Peninsula Winter Games

Every Sunday we see an average of 3 moose on the way to church - today was no different. About 3 weeks ago Safeway announced the pharmacy would be open on Sundays and today is Doug’s first Sunday at work.

My favorite Nolan quote of the day: “I’m hicking-up.” (he had the hick-ups)

Yesterday we went to see the start of the Tustamena 200 dogsled race. It was fascinating seeing the teams of dogs pulling the sleds. It was around -20, so the mushers were well bundled.
Then we went to the Peninsula Winter Games. From the moment we stepped out of the car, Nolan was crying that he was cold. We wandered and saw the ice sculptures and watched the dog weight pull. They hook a dog at a time up to a sled and fill it full of boxes of nails to see which dog can pull the most weight. The ice sculptures were very interesting as well.
Our favorite was of Horton from “Horton Hears a Who.”
Indoors there was a kids league hockey game going on as well as booths for the kids to go around and do activities to earn coins.Brenden liked making hockey goals (off the ice) best.I sat with Nolan and Ethan and watched the game until they got restless. They were hungry and tired and fell asleep in the car as soon as we had eaten.

The word on the street is that our volcano is expected to erupt tomorrow. If I am offline for a few days it is because the internet or electricity is down. I have made a list of things I need to head to town to pick up in the morning to make sure we are prepared to be without electricity and heat for a little while. I just hope the volcano will hold off until after I make it home (but preferably until after Doug has made it home from work tomorrow night). We are prepared with food and water, dust masks, flashlights, and chopped wood to last us for a little while. I will fill some more containers of water in the morning just to be safe though. That is what I am most concerned we don’t have enough of - especially considering there is always the possibility of a well becoming contaminated. We are justing playing a good old game of wait and see.
Jan. 31 - the steam coming up from the fumarole.  Today the steam cloud was double the size.The caption says: View of vigorous hot fumarolic emission from two holes (at about 7000 feet in elevation) through the steep Drift glacier that descends from the Redoubt summit crater to the north into Drift River Valley. The orifice on the left was first observed on January 30 during an overflight and it appears to have widened by the time this photo was taken on January 31. The orifice on the right was first seen on January 25. Water vapor and volcanic gas emanating from these holes in the ice are forming a visible white plume that rose about two thousand feet vertically, nearly to the summit of the volcano.  (See more pictures at this link to the Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey.)