Sand Point- Day 1

“I’m sorry. I know this is a dumb question… but, are those crab traps that we keep passing?”

The driver, Pam, exchanges a look with her friend in the passenger seat of the beat up blue mini-van. “Yeah, those are crab pots.”

“I’m from Arizona,” I say by way of an explanation.

We wind our way up a green mountain, and I peer over at the ocean clearly visible from out the side window. This reminds me of Hawaii, I think. Or, maybe Ireland—not that I’ve seen it. Clearly my references for the color green are somewhat limited.

Our hotel is only about 10 minutes away from the airport. We quickly arrive in a dirt parking lot and follow Pam inside. We complete a small registration card and are handed keys (like real keys) to our room. We ask where we can eat dinner and are told that the only place open for dinner on Sunday is the Chinese restaurant by the AC. Hmmm.

Neither Liza or I know what to expect. This seems to be a theme.

Before we even reach the room, though, Carla, the Camp Director, intercepts us with much anticipated details. We are to meet Mike, who drives the red car, outside room 111 for breakfast that begins at 8am. We try to clarify what time we need to meet Mike, but finally conclude that we’re meeting at 8am… and breakfast will “start” without us. (We later learn that breakfast is served for an hour—issue resolved.)

We get to our room to find a basic motel room.

Liza and I decide to take a walk. Liza picked up a brochure in the motel office, which includes a map of Sand Point. We quickly realize that the scale makes every small spot look like a Wal-mart box store. Hmmm. We put the map away and continue our exploration.

We walk the main street and try to figure out what things are… some are easy—Alaska Fish and Game (clearly labeled), the cemetery (crosses are a give away), and the church (also self-evident)… everything else is pretty up-in-the-air. We take pictures of the lush scenery and see 3 bald eagles.

When we return to the hotel, there are two men who look to be frat guys (maybe canning employees??) leaning on their cars fresh from the “lounge”. We detour into the lounge, as I feel uncomfortable going into our rooms with the men standing there.

Carla is in the lounge playing cards (bridge??) with 2 other women. She introduces us to Mike (of the red car) and Wolfgang—both of whom are instructors at the Culture Camp.

Mike asks if we’ve had a tour yet and offers us a tour of the city. He drives us around and we see several places that we’d already seen and mislabeled (our “school” was really city hall, etc.) and some places we hadn’t seen (like the old quarry, the dump, and our camp location). Mike takes us by BINGO, but we discover it’s more involved (both technically and time-wise) than anyone is up for tonight. He drops us off at Aleutian China for dinner.

Liza and I enjoyed the best Chinese food I’ve had in Alaska. As we start to leave, we’re stopped by a woman who asks if we’re here for camp (I’m wearing a backpack—not too subtle). We say yes. Apparently she’s here from Fish and Game with 2 interns—Trayven and Inga. She welcomes us, and we head back to the hotel.

I tried to access the internet from our hotel room, but it’s down. Apparently the internet company tried to call the Anchor Inn Motel, but their phones aren’t receiving calls (it just rings and rings). So this will have to wait until tomorrow.

I wanted to post, so I went back to the lounge (40 feet from our room). The lounge has internet, but also many people who are considerably drunker than earlier. I go to the bar to order a Diet Coke. A woman stumbles up to me spilling her drink and slurring some sort of greeting. Hmmm.

I get the Diet Coke and take a seat to blog. I get quite a view from my corner table. I wonder if I’m here at 8:45pm on any other night if it would be the same. I sense that the level of intoxication is negatively correlated to the number of places open.

Carla is still here playing cards and the bartender seems to have a handle on things. I don’t feel unsafe, just uncomfortable.

The woman who spilled on me is now slurring slurs at another woman. It’s a small town—so everyone knows each other. The bartender makes the woman leave. They argue about this. But, the woman ends up leaving.

I’ve noticed that, like pain, you only acknowledge that which is most pronounced. The woman’s leaving does not greatly reduce the volume or drunkenness of the bar. The bar has a decidedly different tone than earlier today. The sober people seem to be corralling those who are drinking by redirecting them into card games or dice games. I don’t think the sober people are having much fun.

It’s chilly here. It’s so windy and the PVC coat I bought to protect from rain serves well against the wind.

The ravens are incredible. They’re huge and you instantly see how they’ve become culturally important.

Dogs run around here. They all seem to stay close to where they belong (I think!). Hayden would like to be here too.

The houses are colorful. Liza pointed out that they cut the gray of the sky.

The flights here weren’t bad at all. The pilots smoothly took off and landed despite heavy winds. It was impressive.

We’re meeting Mike at 8am for our ride to the Camp. I’m sure I’ll have much more later and, hopefully, I’ll be more organized in my thinking too.