Sleeping bags, snow, and seven AM

Good Morning!!! For most people waking up for the second day (or any amount of days) in a row in a sleeping bag on the floor of a high school, in a town you've never been to, would be almost unheard of. Here in southeast Alaska, it seems to be fairly common. I'm currently in Haines, which is probably about 300 miles away from Metlakatla. I'm here with one of my students. She was the only student I had make Honor Band. For the next few days we will be here. We left Metlakatla on Thursday. We spent 25 hours on a ferry before arriving in Haines Friday. So Thursday we slept on the ferry, I slept in a chair that reclined a bit and my student slept on the floor. If you haven't been on a ferry, this is a very common practice. Then Friday night till this coming Tuesday night, we're sleeping at the high school. On sporting trips teams almost always stay at the schools, but for things like this it depends on school policy. Our school policy is to stay at the school, so that's where we are.
When we got in Friday, it was snowing slightly. I love snow. The scenery was picturesque. Tall mountains capped with snow with a small town sitting just in front of them along with tall snow capped mountains across the inlet. Yesterday we woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground, probably about half an inch. It was so beautiful. It made the scenery look exactly like what you see in a book as the scenery in Alaska. I have some great pictures that as soon as I can get them off my camera, I will get them up here.
Yesterday the group from Ketchikan, which has been here as long as we have (they were on the same ferry Thursday), and my student and I went and did some exploring. We drove north towards the Canadian border to go to the eagle preserve. Nature wasn't being very cooperative, the only only way to get a good look at the eagles was from the distance viewer. Very often they are closer to the boardwalk we were on, but not yesterday. The drive out there was gorgeous. The road was next to the river that wound through the beautiful snow-capped mountains. It made it even better having everything dusted with snow from the snow fall the night before. After that we had some down time at the school and then decided to go the opposite way and go the a river that usually has a lot of bears. We drove all the way out to the lake which the river runs from and no bears. We looked around and saw a few eagles, but no bears. Once again nature wasn't being very cooperative. I've never seen a bear outside a zoo and I don't want to get close to one, I'd just like to observe one from a bit of a distance in their natural habitat. Three times I've been out trying to find bears in three different places and haven't seen one.
Today will start rehearsals for Honors Festival. There is a band and a choir. The rest of the groups should get here about 12:30. Wrangell got in yesterday so now we're waiting on Sitka, Petersburg, Juneau, Hoonah, Craig, and Klawok. We'll have about a hunderd students here for Honors Fest. We will all be here until Wednesday morning, weather permitting. They have rehearsals today, tomorrow, and Tuesday, with a concert Tuesday evening. The music should be really good.
After leaving here on Wednesday, most everyone is travelling back to their towns that day. We are overnighting in Juneau and catching a morning flight to Ketchikan, weather permitting. It was either overnight in Juneau or in Ketchikan because the ferry back to Metlakatla doesn't run on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. My activities director opted to have us stay in Juneau at the same hotel I was in for the directors meeting last month. Another adventure. It'll be fun.
I better get ready for the day, it's nearly 8AM and the A.D. here is coming at 9 to make breakfast for some of the kids that will be helping move equipment over to where rehearsals and the concert will be held.
The sun is coming up and there is more snow. I can't tell if it is currently snowing but I'll find out soon.