From North to South: Slippery Salmon Olympics

From North to South

Amy's ramblings. Once upon a time these ramblings pertained to my 5 months in Guatemala and Honduras. Then they followed the ebb and flow of my final semester in Alaska. From there things really went south ... to Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. After 8 months in the Andes, I fell back under Alaska's spell … working at a newspaper and wandering mountains. Now I'm somewhat south again ... in Jackson Hole, WY, teaching ski school on the clock and making fresh tracks off the clock.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Slippery Salmon Olympics

A couple of weeks ago Eagle River -- the town where I'm editor of the community newspaper -- had its big summer festival, called Bear Paw. Everything about the festival is a little bit tongue and cheek, including a Running with the Bears event (instead of the running with the bulls in Spain) and the Slippery Salmon Olympics. I decided to inaugurate my first year at the event by participating in the Slippery Salmon Olympics, which requires contestants to run through an obstacle course while clutching a partially frozen salmon while balancing a tray and a cup filled with Coke. I competed with a co-worker at the Alaska Star, and as representatives of the paper, we were team Alaska Starfish. From that came the inspiration for hairdos. Good times!