To Heaven And Back

Well I flew to Anchorage for a few days, as some of you may or may not know. I attended the annual bilingual conference and represented my school. It was interesting. I tried to get as much out of it as possible but it was hard. A quick breakdown:

Saturday: Fly in, get dropped off at hotel, rent a car, rent skis, ahhh... I went to the very famous Kincaid Park, which is one of the most popular cross country facilities in the nation. I skied around for a while, didn't take any diggers, and searched for moose. I didn't see any at the park, where they are known to be, so I packed it up and started back for town. I really didn't ski that long. I was at the point where laying down on a nice bed in a clean room with a cold beer and watching nothing on 45 DIFFERENT channels seemed like the best thing in the world. So on the way back from the park I happened to glance down a dead end road when, BAM!, MOOSE! I quick pulled a U-ey and flew back. It was a beautiful cow and was chewing on some branches when I drove up. I got out of the car and snapped some pictures. She took a few steps toward me, I took a few steps back to the car, she kind of sniffed me and kept walking. I was in love. I went downtown and got some "Moose' Tooth Brew" that night (5 bucks a piece, whew!)

Sunday: Despite the cold, went back to Kincaid that day. I went on the advanced trail (by accident, not choice). It was the typical spread eagle, pizza slice, arms flailing adventure down these hills. Then, somehow, I ended up going down the trail to the finish line of some huge race. All these people are looking around, the PA announcer is saying something, I am racing at a blazing speed somewhere between tripping and crossing my skis trying to exit before I run into someone. Finally, I made a quick exit, hurried to my car, and took off. It was too cold to ski and I needed a drive. So I took off across town to Chugach State Park. I hiked up to a trail called "Denali Lookout" It was pretty incredible, finally got to see Denali, aka Mount McKinley. The Alaska State government has officially adopted its name to the original name while the Federal Government won't change it back. But it's great that the books and tour guides refer to it as Denali and not McKinley. After the hike, drove back and saw Moose Numbero Deuce. Beautiful! Sunday night I ended up running into a good friend of mine's dad, who is a principal up here. We had a great time every night, almost having too much fun... Very nice seeing a familiar face.

Monday - Wednesday: Listened to a lot of conferences, most of them referring to the school that I teach at because, as I realized, we are a pretty progressive school when it comes to language immersion. In the three days, I actually learned more about my school than strategies, programs, and other information that I could use. I did Yuraq (pronounced You Huck) for the first time. It's the native dance and it has an incredible beat and is pretty fun to do. My students do it on alternate days for 40 minutes so I had to wing it off of what I had seen of them. I went to some pretty cool bars, restaurants and trails while there. It was nice to get away & see a big city, but really, it was a nice feeling landing in Bethel again last night.

I will post pics soon of the moose/cultural dance.