Cost of Living

Training has moved from skills in a large parking lot to low density street driving. Each level has four days of practice with Mondays being in the classroom. Next there are medium density and high density street driving followed by the CDL driving test. After that I think we will do some location specific training (Airport, riverboat, gold dredge, Denali...) Then finally actual driving tourists.

     A few breaks in the river ice

In case you are wondering how expensive things are: gas is $3.89 at Costco, $4.09 most other places. Milk $4.29, cheese $4.50/lb, chicken around $4.00/lb.

About daylight:we gain about 7 minutes of daylight every day. 60 min/7 = about 9, so we gain an hour every 9 days. We lose night night on April 8th and astronomical twilight (the sun falls 18 degrees below the horizon and it still looks dark) on April 25th in favor of nautical twilight (12 degrees and you still need a flashlight). Civil twilight takes over on May 16 with the sun never passing more than 6 degrees below the horizon and it never really getting dark. So April is the last chance for the Northern Lights if you can get the weather to cooperate, which it hasn't lately.

They have a thing here called frost heaves. It causes the roads to buckle and dip--kind of like the clay hills crossing the Res but sharper.