Here I am still sitting in Galena. It is the middle of our season now and we are just over the halfway point of our original 90 exclusive use contract. I know that I promised much more writing, pictures, and posts from camp but to tell the truth...there hasn't been much to write about and photograph so far.

This has been a very slow season so far with not much happening. I won't say that I'm in the doldrums but there is just not much to write about here. We have had one fire of about 4000 acres. The helicopter was gone for about 10 days...other than that it has been sitting. I have worked Alaska camps from the Chukchi Sea to Deadhorse to Valdez and all points in between. I have never worked a summer where my helicopter or helicopters did not fly and make money. We are being paid to just sit here. This is a very hard thing to get used to.

I wanted to take many more pictures than the ones I have shown, but since I have no access to transportation, I have taken all the pictures of the immediate area that I can. It's hard for me to beat a dead horse to death, so to speak. By being on a one hour call back status, I can't just go traipsing off down the river or through the woods. Besides, grandmothers house isn't close by. Also, I do have to worry about bears if I get off the beaten path. I have no bear spray and I don't normally carry a weapon. With all that being said...here I sit.

With the schedule I work I get home for two days after 12 days of 'work'. I run to take care of Kitty and get her set up for the next 12 day stint and then come back out here. Now, I have a tendency to to sound like I am complaining, whether I am speaking or writing about myself. Let me be clear...this is not a complaint. I do everything I can for my wife because I want to. I love her and want to make sure she is as comfortable as possible while I am gone. 

Speaking of Kitty, she is doing all of her prep work now for our projects for the coming winter. We will have art projects and we will be selling on Ebay, Facebook, and anywhere else we can. With Alaska having such short summer work seasons, this is how we survive and eventually thrive during winter. It is called wearing many hats. She has spoke of this often during our years of marriage but I never really understood what she meant until now. You see, I have held full time and year round employment my entire life...until recently. With the down economy and ever more oppressive government policies and regulations, full time employment is no longer an option for me. It took a couple of years of floundering and flirting with insolvency to understand what she meant by the many hats. This simply means that we have to have our fingers into a little bit of everything to get by. When the helicopter work for summer goes away we still have to have an income. We make things, buy sell and trade, work short cash jobs, help others out, you name it...we get by. And, now that I am understanding what she meant and no longer fighting her on it, we will thrive.

I am looking forward to winter already. I am hoping to get my shop finished before snow flies this season so I can spend more time woodworking. She has several projects in mind for us that require unique and one of a kind items to be created. We have learned to gel and work as more of a team over the last couple of years. I must tell you that for a self centered autistic like myself, this was a very difficult thing for me. I had always said that I worked well in group environments but never really understood what teamwork really was. The sky is the limit for us now that I have finally learned to follow her very intelligent lead.

 So, in closing for this post, bear with me through the rest of what has turned out to be a very boring summer and get ready for a very exciting winter! Yeah, I know, it sounds bass ackwards from how I envisioned things last spring. That's Alaska for you. You just never know how things are going to work out. Even more, it's not just Alaska, that is life!

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