat. There are plans for a road, and it is about a third of the way completed. The holdup is over about 65 square miles of the Izenbec National Wildlife Refuge. There is a land swap deal in the works, but it has yet to go through. If a deal is not worked out and the road is not allowed to continue, a hovercraft will be stationed here and complete the journey from King Cove to Cold Bay. The hovercraft is stationed here already, but it has not run in about two years. It apparently cannot operate in temperatures lower than 32 degrees, and needs to be subsided $127,000 a month by the government.

Nice view of Cold Bay as we fly in. These houses have a great view.

Yet another self portrait.

A chapel quonset hut from WWII in Cold Bay.

The Bearfoot Bar/Restaurant/Store

I went with Bill (the owner of the Cold Bay Lodge) and a hunter that was staying at the lodge to the Bearfoot for a beer and to see some of the local color. The bar is only open Wednesday's and Saturday's. I ended up running into one of our friends from Anchorage at the Bearfoot. Alaska is sure a small town, you always have to be ready to see friends in the most remote places. Cool thing about the bar was that they had WI-FI. You never realize how much you rely on the internet until you don't have it.

The dining room at the Cold Bay Lodge. Pretty good meals, but no WI-FI.

Bill and the Cold Bay Lodge. Getting ready to head out to False Pass.

There are tons of interesting stories out in the Aleutians. This plane, a DC-6 was on approach to Cold Bay two months ago and made a beautiful landing with the owner on board, unfortunately the pilot forgot to lower the landing gear. The subsequent belly landing destroyed the four engines and damaged the airframe beyond repair. The plane was chartered all summer but now sits broken and abandon on an out of way area of the airport.

Me again

Nice cliff on the way to False Pass. Left two hours early at 9:30, which is good because the weather is suppose to get progressively worse throughout the day. "See you on Tuesday" Bill, from the Cold Bay lodge said as he dropped me off at the airport. Lets hope he is not correct about my chance of getting back to Cold Bay.

More than just the residents of False Pass visit the landfill. Fortunately this bear was not in the landfill at the time of the inspection.

Summit burn unit at the landfill. Pretty clean operation.

As soon as I was done with the inspection I called Penn Air to find out about the flight. The pilot had warned me that the planes may not fly later in the day, so be quick. I was glad to see that the plane made it as the weather continued to get worse.

I didn't get a good picture of the boat, but the DreamCatcher was in the harbor with an engine out. The vessel is operated by a cousin of one of our close friends. I guess they had a hard time time getting into the harbor. They had to do a quick oil change before getting in. They were flying in a mechanic to repair the boat in False Pass. I'm sure that cost some $$$.

Dark clouds and winds 18 kts gusting to 28 kts.

After a roller coaster flight I was glad to see 10,000 feet of pavement waiting for our plane. We had to circle the airport for 10 minutes as we waited for a Coast Guard C-130 and a lear jet to land.

Aleutian Landfill Tour

Take off from Anchorage under sunny skies. It was hard to leave town after a wonderful weekend with friends in the Sound. Flight was delayed three hours!

Beautiful view of Turnagain Arm as we take off from Anchorage.

So far this has been a trip of delays. Yesterday the flight from Anchorage to Sand Point was delayed three hours. I got off lucky however only having a delay of 3 hours, the half full flight was scheduled to continue on to Dutch Harbor, but as they closed the doors to continue the trip, they discovered that the engines of the plane would not fire up. They ended up having to go back to Anchorage on a mid-night flight. Long day for those folks!!

I checked into my room at the Sand Point Motel and then headed over to the Aleutian China a short walk away.

I always get the same thing when I go to Chinese restaurants, Mongolian Beef. Aleutian China's food was pretty good. I give it a 7 out of 10, and given the circumstances of the long day and the fact that the restaurant had beer, it rates even higher! All of the people from the flight trying to get out of Sand Point ended up eating at the Chinese restaurant as well.

The next morning started out pretty nice. Should be a good day for a landfill inspection.

As I waited for the Sand Point Public Works Director to take me out to the landfill I had a friend join me as I ate my chocolate muffin on the porch.

The landfill was in pretty good shape. They had such a nice view from the site, probably one of the best in the state.

The landfill uses a Crochet Burn Unit to process the waste. It is a pretty slick system. Skid steer takes the trash from the garbage truck and dumps it in the hopper.

The hopper picks up the trash and dumps it in the burn bin where air is forced in to help the fire burn hotter. It smokes a bit, but it is a lot better than the standard burn unit that I see in the Western Villages. Though not quite as environmentally friendly as a true incinerator, it is cheaper to operate and more reasonable for the small towns to maintain.

Helicopter at the airport that was sling loading mining supplies from a camp.

As I sit here in the Sand Point terminal, I just found out that my 12:30 flight to Cold Bay has been delayed until at least 4:30. The flight is not delayed due to weather in Sand Point, but rather fog in Dillingham. The region is reliant on only a few planes and when they are delayed due to weather it messes up the whole system. At least the airport terminal is new and they have coffee. Still this the second time in that many days that I have spent the majority of a really nice day in an airport.

So . . . I have some time now to sit and update this entry to the blog. We don't often have blocks of time like this free at home.

I have been lucky to have the opportunity to travel to many parts of Alaska over the past 10 years. One part of the state that has been difficult to get to however has been the Aleutians islands. (add something from Wikipedia about the region) It is very expensive to fly in that region, and unless you have a reason to be out there, cost prohibitive. I am a huge fan of the Deadliest Catch and love the ocean, so last year when our Kenai DEC guy retired I was first in line to add a few of his Aleutians landfills to my caseload. So I planned an inspection trip trip for the end of September. I had to keep the weather in my plans as weather delays are well known in that part of the state. I researched and planned inspections for Sand Point, Cold Bay, King Cove and False Pass. The landfills should differ quite a bit from what I am used to seeing on the Kuskokwim. While most of the towns are similar in size, the Aleutians have a lot more resources available and therefore should have better operations at their sites.

Ten years ago when I worked for Channel 11, I did have the opportunity to visit Sand Point for a news story. We flew out with Reeves Aleutians Airline (now out of business) and toured Unga Island just across from Sand Point. That trip started with a visit to the old Unga townsite, abandoned in the late 70's. At the time most of the buildings were still standing and we were able to walk through houses that appeared to have been walked away from only months before. The only resident that still called the old townsite home was an old horse. I was warned that this horse would be there and he liked to be brought apples to eat. He found me midway through our tour, and startled me by tapping me on the shoulder as I was getting a shot of the town with my news camera. He was very friendly, but made it known that he wanted his apple. Fortunately I had packed a few for the journey gave my new friend what he wanted. He gave new meaning to the phrase "one horse town". Our next stop on the tour was a quick flight to the other side of the island where we landed our Cessna 207 on the beach to investigate the remnants of an ancient petrified forest. The beach was incredible. We had a great afternoon in sunny weather to look at stumps and "logs"on the ground that had been preserved in time. One of the stumps had to be at least eight feet across! The cool thing about the trip was that we had traveled there wi a Geology Club from Anchorage.

One of the guys from Penn Air was nice enough to give me a ride to the Harbor Cafe. No Mongolian Beef here, but I was able to get my second favorite food, Teriyaki Hamburger!!

I had a great view from the restaurant. It was a really nice day as well. This region can get serious weather, so I was hoping that I wasn't using up "good" days early in the trip.

Cheese!