Valdez…

Well, I left Unalakleet in kind of a rush this afternoon.  I was helping Damon rearrange the studio.  I hope it will provide a more streamlined work environment for the student broadcasters.  Time slipped away as it usually does on a day you fly and I found myself running out of the building to a waiting car for a ride to the airport.

The flight was pretty non eventful and got me to Anchorage around 5:00 P.M.  I met up with Jared and Tonya and we went out for burgers at Red Robins.  It was nice to chit chat with them and then it was back to the airport for my short flight into Valdez.  My mom and dad were waiting to pick me up which was very nice.  We grabbed my luggage and off to home we went.

My grandparents and aunt and uncle and their kids are up from Minnesota.  So I had a nice welcome home crew waiting for me.  It has been a while since I’ve seen all of them so it was nice to sit around and catch up a bit.

We kind of celebrated my grandma’s birthday as the evening drew to an end.  Here she is opening her present.

The evening all of a sudden was really late and time for bed.  Dad and I are heading over to Northway to hopefully chase a moose around.  The weather there has been in the 60’s which isn’t exactly the weather we want.  The moose start to move around more once it starts getting colder.  So even though the forecast is calling for similar temperatures we are hoping for a sudden cold snap.

I’ll have pictures of that trip when I get back on the 28th or 29th.

Stebbins and Back Again….

Well this morning one of the St. Michael school staff members Steve gave me a ride on the 13 mile road between St. Michael and Stebbins.  I was done shooting where I was and it was time to head off to a different village.  It is interesting to go right from one school to the next.  Seeing how people do things differently and how the kids behave in the different environments.  I think that the students in St. Michael will really respond well to having a new facility to learn in starting next fall.  Dan Eide on of my teachers from Valdez High School is now the principal there which I think will be a nice change for the St. Michael school.   I think he is very good at what he does.  Students look up to him and strive to achieve the expectations he puts out for them.  I am excited to see how things will be changing there over the course of the year.   Stebbins on the other hand has what looks like a brand new school.  The student population appears to be a bit bigger and having the space available in their building is very nice.  I shot some video on the drive into town.  The Stebbins Native Tribe owns a reindeer heard that grazes on the land between the two communities.  I was able to get some video of the coral they have set up for round up which is where they remove the antlers from the animals which they then sell to people in the Asian countries.  I was also able to get a few shots from the road looking down on the village.  Once I arrived at the school I went from class to class filming in each.  I probably won’t use very much of it, but it will be nice to show perspective teachers what it might look like to run a class in the Stebbins school.  I also shot the store, the post office, the clinic, some scenes from around town, the beach, and the cliffs just outside of town.  Ben Dolgner a teacher who just moved to Stebbins from Little Diomede was kind enough to loan me he 4-wheeler.  I took it out and road up on top of one of the mountains just outside of town.  Damon Hargraves the person that replaced me in BSSD’s district office told me that it would be a great place to get a nice look down onto the village with the bluffs in the background and the ocean out front.  He was right.  It was a beautiful ride up to the top.  A little bumpy for sure going across the tundra, but really worth it.

I spent the rest of the day shooting around town and in the school before I hopped on Hagelands 207 and flew back to Unalakleet.  On the flight back we flew by a rainbow.  I was able to shoot some video of it, so I am hoping to snag a still off there to post at a later date.

Tomorrow I will help Damon set up the studio and then fly to Valdez via Anchorage to meet up the the fam.  Then its off to Northway to hopefully chase down a moose.

St. Michael

I left Unalakleet this morning at 9:30 heading to St. Michael as the fist step in gathering video for my contract with BSSD.  As we stepped into the little tail dragging Cesna 207 I notice my pilots shirt.

I thought it was kind of funny.  The flight over was beautiful.  The sun was shimmering in the ocean and the green tundra jumping up out of the water.

Here is what St. Michael looks like from the air.  You can see the foundation of the new school being built.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/08/smk.mov 320 260]

I shot video all over town today.  One thing that amazed me was the store in town.  It has all kinds of fresh produce and even milk.  Very cool for a place that isn’t a regional hub.  After school was out Dan, Bonnie, Rocky (Dan’s dog) and I went down to the beach to look for sea glass, and to allow me to shoot a little more video.

It is amazing how much there is on the beach over here.  Apparently there used to be a floating Bar just outside of the village and when people would finish their bottles of beer they would chuck them into the ocean.  Well over time the broken pieces have been smoothed down and washed up on the shore.  In my 20 minutes of walking on the beach I found a whole pocket full of them.  It was a lot of fun and a nice view of town for the video.

After the walk we headed back to the house for some dinner.  Very tasty stew which reminds me how much I really like stew.  The sun setting this evening was very pretty.  Even though I didn’t have the best angle for a photo I snapped a couple anyway.  I’ll leave you with those to end this post.  I’m off to Stebbins by car tomorrow.  What a novel idea to travel from site to site in BSSD by car instead of plane.  🙂  An update on that adventure tomorrow.

Back to UNK

Well, I’ve been back in Unalakleet for almost a week now.  I’ve been doing some consulting work for the Bering Strait School District which kept me pretty busy all of last week.  Over the weekend however I had some time to do a little playing.  First off before I get started.  Many of you may have heard about the dead walrus’s washed up on shore between Unalakleet and Elim.  Well if you haven’t there are a reported 80 of them one being right out in front of the house I’m staying in.

All of them are missing their heads which leads many to believe they were being hunted/poached just for their ivory.  This is a very sad deal.  I truly do not have any problems with the hunting of marine mammals or any other animal for that matter as long as they are being used for food.  To just kill these huge animals for their ivory alone is just a shame.

So as you can probably guess its a bit smelly on the beach right now.  So back to the fun filled weekend.  Saturday morning Randy and his two kids Jamie and Kendra went up river to do a little salmon fishing.  I’ll post a little video hopefully tomorrow that I edited up last year showing what its like to go up river.

Fishing went pretty well.  It wasn’t as amazing as it usually is on the Unalakleet river since the water was pretty high making the silt level in the water to increase which makes the water very murky.  We were able to catch 12 salmon and two trout in our little trip which makes for some tasty dinner this winter.  I am looking forward to Erins delicious salmon chowder.

That evening Greg and Kim Johnson invited a few of us over for a BBQ at their house.  The weather was beautiful so spending time outside with freinds was very nice.  Greg cooked up all the food on the grill and we ate and visited throughout the evening.  On the way home from that social gathering I stopped by Vanessa Nasset’s place.  She had invited me over for dinner there as well as a few other friends from town.  I was able to catch up with her and her husband John, Conrad and Jasmine, and Jason and Deb.  It was fun to spend time with all of them.

Today Gary and I borrowed Kim and Greg’s car and headed out the road in search of some ripe blue berries.  It was so nice of Kim and Greg to let us borrow their vehicle.  It cuts down on the noise and the dust you normally encounter riding on a honda (4-wheeler) up the gravel road.  We found some berries.  Here is Gary picking way like crazy.

Aside from the tasty blue berries we had some spectacular views.  The sun was out and everything is green right now.  Its fun to be up on top of some of these ridges looking out over the valleys below.

We ran across some pretty fresh moose tracks while we were out but weren’t lucky enough to run into him.  Maybe since I missed the one today it will raise my chances for getting one on Friday or Saturday.

The only downside to being out in the countryside was the little bugs that kept flying into our noses, ears, and eyes and crawling all over us.  I didn’t notice them biting me until I looked down to find blood spots all over my legs.  Sneaky little guys.  So we retreated to the car with about a half a gallon of berries.

Tomorrow I may be flying to St. Michale to shoot some video.  If I do I will be able to spend a little time with Dan Eidie the principal out there.

More on that adventure to come.

Kickin It in the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area)

Last week Jim, Erin, and I packed up a few days worth of food and clothing, threw the canoe on the car and headed up to the BWCA.  Our jumping off point was the Moose River.  We were a little concerned about the water level.  In the fall there seems to be considerably less water than in the spring, so we weren’t exactly sure if we were going to be able to make it into Moose Lake which was our goal.

We started paddling on the first section of the river and things went really well.  The water level was high enough to clear most of the hidden rocks and lily pads.  After about 45 minutes of paddling we made it to the first portage.  A portage is where you carry your boat and gear between two bodies of water.  The fist portage was about 160 rods, a rod being 5 1/2 yards which made the portage about half a mile.

We made the little hike quite nicely getting all of our gear and the canoe over to the next portion of the river.  This one however didn’t have quite as much water to speak of.

We started paddling and soon were pushing and pulling the canoe through the ummm swamp.  Erins dad ended up almost losing his sandal a few times in the muck while trying to get the canoe pushed along.

It took us a long time to make our way through the shallow river and ended up at the second and final portage of our trip in.  This one was about 60 rods so it was a much quicker trip on land.  This dumped us on the edge of Big Moose Lake.

We set up our tents, did a little fishing, of course a some swimming.

The trip was very nice.  To be off the grid and relaxing with Erin and Jim.  I am looking forward to our next trip into the BWCA.

New Home

The day we drove back from Wisconsin to Cook we picked up a u-haul and as soon as we got home loaded it all up.  The next morning we were up at 6:30 in the morning and drove all of our belongings down to Baxter.  We met property manager at 11:00 AM to finish up paperwork and to pick up our keys.  We had all of our stuff moved into the apartment by 12:30 and were on the road again to a furniture outlet in St. Cloud.  We found a superb deal on a couch and a love seat which we promptly bought.  We had to go over to the distribution center to pick them up.  We had both pieces of furniture stuffed into the empty u-haul and back to Baxter we went.  Erin and I managed to get both out of the u-haul and up the stairs into our apartment.  We spend the evening putting things away and making the place look somewhat presentable.  We then invited Mike and Axton over for a little dinner.

Here are a few pictures of what the place looks like now.

There is also another spare bedroom, but it had boxes in it right now, so I’ll post pictures of it when we get it somewhat setup.

Wisconsin Trip

Well, last week we headed over to Door County in Wisconsin to visit Erin’s relatives that live out there.  It was a pretty jam-packed trip.  We left Cook around noon on Wednesday and drove the 8 hours out there pretty much straight on through.  We stayed the night at Erin’s cousin Mark’s house which is very big.  Good thing too because there were 14 of us staying there including his family.

We got up the next morning and headed out to a park nearby for a little bike riding.

We went about 10 miles that afternoon on the bike trails through the forest.  It was nice to get out and enjoy the fresh air.  Jesse and I headed to the “off road” trails while the rest of the crew stayed on one of the main loops that go around the park.

We all ended up meeting up at a beach where we took a little rest and then headed back to the car for some frozen custard.  That evening we relaxed in the sauna in the house and had smores out by a campfire in the back yard.

Friday we went out for lunch at a restaurant called PC Junction.  Its a little place on the side of the road that has a train track around a circular bar in the main room.  A model train cruises the tracks delivering you your food.  Its a fun little place to go.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/07/train.mov 320 260]

After lunch we headed out to a cherry orchard where we loaded up on tart cherries.  Two huge bucket fulls for 10 bucks . Not to mention the few that made it into our mouths in stead of the bucket.

That evening the boys headed to the races and the girls went to a movie called Hairspray in the theater.  The races were fun, I’d never been before, so it was quite the experience.  No real big crashes, but exciting none the less.  On our way to the races we stopped off and bought Payton, Jake, and Eric some candy to eat while they watched.  Well Jessie and I snagged Payton’s skittles and were playing a game of keep away from him.  This was all fun and games until the bag literally disappeared.  We looked all over for them and couldn’t find them.  Crazily enough after watching the races for a couple of hours we were walking back to the car and found them on the ground.  So Payton was in luck after all and Jesse and I were off the hook.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/07/race.mov 320 260]

After the races we took another sauna and headed to bed.

Saturday Jim, Jesse, Mat, and myself joined Erin’s cousin Craig on his boat out on lake Michigan for a little salmon fishing.  Craig has a very nice boat, and was a gracious host.  We were out on the water for the entire afternoon and evening.  We ended up with 2 salmon and 3 trout.  We lost about that many through out the day from broken lines and other mishaps.  It was very nice to be out in the sun on such a nice day.

Sunday we drove the 8 hours back to Cook.

Cabins and Baptisms

Erin and I had a few days to rest after our Ireland trip.  Last week Wednesday we drove down to the cabin in Cass Lake to meet up with my mom.

We had a nice few days relaxing and reading intermixed with some biking, swimming, and hanging out with family.  Zac and Bunny (my aunt and uncle) came out a couple days.  Bunny brought with the scrapbook she got for her birthday this year.  The pages were made by family and friends.  It was fun to look through all the pictures.

My Grandma even came out for a little barbecue.  Erin and I picked her up from Bemidji and drove her out to the cabin.  She was out for the afternoon and we had her back home in time to watch the Twins game on T.V.

From the cabin Erin and I headed to Brainerd.  Our friends Mike and Amanda were having their new baby boy Axton baptized and they had asked us to be the godparents.  We were very flattered to be given this honor.

It was a fun weekend of spending time with family.  We played a little bocce ball and grilled up some burgers on Saturday and then had the baptism on Sunday morning.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/06/bocce_ball.mov 320 260]

We spent the rest of the day hanging out.  It was very nice to catch up and spend some time with the new little one.  He is a very calm baby.

When we left this morning Mike and Axton were participating in the normal morning ritual of sleeping on the couch.

We are back in Cook for the evening and are leaving for Wisconsin Dells early tomorrow morning.  Not much down time for the two of us.  We should have posts up from the water-park excitement.

The end of Ireland

After staying at the Galway Hostel we packed up our backpacks and caught a tour bus out to the cliffs of Moher. We had a very cool driver named Paul. We were able to put our big backpacks under the bus which was really nice. We weren’t sure what were going to do with them while we were out hiking around the countryside.

Paul drove us out of Galway and into the Burren Mountains. The area is covered in limestone both rocks above the top soil and the base below the top soil. It was impressive watching Paul drive through the narrow roads avoiding oncoming traffic, the rock side walls, and talking about the local sights all at the same time.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/06/paul_driving.mov 320 260]

He dropped us off with a guy named John.  His family owns a farm in the Burren region that goes back many generations.  John had received a degree in Geology and had started up a hiking tour through his farm land to show off the unique region they lived in.

He took us up into the mountains and talked to us about the plants that lived in the area, and how the land was formed by it being under water a long long time ago, and then was carved out by glaciers only a long time ago (not long long).

On our way back down from the hike he brought us to a sliding stone.  It is a very large rock that has a smooth side that is flush with the ground.  You take another piece of lime stone, sit on it and then slide down this big rock.  John said it was something that the boys growing up in the area had been doing since his great great grandfather.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/06/stone_slide.mov 320 260]

We hopped back on the bus and Paul took us off to grab a little lunch and then to the cliffs.  It is pretty amazing seeing them drop dramatically into the ocean.  They had this set up a little different then the cliffs on Aran Islands.  They had barricades up that didn’t allow you to get to the very edge which was fun to do on the islands.  So I think if I were to give recommendations I’d say to go to the cliffs on the Aran islands over the cliffs of Moher.

Part of the reason they had the cliffs blocked off was to help maintain the puffins breeding habitat.  We thought it was just because too many people were falling in.

So we hiked around for a little while checking out the sights.  Then we got ice cream and headed back to Galway.

We got back into Galway around 5:30 and headed immediately over to the train station and got inline for the 6:05 train to Heuston Station in Dublin.  The train was a little late getting going and we had some really obnoxious kids sitting next to us with just terrible parents so the ride back was an extra long 3 hours.  We crashed in the hotel when we got in, were up at 5:00 AM the next morning and in the air heading back to the US by 9:30 AM.  Our two flights in the states were delayed.  The one from Chicago to Minneapolis was really delayed over 3 hours.  We finally made it to Minnesota around 8:00 P.M. to find that our bags had been lost between customs in the JFK airport where we rechecked them and Minnesota.

We were exhausted when finally made it in since we had been up for almost 24 hours so we grabbed the nearest hotel to the airport hoping to get some much needed sleep and that our bags may make it in over the night.  We are off to find out now.

The long bus ride….

Well Erin and I packed up our little camp and said goodbye to Killarney as we trudged our way the 1.5 K back into town to catch a bus to Galway.

Looking at the map and basing things on our bus ride from Dublin to Cork I figured we’d be driving for about 2 maybe 3 hours to get to Galway.  After the first two hours here is how things looked.

We switched buses in Limerick and finished out the 5 hour journey pulling into Galway around 7:00 P.M.  The weather was beautiful, and after checking into our sweet hostel we headed out on the town.

We walked around for a while and ended up sitting down by the waters edge, which happened to be a very popular place to hang out.  We saw jugglers, musicians, and the occasional group emptying their beer cans.

After watching the swans and ducks swim by for a while we headed back to the main street looking for food.  We found a little pub promising live music and bar food.  Well….. The bar food had already ended for the evening and the live music wasn’t going down for another hour, so we sat down, ordered a drink, and visited till the band showed up.  It was fun to get a little listen to the local music.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/06/pub.mov 320 260]
We were there for a short while and then headed back to the hostel for a couple of reasons.  One was to use the free wifi which is made available in the kitchen area.  Second if I had kept drinking and in the dark I don’t know if we would have been able to find our little abode.  The truth of the matter was I was lost anyway and had to rely on Erin to bring us home.

Well we are off to the Cliffs of Mohre this morning.  We need to find a little grub for the trip.  So we are off to pack up our bags and get on the road.  Hope to update you all this evening from the hotel.