Chitina

Ahh Chitina.  Chitina was an adventure.  My camera battery died at Chitina and I have no pictures.  I hijacked this picture from the Bodkins blog.  But I do have lots of stories about charming Chitina.

We arrived in Chitina and the men (who were very anxious to go fishing) quickly set up the tent and unloaded the trailer and ditched, I mean left, their wives and children behind.  The men took four wheelers off into the wild to fish in some very remote area of the Copper River.  Meanwhile, the women CHEERFULLY finished setting up camp.  We had a tent and lots of bedding and a glorious, nasty outhouse.  Yuck.  (I like to camp with a camp trailer and a bathroom and kitchen and bed.)  But I was determined to not be a poor sport.  Besides the Bodkins were there and Kari makes everything better.  The kids had a blast digging in the dirt, throwing rocks in the creek, and exploring the camp site.  After a really great camp dinner we decided to take a hike.  Bad Idea.  Ten minutes into the hike sweet Hannah fell.  I was expecting a skinned knee and fat lip.  Unfortunately Hannah ended up with two gaping holes in her head.  Big enough and deep enough to see her skull.  We raced back down the mountain and Kari, Hannah, and I jumped into my truck and headed for town and a dr.  Leaving behind Nana and 6 children.  Poor Nana.  Halfway to town I realized that I had all of my kids clothes, pillows, blankets, DIAPERS, still with me in the truck.  Nana had nothing.  We made it to Chitina and found out they don't have a doctor.  Closest doctor was an hour and a half away.  911 gave us directions and we started driving.  Hannah was a trooper.  We got to the small clinic in Glenallen and met Dr. Carl.  He was nice. He very nicely told us they didn't have any type of drug to knock her out for the stitches.  After many doses of benadryl and dramamine and two injections of a sedative Dr. Carl was hoping that Hannah would sleep through the stitches.  He numbed her with a local anesthetic but Hannah is strong.  Even after all those sleeping meds Hannah refused to sleep through anything.  She fell asleep dozens of times but woke up everytime Dr. Carl came close to her.  After several hours we had to resort to plan B.  I wrapped Hannah in a blanket.  Pinned her arms down and climbed on top of her.  Another worker in the clinic held Hannah's head and Dr. Carl began what was suppose to be a ten minute stitching job.  45 minutes later Dr. Carl had done all he had the heart to do.  The whole agonizing time Hannah yelled.  She yelled that we were all bad people.  She yelled for me to get off.  She screamed, I want candy.  And the most heart wrenching moment of all was when she yelled Daddy, please save me.  Ahh Hannah, You are a fighter.  On the way home she finally allowed the drugs to take her under and she slept.  We got back to camp around 2 in the morning.  Nana was relieved to see us.  She had been sitting in the tent keeping watch over 6 children for 7 hours in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by bear infested woods and mountain men with only a camp chair to defend herself.  I knew my children were in good hands.  The next day we avoided hiking at all costs and simply tried to enjoy the great outdoors.  We celebrated Trayton's birthday party (I'll post that later) in the afternoon and the men came home later that afternoon with lots of fish.  Jonathan caught 24 coho salmon and one king salmon.  The Bodkins caught even more.  Congrats boys.  Jonathan's king weighed in at 25 lbs.  That is a big fish and oh is it yummy.  We spent one more awful night shivering in  tent and left after breakfast the next day.  I have to admit I was glad to leave Chitina behind but so sad to say goodbye to the Bodkins.  Thanks Bodkins for an AWESOME vacation.