Bethel Trip

The MacKenzie's took a trip to Bethel the other day. We went via the ice road. The river was very rough traveling. There had been a lot of thaw and cracking and refreezing. We went with a number of other teachers in the school suburban. One teacher was bounced around so much in the back she got car sick. Marlowe fell right to sleep of course. We had one or two frightening spin outs, but our driver was pretty good. The two in the front keep worrying about getting lost or the firmness of the river, but it has been so cold there was no need. The trip took over an hour. Most of the sliding was were there had been overflow of water and refreeze.

We got to Bethel safe except for the traumatized teacher in the back who, actually hit the ceiling at one point. Our first stop was lunch. Our school counselor wanted to buy. We talked her into the Shogun. The Shogun is one of the best places to eat in Bethel. It is Asian owned with mainly Japanese staff. Like most restaurants in Bethel they don't let the fact that they have a Japanese name stop them from serving all kinds of food. The menu includes: American, Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Sushi, and Japanese. They have a crazy burger called the Shogun Burger that among other ingredients includes a fried egg. Supposedly the biggest burger in Alaska, but I doubt it. The sushi chefs hailed us in Japanese as we entered. They were offering a buffet that included sushi and tacos. We went with that. Oh God they had some delicious unagi (eel) rolls and the fajitas were good too. We all gorged ourselves (excepting the car sick teacher) while the Japanese waitresses doted on Marley. They loved his blue eyes,

The restaurant owns two turtles and M. was fascinated by them. The owner tried to tempt him with her little white fluffy dog, but he preferred the watching the turtles swim around.

After lunch we crowded back into the rig and drove to Caroline's Caselot. We had never been there before. It is a little grocery store, but it sells in bulk. Mainly dry goods some milk and butter. Lots of good deals. We spent several hundred, plus we had to pick up snacks for the school. Next we went to the autoparts store to get lights and other important parts for the school vehicle. We also went to Swanson's another grocery/whatever store. We bought a lot of produce and some porkchops. Again several hundred dollars in groceries. By the time we made the return trip we had the rig filled to the gills with boxes. Luckily the queasy teacher was able to catch a flight with the basketball team, and only had to suffer a long wait at the airport.

On the way home we all gossiped about other teachers. We saw some mushers from various dog races on the way home and got caught in a doggy traffic jam when we turned into Akiak. One of the races was resting and getting ready to go out again.