Now that is 66 years young!
Time and Temperature
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Entertainment
As promised, I am here to tell you about entertainment here in Bethel. I joked that it would be a short entry, since there isn't much to do in Bethel, but really that isn't being fair. In comparison to other places we have lived, Bethel does have a lot fewer options. There are no bars, no coffee houses, no zoo, no children's museum, no movie theatres, no bowling alley, no swimming pool, no Chuck e Cheese's and no other towns to go visit. Even a Sunday drive is quite limited here since there are only a few miles of roads. This can be quite shocking to a newcomer. But there are things to do, you just have to adjust your perspective.
If you love to go snowmobile riding then Bethel is a dream come true. There are literally endless trails that go out onto the tundra and at least seven months of snow. You can ride out to Three Step Mountain and look for firewood, you can travel up the Gweek river, you can ride all around town (on the roads) and you can travel to the villages on the frozen river. Unfortunately, we don't have snowmobiles (which are not called that here- they are called snowgos), and I am not that comfortable driving such machines. There is also a sharp learning curve up here, lose your way and there may not be another town for hundreds of miles. Misjudge the overflow on the river, and you may sink your machine. For some reason, I have not been motivated to take Jamie out under these conditions. However, the kids I work with talk endlessly about their adventures, and I know it is one of the best types of recreation available here.
In town there is bingo at the VFW, at the library there is craft hour on Saturday. There are periodic fiddle dances, and basketball games draw a large crowd on Friday nights. Jamie likes the games, they have great concessions, frozen yogurt, cotton candy, and snow cones- all of which aren't available anywhere else in Bethel. There is the teen center, which also houses the town gym, and judo and dance classes are available. There are a few parks, but I am afraid they wouldn't look like much to most people.
There are several annual events, and if you live here for any amount of time you know all about them. There is the Just Desserts night, which is a fundraiser for the Bethel Council of Arts, there is a concert to raise money for the K-300, and of course there are the dog sled races themselves, as well as the Eskimo dance festival Camai and community theatre.
What most people do for socializing is to gather at each others houses for dinner and or drinks. We have held a couple of game nights ourselves. If you want to get together with people this is kind of the only option, as there are no bars and people don't go to restaurants much. In Bethel if you want something to do you have to get involved, have a group of friends and be creative. That being said, I still loathe Sunday afternoons when the library is closed and the long cold afternoon stretches out before us.
If you love to go snowmobile riding then Bethel is a dream come true. There are literally endless trails that go out onto the tundra and at least seven months of snow. You can ride out to Three Step Mountain and look for firewood, you can travel up the Gweek river, you can ride all around town (on the roads) and you can travel to the villages on the frozen river. Unfortunately, we don't have snowmobiles (which are not called that here- they are called snowgos), and I am not that comfortable driving such machines. There is also a sharp learning curve up here, lose your way and there may not be another town for hundreds of miles. Misjudge the overflow on the river, and you may sink your machine. For some reason, I have not been motivated to take Jamie out under these conditions. However, the kids I work with talk endlessly about their adventures, and I know it is one of the best types of recreation available here.
In town there is bingo at the VFW, at the library there is craft hour on Saturday. There are periodic fiddle dances, and basketball games draw a large crowd on Friday nights. Jamie likes the games, they have great concessions, frozen yogurt, cotton candy, and snow cones- all of which aren't available anywhere else in Bethel. There is the teen center, which also houses the town gym, and judo and dance classes are available. There are a few parks, but I am afraid they wouldn't look like much to most people.
There are several annual events, and if you live here for any amount of time you know all about them. There is the Just Desserts night, which is a fundraiser for the Bethel Council of Arts, there is a concert to raise money for the K-300, and of course there are the dog sled races themselves, as well as the Eskimo dance festival Camai and community theatre.
What most people do for socializing is to gather at each others houses for dinner and or drinks. We have held a couple of game nights ourselves. If you want to get together with people this is kind of the only option, as there are no bars and people don't go to restaurants much. In Bethel if you want something to do you have to get involved, have a group of friends and be creative. That being said, I still loathe Sunday afternoons when the library is closed and the long cold afternoon stretches out before us.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Happy Anniversary
Today is my parent's 40th wedding anniversary. We wish we could be there to celebrate with them. Congratulations to them both and I hope they have a wonderful day.
Instead of eating prime rib and toasting to their health, we will be going to Saturday Market. It's an event that is held throughout the year at the cultural center.There are lots of local artists and craftsmen (or more common craftswomen) along with food and a lot of socializing. It is more of an interactive event than other craft shows I have attended in the lower forty-eight, in that people really make a day out of it, have some coffee and stay awhile. It is also an opportunity to buy some really great stuff, including fur hats and parkas.
Instead of eating prime rib and toasting to their health, we will be going to Saturday Market. It's an event that is held throughout the year at the cultural center.There are lots of local artists and craftsmen (or more common craftswomen) along with food and a lot of socializing. It is more of an interactive event than other craft shows I have attended in the lower forty-eight, in that people really make a day out of it, have some coffee and stay awhile. It is also an opportunity to buy some really great stuff, including fur hats and parkas.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Lay of the Land
I read over our entire blog yesterday and realized that we haven't given a lot of practical information about Bethel. This blog entry, and perhaps a few to follow will try to give you a sense of what this town looks like and what living here is like for us. The first thing to keep in my mind is that we don't have a car. A lot of people in Bethel do have cars, however there are enough people that don't to necessitate not one, but several cab companies. We try not to use the cabs very much, at $5 a person for a ride in town, and $7 to go outside of town it can become pretty expensive. This means we do a lot of walking. We walk to work, to the store, to friends houses, to the teen center, to the high school for basketball games and anywhere else we want to go.
Luckily, we live pretty close to the center of town. There is nothing here in Bethel that looks like a traditional downtown, even for a small town. There is a highway (two lane undivided) that branches off into Ridgecrest Ave. and runs down by the river. Along these two roads, spread out over a couple of miles, there are businesses and municipal buildings.
There are two main grocery stores in town, AC and Swansons. Swansons has been here the longest, and has a deli and a clothing store on the second floor. They also have a hardware and furniture store. They are closer to the river and a lot patrons have their groceries boxed up to take home on their snow machine to their village. AC is closer to us, and looks more like a grocery store downstate. It is large and has a fast food restaurant inside it. I have been pleasantly surprised by the variety of food we can purchase here. They may not have everything we are used to, but they do have an amazing variety for being in such a remote area.
However, you will pay a lot for the food they sell. Our entire budget for a weeks worth of groceries back home was $60 a week, so to drop a few hundred on food every week is a little disturbing. I don't know why a Kiwi fruit can travel from New Zealand to Seattle and still be affordable, but if you want to bring it to the Alaska bush you are going to have to pay a lot more. Milk is around $10 a gallon, Doritos are $8.50, juice is $9, a loaf of bread is $6. It helps that we eat a lot of rice and beans, which we buy in bulk- but there is only so much you can do to keep costs down. The cost of bypass mail (which is how a lot of our groceries come in) is going to raise quite a bit come May, so stay tuned for more rising costs.
There are several restaurants in Bethel, most of them do their bulk of business in delivery. . A few have a regular seating area and actually do feel like a restaurant, like Sho-gun and VIP (which has Korean food and sushi). People don't seem to do a lot of socializing out at restaurants, which surprised me when we moved here. Brother's Pizza is worth the trip since on a clear day you can view the mountains from their place out at the airport. The wierd thing is that most of these places have very similar menus, burgers, sandwiches, Chinese, and pizza.
The town is rather small, I think about six miles from end to end. It is shaped like a horse shoe, we live in the bend. There are several neighborhoods, which they call subdivisions. Tundra Ridge, City Sub, Blueberry. In any other place these wouldn't have individual names, the place just isn't big enough. I wonder if it is because so many people come from such tiny villages, therefore any place that is separated from another gets it's own designation. That is all the practical information I will give for now, next time I will cover entertainment in Bethel, which will be a very easy and short blog to write. -Megan
Luckily, we live pretty close to the center of town. There is nothing here in Bethel that looks like a traditional downtown, even for a small town. There is a highway (two lane undivided) that branches off into Ridgecrest Ave. and runs down by the river. Along these two roads, spread out over a couple of miles, there are businesses and municipal buildings.
There are two main grocery stores in town, AC and Swansons. Swansons has been here the longest, and has a deli and a clothing store on the second floor. They also have a hardware and furniture store. They are closer to the river and a lot patrons have their groceries boxed up to take home on their snow machine to their village. AC is closer to us, and looks more like a grocery store downstate. It is large and has a fast food restaurant inside it. I have been pleasantly surprised by the variety of food we can purchase here. They may not have everything we are used to, but they do have an amazing variety for being in such a remote area.
However, you will pay a lot for the food they sell. Our entire budget for a weeks worth of groceries back home was $60 a week, so to drop a few hundred on food every week is a little disturbing. I don't know why a Kiwi fruit can travel from New Zealand to Seattle and still be affordable, but if you want to bring it to the Alaska bush you are going to have to pay a lot more. Milk is around $10 a gallon, Doritos are $8.50, juice is $9, a loaf of bread is $6. It helps that we eat a lot of rice and beans, which we buy in bulk- but there is only so much you can do to keep costs down. The cost of bypass mail (which is how a lot of our groceries come in) is going to raise quite a bit come May, so stay tuned for more rising costs.
There are several restaurants in Bethel, most of them do their bulk of business in delivery. . A few have a regular seating area and actually do feel like a restaurant, like Sho-gun and VIP (which has Korean food and sushi). People don't seem to do a lot of socializing out at restaurants, which surprised me when we moved here. Brother's Pizza is worth the trip since on a clear day you can view the mountains from their place out at the airport. The wierd thing is that most of these places have very similar menus, burgers, sandwiches, Chinese, and pizza.
The town is rather small, I think about six miles from end to end. It is shaped like a horse shoe, we live in the bend. There are several neighborhoods, which they call subdivisions. Tundra Ridge, City Sub, Blueberry. In any other place these wouldn't have individual names, the place just isn't big enough. I wonder if it is because so many people come from such tiny villages, therefore any place that is separated from another gets it's own designation. That is all the practical information I will give for now, next time I will cover entertainment in Bethel, which will be a very easy and short blog to write. -Megan
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Bar study and snowflakes
I figured I should post something, just so you know we are all doing fine. Terrence is busily studying for the Alaska Bar. He will fly to Anchorage for a week on the 21st to take it. The school year is moving along, Jamie is doing well in all of his subjects. He is making leaps and bounds in reading right now, he has started reading everything he sees, including his Gatorade bottle, "Mom what does p-o-t-t-a-s-i-u-m spell?" I took James and his friend to a play last weekend, The Bethel Actors Guild put on the "Wizard of Oz" and it was pretty good.
It has been snowing a lot lately, and the temperature has been pretty cold but not horrible. I think everyone everywhere is getting tired of winter, so you can probably imagine how we feel here. James and I are dreaming of some far off camping trip, when it is warmer. He is also dreaming, like a lot of the kids in Bethel, of going to Chuck E Cheese or the indoor water park in Anchorage. Terrence's co-workers claim that to maintain sanity one must leave Bethel at least once every six months, I suppose that means Jamie and I are due for a bout of craziness any time now.
Surprisingly, we are still doing just fine. It is hard not to feel fortunate for what we do have when we see so many people experiencing hardship around us. Terrence and I are constantly trying to get a handle on the cultural decimation we see going on here, the breakdown in family structure, the loss of so many different things. As outsiders, we understand so little of what is really happening, or what needs to happen to make it better. We are simaltenously worried and in awe, because this culture is truly unique and impressive and is undergoing so many changes.
The planning for Camai is getting underway. It is a dance festival held here in Bethel, lots of local and regional dance groups perform. This picture is from the festival in 2007. From what I hear it is a really nice event. Here is a link to a web site about it, www.bethelarts.com.
It has been snowing a lot lately, and the temperature has been pretty cold but not horrible. I think everyone everywhere is getting tired of winter, so you can probably imagine how we feel here. James and I are dreaming of some far off camping trip, when it is warmer. He is also dreaming, like a lot of the kids in Bethel, of going to Chuck E Cheese or the indoor water park in Anchorage. Terrence's co-workers claim that to maintain sanity one must leave Bethel at least once every six months, I suppose that means Jamie and I are due for a bout of craziness any time now.
Surprisingly, we are still doing just fine. It is hard not to feel fortunate for what we do have when we see so many people experiencing hardship around us. Terrence and I are constantly trying to get a handle on the cultural decimation we see going on here, the breakdown in family structure, the loss of so many different things. As outsiders, we understand so little of what is really happening, or what needs to happen to make it better. We are simaltenously worried and in awe, because this culture is truly unique and impressive and is undergoing so many changes.
The planning for Camai is getting underway. It is a dance festival held here in Bethel, lots of local and regional dance groups perform. This picture is from the festival in 2007. From what I hear it is a really nice event. Here is a link to a web site about it, www.bethelarts.com.
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