Fall hike

Well, I have been getting out a lot the last few days! The colors are starting to reach their peak, and are just amazing!! It is so beautiful out right now! A couple days ago, my friend April came into town. She lives in Nome now, but was living in Little Diomede- or "the rock"...as close as you can get to Russia, and a very tiny island. Diomede is in our school district, and she taught younger kids like me, so we met at the Ed. Conferences. She now came to help get things lined up with our tutoring program, and stayed the night here in Elim. Di lent us her 4-wheeler, so we went out to Moses Point to go fishing. The fish were biting really good! We lost a couple lures, but caught 6 silvers all together- a couple of them were really big... I didn't bring my camera though. We definitely could have fished more, but we were supposed to meet Di for supper at 7, so we stopped to clean them. While cleaning the 2nd fish I managed to get my finger snagged on a tooth while tossing the head into the river, and ripped it open pretty good. I knew it was one that was not going to stop bleeding on its own, so I had to take my bandana off my head and wrap it around my finger....then back to cleaning fish. My bandana is now soaking, but is full of fish slime, guts and blood...not sure if I will be able to save it =)
The bugs were especially bad that day, as there was no wind (even by the water), so the cleaning was pretty miserable work- as you can't swat at bugs unless you want to slime yourself when you are cleaning fish. I think that was the fastest I have ever filleted fish before, as I was trying to hurry so we wouldn't be late, and also wanted to get away from the bugs! Not my best filleting job, but decent enough....I have definitely gotten a lot better at filleting this year- as I have just been doing more fishing!
We then took off, dropped the fish off in my fridge, I cleaned my finger and put a real bandage on it, and we headed over to Di's for supper. We then went back and packaged the fish and put them in a box for April to take back to Nome.
Yesterday, after seeing how great the colors had turned, out by Moses Point, I decided that I was going to get out and go for a hike. Heading home from the Post Office, I ran into Mark and Sadie, and Sadie decided to come along with me =) I set off with my camera, and headed up through the graveyard and out to Nex Crick. The walk took me longer than usual, as I was often stopping to take photos....also, the blueberries are getting especially big and sweet, so I stopped a few ties to munch on them. As you can see from the pictures, it was a beautiful day out! Despite the wind in town, there wasn't much breeze out on the trail, and I got quite a few bites, but with everything looking the way it did, I hardly cared. The pictures posted here are taken between my house and Nex Crick. I will post the rest of my day in a little while....now I am going to go get outside again, going for another hike!