During the winter months there are many blizzards, as one can imagine. Here is a during and semi after picture of a blizzard to give an idea the visability of the streets outside our front door.
The City of Nome changed the lyrics of a Christmas song and I have to say I strongly agree with it. There really is no place like Nome for the holidays. Christmas is a great time in Western Alaska. The town really wakes up, not that it was sleeping but Christmas certainly brings excitement. All of the Christmas parties leading up to Christmas day really helps build up the holiday. In addition, I was given the project to write and produce a Christmas play for the radio station. It was the best project I have ever done! It was so much fun not only doing the project but seeing a large production from begining to end.
Personally, I couldn't have asked for a better first Christmas from home. We woke up on Christmas morning and had all of the roomates get together for a family breakfest. After a large pancake and muffin breakfest, we exchanged presents. The rest of the afternoon was spent talking to family and going to work. All of the volunteers went to Ric's house for dinner. As always, Lynette made a fabulous meal. There was somewhere between 15-20 people celebrating Christmas at the Schmidt house. We did a Pink Elephant gift exchange where we all received some interesting items. After all the celebrating was over, the Schmidt kids and the KNOM volunteers played broom ball.
As opposed to Christmas's family environment, New years was more of a friend celebration. We went to Nikki's house were many friends were there for a formal dinner party. As many great Nome parties go, several people brought their instruments and we had a jam session!
One thing I am very proud of, I got the nerve to walk out on the sea ice. Granted the only walking I did was on a previously made trail, left behind from snowmachines wo go out to catch crab. I figured walking on that ice had to be safe. If it can hold a snowmachine, it can hold me. Here is a picture of one of the trails I followed.
Since it is January, dog racing season has started. Our first race was last weekend. As my first race, I didn't know what to expect. The K300 started on Friday, January 15th and it was a 3 day long event. Since the event was in Bethel, we had to rely on alot of outside information. This was more of a practice race to prepare us for the Iditarod. We had updates at 9am, noon, 5pm, and 10pm. During these updates, there was a first mic individual who gave the update on where all the racers are and evaluated their strategy. The second mic individual created color in the report and gave weather updates and background information on the musher. It was a blast learning about this tradition. I can't wait til Iditarod!
