Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Monica's Travelogue (Part 1)

The following post was written by Monica on her blog, "Dumplings, Three" and has been reposted here on Lisa's request:

Grant and the kids and I left Bolivar at 1:30am on Saturday. Ransom and I caught a 6:00am plane out of KCI to Denver and then another to Seattle, another to Anchorage, and a final one that went to Kotzebue before finally arriving in Nome. Ransom and I got off the plane in Kotzebue to stretch our legs and look around. We had to leave the plane out of the back door and go down metal grated stairs onto the frozen tarmack below and walk quite a little ways to get to into the tiny little airport. It was pitch black dark and was 38 degrees BELOW zero! Kotzebue is above the artic circle. I had met a sweet young Eskimo woman named Bita from the village of Koyuk during my layover in Anchorage who KNEW Lisa! Chatting with her was my first exposure to the lilting clip of the native Alaskan accent! I heard MUCH MORE of it in my brief stop-over in Kotzebue. There were several very small adorable little native girls who instantly swarmed Ransom, wrapping their little arms around her neck and crying out in delight. They were so cute in their fur trimmed hooded coats...in that crowded little building where the security checks were performed for boarding passengers. Our plane made it in to Nome at 8:18pm Saturday night (which was 11:18pm Kansas City time!).

Half an hour later, Lisa and I were posing with the decks of cards I brought along to teach her and Iran how to play Nertz with. (Iran took a break from browsing on their comptuer to take this photo of us!)




Lisa and Iran had a huge dinner for me, even though it was already so late! We had fun visiting and finally headed off to bed. I was warm most of the night, but early in the morning I woke up and was cold. I fixed the problem very easily by putting on my coat and crawling back under the covers. The next morning, when Lisa came to wake me up to get up for church, she almost died laughing seeing me all bundled up under the quilts wearing a down boot-length coat! She had to get out my camera and take these photos before I was even getting my sleepy eyes to focus properly!






I have TONS more stories to tell about the past 48 hours, including how I nearly (truly!) lost my life...but, I am too tired to sort through the photos and write any more tonight, so I will have to write about our adventure trying to get to the wilderness cabin later! I will tell you this, though, the story involves a sled getting flipped and pummelled, being pulled ninety to nothing behind the borrowed snow machine Iran was jumping over rough spots...and it involves a honey bucket bathroom (indoor outhouse) whose temperature was never over zero degrees and actually fell to five degrees below zero part way through the night last night. Wilderness living is never dull!....



TO BE CONTINUED....

(Oh, and by the way, Lisa's chocolate cheesecake was well worth the trip to Nome!!!)

1 comment:

  1. Hmmm...I haven't heard about that site before! I'll have to check it out! Maybe right now as I sit at Lisa and Iran's computer (still on KC time myself) as they snooze away (thorougly on Nome time, themselves)!

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