School's Out Platinum Trip

Friday marked my final contract day for the 2011-2012 school year.  An hour and 45 minutes later, I was on a Cessna 207, bound for Platinum with a couple gallons of water, noodles, meat, pilot bread, my Remington and plenty of 3" #2 shells. 

You don't need to take a plane ride in order to get birds here, but it was worth it to me to be able to hunt with a good friend in a really neat place and get out of town for a few days.

The weekend didn't disappoint.  Weather was quite cooperative, and while the hunting wasn't fast and furious, it was steady enough to mostly keep a person interested.  The highlight was bagging a double of sandhills with Paul on the last hunt. 

Prior to that I heard some snoring in the field.  After about a half an hour Paul woke up and said "I feel sorry for those who haven't experienced the pure joy of falling asleep in the sun on the tundra with a shotgun across their lap." 

Ditto.

Up next for me, I am working on (right now taking a break from) moving into a new apartment, and then I will be going up to Donlin Creek for an industry externship.  It should be interesting, I'll be sure to take some pics and post an update.

Sun Dogs

Tuesday I was riding with my parents after storing my pickup at my great aunt Peggy's farm in Wisconsin, getting ready to head back here to Bethel for the spring semester. I commented on a faint sun dog I could see and my mom asked what that was.

Returning to Bethel in the midst of a heckuva cold snap, the sun dogs are common. Yesterday I came home early from work-evacuated home, to be precise. You see, some of the water pipes had frozen at the LKSD buildings, and an effort was underway to remedy it before the kids come back to school next week. Then all of a sudden came into the building a smell of wood and other unknown smokes. Some of the stuff by those frozen pipes got a little too "unthawed" so to speak. It was time to get out of there and call it a day.

When I got home I snapped this photo for Mom off our porch. It's not the best, but I couldn't move the neighbor's house out of the way, and it was a tad chilly to go on a true photo safari.

Hope you all had a fantastic holiday season.