Seven months ago (last August) I walked into a hobby shop in Anchorage and bought a hundred dollars of model rocket motors.
Most folks call it “The [Dreaded] Last Week of School,” but I call it “Rocket Week, the Most Awesome Week Ever,” Rocket Week for short. This bundle* of rocket motors was for Rocket Week.
Needless to say, this isn’t something I could bring to Diomede in my luggage. Rocket motors are considered HAZMAT and cannot be shipped by USPS, the only carrier which delivers to Diomede. In Anchorage I optimistically called all the Alaskan cargo airlines that fly to Nome, full of false hopes. Nothing. Nobody would ship a little tub of rocket motors.
I called the barge companies, hoping to drop off this explosive little tub at one of the docks to be shipped up to Nome (or if I was super lucky maybe even straight to Diomede!). I guess barge companies operate on a week by week basis, because after some very serious rounds of phone tag I had a “maybe. we will get back to you.” from one company and nothing from the other.
Asking dear friends for huge favors is generally something I save as a last resort, and I indeed was left with no other options. So I call Darla, who works with our school district and also happens to be a private pilot. She agreed to ferry the motors up to Unalakleet the next time she flew there from Anchorage.
A few months later the weather was right and the stars aligned, and sure enough Darla managed to help the rocket motors on the first leg of their journey to Rocket Week.
Then came a long period of waiting and hoping. Sure enough, a month ago a teacher from Nome–the Legendary Mr. Nate–happened to be passing through Unalakleet, so I emailed him and crossed my fingers. Darla brought the bomb-like box to the District Office that morning, and Janice–a great friend and a teacher in Unalakleet–made the handoff to Mr. Nate. He got the tub onto his flight from Unalakleet, and when he arrived in Nome he made the handoff to Erickson Helicopters (previously Evergreen), the airline that services Diomede. The absolutely wonderful staff there jumped through god-only-knows how many logistical and legal hoops and one and a half weeks later on the helipad here Hank (Diomede’s Erickson agent) handed the box off to Mr. Willis, our principal.
The final leg was carried out by Jason and Raleigh, two of our adorable 1st grade students. Those two little whippersnappers hauled the box up from the elementary to my classroom and made my day absolutely as brightened as it could be.
Here is the tub at the end of it’s journey:
*I should mention that I tossed in a few bottles of HEET with which to make miniature jet engines. Not terribly relevant, doesn’t really have any line in the story, but nonetheless a part of how things went down.
