Some of my life's greatest memories have happened in and around the waters that I've been drawn to. The Warroad River, Lake of the Woods, the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the St. Croix River, Cross Lake, Lake Superior and now the Chukchi Sea, are all bodies of water that have played significant roles in my storyboard of life. A cool dip in LOTW and/or the Warroad River can let a boy now he's alive. Every time I fish with my son or throw stones in the St. Croix River or Cross Lake it makes me feel young again. What I wouldn't give for one more Raid with the men of India Company 3/1. Camping trips and family adventures along the beautiful North Shore of Lake Superior will forever hold a special place in my heart.
As a son of the Land of 10,000 lakes, I'm no stranger to the "Lake Effect".
The term "Lake Effect" conjures a soothing spiritual image in my mind of the cleansing effect that water has on my soul, but I do recognize that it has meteorological meaning as well. In Minnesota, "Up North" usually refers to towns like Warroad and cities like Duluth. Nestled on the shores of giant bodies of water that create their own weather patterns, time in Warroad and Duluth has taught me to plan for the best but expect the worst when dependent on the weather.
Such is life on the Chukchi Sea - a new kind of "Up North".
The Northwest Arctic Borough School District and its Bering Air partner take every precaution when transporting students around the region. There are school board directed guidelines on everything from acceptable air temperature for flights to packing lists for survival bags. They even mandate specific acceptable travel apparel to include boots, snow pants and the like. Living life around flight schedules has made many locals in to weather watchers. Everyone can agree though - when in doubt, sit it out.
Today, as in the past couple of weeks, it's been the FOG. Unseasonal temperatures and open water have created early Spring-like conditions and brought ever-changing visibility measures to the pilots and the passengers they serve. Today the weather seemed to periodically break but when that happened word was inevitably relayed that Kotzebue had lost visibility. It was a back and forth cat and mouse game of when or if we were ever going to get our flights out to Day #1 of the Regional Circus.
"Hurry Up and Wait" is a game that I mastered in the Marine Corps. Today, on the 21st Anniversary of my landing in Mogadishu, I competed patiently in the same game and am writing this post comfortably from my own bed. Obviously, we didn't fly out. From 11:45 am until 5:45pm we were in limbo and holding out hope for travel today. Hope was lost when the Lake Effect Fog rolled in and stayed in off the warming waters of the Chukchi Sea.
As it sits now, two flights are scheduled to leave at 8:00am tomorrow morning. We will be taking roll at 7:15 - I'm accepting wagers on who will be MIA and need to be fetched over the VHF.
Game # 1 against Selawik is still slated for 1:30pm. On the bright side, because of the weather delay, I got out of the Coaches and Players meetings that happened without us this evening in Kotzebue. Kivalna and Buckland are the only two villages that didn't make it in. Skies were clear and all inland villages made it safely in.
I won't complain though...another night not sleeping on a classroom floor is just fine with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment