Kodiak, AK (Yes, Kodiak . . . as in Kodiak Bears)

We hope you all had a nice Memorial Day weekend.  Here's what our weekend looked like:

How about yours?

We were in Kodiak, Alaska . . . a city of bluffs and ocean on the second largest island in the United States.  We were there exploring the area, celebrating the annual crab festival (an ironic celebration for us as Steve does not eat shellfish and Tammy is vegetarian), and sampling another delicious Alaska brewery (that makes 7/18 we've visited so far).

More pictures and information to come in the next few days.  Until then, we're at 68 degrees in Anchorage!  Warming on up!

Homer, Spit.

Hi, All:

Sorry for the delay in updating; the weather has gotten to about 50-60 degrees these days and we're at around 18 hours of sunlight . . . so outdoor activities have been taking precedent.

Anyway, we wanted to let you know about an exciting trip we took last weekend down to Homer!  Homer is a town located on the Kenai Peninsula that is known for its Halibut fishing.  (No, we did not do any Halibut fishing . . . but the town is known for it nonetheless.  You can tell how big these fish get by the fact that we keep capitalizing the "H" in "Halibut.").  The sign that welcomes you to Homer when you drive in should give some indication of how important Halibut is to Homer:

Homer is located on "mainland" Alaska, but as you drive through the town you can turn off to go onto the "spit."  The spit is a 4.5 mile peninsula that jets out from the rest of Homer into the ocean.  Apparently, it is the longest road into ocean waters in the world!  You can check out more fun facts, and images of the spit, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Spit

The spit is also a bit of a tourist destination as some cruise ships have started going there.  This, of course, has led to lots of gift shops and Alaska-related things.  Including Deadliest Catch.  For those of you who do not follow the show, one of the boats is called the "Time Bandit," and it is based out of Homer.  This has led to Time Bandit gift shops and pots galore:

For those keeping count, that makes 2 Deadliest Catch boats we've "seen."  We actually saw the Wizard in Seattle, and we saw this Time Bandit pot in Homer . . . which we're counting.

Because Homer is such a fishing village, the spit also has a memorial to those who have been lost at sea:

And, of course, there are lots, and lots, and lots of boats.

For those who choose not to go on the $250 fishing charters, you can also fish off of the rocky beaches.  See, we told you fishing was a big deal in Homer.

One of the best parts of Homer is the Pratt Museum, which is this small museum that contains a bunch of Alaska-related information (e.g., bears, the oil spill, fishing boats, Native culture, etc.)  One of our favorite parts of the museum was the "survival-suit" test.  These are the suits that people have to put on if their boat is sinking in the cold ocean waters, or else they will almost-100%-guaranteed die.  We were really looking forward to trying these on as we had seen them so often on Deadliest Catch.

Under the rules of the test, we had 30 seconds to get the suit on and ready to go.  Here's Steve:

And here's Tammy:

Finally, Homer has become home to tons and tons of bald eagles.  There were a number around the Homer area, but some of the best pictures we got was on our way out on the road back to Anchorage.  One decided to peak its head out of its nest just as we drove by:

So that's Homer for ya!  We should have another update early next week about our Memorial Day weekend plans.  Until then, we're going to go enjoy the weather!

The Rese & Jim Adventures Continue!

Hi, Everyone:

To continue on with our adventures of Rese and Jim (our current visitors), yesterday we drove down to Whittier to do some sea kayaking around Prince William Sound.   We were, once again, joined by the awesome company of Aesha and Bryn.

Whittier is this neat little town down by Portage Glacier.  The weird thing about it is that it is located on the other side of a mountain, and so there is a tunnel connecting it to the rest of Alaska.  This is no ordinary tunnel though; it is 2.5 miles long, it is one way, and it is shared between cars and trains (you literally drive on the train tracks).  This means that there is a set schedule for when cars can go into or leave Whittier depending on trains and when the other traffic is going through.  Needless to say, it's pretty cool.

Anyway, we got to Whittier and hopped into our 2-person kayaks.  Here's a view of the water from when we stopped for lunch:

We ended up using Alaska Sea Kayakers for all of the rentals and guidance, which was an amazing purchase.  We had two guides that did an incredible job showing us the landscape, pointing out wildlife, teaching us how to paddle and kayak generally, and giving us historical information about the area.  The lunch they provided was also delicious, and really well catered to us vegetarian folk (although the smoked salmon they brought was also really really good). I would HIGHLY recommend this company to anyone who is in Alaska and looking for a fun sea kayaking adventure:  http://www.alaskaseakayakers.com/prince-william-sound-day-tours.html (we did the passage canal tour).

We took some pictures while kayaking too.  Here's Aesha and Bryn:

Here are Jim and Rese:

And here's us!!!

The guide made sure to take us into these neat little coves along the way.  I think one of the most amazing things to see is how quickly the landscape changes.  Around Whittier itself you have tons of mountains and rock.  Once we got into the Sound and off onto the beaches, it quickly turned to temperate rainforest.

Although we didn't get pictures of it, we also saw lots of wildlife, including cute seals, otters doing the back-float, and a few bald eagles.

After a fun 6-hour tour (not 3 hours, as Jim would say, because that is just itching for disaster -- who would go out on a boat tour for 3 hours after Gilligan?!), we headed back to Whittier for a beer before the tunnel changed to the "out-of-Whittier" direction.

So there you have it; another bucket list item crossed off: sea kayaking.  Today Jim and Rese went for a bike ride where they ran into 5 moose along the way.  Pictures may be forthcoming . . . .

Flattop CLIMBED! Another thing off the bucket list.....

Hi, Everyone:

Sorry for the delay in updating; not much has been going on the last few weeks (aside from Steve's sister graduating from Michigan State University . . . hooray, Leah!)  But, for those of you keeping track, we are currently at about 17+ hours of daylight and the temperature is in the 50s.  In other words, Spring has sprung in Anchorage.

Anyway, here was a recent visitor of ours:

Spotted.

We have two even-more-recent visitors: Jim and Rese (our friends from college).  They got into Anchorage last night and are spending a few days with us before heading home.  Although they've only been here for 24 hours, we've already had a ton of fun with them.  Last night we went to Bear Tooth (a local movie theater/restaurant pub) for micro-brews and some delicious burritos.

Then today we decided to hike Flattop mountain.  This is a hike that we have been wanting to do for a while (it was on our bucket list) and we decided to take care of it with such great friends.  It takes you up to the summit of the 3,510 foot mountain, which provides awesome views of Anchorage, Mount Foraker, and other surrounding mountains.  There are also two ways to climb it: a well-defined path on one face of the mountain and a steep-climb on the backside.  We decided to do the latter with Steve's co-clerk Aesha and her sister Bryn (who is also in town).

Here's a picture of the mountain:

Anyway, the hike started out totally devoid of snow.  However, it was pretty steep:

About half-way up, the snow became only partially melted.  This left for some needed navigating to try and avoid the pockets of 2-foot deep snow that remained.

As we expected, the views at the top did not disappoint.  It's still an incredible feeling to get 20 minutes outside of downtown Anchorage, and within the hour have hiked to the summit of a mountain.

You can see downtown Anchorage in the distance:

Here's Rese standing at the top looking over:

And then, of course, the requisite picture of us taking it all in:

The views on the way down were also cool.  We got to spend some time looking at (what we think is) Wolverine Peak.  This is one of our favorite peaks in Alaska, mainly because it is named "Wolverine."  GO BLUE!

The hike down was a bit painful on the knees given the steepness but we made it and it was amazingly beautiful.  Thanks to Aesha for the "backside of the mountain" recommendation.  Tomorrow we're trying kayaking in Whittier!  Hopefully we'll have another post for you by early in the week!