Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Around Town

I got to thinking the other day that we take a lot of scenery pictures, but we haven't taken too many pictures of Hoonah. Probably because the town itself isn't that pretty. We see the town everyday and forget that business and such are a little different then they are in a bigger town. So I thought for a few posts I would put some pictures up that show a little more of Hoonah.
This is downtown Hoonah taken from the float plane dock near the marina. This was the part of town that was rebuilt after the fire in 1944 (or around that time).

The red building is our power plant, I know it's hard to see through the snow, but there isn't much there anyway. The town is run on diesel generators, which you guessed it, makes electricity very expensive. The town gets a grant, so our electricity is about half of what it would be without the governments help.
Do we have a Dr. in town? We used to get a Dr. to visit once a month, but he retired, and as far as I know we haven't gotten one to replace him. The clinic is run by HIA (Hoonah Indian Association), but last I heard they were having a hard time making ends meet financially, and were hoping that SEARCH would step in and take over. SEARCH is another native group that if they came in would build a new clinic. Looks like they need one here. If you have a major emergency you have to be flown out of Hoonah to Juneau or Seattle. Our ambulance crew is all volunteers as is our fire department.
This is the Senior Center, it seems like this would be a bigger place since are really a lot of seniors in this town. I think the biggest draw is that van out in front, I see it all over town giving our seniors rides to the post office and the store.
And this guy was sitting up on the hill enjoying the sun that I just had to take his picture. He was scoping out the dump (pictures on that will soon follow).

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Another Great Blog

Our friends Lyndsey and (Montana) Deb over in Juneau have started a blog, and I just have to mention them. Lyn takes some fantabulous pictures. His latest are of the avalanche that shut off the road to Thane about a week ago. Every time they email us they attach a great photo to go with it. Here are a few of them, but to see more, really, check out their blog, and maybe drop them a comment to let them know you were there:
http://jumpa-zorro.blogspot.com/



I think he took both of these pictures right outside their door.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Sunny Days

For the last 2 days the sun has been shinning and we've bee seeing blue, blue sky! It doesn't matter that it is still colder then ever, the sun just brings everyone outside. Gotta get some Vitamin D! Frank and I took a walk up to the Shaman Rocks, it's near the ferry terminal. Frank didn't have his spikes on and I get a little nervous walking through that pass when the sun is shinning on thawing rock. The same feeling I get when we are out in the woods and I know that the bear is just around that next tree waiting for me. Legend has it that the Shamans of the Tlingit tribe are buried on top of these rocks. It used to be that NO ONE went up there because there were evil spirits about. But from what is said now, is that the younger generations don't listen and have ropes to help climb up there.

The rock used to be all connected until they blasted through to put the road out to Icy Strait Point. You can see we still have a little snow piled up.

This was taken from the Ferry terminal parking lot. They are supposed to build a walk way around the rock for tourists this year. It gets a little congested going around that curve between the rocks in the summer time. Look how flat that water is! Frank would have loved to have been out fishing for winter kings.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Television or Not to Television

We watched a lot of television while we were in America. When we got back our house sitter had a satellite attached to the side of our house, looks kind of like a wart or a growth of some kind hanging up there. But all of the houses have them, so now ours "fits" in. She said we could buy the satellite for $75, and just switch the payments over to us. That's a huge decision for us, we've been without TV for over 3 years now, do we really NEED TV? I thought, well, I'll call Dish and see what the fees are, I only want ABC, CBS, NBC plus the cooking channel for me and outdoor channel for Frank, how much can that be. I called the 800 # for Dish, I think I was on the phone for probably 20 minutes with the sales person. He asked me what we watched, what we liked, our address, blah, blah, blah. After all that he says "You need to call the Sitka number, I can't help you they can". Miss patience that I am (NOT), figures ok, I can be jerked around a little more, after all we could end up with TV! I call the Sitka office, she says "OH, you are in Hoonah, we DON'T service Hoonah, you'll have to call the #800 number" You guessed it, if DISH doesn't care if we have TV, I don't care if we have TV.In Juneau we had our phone, TV, and wireless internet all by one company. GCI, it was cable, so we don't get that here. But can't that be done with 1 satellite? Call me "stupid" but I just can't figure out why it's so hard to have high speed internet, phone and TV in Hoonah without paying a fortune to have it. Direct TV, I looked on their website, great deal, you can have the satellite free with a 2 year contract. I thought GREAT! Then I clicked on the link that said internet, thinking (big mistake, don't think) we could have 1 satellite for both. hahahahaha, so silly me. That link took me to Hughes Net, for $400+ we could also get a satellite for internet, and $60 a month to keep it, plus whatever our payment would be for TV,and you can't have just 6 channels, the minimum is 150, (that seems like a lot of $ me, plus I'm cheap) I like 1 bill to 1 place for as many things as I can. Who wants to watch TV anyway.............


Nooks and I will just spend time watching the snow melt, then build up, then melt....

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Snow to Slush and Back Again

We are definitely getting our winter now! I think we got about 6-8 more inches on top of the slush last night, so it's nice and slippery under the pretty stuff. I about did the splits on the way back from the post office today, I'm sure that was a pretty sight! We went to the Economic Development meeting this am, everyone knows we are back so we can't not go. But the rumor now is that there are 2 cruise ships that will be pulling out of Alaska in 2010, and both of those 2 make stops here................I'm sure Icy Strait Point will be scrambling to find other ships to take their spots. As it is I hear the cruise ship industry as a whole for Alaska will be down about 30% this summer. With 4 cruise ships stopping here I'm hoping we won't notice it.
Frank shoveled a path down the drive way today, it was his turn, I did it when we got home.This is our neighbors yard, can you see the swing set, it's almost covered.
This is the view out the back of our place, Frank got to shovel a path to the freezer too!