Teaser Snow

It was snowing when I woke up this morning (thanks you-know-who for the 6:00 phone call -- don't forget I'm 3 hours behind Central and have been working late hours at the visitor center!)  Anyway, the snow was exciting to see.  There was more falling than last week, and it left a thicker blanket.  I notice when I see the snow I sort of catch my breath and think, ok, this is it, the beginning of the road to -60 degrees.  But then it mostly melts as the day goes by.  I wonder when it will finally stick to stay all winter.

Today I had a program at school and America's Best Idea in the visitor center tonight.  I didn't get to watch last nights episode because someone brought their three children, and Kristen and I spent the whole time keeping them from disrupting the other viewers.  Tonight we had a plan so we wouldn't have to do that again, so I got to enjoy the episode.  I'm glad because it was an especially good episode, very moving stories about people and their experiences in the parks, the struggle to create some of the parks....  I never realized either how much of a friend the Rockefellers were to the parks.  I'm looking forward to the next two days.  I think Everglades will be highlighted tomorrow, and Kobuk Valley should show up on Friday.

America's Best Idea

The premier of The National Parks went well.  No A/V disasters, always a good thing.  There was a fairly small turnout which we imagined would probably be the case.  There's usually only a handful of people for our Tuesday movie night (in a town with no movie theater), let alone a loooong documentary about an organization many people here disapprove of on TV that they can watch at home.  Oh well, we do what we can.  As we're learning in this documentary, many of the great achievements in the history of the park service were accomplished primarily due to one person's inspiration and dedication.  So, it's the quality of the audience and the experience we give them that matters, not the quantity.

Unfortunately, a full day of work today followed by the documentary kept me from fully enjoying another beautiful, sunny day with temps in the low 30's.  It's great weather, and there has been a clear view of the low, snow-topped mountains of Cape Krusenstern across Kotzebue Sound.  The snow that fell last week has all melted, but there are a few puddles around town that stay glazed over or slushy with ice.  According to the forecast, we may be getting more snow later this week and a bit cooler temperatures.  At this point, I'm still looking forward to it!

Let's Try This Again

Ok, I completely dropped the ball on my blog. I have been sprinting to get life to a manageable pace, and I think I'm getting there, slowly. Well, that's partly it, but my own inconsistency and tendency to not follow things through is, I'm sure, a major factor. I had also chosen a blog site that didn't allow me to see how many people were following or get comments from them, so I thought maybe no one was interested (yes, Mr. Horner, you were right on again). After a couple of comments just this weekend expressing disappointment over my languishing blog, I'm encouraged to try again.

The highlight this weekend is the new PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea. One of the highlighted parks is our own Kobuk Valley National Park. Of course, the whole National Park Service is promoting this and hoping for renewed interest in and support of the parks. With Ken Burns as director, this is supposed to be a good series. I don't know his other work, but I've heard good reviews. The shows start tomorrow on PBS and run two hours per day for six days.

This also means I'll be working. Kristen is at the Visitor Center today for a preview in case anyone in town is interested. We've tried to lure people there with donuts. The rest of the week we'll be showing the PBS broadcast. Of course people can watch it from home, but we do have popcorn and juice and are projecting it onto a big screen with decent sound. I have the first episode tomorrow night.