Friends,

Sorry this is late, our internet was not working properly yesterday and I was unable to get to the blog.  Turns out that with our new internet connection we were not working it quite correctly.  At least it was easily fixed.

Our main activity this past week was a trip to Circle.  It has that name because its founders thought it was on the Arctic Circle, but they calculated wrong.  It is actually about 100 miles from the Arctic Circle.  But it was an interesting one day trip even if Circle is not on the Circle.  It is on the Yukon River.

This is an airplane about 100 feet from the right side of the road.  The interesting thing is that the airport is on the left side of the road and there is a sign saying "Caution - airplane crossing."  At first I assumed it meant that planes would fly low overhead, but that was wrong - the  planes actually taxied across the road from the runway to the place it was kept.

These are pictures of the fall colors between Fairbanks and Circle.

Strangely, this wooden bridge along the Steese Highway is in a very new section of pavement.  I don't know why they have a wooden bridge with new pavement.  Further along the road they had good cement bridges for dirt roads.

This is either a sooty grouse or a spruce grouse.

This is the welcome to Circle, Alaska.  It really is the end of the road.  If you would not stop you would drive right into the Yukon River.

This is the one church we found in Circle.

MDS (Mennonite Disaster Service) is building this house in Circle.  The project manager for this project is Wilbur Litweiler, whom we know, from the Wellman area.  It was nice to see someone we know.  We saw him there and talked to him  little bit.  He was busy.

It is at the end of this street (?).

 We saw a herd of perhaps 40 caribou.  They were on different sides of the road and not close together so we could not get a picture of that many at once.

 

We've been looking and looking for moose. This is close!  A few hours earlier there was one here.

Not a blue jay, but a grey jay.

Grass roofed hut in Circle.

Yesterday (9/10/13) we rode the bus to the University and walked around there.  This is a dwelling which would have been common in southwest Alaska 100 to 200 years ago.  And they were perhaps used further back than that but no one knows that for sure.  It was moved to the University a few years ago.  It is about 15 feet across.

My GED class is going well.  The students are in the class because they want to be.  No one tells them they have to come.  So they are more eager to learn.  Last Tue I had one student, Wed I had two, this Tue four, today three.  They are personable and respectful.  Yesterday we had an interesting mix: a black, a hispanic, a native Alaskan, and a white.  All we were lacking was someone from Asia.

Elva and I had a pastoral visit yesterday.  The pastor from the Mennonite Church in Anchorage stopped by.  This is the first pastoral visit we have had in over 20 years.

The weather has been rainy.  It seldom amounts to very much.  Locals say there is more rain this time of year than normal.  August usually has more rain than this year so we are getting August's rain in September.  The temperatures have been a little above normal.  The record high is 75, record low is 18, and the average high is 58.  We have mostly been in the low 60 this September.  The average amount of snow by this date is 0.3 inches.  That one does sound strange for so early.

God's blessing to all of you.

Larry and Elva

Amen, come Lord Jesus