Parents & Winter Camping

0Josh • 19th Apr 2005 • blog entries, nome., station life

What a week here in one of the coldest parts of the USA. My parents were here last week and left on Thursday. We had a great time seeing Nome and visiting people. It was different than when Lydias parents were here, as they were new to most of Nome and it was a goal to get them a “authentic” nome experience, with my parents we didn’t have to do that because they had gotten their own about 18 years ago!

The KICY staff went out to dinner at Malinos while my parents were here last Monday, another place that was around back in the 80s but had changed a little. I guess you could say that was the theme for their trip. Hmm, other highlights include watching the OLN footage of Iditarod 2005, graciously recorded by the Sommermans. It was fun to hear my audio used in such a major production! We played the “trump” game a few times, had crab on Saturday night….I went for a snowmachine ride with my dad on Wednesday afternoon, and then even pick up mom from the store and she got to ride along as well. It was a very fun time, Lydia and I were really glad they got to come.

This past weekend I went camping with Neil, and Jamie as they led a youth group trip. It was a blast. We snowmachined out of town for about 40 minutes and camped in canvas tents. The tents were setup over the snow, however there was no bottom to the tent. We dug down about 3 feet until we hit tundra to place a wooden stove, while the beds remained up high on the snow. We had a tarp down along with caribou hides for everyone to sleep on. It didn’t get to cold with the very warm sleeping bag, skins and stove going. The next afternoon we took the kids up a mountain and they were able to sled down. We would snowmachine back up, and they would do it all over again. I’m guessing that the sled run was over a mile….it was pretty cool.

I left the camp a little earlier than everyone else and made my way home just in time for a wonderful dinner prepared for Lydia & I by some of the girls from church that were getting a cooking lesson. I don’t think I have been that full in quite a long time, it was an entire four course meal and left me stuffed!

This week is my birthday week, that will be exciting! I’ve got guitar lessons tonight and I’ve been practicing quite a bit lately, hopefully I’m making good progress.