Water Expeditions

Family and friends, thanks for your patience. My digital camera is on the blink so I purchased a couple of one-time use cameras. It took us a couple of weeks to use them up, get them developed (AAFES was slow) and figure out how to use the Kodak EasyShare program. Hopefully we are back in business!

Three weeks ago Nick and Garth met Craig Parker, Garth's brother-in-law, in Valdez at Prince William Sound. They fished for salmon and brought back about 80 lbs., which is taking up lots of space in our small freezer. Here is a picture of Nick's first catch ever, a rock fish. As you can see, this was pretty exciting for him. They had rainy weather the two days they were there, but Nick said "This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen".

This is the Riverboat Discovery. Nick and I took a 3 1/2 hour cruise along the Chena River. We went with Mary Lou Wherry, whose son, Jim, works with Garth in the legal office. Mary Lou lives in Illinois and was here visiting for two months.

During the cruise we saw a float plane take off and land on the river, we saw reindeer and a demonstration on preparing salmon to be dried. The dogsled mushers take the dried salmon with them to feed their dogs because it is so light to carry. You could tell she had cut-up a lot of salmon.

We disembarked at a small village where we saw demonstrations of beadwork, types of hides used by the athabascans , how they prepared them for use and what the skins were used for. We also saw a team of dogs that a musher brought for us to see. The last picture I have is of her training camp where we saw the team of dogs pull her on a four-wheeler around a pond, approximately one mile. Those dogs knew what they were going to do and were anxious to start their run! It was quite exciting.

We are all doing well. Nick will start work at Sam's on Tuesday. I am teaching early morning seminary and, as Rachel has told us for years, it IS the best calling in the church! I do have a hard time getting out of bed at 5:00 a.m., but once I am there I love those 18 youth. I am teaching the freshmen & sophomores. People ask about Garth's job. It is going well. The weather is getting colder - in the 40's in the morning. The leaves are turning yellow and starting to fall off the trees.