January 10 - Wednesday

Saturday, December 18th, I flew to Portland thinking I would spend a week with Jim and Charmin, but their house was so covered with drywall dust that after I attended church and visited a couple neighbors briefly, I was put on a plane to Spokane. Heavin and Mitch had their house decorated beautifully and made the season very festive. Santa's little helper

Jim and Charmin drove up on Friday and we celebrated Christmas a day early because on Christmas day we had to drive back to Portland so that I could catch my flight to Chicago.

Chicago temperatures were amazingly in the 40's and with a rental car, I was able to get out and visit family and friends. On New Years Day I flew directly to Anchorage and spent several days with the Youth Services Librarian of the state library.
Anchorage before the blizzard. Notice the street sign that says Mountain View. This is mainly a picture of the mountains with snow.

While in Anchorage, they got a blizzard, about their third this year. I was able to stay with the sister-in-law of my dear friend Joyce, and she treated me wonderfully.

I arrived back in McGrath this past Saturday. They weren't sure that the plane would fly because the temperature that morning was 45 below, but it did. Since being back, the temperature hasn't reached 50 below yet, but has been between 49 and 42 below. Almost everyone who flew out (teachers, doctors, etc) came back to find their pipes frozen and often burst. Few vehicles are running and I've been taking the school bus to work. Actually, 49 below is not as cold as I had imagined. It's a dry, still cold that doesn't penetrate like Chicago's or even Kenai's. McGrath is so lovely with its snow. Since there is no wind, the snow doesn't fall off the trees, but just builds higher on the branches.







I had my foot x-rayed yesterday and they decided I should wear the walking cast another month. That has not made the assistant-superintendent at all happy. Right now no bush planes are flying, but they had hoped I'd be visiting villages again about now.