Fly-AK: Saturday......Had to Check to make sure.......

Thursday Evening after sunset from the back deck of the B&B

As the title implies, I have to keep recalculating days to figure out which day of the week it is. Once I'm out of my regular routine days of the week lose perspective. Bill, from the B&B, told me this AM that when he is up cooking for the workers at the oil camps, he always makes prime rib on Sunday, just to let the workers know, at least one day of the week, which day it is. He said that days get totally blurred up north because everyone works mostly 12 hour shifts, seven days a week. Because of the long hours and the environment, safety is always the number one priority. Bill told me that he had a food mixer that started to malfunction electrically. Rather than risk electrical shock, or maybe it was rather than risk the loss of a meal because of the mixer, the foreman immediately sent a plane to the nearest large airport town to purchase a new mixer and fly it back to the camp in time for the next meal. Safety is paramount in the oil camps.

This Morning from the deck (Cow Moose)

Bill is quite a talker and I enjoy seeing him each morning. He walks here to the building I'm staying in from his house across the street. I may have mentioned that Bill's wife (Grace) is an environmental engineer and works from the house. I've only seen Grace once. They have two daughters, Karo and Cheri. Bill and his family were out last night and one of the people that was at the gathering they attended at a friends house was Albert. Albert and his wife own Alaska Bush and they're based at Fish Lake, the place where the float plane I flew is based. They have a float service and will take people, for the right amount of money, out in the bush to fish. Bill mentioned to Albert that I had gone fishing up at Pineapple Man Lake. Albert's reply was that "there are no fish in Pineapple Man Lake", which I have learned is the automatic response from anyone in Alaska. They are very protective of where the fish are and the usual response when someone asks about a lake full of fish is, "there aren't any fish in that lake". Bill asked Albert if he knew how Pineapple Man Lake got its name. I don't know if this is typical Alaska lore but here's' what Albert shared with Bill regarding the origin of the name:

Years ago, Albert flew a guy out to what is now Pineapple Man Lake. He dropped the guy off with some supplies and a tarp. Apparently the guy dug a whole, which he covered with a tarp to live in, and he covered it with the tarp to protect himself from the elements. Albert suspected the guy was rather different, but the next request surprised Albert. The guy had ordered 650# of pineapples and 10 gallons of soy sauce, which Albert proceeded to deliver to the guy. The guy, let's call him PM (short for Pineapple Man), apparently thought he would kill a moose and preserve it in pineapple and soy sauce. PM had a radio for contact but when contact would break off, Albert would periodically fly into the Lake and check on him. One time, after PM had been harassed by a grizzly bear for nights, which he staved off with a knife at the end of a long pole, PM had had enough. He was so scared when Albert arrived that he swam to the plane and said "get me out of here now". Seems PM had no feet. He left in such a hurry that he left his prosthetic feet behind (this is the part of the story Albert passed on to Bill and Bill passed on to me approached lore overkill). Since then, that lake has carried it's appropriate name.........Ta Dah!

Enough Lore.....This is the front seat of the Champ. We did regular take-off and landings, wheel landings and short field take-off and landing this AM. After my first landing this AM, Lance asked me to do another of that type (regular, which is a three point landing), just to make sure that something wasn't goofy about the first landing. What he meant was that the landing was "so good", he wanted to verify it wasn't just a fluke. I nailed the second one too. I am really getting confident and am looking forward to getting my tail-wheel sign off after this afternoon's lesson, then on to the bush plane.

I've included some photo's that Lance took from the Champ while I was taxiing and in the pattern this AM.