It's not spring yet.

It's definitely not spring yet. How about some pictures of inches upon inches of new snow?

I'm sick of cleaning the snow off the car.

Samara is pretty tired of it too.

See, lots of snow.

Icky.

I stayed at work until 6:30 on Friday, working on finishing my magistrate lessons so that I can be sworn in as a deputy magistrate before the end of this month. I've got an on-call weekend scheduled at the beginning of May, so I've got to hurry. After work, Samara suggested that we just have dinner at the Duct-Tape Eagle (also known as the Bristol Eagle--it's a burger joint). Unfortunately, when Samara, Saramay and I got there, it was closed. We went to the Windmill Grille instead.

I'm just not impressed with their food. Saramay had a steak, and it was overcooked (well done instead of medium, like she ordered) and tough. I had a French dip and some fries, which was okay, but not the best food ever. Samara said her hamburger lacked flavor. Most of the time, it seems like their food is no better than what we could make at home. It takes just about as long to get out to you, and it costs a lot more. But at least we don't have to make it. Nevertheless, I'm really looking forward to the Muddy Rudder opening again.

Oh--we blogged a long time ago about having a beer with the judge at the Windmill Grille, shortly after we first arrived in Dillingham. We didn't want to whip out the camera and take a picture of the local brew, since it may have seemed weird. But Samara had one again this time.

Comes in a pretty glass.

On Saturday, I went snowmachining with Anthony and two of his friends from the hospital, Isaac and Clay. We left at about noon and went up between a couple mountains off Snake Lake Road. We drove the snowmachines up and down the mountains, while Clay hiked up with his snowboard. I really wish I had taken the camera. On the other hand, we all agreed as we were checking out the beautiful mountain views that cameras just never do this landscape justice.

We spent a lot of time exploring the area on snowmachines. In fact, we spent 5 and half hours tooling around, until we were almost out of gas. Then we fueled up the machines at the closest gas station and took them back home. It was a fun day, but I also ended up with a headache so bad that I was nauseated. It was really unpleasant when I got home--I took a shower and some Tylenol, but it didn't really help. So I added some Phenergan on top of that. Anti-nausea drugs work wonders.

Of course, today I'm just extremely sore. My back is especially sore, but my arms are also sore. I'm just very sore. Holding on to a snowmachine is hard work.

Before I sign off... I will leave you with Dillingham's idea of grocery-store humor. Samara took these pictures at the AC.

Yes, that the cornflakes-box Michael Phelps, doing the drugs.

Poor guy can't live down his mistakes, even in rural Alaska.

As for the spring, I'll let you know when it arrives. Some of the snow is melting as we speak, but we've seen melting before. Until the snow is mostly gone, I won't believe that spring is here.