Fun Times with Sarah

One of my favorite friends and former colleague came to visit us!  Sarah spent a couple of days hiking on her own and discovering Alaska then joined us for her last 3 days.  It was so much fun to do things with just a girl for a change!  Sarah is a very active person and managed to do 20+ miles of hiking almost everyday she wasn't with us.  She got more hiking done in 5 days than Ryan and I have in one year!  Sarah and I went sea kayaking in Tutka Bay which is across the bay from Homer.  We were able to see lots of sea animals and eat some edible plants found in nature.  It was a fun time for us first time kayakers.  I'm looking forward to doing more kayaking in the future.

Don't worry, I didn't really eat the starfish!  Sarah and I also went halibut fishing just the two of us and that was a blast too.  The trip started off a bit wobbly and I felt guilty for bringing her out in the middle of the Cook Inlet to sit in a nausea inducing boat to catch fish 280 feet down.  Our hopes for catching halibut were diminishing and Sarah "talked" to some fish and we immediately had 2 on our lines.  It was interesting to see another person's reaction to fishing for the first time in years.  I know Sarah felt bad for the fish being bled and thrown into the dry well while they were still flopping but after the initial surprise, she was awesome!  I really only caught 2 fish and an Irish Lord but Sarah caught 8 halibut.  

Seriously, ALL of the big ones Sarah caught.  Oh and one of the men on the boat also caught a skate!  It was so cool!  They wanted to catch a "grandma" which are huge halibut.  All of the huge halibut are female, males only get up to about 75 pounds.  Oh the things I've learned! :)
Today was the last day of Sarah's trip and we went to do a 1 mile hike together.  We hiked the Skyline Trail and in 1.5 miles it gains 1,800 feet in elevation.  It was a tough one!  Of course Sarah breezed through the hike and had to constantly wait for out of shape me.  She wasn't even sweating!  It took me 3 hours and 15 minutes to finish the hike.  I think Sarah could have done it in 1 hour by herself.

This panoramic picture does not do it justice.  Tops of mountains are definitely things that you have to see with your own eyes.

I realized today that we will be leaving Alaska two weeks from tomorrow!  I can't believe how fast this year has flown by!

Salmon Shark

Summer's Back!

WOW!  The last few days have reminded us of why we LOVE Alaska!  We were lucky enough to have Aaron, Karen, and another couple from Ryan's residency as guests over Memorial day weekend.  Ryan and I love to get outside to do things but when it's just the two of us we tend to push things off.  Our guests really get us out there enjoying nature with no room for excuses.

Ryan and I are not very original and we also wanted our guests to have fun.  So we took them to things we knew would have great results.  We stayed a night at the Alyeska Resort and hiked the lower Winner Creek trail and ended at the hand tram. 

 Ryan and Aaron went on the tram together while Karen and I watched.  Pulling that rope is tiring work!

 Our 5 mile roundtrip hike left us famished so we took the tram up the mountain to have lunch at Glacier Express.  The top of the mountain gave us beautiful views of Turnagain Arm, the Seward Highway, and the bore tide.  It was awesome to hang out on the snow covered mountain and feel warm in short sleeves!  That is something that definitely does not happen in Chicago!

 On our way home, we stopped by the Alaska Wildlife Conservatory.  The moose have started growing their antlers for the year.  It first comes out fuzzy then turns into bone.  We were also enthralled by a black bear that was hanging out in between tree branches.  This shows you that you can't escape a bear by climbing a tree.

 The next day Ryan and Aaron went on a halibut charter out of Ninilchik.  Karen and I went to watch a movie and went to pick the boys up.  When driving by the fish cleaning area, I thought I saw a shark head propped up by a bottle of beer.  Naturally, I had to get a better look.  It turns out it really was a shark, it was actually a salmon shark that had been caught on a halibut circle hook.  It was about 300 pounds and the captain of the boat was kind enough to give us some of the filets as gifts.  The filets were so fresh that they were still twitching (it looked like it was beating)!  I was actually too chicken to try the filets so we gave them to Aaron for his friends to try.  I'll have to ask them how it was.  The deckhand of that boat was going to make wallets out of the shark skin.  And gloves if he had enough of the leather.

 Ryan, Aaron, and Karen went on the Kenai Fjords tour out of Seward and saw a plethora of sea animals.  They said they saw so many humpback whales (and they were breeching!) that they eventually drove by them without stopping.  The sea otters were very close to the boat and there were tons of orcas.

Today Ryan, me, and the other couple went razor clam digging!  We didn't get any pictures because it was raining out but it was a blast!  At first we were not very good at spotting the "dimples" in the sand, which are the air holes from the clams.  But soon Ryan and Brad became experts and were able to coax the clams out without breaking their thin shells.

The four of us also took the boat out (it ran smoothly after a long winter) to Stormy Lake to fish for northern pike and trout.  We were skunked but saw a mama moose with her just born calf on an island in the lake.  We figured that the mom walked out to the island and had her baby there.  It looked like it was just born because it was still pretty wobbly on its legs and really skinny.  It was so rainy today that we didn't take a camera with us.

The past few days have been so much fun, we are dreading leaving Alaska at the end of this month but are looking forward to being back in a city.  It truly has been the experience of a lifetime to spend a year here.  We definitely do not have any regrets!