Jason and Jonie Mellinger Connecting You to Tribal Missions 
Though “business” took up a lot of our time up in Alaska, we sure didn’t skimp on fun times with family and friends! We went through dozens of games of Settlers of Catan with Jonie’s brother and sister in law, spent an evening at Chena Hot Springs with uncles, cousins and their spouses, and made a trip to see Dads lake house he bought several months ago. It took patient people and lots of schedule juggling and intense time management to fit in everyone that we possibly could without anyone feeling ripped off. Thanks everyone for your patience and working to spend time with us! We sure had a blast!
One of the best times I had was several hours in the mountains on four wheelers. Riding 4 wheelers has been one of the things I’ve missed the most over the last few years. There wasn’t enough snow to let us use snow machines, but enough to make the four wheelers even more fun! It was a warm 15 or 20 degrees and sunny a perfect riding day. That is, until Canadian craftsmanship let us down and my friends Polaris quit running. We were pretty far behind everyone else since I turned around to see what happened to him. After towing him up and down the hills a valleys, across frozen swamps, we got out to the road. All was well until I tried to shift from 3rd to 4th gear and went to 2nd instead thanks to Honda engineering and my big fat gloved thumb.
Well, Honda engineering failed us too, and the piston separated form the connecting rod inside the engine. This is what we, in the aviation world, call catastrophic engine failure. It’s currently at the repair shop and I’m feeling really bad about that! Why does this kind of stuff always happen to me? But it was still a good day, I’d do it again, I’d just be more careful shifting.
Another of my goals was to make friends with a year old moose that had been hanging out in the yard. He was pretty grouchy, spent much time out in the front yard and chased me twice when I went out to take pictures. It was a bit of a touchy process, but eventually he let me pet his nose. Then, after that, disappeared never be seen the rest of the time I was there…
