If you get up one more time than you fall you will make it through - Chinese Proverb

So this happened since we all last met:

2007 Can-Am 650 (I went native with the color... CAMO!) with winch, mudding tires, front and back racks. It's pretty rad :)

I picked her up today, and it feels good to have wheels again! Because my bank is in Seattle, and I couldn't get a cashiers check ASAP, the family I bought this from held onto it until my check cleared.  Now I have exciting things to do for the next three days that I am off.  My schedule seems to be close to 2 days on 3 days off. Although next week I work 3 days on and then have 3 days off. So I guess I'm just at the mercy of the scheduling Gods.  Don't worry kids! I will be purchasing a full face helmet in the very near future! Until then it's sticking to the main roads in town.  I love that this is a 100% legit mode of transportation up here.

Nome is a town of some very interesting characters. Ha. Understatement of the century! I love my job  because I meet so many different people with so many different backgrounds. Everyone from Natives whose families have lived here for literally hundreds of thousands of years, to the town clerk who is a city boy from New York, hates his life here because he doesn't really like the outdoors (what on Gods white earth would possess someone like that to come out here?!). Hearing everyone's stories is fascinating.  Speaking of interesting characters. my friend and I were walking out of the post office and spotted this tremendous hood ornament:

Whale vertebrae. Because why not?

There is also a man in town who has a pet reindeer. He loads him into the bed of his truck and drives him around town.  I will get a picture of this sooner or later.

So Thursday we saw about 30 patients in the fast track, Friday we only saw about 10. (Fast track is where non-emergent cases go, it's open from 9a-7p, and those working there will see anything from a follow up, to re-bandaging, cleaning wounds, headaches, RSV and flu testing, etc.  It's like a cross between a primary care doc and urgent care... Yes this crowd doesn't necessarily know how to use an ER in the sense of how big cities would use an ER.  What is cool is that you never really know what is going to come walking through the door.) So not a lot of excitement this week. Just got too see what happens when you don't treat a strep rash on the hands... an entire family will get it, and a poor soul will have to have their hands wrapped up in mittens of kerlex to keep all the pustules from bursting EVERYWHERE. It was so gross. I gave away the pen I used to document that case right to the trash can gods and never thought twice about it.

Here is a palate cleaner after that mental image: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J11uu8L8FTY
(You are welcome)

So the sun is shining and I'm going to go gallivanting around the tundra side, and perhaps see how far the road is open to the east.  High today is 36.... 36!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I may as well enjoy the warmest day of the year! After I go to the gym and run my intervals and make my arms hurt from lifting those weights.  Just because I live around bears doesn't mean I need to look like one :)

Oh I forgot one more picture.  This is of the flight schedule for the the docs and what villages they are going to.  Diomede is a teeny tiny island about 20 miles from Russia .. you can most certainly see it from your backyard there. Anyways the runway there is on the ocean. So when the ice gets gross and cracks, there is no longer a runway... meaning no more plane access until the ocean freezes up next fall/winter.  There is a blackhawk helo that makes runs there once a week when the runway goes away.

Take care lovelies! Adventure waits for no one!