The Barge Cometh

Today started cold but clear. By noon, the snow was coming down fast. It's still coming down as I write this. In talking to the judge today, he mentioned that last year they got 11 feet of snow. He assured me that it packs down, so it's not that tall. Big comfort. It's still up to the top of the fence around his garden. That's deep snow.

It's not that deep yet, but here's a few pictures from this evening.

Today was listed as the arrival date for the Northland Services barge. All day, I kept checking the cameras to see if the barge was at the dock. What cameras, you ask?

Well, it turns out that Dillingham got a grant from Homeland Security to put cameras all over town so that the terrorists don't sneak in America's back door. Maybe it keeps Sarah Palin's Russian fighter jets at bay. I don't know. All I do know is that you can access some of the cameras at http://www.ci.dillingham.ak.us/community_camera.html and see new pictures of the bay and harbor every fifteen minutes.

All day long I waited for the barge to arrive. I checked Northland Services' website, and they still showed arrival today, in the evening. We were supposed to have a trial today, but both cases settled. The judge told me he would have dismissed one of the jurors who worked at the dock, since there was a barge coming in today.

By the time Samara and I got home from work, I was getting pretty excited. Samara looked out of our kitchen window and said "Hey, I see lights!" Sure enough, out in the harbor, there was a tug pulling a barge.

It was kind of hard to see. So I ran to the computer and checked the website. Here's a progression of pictures of the barge as it moved across the Nushagak Bay, in fifteen minutes increments. These are pictures from the end of the "T" dock facing out into the bay.

I also saved a couple of the pictures from the harbor, looking past the cannery.

While dinner was in the oven, I decided I should head down towards the dock and see the barge up close. Well, closer, anyway. It's still sitting out in the bay, waiting for the tide to come back in, I guess.

If you look REALLY close, you can see the front of the barge says "Northland." That's definitely the barge with our Canyonero on it. My guess is that once it gets unloaded, we'll get a call in the next day or two to come pick up our vehicle from the dockyard.

I'm looking forward to having our own vehicle to drive, as well as all our stuff that we humped all the way across the country.

On a side note, I ordered a pair of boots today. They were only $30--Army surplus "Bunny Boots." There are two versions of the Army's cold-weather gear boots: white and black. The white ones are good down to negative 60 degrees. The black ones, which I bought, are only good down to negative 10 degrees. I figure that'll be enough. Good thing my cold-weather gear is on its way, since even as I type this, it's still snowing.