WEAVER FAMILY: Tundra Flying and Many Memories of When I Used to Fly Here

June 30 (Bethel)

After a night of not real good sleep (well for me, Roger said he slept well!) we got up and packed up our stuff and took off again. We did some more village hopping to see places where Roger used to fly into 29 years ago (wow, was it really that long ago?) The main one I wanted to see was St. Mary’s where he was based out of, and where I had also spent a month that summer. Roger had come up for three months to work at Herman’s Air, and I came up for one of those months and stayed in an apartment in the village of St. Mary’s. Roger loved it there and since it was pretty well light 24 hours a day, they were very busy flying and I didn’t really see that much of him. I was bored to death there in the village with nothing to do! Only mosquitoes for company! J We just flew into the airstrip and didn’t go into the village cause it was about 7 miles away, but we flew over it and saw where we had lived the month I came up. When I wasn’t there Roger slept in the hangar and washed out of a small Maxwell coffee can for his showers. That’s all he had to use and had no running water. He loved it though. Roger also talked to some guys at the airport – not that much changed. The village is also about the same size, just a few hundred people. On the way to Bethel we flew into about 11 different villages Roger used to fly into on a regular basis. He wanted to go out to the west along the coast to some of the other villages, but decided not to since there is so much to do yet, and so little time left J.

We ended up in Bethel, which is the biggest village in the area. Roger needed to change the oil in the plane and we needed fuel, so he did that at Ryan Air, where Travis used to work before he got married last summer. Travis had been working two weeks on, living in Bethel, and then two weeks off, living in Anchorage with the Ryan Air job. After they got married he changed jobs so he could be home every night in Anchorage. Travis arranged for us to stay with Lance & Toni, friends of his from Ryan Air, so that is where we are now for the night. Everyone but me has gone out to do some shooting with guns – some friend of theirs wanted to go, so Roger went along. I opted to stay here at the house. It was sort of rainy and I enjoyed a bit of time by myself. They came back about 9:30 pm, and we sat down to eat supper about 10:15 and stayed up till after 11:30 talking. I was tired by then!! JOLENE