Our new home

As you all saw in our last post, we made it to Bethel! I will definitely talk about every little detail here but figured I should pace myself so I don't overload each post. :) It is so different here compared to Orlando, or any other place we've lived, but we love it so far. It just feels comfortable. It's too early to tell long-term but it feels right for us at this moment. 

As most of you may know, Bethel is located in a river delta, right on the bank of the Kuskokwim River (Kusko for short). We are officially located in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and the town serves as the hub for 56 surrounding villages. It's about 350 miles west of Anchorage, accessible only by air and barge. Yup, no roads in or out. In the winter, you can drive on the river, but that will still only take you to one of the nearby villages.  

Fishing is a way of life here and necessary to get through the winter. Unfortunately, we arrived at the end of the season, but you can be sure you will see lots of fishing pictures and stories here next summer! And it's a good thing we like salmon; that's the staple in Bethel. :) 

Kuskokwim River

Temporary housing

We're currently in temporary housing but just found an apartment. We should be moving on October 1, which means we can finally bring Tibby to join us! (For those who don't know, Thibodeaux aka Tibby is our beloved cat.) The temp housing is fine for now but we're eager to be in our own place. We have a rotating group of housemates, traveling physicians at the hospital. We've been lucky though, and roomed with some very nice people. And the house has a grill, which has already been used quite a bit. Did I mention that we are officially fans of moose meat? We received some as a gift. Wow, were we surprised! We've now grilled moose steaks wrapped in bacon and cooked up homemade moose sausage for breakfast. It is so lean and has a nice spice to it; the bacon on the steaks was solely to keep it from drying out. Yum, we are now in search of more. It's actually moose-hunting time right now (a lot of people in town are out hunting), so we should be able to buy a little more meat soon. One of the residency rules in Alaska is that you must live here a year before you can buy an in-state fishing, trapping, and/or hunting license. We might buy an out-of-state license after the new year so we can fish next summer, but will probably hold off right now. 

A lot of you have asked about the weather. It's definitely chilly, averaging between 40-50 during the day. We've already had frost on the ground for a few mornings. It's intermittently sunny and cloudy, and rains a fair bit; it changes throughout the day. However, we don't get those crazy thunderstorms like in Florida. Rain so far has been more of a random spitting or heavier drizzle. Enough to get you wet, but nothing that will force me inside all day. It's the wind that's pretty intense. I've seen some wind in Chicago, but this is something else. I hear winter can be harsh due to the wind, with lots of white-outs. The rain does make it really muddy as you can see. Thank goodness for galoshes! Everyone wears them here.

View from our temp housing

Necessary footwear

One final thought before I end this post. It is so beautiful and quiet here. We can actually hear birds as they fly by. Not squawking or singing, we can hear the sound their wings make, even really high in the sky. It's very cool and I've never heard that before in my life. Our second night in town was very clear, so we drove out to the edge of Bethel to look at the stars. Not that Bethel is really lit up, but we figured we'd have nicer pictures. Still working on the night photography, but it was breathtaking. I saw so many satellites moving throughout the sky, a few shooting stars and even the saw the edge of the galaxy. This picture doesn't do it justice, but here is the moon at 1:30 am over the tundra. Just beautiful.