Festival Weekend!

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We've been on a few hikes since I last updated, so here are some fun pictures! We first went to Power Creek, which is a trail that starts near the river that provides some of Cordova's power. That's where we saw our bear (!!!), and there are even more salmon swimming upstream now! We also saw some big bear and moose prints, although no bear or moose themselves. Hands for scale. (Remember you can click on the images to enlarge them.)
Salmon swimming upriver, and Kayla's and Wil's hands showing us the size of these prints
We also went to Sheridan glacier, which I went to back in October 2013. If you'd like to compare, here's a link to the old blog post with pictures of the glacier. The ice field has diminished a bit, but we were still able to climb on to the glacier, play in the mud, and throw rocks down into the big holes and crevasses that have formed by melting. The non-glacier pictures below are from our Power Creek hike; it was just so pretty!! 
Left and top right: Power Creek hike. The glacier-fed streams are a cool milky color, and make really interesting patterns when they mix with other clear streams
Middle and bottom right: view of Sheridan Glacier from the path
This past weekend marked the date of Cordova's annual Copper River Wild! Salmon Festival, a weekend full of salmon cook-offs, marathons, music, and happy fun times. It was the smallest festival I've ever seen! There were two or three big tents, a snack shack, and 10 or so little tents, but it's one of the area's most exciting festivals. The food was amazing and a few popular bands came from places like Chicago though--pretty neat! Wil was in charge of science activities for the kids, which included fish printing. They collected a bunch of sea creatures from fishermen, painted them, and made prints on shirts, aprons, pieces of muslin, anything you can think of. I made a big red salmon, but Wil's was the best. In the second picture below, the squid (red) and skate (blue) combo is his print. Yaaaaay dead fish!
Top: a delightful assortment of dead sea life from which to choose
Bottom: our fish print shirts
Finally, I have these last few images I wanted to share. Whilst examining our fish print drying station, I noticed that the couch cushion has a stain that matches the crack in the wall from Doctor Who. I don't know about you all, but I'm taking this as a sign. Hopefully I can convince the Doctor to let me bring along a husband and two friends when he comes to find me.
 Left: cushion stain. Right: crack in the wall.  The message is clear.

Finally, I just have to share this image from the local Catholic church I attend. I love the statues they have of the Holy Family (the only statues in the place); I've never seen anything like this before. Usually baby Jesus is all gilded and in splendid dress, and Mary and Joseph are pretty fancy as well. Here, they look like a normal, hardworking family, just like the rest of us.  My heart feels happy!
Holy Family, St. Joseph Catholic Church, Cordova, AK

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