Lucky Duck

Mom and I are safely in Wasilla and Andy is at work for the day. He has some special assignments right now that have to do with the Palin-VP announcement. His schedule will be topsy-turvy for awhile. I am blessed with an incredible goodbye at Nome's one-room terminal last night. My Alaskan family showed up and I was touched beyond words. Even Bob, my boss at the Youth Facility, brought most of the residents to say farewell. Given the great crowd and their super sense of humor, I could ward off many of the tears I could feel building. 

Of course there's always some excitement to keep things interesting.

A few hours before leaving I found out that I'm the Grand Winner of the annual Labor Day Duck Race! I bought five raffle tickets, picking 5 numbers for 5 ducks. We watched 3,000 ducks float in the River and my number, 392, was the picked duck! Here's the email floating around Nome today:

"The Rotary Duck Race Winners are as follows:

1st Place $1,500  Amy Flaherty

2nd Place $750 Richard Beneville

3rd Place Ella Lathim

Wild Duck KICY

It took the ducks quite a bit of time to make their way down the finish line. Some ducks went upstream and others hung around socializing.

All winners have been notified. Thanks to all of the Rotarian who made the event a success. Congrats to the winners!"

Thanks, lgt for help picking the best duck at the finish line! My KNOM boss, Ric, presented me the check AT the airport--how nuts is that? Well, it pays for my car to fly down to Anchorage. So I received Good byes AND Congratulations--even on the airplane itself by people who heard! Ha.

Andy picked us up and at home he had flowers and other thoughtful items waiting. Then the real surprise...if you read the last blog post, as Andy did, you'll appreciate that he had 54 clothes hangers in the closet for me! WOW! 

It's all bittersweet excitement.

Moving along, today Mom and I get my bridesmaid dress altered for my brother's wedding.

*Amy