In the next day or two, I will head into the mountains to a small town with no schools. The town had an elementary school once, but about a decade back, they ran low on kids; the remaining kids get bussed about  20 miles to school, a slow, snowy ride for much of the winter.  On the plus side, the kids have a swimming hole and the store with ice cream bars, candy, beer and bait reopened a couple of months ago.

I won’t have an internet connection and the cell phone will be trapped in a signal-free valley. Electric lights and tavern pizza are about as good as it gets up by the lake, sometimes with a trout or two thrown in. So blog posts will be erratic, although I should emerge from the valley every so often. The phone blogs reasonably well when I can find the bars on the other side of the hills.

Come August, I’ll begin the tips for new teachers that readers liked last year.