I flew off in a brightly painted bird with Dave Looney as my pilot.  We were on our way to Elim.  Just about the time we were parallel with Unalakleet the alternator went so we were running on battery power.  Dave immediately turned us toward UNK and we made an easy landing. Dave will be waiting for parts for a while, so I picked up the next plane north which dropped me off in Elim.

The Elim Checkpoint was full of kids just out of school and when I sat down to write about my adventures of the day, they saw some of my sketches and wanted to see more.  In fact, they wanted me to draw more sketches with their names on them, so I spent the next hour drawing wolves and eagles (the school mascot).  I got A LOT of practice.  I am almost ready to do a quick draw eagle.

After a warming supper, the science teacher at the high school walked me over to the school for a visit.  For that hour of the evening, it was a buzzing place.  Mark showed me the results of a fish project the students had completed.  They raised them from eggs.

I walked back to the checkpoint myself and the evening was beautiful, looking out over Norton Sound.

The lead group of mushers came through during the night. No one staying too long and then on down the trail.  Word is at the moment that the weather at Shaktoolik is too bad. A group of mushers is stopped there to wait it out.

Not sure when I will be back on the trail, but there is good smoked salmon to gear me up.

Blynne