A story, as promised...

And to appease the appetites for stories:

Our first Alaskan adventure came upon us last Sunday after an unexpected invitation for a boat tour of the Kwethluk river. Now it wasn't nearly as bad as Gilligan and the Skipper had it, but it was an adventure. The day was overcast and somewhat chilly, but that didn't stop us from packing a cooler and heading out with friends; there was an enclosed nylon cabin on the boat to protect us from the elements. We set out with Kevin, the subsistence teacher at McCann house and soon to be Mr. to Beth another pharmacist. We picked up Beth from the Ponsness's (another pharmacist and his family) boat after they had camped overnight on a gravel bar. We continued our way up river to sight see and eventually were able to see Three-step, a local mountain; not snow-capped or pictursque like Alaska postcards, but a welcome change to the continual tundra scenery. Soon after we got hung up on a gravel bar as the river levels are quite low. Poor Kevin had to change into his muckboots and push us back into deeper waters on his own. Water temp was most likely 40 degrees, so too chilly for us nonprepared folk to offer help. We decided that was far enough up river and to turn around. Soon after alarms started going off. Then we realized that we were out of oil. Kevin, usually prepared thought no big deal. But alas when he went to get his extra oil kept on board he soon realized his boss who had asked to borrow some the day before had in fact cleaned him out. So we floated downriver on the current and with the wid behind us we were cruising at a whooping 2 mph. We only had to float 6 miles to get back to the village of Kwethluk and cell phone service range. We werent too concerned as we didnt have any other plans and the sun came out and turned the day quite nice. After some many hours we had not progressed too far and the wind was starting to stall us. Soon we would have to worry about the tide pushing us back up river too. Time to start usign our McGyver skills. Kevin thinned the oil with gasoline and pushed the boat as far as we could go. Luckily that brought us into cell phone service range and we could call our rescuers. Then it was merely a waiting game and our energies were focused on keeping from running aground on the banks. We also noticed that we had taken on some water and fears of a sinking started mutiny rumors, but was not as it seems; we had merely lost a plug that was quickly reinserted and the bilge pump turned on. Our recuers had arrived with fresh oil and shortly we were on our way. We had about an hours travel time left to get back to Bethel and the boat docked. It was a mostly peaceful ride until we neared Bethel and the alarms started going off again; but we pushed through and arrived at the harbor. It really seemed like a short tour had turned into a day trip, but the nghttime brightness was deceiving. For though it appeared that the sun had just gone down it was 1am. Soon we were home and tucked into bed for a nights sleep before my first day of work. ..... Or so we thought until the smoke detector on our vaulted (and thus out of reach) ceiling started beeping every 30 seconds due to low battery....