oooh! Mutant Alien Cabbages!

No pictures today I'm afraid.

Dear diary,

Yesterday me and my friend Gina went to the Alaska State Fair. Mostly we wanted to see how the doll dress our friend Donna's daughter made did in the craft competition (Blue Ribbon, way to go you!!) - then we went and looked around.

There were little chicks coming out of eggs and baby pigs and goats and all kinds of kid games. And wonderful African acrobats doing all kinds of unbelievable stuff. And artists who did beautamous Alaskan images. One feller did wonderful paintings, including some of the Alaska Rail Road my dad would love. Another lady did gorgeous critter pictures using torn art paper collages. Unfortunately she didn't have art cards or anything I could afford, but gosh was her work pretty.

Oh - the mutant alien cabbages? Well they can grow some monster veggies up here - I mean like a cabbage that would outweigh a medium sized dog, and a turnip the size of my head. Pretty darn weird looking at, I tell you. Though it does leave one oddly hungry..

Oh, and I found a truck. Just need to wait to have the seller put the starter back in and bolt the hood down. And go pay for it of course. Finally, some mobility!

Lastly - just went to my first class Monday night. Looks like it's gonna be interesting, and pretty fast paced. Whooie...

The People You Meet...

I'll say one thing about working at some fancy dancy lodge.. you meet some interesting people. On the drive back to town, I look up to the front seat to see an argument taking place about how fast to drive between a ski champion and a tramua surgeon, both folks you've prolly read about.

"I take risks" says the skiier.
"I take care of people who take risks" says the doc.

I love this place. :)

So how did all this start?

Well now. Let's back up a piece, shall we? Since I've handed this address out to some old friends to keep tabs on me up here in Alaska, I reckon I'd best go again into the whys and wherefores of my coming here. So I'm gonna backtrack a bit and post a few relevant quotes from a year ago...

****************

Alaska Bound!

Call it a slightly-early midlife crisis if you will.. or perhaps just finally learning to listen. You see, a few years back things just started to fall apart... I lost family members, I lost the job I was working, the home I was in.. in one thing after another, my life just fell apart.

I struggled a while, but eventually I just gave up.
Ego was beaten out of me. Intentions abandoned. I didn't know anything anymore.

So I sat down and asked God.. "okay God, I guess I don't know how to run things. I give up. You tell me what to do."

Wouldn't you know it.. but God answered.

Fly.

In a thousand little ways, the answer came. Fly.

More specifically, learn to fly in bush conditions. I'm not quite sure why yet, but I've faith that I'll be told as I get closer to the next step.

This blog is a public record of the walk from here to there, for those who may wish to offer advice, follow along, or just get a giggle now and again.

Here's my first step: I'm looking for work in Anchorage, so that I can begin studying for a BS in Aviation Tech up there. The specifics might change, but that's the basic road map. In the mean time, I'm reading like crazy and prepping my moving supplies for the trip.

Next post: my syllabus to date.

****



So that's how I started - It's all in an earlier blog attempt, the misspelled Alaska Bound.


Took me a year to get up here, and of course a fair amount of what I did was running in circles. But here I am.

As to the next step, I'm fairly certain now. At least I have a working plan.

Ground school starts next week in Anchorage.
After that, work as I can for a year. Then start working towards my A&P (Airframe and Powerplant) and build or buy a small taildragger plane to build hours in. And when I'm ready, apply to the Mission Aviation Fellowship for a job as a pilot/mechanic. I know I won't get as good a religious education as they'd recommend as I would at a dedicated mission aviation school, but I don't think I could possibly find a better aviation education than up here. I hope I'll be able to make up the difference at my church in town. One more thing to put on the list of things to talk with folk about when I leave civilization for the city.
It's a long walk - it'll probably be five years or more before I'm ready. But so what? We'll all be five years older in five years no matter what happens.

So - that's the plan. And like all plans... subject to change as circumstances and Providence intervene. More on Providence later - there's been more than a little of that already on this ride.

Thank God.

How much a quart?

Dear Diary - today we went here -




To pick blueberries. Except most of the blueberries were already gone, so we picked blackberries instead. Now blueberry and blackberry bushes aren't like they are down south - they're little scrubby things barely off the ground. Imagine a tuft from a fir tree spidering along the ground surface, and you've got a good idea.


This is Berky - ain't he sweet?




Along with two other dogs, and a rifle-totin' Texan, he made sure we didn't get eaten. We did see plenty of big ol' bear sign, but no critters.

And this is what I ended up with after several hours at it -



Altogether, we filled most of a five gallon bucket between us.

Now - a turbine otter load full of people flown out, dropped off, and picked up in the afternoon. Figure two engine starts and an hour or so flight time each trip... I don't even wanna think about what a quart of 'em would cost at the grocery store. But they are nummy. :)