July's Tributes

To all of my faithful blog followers..please keep Ingrid in your prayers this week. She has been very sickly for the past month. This morning, she coughed up some phlegm that put her in a temporary coma. She has actually been on bed rest for about 3.5 weeks, and she decided she was up for a little walk this morning. However, she wasn't "quite" ready as the 3 leaks are still not completely healed. RJ was supposed to take a look at her, but he hasn't really kept his word. Plus, neither of us want to cross him as he has a criminal record and we are fearful that we might end up just like Ingrid!

SO, due to Ingrid's failing condition, the trips out to the wilderness have been few and far between. It has still been quite enjoyable, getting to know the town and the people.

On the 4th of July, it was really cold here, so I didn't really stay outside too long. The parade consisted of about 15 floats which included the cool school bus from my earlier posts. Everyone threw candy which is unheard of anywhere else!!! I ate a few bite sized snickers and some smarties to enhance my brain power, but I left the rest for the little ones running around. After the parade, there were bike races for the kids - so adorable!! It was separated into age groups and the prize was usually $1 or $5. I didn't have a bike, so I couldn't compete. Next time, I'm bringing out the HUFFY bike I just bought for $200! haha!!! What a deal!

This was my favorite float in the parade!! Aren't they adorable?? My little Mexican Chihuahuas!!! They remind me so much of my little Coco who I miss so dearly!!! I have been able to talk to him on the phone once or twice and he apparently wags his tail when he hears my voice. But these little peaches made me smile on the fourth. One of the most amusing people in this town is our landlord. She goes by "J" which I haven't figured out stands for yet, but she is hilarious!! She lives in a one bedroom apartment that's about the size of a large bathroom. She smokes like a chimney, has a huge dog that somehow lives with her, works 3 jobs, and teaches baton to these girls in the parade. Her voice carries about 10 miles and sounds raspy like a chronic smoker's would. I guess she's been married about 6 times up here, but decided after her 3rd or 4th husband, she was sick of changing her last name back, so she kept his.

This picture was from the 4th of July when we went to the park in the afternoon for some good old fashioned grilled hot dogs and burgers!!! Hooray for food that makes my tummy smile! :)

Look Aunt Carrie!! I'm wearing the hat you got me!!! :)

Because Ingrid has been under the weather, we have been walking everywhere around town lately. One of our walks was to Anvil mountain which was only about 4 miles from Nome...the last 100 feet was really steep and I had to stop every 5 seconds to rest - I had NO endurance!!!! I tried different climbing techniques like turning my feet out so I could have a wider base of support, leaning forward so my momentum would carry me up and not back! I even tried walking backwards!!! But, nothing really helped as much as stopping and taking a few deep breaths!! This picture is a view of Nome from the top of the mountain.

On our hike up Anvil mountain, we had to walk by the high school's baseball diamond which I believe also doubled as their football field and possibly their soccer field as well. It was hard to tell seeing as it was merely dirt with a fence around it and some white lines. Grass doesn't really grow very well here. People take a lot of pride in their yard if they have grass and boy do I stop and look at it if they have a yard!! Most of the yards are dirt and rocks.

These tires were just sitting there on the side of the HS's parking lot. I've never seen tires this big!! Wouldn't want to be in the way of whatever machine these tires are on!

The huge grey structures are "White Alice's," remnants of the cold war communication system used by the US air force. It operated from 1958-1978. In the 50s, Alaska only had a basic telephone communication system which meant that only one person could make a phone call from Nome to Fairbanks for example.

The city of Nome fought to keep these white alice's around as they are a historical landmark! They make a pretty spiffy echo if you yell into one end of it. I wonder if Russia heard me when I said hello!! :) hehe

On one of our beach walks, we came upon this dredge that they used in the gold mining days. They are everywhere, but this one has been preserved quite well!! Phil took an excellent picture!!







My first village experience was pretty amazing. I went to a place called Unalakleet (you- na - la- kleat). It's one of the more modern villages meaning they have running water and flushable toilets. The population is about 800 and there are no paved roads (yet).They are apparently going to have roads paved this year sometime which I think might be a huge mistake given the harshness of the winters here. I can't imagine they will be able to maintain the raods properly. But the maintenance guy, Jimmy, was excited and can't wait to rollerblade to work :)

I arrived at the airport an hour early but my heart was still racing - probably because I'm so used to the security checks in normal airports. There is no security check here. In fact, people were bringing their guns which were put right behind the passengers on the plane!!! I guess there is a certain degree of trust here that doesn't exist in many places.

When I looked outside at the tan "Bering Air" plane, my heart was pounding even harder. It only had 8 passenger seats! I have never flown in a plane that tiny! There were 2 propellers in the front and 2 little mini lights on the wings....oh jeeze! I had the dramamine ready in case I felt at all woozy. The pilot was telling the passengers where to sit to make sure the weight was distributed in the right places. We stopped at 2 other villages on the way to Unalakleet to pick up other people and drop of cargo. At our last stop, St. Michael, the pilot had me sit up in the co-pilot's seat because there weren't enough seats for everyone. That was so awesome!!!

It was a crazy week for me in Unalakleet, and I saw patient's every 30 minutes - hardly enough time to do a thorough evaluation AND give them an appropriate home exercise program. PT's only make it out to the villages every 4-6 months, so when a therapist arrives, the entire village knows! I had people coming out of the woodwork!! Half the time, they didn't even know why they were there!

There were so many ladies in their late 70s who would come in complaining of back pain because they were out picking berries all day. If you see HOW they are picking the berries, you would understand why!! They are crouched over literally for hours on end picking berries!!! I now know why Joe calls it "berry picker's back" and "berry picker's hip"!!!

Jeremy, the nurse practitioner who lives at Unalakleet, took us up to some beautiful areas in Unalakleet. The views were breathtaking!
We walked down a hill from the car, onto the tundra, and behold what we saw!!!! Spectacular!

Jeremy brought his fishing pole along with him when we stopped here so he could catch some salmon. Unfortunately, he caught a king salmon who promptly ate his plastic bait and took off!!! Guess he brought the wrong pole for catching big fish!!!

And to end this blog on a food related note, ODE to coffee creamer!! This is my new favorite brand of coffee creamer at the store. For only $6, you can get the generic brand of non-dairy creamer too!! YES, this COULD be YOU!!! No folks, it's not sugar-free, but it is ultra concentrated, so you need only a few small drops to experience the most pleasurable flavored coffee that a store can buy!

I had to add this picture into the mix because it was the best moose jerky I've ever had!!! Phil's co-worker, Dan, made it, and it was fabulous!!!! I only was allowed to eat half of it, but I was left with this craving for MORE MOOSE MEAT!!!

Meet INGRID

Yes Boys, She is taken. The 1984 Sierra GMC joined the clan approximately 1 week ago. She weighs 3/4 of a ton and holds a speculated 54 gallons of gas ($4.80/gallon)!! In her previous lifetime, she worked with the best of 'em in the mines, so don't cross her unless you are looking for trouble! Her engine is quite powerful, but noisy. She has a chronic cough, but nothing that robitussin can't fix.

Ingrid is aging well - the rust stains blend in with her dark brown pigmented skin, and she only has about 5 wires hanging down on the inside dashboard. The windshield is still intact, with multiple cracks - probably from gold chunks hitting her. The other day, the glove compartment randomly dislodged and fell to the ground on the passengers side, but who needs one of those anyway?!

So please give a shout out to INGRID GMC, the shockless, beastly woman from Counsil!

Below is Ingrid's hometown of Consil, AK - 76 miles northeast of Nome along the Niukluk River where many Nomeites have summer homes.
Counsil was built back in the late 1800s when gold was discovered near Ophir Creek. Now, it's merely a recreational area and fishing camp in the summer months. It's connected to Nome by a winding gravel road called the Nome-Counsil Road. Some people are able to cross the river in their trucks, but rumor has it, the water will reach window level. Since we were borrowing the Ford Expedition, we played it safe and parked along the bank!

"Rusting Legacy" THE NORTH STAR LINE (The Counsil City and Solomon RIver Railroad)
"These locomotives and flat cars are remnants of the unsuccessful attempt to build a railroad to gold mines near Counsil City. The locomotives began service on the elevated railways of New York City, then became the work horses of the Counsil City and Solomon River Railroad (CC & SRR). The Great Storm of 1913 destroyed the Solomon RIver Railroad Bridge, stranding them there." Hmm....pretty rusty...you'd probably need a couple tons of WD40 to get this moving again!
This is a random roadhouse in the middle of nowhere on the way back from Counsil. It's the last checkpoint along the iditarod before you reach Nome. When we went inside, there was an eskimo woman with her 3 children holding down the fort. The walls and ceiling were covered with dollar bills with names written on each one with permanent marker - isn't that a felony?
A view of the scenery along the Nome Counsil Road - this picture doesn't do it justice. It was beautiful!


Last weekend, we also went to Pilgrim Hot Springs. This was the view of the Kiguaik Mountains behind us on our walk. The clouds covered the tops of the mountains which were still covered with a light dusting of snow.

I believe I'm in this picture(above) walking along the road back from the springs. Look for a little dot in the distance that resembles a human being!

This was one of the sources of the Pilgrim Hot Springs. It's about 13 miles northeast of Salmon lake and is approximately 190 degrees Fahrenheit (90 C) It smelled like rotten eggs from the sulfur in the water and the mosquitos were relentless! I was swatting at my head for a good 15 minutes until we were far enough away from the water. I'm sure I looked like I was having some kind of convulsion!


During the gold rush, this was a resort and later a Catholic mission. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In the days of gold mining on the Seward Peninsula about 1900, the property was known as Kruszgamepa Hot Springs. It was a recreation center for miners attracted by its spa baths, saloon, dance hall and roadhouse. The roadhouse and saloon burned in 1908. The property was given to Father Bellarmine Lafortune, who turned the ranch into a mission and orphanage in 1917-18 during the flu outbreak.


I've never sat on a tractor before, so I took it upon myself to hop up and take a non candid shot! The guy in overalls didn't stop me. I am tractor woman, hear me roar!! :)

Four of us (Joni, me, Phil, and Dan) set out last weekend to find the only waterfall in Nome, Dorothy Falls, named for a girlfriend of the miner who discovered the waterfall. We hiked and hiked for 3 1/2 hours, through trees, up and down rocks, through the water....but to no avail!!! This is the view at the top- I was about to pass out from lack of food, so here I am, relaxing with the cold breeze blowing around me!

Dan, who has lived in Nome intermittently for the past 20-30 year, knows the area pretty well and was carrying a gun in his backpack in case we encountered any unwanted visitors - which we did!! On the other side of the stream, there was a brown bear staring at us!


This was the falcon that wanted to attack us on our decent back to the car. We were near his nest, so he was literally swooping down at us every 30 seconds!

The entire weekend was packed with exciting adventures!!
Hopefully I'll have more to write about later! :)

The Cloudy End of the First Week

I made it through the first week without freezing to death - but it is summer time in Nome, so I expect to remain in thawed out mode for a few more months! The average temp this week was about 50! I thought I would be cold walking to work in the morning in the 40 degree breeze, but it's humid, so I would be sweating by the time I got to the hospital, a mere 10-12 minutes away!! It was the most uncomfortable feeling. It reminded me a lot of college, when I would walk long distances to class in the winter, then enter a building that was 72 degrees and feel like I had walked into a steam room! I think the hot/cold issue might be genetic - thanks Grandma and Mom!!! :)

The picture above is in the living room in front of our Best Buy TV from Anchorage trying to exercise my abdominal muscles while being lazy. It only took about a week for the TV to get here. There are only 2 planes that fly in and out of Nome each day, so if you send something in the "express" mail, it will be expressed to Anchorage, then promptly sit there for another 2 days before boarding a plane over to the my neck of the woods.

This is the picture of my 1970s room...or the floor at least. Doesn't it remind you slightly of the hotel from The Shining!!!??? I will learn to adore this room, as much as I adore the overcast sky and windy breeze.
This is one of the two framed pictures we have in the apartment. This specific picture is a poem written by an unknown author, found in an abandoned dogsled on Front Street in Nome. If you don't know the history of Nome (which I am still learning myself), Nome is where the Iditarod race ends. I have yet to figure out why the keep saying the word MUSH in this picture. Maybe they're hungry and want some cream of wheat? :) just kidding.


And here is picture number TWO in the apartment...it's a lady on the beaches in Nome, digging for gold. When gold was first discovered here in the summer of 1899, anyone was free to mine an area as wide as they could swing a shovel. THe mining "claims" changed each time the tide went out.

Oh my last blog I was talking about the neat spider lamp we had, so here you go, there's a picture of it for your viewing pleasure!! :)

In the area of 4th street where we live, it's mostly a residential area, and the majority of people have some form of transportation. I laugh every time I walk by this ambulance with big monster truck wheels!! It's hilarious. I guess they won't get stuck in the winter if we have a blizzard! We also have the blue school bus next to the blue house that adds some amusement to my mornings!
People here have a variety of vehicles that range from snow machines (I was educated on the proper terminology- it's NOT snowmobile here, it's snow MACHINE:P) to trucks with actual chains on their wheels - quite a frightening image. I would stay out of the way if a truck with chains was meandering down the street toward me!

I have been walking everywhere in town this week since I don't have a truck yet. There IS a 1985 Isuzu stick shift with only 67K miles on it for a mere $5500. Seems steep to me, but I have been assured that this is a good deal. Joe (my boss) told me that 1 mile driving in Nome, is equivalent to about 4 miles in the lower 48 due to the harsh weather conditions. I can believe it!! Nothing here looks new, absolutely nothing! New cars are shipped in twice a year on a barge which leads to a mark-up of about $2-3,000 minimum. The first barge came in last Saturday, so people are trying to sell their used cars now. Not sure what we are going to do about this Isuzu - I'm not at all excited to learn to drive a stick shift, but I guess it's a good time to learn where the roads are flat and the only thing I have to worry about hitting is a random kid on a bike or a 3 legged dog! (not that I would hit either of them)

Joe told me that the people here ship tires up to Nome from surplus stores because the low end tires here start at $200 a piece!! There is a place called the "annex" where bigger items that can't fit in the regular post office are kept. It's probably the only place in the country where people go to the post office annex to pick up tires!! I thought that was quite funny- but practical!

I did have the pleasure of riding in Joe's "6-wheeler" today when I accompanied him to a meeting with some important lady- can't remember her name (early Dementia). I thought it looked more like a golf cart on an ego trip, but when I had to put on headphones to block out the noise, I stopped referring to it as a golf cart! Those things have some power!

Well, it's almost 1AM and I need some sleep! I have a big day planned tomorrow. It's supposed to reach 60! (WOO HOOO) I'm heading out with the travel PT who is here for another month, Joni, to an area north of town (I think). Hopefully I'll have some good pictures to entertain you when I return!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend so far, and I miss you all like crazy.
Until next time, God bless.

Lauren

Day 2 in Nome

Today, I started working at Norton Sound Regional Hospital. It's a small, 18 bed facility that sits on 5th street, close to the sea and one of the local stores - Hanson's where I bought my first can of diet Dr. Pepper for only $1.04!!! What a deal :). The physical therapy clinic is very small, but functional. The PT I am working with, Joe, is hilarious and just returned from a training course in Utah where he learned to perform EMG studies. I never knew PT's could do EMG's but I guess anything is possible when you're not in Indiana!!!! Unfortunately for me, I have not yet applied for my Alaska license, so I can't practice as a PT for at least another month until my application is processed and they make sure I'm not a criminal or some illegal alien!!! So I'll just be overpaid and underworked right now!


All of the people I met today at the hospital were very nice and excited that I had arrived. The VP even said she wanted to get out of her chair and do cartwheels but she hadn't had enough coffee yet :). Everyone here smiles and greets you when you pass by which is very refreshing.

It was rainy and cold here all day..at noon there is an air siren that goes off cueing people that it's time for lunch. I felt like I should climb under the table and cover my head when I heard it!!! At lunch we walked from the hospital, to the internet store, over to the post office, back to the apartment to eat lunch, then back to the hospital in about an hour!! Nothing is far away, but I can't imagine walking the distance I did during the winter months. It was muddy and wet all day though, so I brought out my rain boots after work when we went to Hanson's for groceries. I felt really overdressed. Most of the people here wear old jeans and sweatshirts, so my purple northface jacket, black pants, and shiny black boots stuck out. Oh well....I'm just special :)

It's about 10:20PM right now, and the sun just came out about an hour ago. It's really really bright and feels like noon.
I hope the sun continues tomorrow!!!

My First Day in Nome

Well, I arrived safely in Nome last night around 8:30PM. I walked off the plane with my 35 pound carry-on bag that landed on my foot from the overhead compartment in one hand, and my laptop over my shoulder. We had to carry our bags down the stairs from the back of the plane and walk into the airport. There were no actual gates in Nome...just a small airport the size of a house.

The security wasn't quite as intense as it is in Indianapolis. Families were waiting just inside the doors to greet their loved ones, there was a little waiting area that could seat about 20 people, and the place where you get your luggage was about the size of a long kitchen counter. About 50 feet in front of the entrance was the exit to the parking lot where Dan, a PA that works with Phil, awaited in his big SUV thankfully!! I had 2 huge 50 pound bags and my 2 carry-ons. In the parking lot we saw what we thought was a moose in the back of a pick-up truck, but Dan told us it was a REINDEER!! He had a red collar and was adopted by a family when he was young because his mother died.

Dan took us around town to show us the annex post office where big packages are dropped off, the beach where they mined for gold with dredges, the local hospital and schools, and front street where all of the local bars and restaurants are. Subway was there (very exciting because I have a gift card from mom!) but Fat Freddies is no longer open because Freddie died recently. Not sure if it was his diet or just natural causes. The whole tour was about 10 minutes with stops inbetween. The town is small, with mainly dirt roads, probably 2 paved roads, and houses that look really run down. There were a few areas where old mining equipment was randomly laying around that Dan called "parks." There are a lot of "parks" in Nome..mostly behind people's houses and on random side streets.

The apartment is very "rustic" and has the essentials - running water, a small couch, some dressers and end tables, and a kitchen table with chairs. All of the basics are here. My room looks like something from a 1970's horror movie and is very dark. I'll have to brighten it up. The living room has a cool lamp though that looks like spider arms with 4 lights. We don't have a TV yet, but it's on its way from Anchorage. I can't go too long without watching my favorite TV show, so you think you can dance. Hopefully mom and Jonathan will watch it together tomorrow night with the doggies in my honor :)