Here's a video of me landing in Hooper:
The ice at the end is the Bering Sea! You can also see all the people waiting for us at the "airport".
The teachers brought me back to teacher housing via snow machine, which is really one of the only viable methods of travel right now. The roads aren't plowed (and it really doesn't matter because there are less than 10 trucks in the whole village) and there are lots of snow drifts that form and reform due to the crazy winds so it makes walking difficult and driving impossible.
Example of some snow drifts at the apartments:
It was pretty windy and with all of the snow drifts I didn't to get out an explore as much as I would have liked, but on Sunday I did go for a little bit around the Hooper Bay which is located in back of the school.
If you've seen "The Boondock Saints", the scene where Rocco comes back to his apartment and neurotically starts yelling "PACK YOUR SH!#!" while grabbing random things around the house in his arms is the closest thing I can compare getting on a plane leaving a village. There are technically schedules, but you really find out when the plane is coming when you hear it on the radio. And since the "gate" is outside, you really don't want to get there early unless you really have to. Sometimes the plane comes a half hour late, and other times it comes 45 minutes early. Sometimes it doesn't come at all. I ended my mini vacation with a slightly more controlled Rocco moment (it's still rushed though when it takes a minimum of 5 minutes to get dressed in your gear), snow machining to the airport, taking off, landing five minutes later in Chevak to pick up more passengers, taking off again and heading to Bethel, circling around for a little bit (when I realized we had been making left hand turns about about 15 minutes I started sending frantic text messages), and then finally landing on the ground. It's nice to get away but it's even nicer to be back.
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