It’s been a while since we’ve photojournaled a trip to Grayling. So here’s a Valentine’s edition of our latest whirlwind run departing February 14 (with some major gaps but still enough to give a good feel of a typical trip). It was shorter than usual, but we had a window before a full upcoming month, so we went to make the move into our new lodgings.
Jared helped plow out the airplane’s parking space in prep of being able to departComfortably packed into the plane at 10:30aThe pilot sensing something amiss upon startupThis is how we roll…waiting for the next move to be announced“Everybody out of the plane” – including cargo, to get the middle 3 seats out…A run to a friend’s shop for a cordless, and a check under the seats’ panel shows that the fuel pump itself is ok. Another run to the shop for the multimeter reveals that the switch for the fuel pump is not. Checking in with the parts store found no switch in stock, so a rummage through the friend’s shop found a landing light switch that handily converted to a fuel pump switch, which our resident mechanic ably replaced……and we reloaded seats, cargo, and passengers3:00p: up, up, and away!Our view of the Alaska Range about 30 minutes into our flight (frost inside the window made a pretty frame)After a moderately bumpy ride, the last 50 feet or so of our descent into Grayling smoothed out, and we landed at 5:30p. We were promptly met at the airport by friends who snowmachined us and our gear into town, where we packed things from the mission house into our new digs next door, James started heat trace and heat gun on the frozen main, Shannon did some quick mopping and bed setup, then we hit the pillows about 11:30.Wednesday, Timothy took over the task of splitting kindlingThankful for the warm place God provided for us to come and go as we canAfter the main was thawed, multiple breaks in the copper pipe inside the house popped up next, including in the bathroom wall. Though James was able to rig up cold water to the kitchen faucet, it’s clear that the whole house will need new pipe. Fortunately, it was designed so that all the piping is accessible from one room; next trip, James plans to replace the pipe with pex.All day Wednesday as we worked and visited we kept our eye on a weather system that was rolling in on Thursday evening and going to last for a week, so we ended up flying home to Fairbanks on Thursday morning at 10:30. During the short (about 41 hours) visit in Grayling, we were glad to be able to visit several people.During our flight back, we caught up on downloaded episodes of the new “official” podcast of our airline: The Whole Steward, hosted by our friend Andrew.Dropping over the Chena Ridge into FairbanksFairbanksAbout an hour after we landed, the weather rolled in.
Millers in Alaska 