So on Monday night I went to the praise and worship night at the school and there were just a handful of us there, but Ryan asked if Alfred and I wanted to take a ride over to Hooper Bay sometime over the weekend with him and Emily. Awesome enough, Alfred sounded enthusiastic about it. I should pause and mention who these people are... Emily is one of my closer friends out here and she teaches middle school science... Ryan is a certified pilot, Emily's husband and also our long-term math sub at the moment... and Alfred is a local, the community counselor, and the brother of my classroom aide, Priscilla. Okay... so, fast forward to Friday and as it turns the weather is decent enough and I am more than ready enough to head to Hooper Bay which is an 18 mile snowmachine ride from Chevak. A few of us went there briefly by boat in the fall but this was my first long trip by "snow-go". Ryan and Emily are with a missionary program called SEND and they have some contacts in Hooper that started a church and a little "restaurant" run by volunteers so we thought to make a dinner date out of this. Alfred came to pick me up on his snowmachine around 5:45p. I wore my long underwear, regular outfit, carhart bibs, a parka, a face mask, my goggles, a hoodie, gloves, extra socks, and boots. And I threw in some extra winter gear in a backpack just in case (great advice from the Walker's)!
We arrived in Hooper about 45 minutes later without losing anybody and the ride was actually quite warm (woohoo face mask!). The restaurant was pretty crowded, but after peeling off all of our layers we soon found ourselves a table. Just as soon as we sat the gal with the animal hat and the gentleman next to her (in the pic above) asked if they could join our table. Turns out they are teachers in Hooper so it was nice to exchange information on the schools and stats. As I stated earlier, the restaurant staff is made up of all volunteers... so that made for an interesting ordering experience, but nonetheless we had a fabulous meal of chicken quesadillas, spanish rice, beans, and guacamole! Yummy! What a treat to be "eating out!" Now is where it gets interesting. We got all bundled up for our ride home (where we will be driving against the wind) and a few locals kind of chuckle at our layers...
Okay, I wish that I could have recorded all of my thoughts as we we headed home. But, it was too cold and we were driving too fast to possibly write anything down so I am going to try to recapture my thoughts here: do you know that absolutely awful brainfreeze you get when you quickly suck down a slurpy? It is just so intense and your brain seems to be zapped with ice? Well, that is how I felt. Do you know the feeling of trying to stay attached to a mechanical bull at the fair? Where you dig your heels into the sides of the bull and hang on to the harness with your hands as tightly as possible? This is also how I felt. What about the feeling you have when you are on Space Mountain in Disneyland and you close your eyes at some point (don't lie, you know you do!) and you fear that you are going to crash into one of the other rollercoasters?... Are you getting a visual? Okay, well what about the sound of an automatic machine gun going off non-stop? Can you hear it? All of these thoughts were going through my head as I had a HUGE smile on my face, hidden under my mask. What a ride!
Unfortunately, just a few miles out of Hooper we came across one of the men from our village on his snowmachine. He stopped us and asked if we'd seen one of his family members who was inebriated and had started the 18 mile walk back to Chevak. We hadn't seen him so we all turned and began the search. Ryan and Emily zig-zagged on one side of the trail, Alfred and I zig-zagged on the other side, and the man headed straight towards Hooper. I have to pause for a moment and share with you that I saw my first wild white fox on this search! It was beautiful and exceptional. We were on a mission and it was much too cold to stop for a picture. This was one of life's moments that you truly could only capture in your memory. Anyhoo, after quite awhile we still saw no signs of the missing guy and we were all starting to get pretty cold despite the many layers of winter gear. The wind was picking up and it was only getting darker. We decided that we would head back to Hooper since we were now just a couple of miles away and go warm up at the Public Safety Office and try to find out more information before heading back out again. Thankfully, the young man was found and had been brought to the Hooper clinic and all ended well. We ended up back in Chevak around 10:30 that evening. I have to tell you, tonight, I felt "Tougher in Alaska." Happy trails!
Misty
We arrived in Hooper about 45 minutes later without losing anybody and the ride was actually quite warm (woohoo face mask!). The restaurant was pretty crowded, but after peeling off all of our layers we soon found ourselves a table. Just as soon as we sat the gal with the animal hat and the gentleman next to her (in the pic above) asked if they could join our table. Turns out they are teachers in Hooper so it was nice to exchange information on the schools and stats. As I stated earlier, the restaurant staff is made up of all volunteers... so that made for an interesting ordering experience, but nonetheless we had a fabulous meal of chicken quesadillas, spanish rice, beans, and guacamole! Yummy! What a treat to be "eating out!" Now is where it gets interesting. We got all bundled up for our ride home (where we will be driving against the wind) and a few locals kind of chuckle at our layers...
Okay, I wish that I could have recorded all of my thoughts as we we headed home. But, it was too cold and we were driving too fast to possibly write anything down so I am going to try to recapture my thoughts here: do you know that absolutely awful brainfreeze you get when you quickly suck down a slurpy? It is just so intense and your brain seems to be zapped with ice? Well, that is how I felt. Do you know the feeling of trying to stay attached to a mechanical bull at the fair? Where you dig your heels into the sides of the bull and hang on to the harness with your hands as tightly as possible? This is also how I felt. What about the feeling you have when you are on Space Mountain in Disneyland and you close your eyes at some point (don't lie, you know you do!) and you fear that you are going to crash into one of the other rollercoasters?... Are you getting a visual? Okay, well what about the sound of an automatic machine gun going off non-stop? Can you hear it? All of these thoughts were going through my head as I had a HUGE smile on my face, hidden under my mask. What a ride!
Unfortunately, just a few miles out of Hooper we came across one of the men from our village on his snowmachine. He stopped us and asked if we'd seen one of his family members who was inebriated and had started the 18 mile walk back to Chevak. We hadn't seen him so we all turned and began the search. Ryan and Emily zig-zagged on one side of the trail, Alfred and I zig-zagged on the other side, and the man headed straight towards Hooper. I have to pause for a moment and share with you that I saw my first wild white fox on this search! It was beautiful and exceptional. We were on a mission and it was much too cold to stop for a picture. This was one of life's moments that you truly could only capture in your memory. Anyhoo, after quite awhile we still saw no signs of the missing guy and we were all starting to get pretty cold despite the many layers of winter gear. The wind was picking up and it was only getting darker. We decided that we would head back to Hooper since we were now just a couple of miles away and go warm up at the Public Safety Office and try to find out more information before heading back out again. Thankfully, the young man was found and had been brought to the Hooper clinic and all ended well. We ended up back in Chevak around 10:30 that evening. I have to tell you, tonight, I felt "Tougher in Alaska." Happy trails!
Misty
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Thanks for keeping up with me! (;