Events in Sitka!

I swear I have not abandoned the blog.  Since I started working full time again, there are not enough hours in the day.  We have almost everything unpacked & put away except pictures & what not to hang on the walls.  The guest room is still a little chaotic, but ready none the less.  So anyone who wants to visit, feel free to start making plans.  We have already started to lose a significant amount of daylight & as of right now it’s dark by 6:00pm.  I am really enjoying my job & the people I work with.  Driving to work every morning I get to see the most beautiful view of the ocean with fresh snow capped mountains & I can't help but to think about how lucky we are to be able to experience living in Alaska.  We have adopted Kolt’s new friend, Cooper who lives in the barracks.  They are just alike & enjoy doing the same things like hunting & fishing.  People on base refer to them as “the twins” now because they act alike and go everywhere together.  Last weekend while driving home from a nature walk, we spotted some whales in a part of the bay where they are frequently seen.  After pulling over & getting out of the truck, we realized they were Orcas (Killer Whales), which are more rare than humpback whales.  We watched them for at least 20 minutes, following their spouts & spotting them when they came up.  There was a large pod of them, at least 7 that we saw at one time, & we assume they were hunting.  Like us, most everyone who was traveling that same road at the time had stopped & pulled over to witness the orca sighting as well.  I wasn’t able to get any pictures or video but hopefully next time.  Apparently an Orca sighting like this one is rare & the girls at work thought we were very lucky to have experienced this.  I was just excited to see whales since I haven’t seen any since we have been here. 

Over the past month or so, there have been several events in town that we have been to.  Even though we haven’t expected events to be as exciting as they would be in the lower 48, we jump at the chance to do things that get us out of the house.  A few weeks ago there was a “Circus”, which was not your typical circus with animals & what not.  It was a one night event with three different show times & lasted about an hour & a half.  It was a Polynesian Cirque de so-lei with hula dancers, warriors spinning & blowing fire, & a hula-hoop dancer among other things.  A couple weekends ago there was an air-show in the Coast Guard Hangar.  This was not a typical air show like what Davis Monthan AFB puts on every year.  This was a couple aircrafts, fire trucks, & police cars parked inside the hangar with a bake sale, hot dog stand, & some little things for kids.  October 18th was Alaska day, which is almost a week long celebration in honor of the day when Alaska was bought from Russia & became a part of the United States.  For some reason, Sitka is one of the few places in Alaska that actually celebrates this day & most of the businesses in town were closed.  The bank where I work stayed open on Columbus day so that they could close for Alaska day.  They close off downtown, which consists of one road about a half a mile long, & there was a parade which surprisingly was very normal, minus the horses & floats that are usually seen in parades.  The Coast Guard was in the front of the line & as they made their way through town two of the Helicopters from the air station did a fly by.  It was by far the best Coast Guard involvement I have ever seen in parade.  After the parade was over, the Coast Guard did a rescue demo in the bay by the bridge.  A helicopter dropped a dummy into the ocean & then flew back & lowered a swimmer.  We watched the swimmer “rescue” the dummy, put it in the basket, & then was lifted into the helicopter.  Then they lowered the harness back down to lift the swimmer up.  I took a video but couldn’t zoom in because I was using my phone & not my camera.  I will post the link to the video, but it is hard to see some things.  The video is kind of long so the only way I could post it was via youtube.