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!
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