Nome, Day 2

First things first.  Here is the promised shot of the Nome National Forest...

Everyone was tired of the lack of trees around here, so every year they put up trees offshore, creating a little forest.  They also have some statues of animals (some, like the penguin not indigenous to the area).  I'll get better shots with my telephoto next.

Today was a get organized day... Debski went out to the air cargo office and picked up our food, so we spent the morning opening all the boxes, inventorying what we got against what we were supposed to get, and putting everything away in the kitchen. 

the "combi" -- no windows on the cargo half!

I was called into service as the van driver, so I had to meet the morning aircraft... only it did not come in until after lunch.  They held the flight in Anchorage to wait for a flight to come in from Kotzebue with 60 pieces of luggage that had been offloaded the night before so that they could take off under less than desirable conditions.  When they were approaching Nome, they put the AK Air flight in a holding pattern for "air control" situation.  There were two 8-passenger planes from Bering Air that needed to take off.  Once they got in the 737 could land -- and of course, it was chaos in the baggage claim chute because of all the extra bags. 

I did get a couple of shots of the burled arch that is the official end point of the race.  So far they have moved the arch to the street and have started to build up the snow around it.  In the next few days they will put snow down over the paved streets to the ramp where the mushers come off the sea.

I got back to the Methodist Church in time to help Debski with dinner preps.  We did spaghetti, green salad and chocolate cake.  Just as the HQ folks came in, a plane landed.  I was supposed to meet the evening plane which was due in at 7:44... a six p.m. arrival was not on the schedule.  Well it turned out that that was the plane I was supposed to meet, so it was back to the airport.  (The plane had come in early because Kotzebue was socked in and they couldn't land.)

After dinner I was taking the folks to their hotel, and it happened to be the full moon rising just as the sun set.  While I was waiting at the hotel, I got a shot of the burled arch. 

moon rising behind city hall and the arch

sunset over the Iditarod HQ building

It's off to bed for us... the spring forward happens tonight!