Excitement was in the air as everyone got ready for the Midnight Sun Baseball Game. The Alaska Gold Panners were going to face off against the Nebraska Bruins, and many people from the AGLP group prepared for the game by painting their faces and making signs. Andrew Johnson, Kory Pehrson, Matt Bowers, and Cody Boughton all had their stomachs painted to spell out A-G-L-P. Everyone was pumped as we headed to the baseball field.
      Ever since the Alaska Great Lakes Project members began to come to the annual game, the Panners have won the Midnight Sun game each time. Everyone was hoping to continue to be a good luck charm and to see the Gold Panners win.
      We arrived at the game early to see both teams warm up and to get everyone situated. Cheering began right away as we tried to pump the other fans up. Soon, the Star Spangled Banner was sung and the game begun! The Bruins were up to bat first, and the Panners soon benched them. The Panners came up to bat and the Bruins benched them also. Some balls were hit, but none of the men on the bases were hit in to score.
      In the top of the third inning, the Bruins scored a run, putting them up one-nothing. Still, everyone kept cheering on the Panners. Roni Ranville, Liz Harrington, Sarah Kellogg, and Catarina Eggleston led our group in cheers, trying to make as much noise as possible. Many others also tried to pump up the crowd by starting the wave. No one was worried about the one run that the Bruins had just scored; they knew that the Panners could make it up. A few innings later the Gold Panners hit a man home! The crowd went wild! The game was now tied one-one; the Panners were doing awesome.
      Ishtar had a bunch of noisemakers that he had the FISH committee pass out to our group as well as everyone else around us. He had them also pass out kazoos so we could all play “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” on them during the seventh inning stretch. Everyone was trying to continue on pumping up the team so they could pull out a win.
      The game continued into the eighth inning still tied. No runs were scored for either team, so the game went into the final ninth inning. The Bruins didn’t score any runs in the top of the inning, so that meant that the Gold Panners had a chance to come up to bat. The Panners banked up two outs and they had one man on first base. The next batter came up to the plate and got ready for the pitch. The game depended on him, and you could see him concentrating. The pitch was thrown and the batter smacked the ball out into the field. The runner on first base took off and headed towards second base, then third, the HOME! The runner scored, winning the Alaskan Gold Panners yet another Midnight Sun Game! Their winning streak continues, thanks to our awesome, energetic cheering (or so we like to think)!

     Today was a special day. It wqas the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. The day started out like any other: we all got up, ate breakfast, and got ready for the busy day ahead. We first drove up the road to the Farmers’ Market, and they had everything there. They had stands with all kinds of vegetables and fruits, they had clothing with the Alaska Grown label on tee shirts and sweatshirts, and they also had it on tie-dye shirts and baby clothes. They also had an Asian stand that sold really good food like rice, egg rolls, pork sticks, and some other food.
      After spending a good amount of time at the Farmers’ Market, we left to go to the University of Alaska Fairbanks bookstore. They had sweatshirts, tee shirts, shorts, sweatpants, and anything else you could think of with their logo on it. Everyone seemed to get really excited about getting stuff with the Nanooks logo, even though most of us had never heard of them before we got to the bookstore. After relaxing on the ground in front of the bookstore, we took off for camp to have our typical lunch of peanut butter spread between two pieces of bread with some jelly in the middle. We also had a variety of meat, complete with mayo or mustard, and a slice of cheese if wanted.
      After our delicious lunch we all headed down to the Solstice Festival. There was so much food there and a bunch of booths with arts and crafts. There were also people there that were painting faces, as well a place were for five dollars you could shoot ten basketballs and win prizes for however many baskets you made.
      When we got back to the campground, we all got changed into our AGLP shirts so we could go to the Alaska Gold Panners Midnight Sun Baseball Game. We had gotten early admission tickets, so we got to go into the stadium at eight o‘clock instead of ten o’clock like all the rest of the people. We had almost a whole section to ourselves. We had people in the front leading the rest of us in cheers, and the Fish committee made signs for us to hold up during the game while cheering. Since we had a lot of time to kill before the game started, some of us made hemp necklaces, took pictures of the teams warming up, and took pictures of each other. Andrew Johnson, Kory Pehrson, Matt Bowers, and Cody Boughton had letters painted on their chests that spelt out AGLP. As the night went on, it got colder and colder, and the guys with AGLP on them started to complain more and more. They said that if they put their shirts on, they would have to do the dishes.
      All the other fans seemed really pumped to see us all cheering, and really excited about being at the game in the freezing cold weather. The game started, and then there was even more excitement in the air. At the seventh inning stretch, Ishtar handed kazoos out to everyone and we all played “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” That was a lot of fun because everyone around was playing along with the kazoos we gave to them. As the game came to an end, we had to go into an extra inning because we were tied 1-1. At the end of the tenth inning, the Gold Panners came through and won the game 2-1. After the game was over, we all hung around and got our pictures taken with the players and also got their autographs. The players thought that it was really awesome that all these people were flocking around them; they’re just players on a semi-pro baseball team, and they never have had that happen. We all got in our vans and went back to camp. When we got back to camp, it was really late so we all rolled into our tents and crashed for the night. The day was full of surprises and was a lot fun.