an aniak 4th

excellent day. it was gorgeous. the warmest day since i've been here. got to 75 and sunny. just beautiful weather for an aniak 4th of july mini-fest. did my normal daily chores, then fish alaska came in this morning, as did terry (the guided fisherman) from a camp night on the river. terry is the owner of a company called southern company, out of alabama. a real nice southern gentleman. aniak has a small area where they have booths set up and people sell goods, food, etc. really cute little thing. we got the pleasure of taking our guests down there. it was so nice to be out of the lodge for awhile. they had live music (they played the instruments very well, but the singing...oh my heavens...just play the instruments please) hehe...(still cool to see), kids races, spiritual readings and all kinds of yummy food. i had sushi with salmon (good), a moose/veggie kabob (awesome), a pecan bar (yummy), and a fruit punch thing. knew quite a few people there and bought some matted prints that a local guy dave cannon sells. he's a biologist who also does photography. he's very good and am excited to have some of this work. really good guy. nat and i got to man his booth for a bit while he went to gather some of his larger prints. aniak doesn't do fireworks on the 4th because it's not dark enough to see them, so they have another little festival thing in august and they do the fireworks then. should be cool to see. one thing that nat and i noticed at the "mini-fest" was that we didn't see one person smoking. it was strange not to see it, but also quite refreshing. everyone was in a great mood there, smiling and very friendly. definately a sense of community. also because it was so warm, there were hardly any mosquitos. we were able to have all the doors open all day here, as noone has air conditioning. we're all beat, but was a very nice change of pace for a working holiday.