We’re back for a day after jumps to Gambell and Nome.  Jumps through space and climate.  We met our tour group in an airport hotel at Anchorage.  After a night on a wide bed we flew to rural Nome via Alaska Airlines and then on to Gambel via Bering Air.  There we walked off the plane and on into town finding views of Red-necked Stint and Lesser Sand Plover in the “airport lagoons.  Along the way we began to experience the wonderful round gravel that makes up the bar that underlies the town of Gambell.  It refuses to compact and is displaced underfoo

We have returned from Valdez where we enjoyed several fine days of touring with Alex.  Our arrival found the harbor town beneath a layer of clouds that shrouded the peaks that wrap all around. 

Wednesday afternoon.  The wind is blowing.  It is raining and it is 54 degrees in the afternoon.  The wimpy residents of Alaska are grousing.  Will spring never come?  We, who don’t know any better feel that it is supposed to be always cold in Seward’s Icebox.  So, we took a hike this morning from the Eagle River Nature Center.  Struck out on bear, despite warnings of their presence, and saw only moose and a marvelous dipper bird.

I’m itching to get out but we’re sitting in the rig.  Anne is on the phone with Elley.  Outside huge flakes of snow are falling gently and ornamenting the spruce trees and our Blue car, Candy, with blotches of white.  The ground is getting blotchy too.  I guess the fire danger is no longer “high” as reported on the park service sign at the entrance to the Nabesna Road.