Alaska is so Amazing!

Last night was a banner wildlife viewing evening – another first!

My brother flew into town for dinner and opted for a pub crawl. Because it was such a beautiful evening, we started at the Snow Goose sitting on the back deck. The sun was out - the water calm with no wind. Perfection would have been a clear view of Denali. Regardless, it was very relaxing and we enjoyed chatting about the trials and tribulations of our lives.

Next stop was Humpy’s. You can’t do a pub crawl in Anchorage without hitting this spot and eating the standard pub grub fish and chips. I really think this little place has the best halibut chips in town. King Crab cakes were also on the menu which turned out to be pretty tasty. As always, Humpy’s was packed and we soon moved on.

We finished the evening at the Peanut Farm. (Some people might consider this a short pub crawl.) By this time, Monday Night Football was over and the crowd had thinned out. There was plenty of prime seating on the deck where we could watch people fishing and enjoy the weather. As we were waiting for our drinks, I looked over and there was a beaver swimming upstream. I couldn't believe it. Of course where was the camera? Anyone want to guess? Safely tucked away in the car. This beaver leisurely swam up the creek a little way, around the little bend, hopped out of the water and went merrily along the shore. I was so excited. I had not seen a beaver in the wild just meandering along enjoying life before.

We returned to the simple pleasures of the evening… beautiful weather….good food….great Alaska brewed beer….wildlife spotting..could the evening get any better…??

Yes!

Another beaver swam by…well…it either it was another beaver or the first one was training for a biathlon. I assumed this was Ms Beaver and of course I spent the rest of the evening waiting for little baby beavers to go past. They never did. (And no…I didn’t run to the car to get the camera between the 2 beavers…one is so rare I never dreamed we would see two.)

How cool is that?

In other news, we currently have an erupting volcano called Pavlof quite far south of here. There is an orange aviation alert which as far as I can tell means watch out for the ash. It is currently spewing lava but hasn’t been overly explosive. I think the most we in Anchorage can expect is some pretty sunsets if we get ash in the air - and of course if the sun is out.

Rainbow Trout

The Rainbow trout and our guide Pat. Fresh grizzly tracks. Note the 5 toes and claw marks to the right side of the picture.

Fish, Fish and more Fish!

Robert informed me yesteray I have been a little slow blogging lately. Guess what they say is true! In the summer here you go and go and go! Inside work is best left for Winter (which is coming).

Regardless, I think we are now to about 90 lbs of fish in the freezer. That should be just about enough for the next few months (considering before moving here I normally had NO fish in the freezer). The big influx of 50 lbs over the last week is from two fishing trips.

Tuesday, Robert was lucky enough to go on a combo fishing trip (we are making plans for next year) and caught halibut, silver salmon, lingcod and rockfish. That was the 30 lb trip.

The Friday, Robert and I went to Deshka Landing and the the Little Willow Creek and brought back 20 lbs of mostly silver salmon. We did bring back one of the chum salmon (what goes to the lower 48) just to try it.

I also caught a 22 inch wild Rainbow Trout which impressed everyone that had seen a Rainbow in the wild before. We let it go though as you can't keep Rainbow's off the Deshka right now - but we have a picture!

We also saw fresh grizzly bear tracks. Some of them were fresh enough the guide figured we scared them off... They had been eating salmon by the river as they left evidence!

I will post pictures later once Robert reduces their size!

Now all we need is 300lbs of moose meat - and another freezer!

My brother is coming in for dinner tonight. He will be arriving early enough we can go to dinner and celebrate my 20 years with the company and his birthday next week. Tomorrow we are going to do the tourist circuit and go look for moose and maybe some blueberries!

Another Special Sighting

Yesterday at the office, someone noticed a pod of Beluga Whales in the inlet and called me. I was so excited as I had not seen a Beluga yet. Sure enough, there they were, bright, white whales against the blue water. The moved in very close to Ship Creek where there were several fisherman looking for those salmon. The Cook Inlet Beluga is close to being listed on the Endangered Species List especially since they can't figure out why they are disappearing. I am thankful I got to see them.

On a differen note, the summer harvest continues.Our yard is a plethora of goodies! We have picked and frozen 5 gallons of raspberries with lots more to come.

We had 6 more cherry tomatoes the other night. While the cost is now at about $10/ea, they are very tasty!

We have about ½ gallon of rhubarb in the freezer ready to put in a crisp.

The apples are turning. I would guess there is about a bushel total but they are small. It will take a lot of apples to make a pie but it will be doable.

Of course the chives are used almost daily.

I made pesto out of some cilantro we have growing outside. Fresh parsley went into the fettuccini the other night.

We are going to go look for blueberries this today and I think Robert has visions of 5 gallons of those.

Sadly, winter is coming. We are down to 16 hours and 13 minutes of sun now and loosing over 5 minutes a day. I was up and outside with Squirt before sunrise yesterdayand this morning it was only 47 degrees....a little nip of fall in the air.

All indications are we will be skiing in a few short months!

Good Friends and Great Times

One of our best friends from Oklahoma came to visit this week. She stopped off with a few fellow cruise-mates for a couple of days. We did a lot of the normal tourist things but the best best part was seeing someone from home.

Thanks for coming by! We really enjoyed seeing you!

Chugach Bear Sighting

It was so pretty Sunday night, we opted to go look for moose in the Chugach Park at Power Line Pass. We expected lots of people to be there (expectations met) and decided Squirt could safely go with us without his bear bell due to the noise everyone else makes.

Sure enough, we arrived at the parking lot and it was packed. Several cars parked along the road outside of the lot – ever the challenge to get in to and out of the lot without the need to back up on a curvy mountain road.

As we start off to our normal path, a group of 5 million tourists head down the path just in front of us. Pondering our choices, we opted to explore a path we hadn’t been on before. Excellent choice! It is a much nicer path to walk on, not as heavily used plus it comes out at exactly the same place the “usual” one does. The sun was in the Northwest and there were heavy dark clouds over the mountains. By the time we reached the overlook to the valley, we actually heard thunder. Somewhere back there, it was raining hard.

However, there were no moose to be found. It must have been too hot (70 degrees) for them to be up and moving. We waited and watched for about 10 minutes (way past Squirt’s attention span) and decided to head back to the car.

One last glance …

wait…

what is that…

Do you see that black spot over there? Was that there before? Is it a bush or an animal?

It’s moving…

Very rapidly…

Wow – A bear! (no wonder the moose aren’t out)

Black or brown?

COOL – A GRIZZLY!

And then it was gone in the bushes. (I need a better zoom lens on the camera!!!)

We watched a little longer to see if the bear comes out on the path the people were on but he was not to be seen by us again.

Once again we turned to go

And that’s when the lone bull moose stepped out from behind the bushes in the valley.

All and all a great Sunday evening!