Last Village Trip - Part 2

I guess I better start writing this before I forget everything. We were supposed to leave Unalkleet at about 3:00pm. We got back to the apartment, from exploring the area, at around 1:45 to get ready to go to the airport. The optician storms into the house and shouts that she had already brought the equipment to the airport and it was ready to go. Then she disappears. Worried that our flight had been changed to an earlier time we called a ride and were off to the airport lickety split only to find out that the flight was delayed and that we might not even make it on to the flight but most of our stuff would. We sat around the airport for a bit and then were told it would be quite a while and we could just call closer to that time. Our new boarding time was to be around 4:30 although the optician and some of the stuff was to leave at 3:30ish. You see, somehow Bering Air forgets how much stuff the eye care team travels with and forgets to account for it sometimes. Anyways, it was all very confusing and we actually ended up making the first flight, with half of our stuff on the first plane, the rest on the 2nd plane which left 10 minutes after the first. Here's me happy to get on the plane finally:



The area looks so different now that the snow is almost all gone:



Our next village was Shaktoolik, the hometown of our accompanying optician. We got there thinking we would have too many patients to see and not enough time to finish, but it ended up being quite easy to finish everyone that needed to be seen with lots of time to spare. The sign up list was only 27 people, although the health aides had phoned the eye clinic the week before in a panic thinking that there were too many people signed up. Shaktoolik has a population of about 224 people, but it is fancy enough to have 2 grocery stores. We were also promised a restaurant type place where you could hang out and play games and order pizza or hamburgers..more on that later.

After arriving we of course set up in the health clinic:



We had sleeping quarters in the same clinic:



Tight quarters, but we had a kitchen (the staff kitchen) to use complete with stove, and a TV/DVD player combo which we took full advantage of to watch Monks during our meals and free time.

Like I said, we kinda had lots of unexpected free time here.

I had time to read a magazine:



Time to socilize with the kids:





Time to go for a walk:



From one end of town:



To the other:



The coast was very pretty and had lots of drift wood:





We didn't bring as much food as we do on other trips and we were running low on Thursday. But, we were promised hamburgers!!! Which would be a treat after eating frozen entrees, canned soup, and way to many homemade snitel (schnitzel). We had saved just enough cash for this occasion and happily walked over to the Annex across the street. There were about 15 kids there playing games and having fun. On the menu were hamburgers and cheeseburgers among other things. We ordered 2 cheeseburgers and to my surprise they were frozen! She offered to "cook" them for us, but we said we can just take them to-go since we had a microwave at the clinic. Well, this was interesting....frozen cheeseburgers... Now all we need is some microwavable frozen French fries and we've got ourselves a microwavable meal that just can't be beat. Hopefully we'd be able to find some ketchup in the fridge. And lo and behold our cheeseburgers dreams came true:







It actually tasted pretty good, although the cheeseburgers were a little tricky to cook since they were completely frozen. Fries came out crispy too! It was actually one of the best meals we had on a village trip. Crazy as that sounds.

Well, our time here was coming to and end and we had to pack up and get ready to go to the airport.

We waited for our ride, and it was a bumpy ride on the back of a 4-wheeler (Sheepie and I both behind the driver) and our stuff getting lugged in the back. Really, it was the longest/worst/hurt-my-butt-s0-bad 7-8 minute ride of my life. Here's most of our stuff:



Us waiting at our "gate":





It's always a happy time to be leaving a village and to be heading back to our "home". Our plane is here!



We have made it a habit to go out to eat as soon as we get back from a village. It is so expensive to eat out here that we just do it on Sunday brunch and after village Friday dinners. We were pretty hungry, but our plane had different plans for us.

We boarded the plane and were told it was going to be a long ride: Shaktoolik to Koyuk to Elim to Golovin to White Mountain and finally back to Nome! We were to take the scenic route home. Although a little disappointed this would delay our dinner plans, this turned out to be an amazing flight on beautiful (almost 70 degrees!) sunny day. The pilot flew extra low so we could enjoy the scenery. Sheepie had to sit up with the pilot since our stuff took up so much room. It's amazing how diverse the scenery was. And we got to see trees! Boy, did I want to go hug a tree!

Me getting comfy for the long flight:



Lots of pretty scenery pictures:



























Finally back to Nome!!!!