Nome

I know that it has been quite some time since the last post. But, I have been busy traveling with the Kotzebue volleyball team! Two weekends ago, we headed down to Nome to play in a small tournament with two other teams in our league. We have to fly anywhere we go play, so wresting schedules and volleyball schedules are always intertwined so that the plane is never empty. It is really awesome to see how the districts work together to bring costs down. We didn't have to buy any food, because their school fed us, as we will feed them when they come up to Kotz. On our way to Nome, we shared a small 19-seater plane with 9 middle school wrestlers, who were headed on to Bethel for a wresting match. I about went into shock when I saw the plane we were flying in, but it was actually quite a nice flight. It was neat being able to look down and see the tundra below. Here is the plane:

You might have heard of Nome before; it is where the Iditarod dog sled race finishes every year. Although it only has 500 more people than Kotzeube, it seemed a lot bigger because of all of the hotels and tourist activities that are there as a result of the Iditarod. It was incredible to walk down the road that the dog sled race finishes on and think about how much those racers endure to get to that point. Here is a picture of me and one of my players standing on the finish line, and other pictures from Front Street:
Did you notice that it is only 164 miles from Siberia?!


The girls did really well over the weekend. Nome is Kotzebue's biggest rival, and the volleyball had not beaten them for about 6 years. In an awesome 4-game match, my girls beat Nome! It was so neat to see their reaction to the win; they almost did not know what to do because none of them had done that in their high school volleyball careers. It was a very great thing to be a part of!