Are we there yet?!

We had just gotten done with a long morning of training when all of the sudden we were told we needed to grab our gear and head to the airport we were leaving ASAP!

We left in such a hurry, Lacy couldn't finish her lunch!

And of course since there is 14 of us all heading to Gambell we had to walk to the "airport" because there was not enough seats in the truck! 

The sky was dark and the fog was thick, waves were crashing really quick! 

But of course we all made it, only to sit,

and sit...

Then we met Ferno and she told us it was time to go!

We loaded a teeny tiny plan plane and set out for home!

 So at this point in the Journey Deb, our principal, had just told us we were not going to be able to fly into Gambell because of the weather and we had to spend the night in Savoonga. We were all crushed for many reasons; we wanted to see our new homes, see how all of our packages had arrived, NOT sleep on an air mattress again, and some of our staff had family members waiting in Gambell. However, we needed to stay positive and hope for the best!

This is a close up of James Tweto's plan from Flying Wild AK!

This is the 18 seat plane we took (1 seat one each side) to Savoonga.  

Donna and I sitting in the back of the plane because we were lighter than most of the guys, we were already flying heavy!

Lacy was back there with us too!

The freezing rain is one reason we couldn't fly to Gambell. We were so sad.

This was the view of the ocean after take off it was so windy and gross out.

Ty was sitting up with Gerald who is also on our staff.

Derek fell asleep so of course we had to take pictures! 

At one point Ty and I were the only ones awake on the plane! Once again I was not sitting next to him though.

All of the sudden the sky started clearing up which gave us all hope we might be able to make it home tonight..

St. Lawrence Island!! --Savoonga side

There is Savoonga

Savoonga out the window...

All of us waiting to hear if we were going to be going to Gambell tonight or not~ 

In the end we made it GAMBELL that afternoon! We were SO happy!
I however, do not have those pictures yet so you will have to wait to hear that story tomorrow!

Tour of our UNK Sleeping Quarters

Here is mine and Ty's "bedroom" in the UNK school. I am the neat one making my sleeping bag!

Here are Donna and Tyler chillin' out before dinner

And of course Derek and Lacy by their corner!

This is my desk for blogging! The Smartboard is behind me.

Oh and Ty won 200.00 to Span Alaska= FOOD!! YAY!

Teachers gone wild after being in training all day!

Here is a picture of the Gambell Boomerang Club! aka: Us and Derek and Lacy on the UNK beach

Here we are on the beach still, this time with Donna and Tyler, more teacher in Gambell! Tyler is very tall however not that much taller than Ty. He was just higher on the hill.

Derek and Lacy doing what Derek and Lacy do best! Making us all laugh :)

Once again! I love them so much!

And this was our BEAUTIFUL view! Best part was this is at 8:30 at night! 

Meeting the Brown Family of UNK

A great women de-finning a huge silver salmon for her grandfather

bag full of salmon eggs... caviar anyone? Or you can salt it and use it for bait

Silver Salmon, salt washed and drying until a thick layer of "crust" is on it then into the smoke house!

Ulu in action, I totally need one of these!

Sharpening the Ulu

Salmon babies!!

Salmon guts..

Smoke house

Smoke house

Salmon crusting

The lodge their parents own in UNK

Our tour of Unalakleet

Once we made it to the school we set up our bed and took a tour of the town with a few other teachers. 

This is a picture of the coast line as you can see there is a ton of drift wood all along the beach. It was really cold and rainy when we went out for this walk. I would have guessed it was in the very low fifties.

There is a picture of what we called a fort others said it was a way of drying out the wood to use for fires and heating. I figured there was a not a "No Girls Allowed" sign out front so I investigated!

This was VERY interesting to see. Inside here there are different kinds of fish and salmon hanging to dry! 

There was so much fish! It actually didn't even smell too bad. 

 We finally made it to the store and about died when we saw the price for basic things! Thank goodness eggs were on sale 2/$9.00!

And I don't know if you can see the price on these M&M's but they are 17.55 and the bag of chocolate bars above it are 31.55!!  

This morning (Tuesday) it was really sunny and fall like outside maybe mid-50's so Ty and I took another walk and took more pictures. 

I love this picture! The village was so peaceful and quiet at this time and the views were amazing!

This is the water tower for the village.

We were both amazed by the huge tractors everywhere! 

Another great shot of the beautiful scenery of Unalakleet!

  

 I felt like I was walking in a picture!

This was the village's salvage area

Here are some puppies that were barking at us as we walked by

The supply plane flew in at the beginning of our walk and this was it taking off once we made it back to the airport

Here is Jim Tweto's plane from Flying Wild Akaska

Smith we were hoping you knew what this was.. It was basically the body of an old plane that had a door on the end of it..

Here are the village supplies off the plane. I see TP!

Alaska State Trooper at the Airport.