Fire, Wind, and Water

I made it late to a solstice party last week where I hung out with a few hippies, listened to some good bluegrass jams, ate nummy snacks and drank a good share of mead. The people whose house we went to own the meadery in town. Mead is like a wine brewed from honey and berries. It is mm mm good and will get you druck fast. Don't worry girls, I'll bring some home for you. At the party I met Ahna, a potter here in town who wants me to do some work for her. I don't have a lot of extra time but I hope to make it over there sometime soon. I did make it to Lisa's house this week for a wood firing that she was doing. She is another potter who lives in Homer and wanted me to see how she does things. It was very cool to see her setup and style and she let me help stoke the kiln.

Yesterday I went on the ocean for the first time. I took a charter to go halibut and king salmon fishing. We started out about 17 miles down the bay from Homer, only about a mile from the Cook Inlet. There were five other older men from Montana, Captain Pete, one deckhand, and one other guy. The first five hours or so were easily the worst experience of my life and those poor gentlemen had to listen to my wretching. Lesson of the day: don't go on the sea if you get sea sick. The water was pretty choppy and the weather was chilly and it did not sit well with me, hence the painful smile I barely cracked in this picture. I managed to reel in a pretty small halibut that in any other situation I would have thrown back in hopes for a bigger one. It turns out it was a good idea that I kept it because we had a really slow day fishing.

After halibut fishing we went to calmer waters to try our luck at king salmon. I had the option of getting off when we drove by the Spit but I was feeling a little better and decided to stay...I'm glad I did! We trolled around salmon fishing in a beautiful part of the bay with a great view of the glacier. It started to get real wavy again but for some reason I was totally fine the rest of the day. Maybe it was the scenery.We didn't have any luck catching salmon so Pete took us to an oyster farm in this little bay. The woman there told us about how oysters are harvested and despite my loss of appetite from previous events, I tried my first oyster, fresh from the bay!

This woman, along with a few other farmers, lives on the bluff in a little bay where she sells oysters off of a floating dock or brings them across the bay to Homer. There are all sorts of little coves and lagoons across the bay from Homer which is still considered the Kenai Peninsula but the people who live there have to take boats to get around. I was hoping to see some orcas which are plentiful in this area but we didn't run into any. I did see all sorts of sea otters but didn't get close enough to take any good pictures. They are so cute, they float on their backs and play around in the water. Before we headed back to the harbor, we cruised around Gull Island which has more than 16,000 birds on it everyday of all different species. My favorite are the puffins.

And so, I took my bag of halibut filets and was glad to be on land again but it was an amazing adventure and if I knew it would be a calm day, I'd go again in a heartbeat. I'll probably make it across the bay a couple more times to visit another potter, go kayaking, and hike Poot Peak...all plans in the making. Tomorrow starts a busy busy week here at the inn. There is a group of about 15 guys from Wisconsin who are staying at the lodge next door and I'm stuck with the flower sniffers. Maybe they'll make me an essence that can find me a man.

No Joke

A man on a skateboard gave me the "hang loose" yesterday.

Quick Pictorial

I was in town today checking out some galleries and I caught a neat picture of the sky. The left shows the beautiful 70 degree blue sky and the right shows how colorful and smokey the sky was from a forest fire nearby. The smoke floated over to the mountains and is hovering over them which looks really wild.

I also went to the Pratt Museum and was really interested in what they had to say about different species of bears. When I got home I was looking up some information about them and was talking to Mindy about black bears. She ran to town and I went outside to go for a run but changed my mind when I saw this

I know you're probably sick of the wildlife pictures, but this was really cool and ironic. Like I said, even though there are a lot of bears around here, they have only seen them on their property a couple times in about five years. This was a pretty big guy too. I decided to rethink my run when the bear turn and headed up the gully to the road that I run on. (Don't worry Daddy, when I go for a run I take Nick [their HUGE black lab], my cell phone, and a bear horn. I only run on the paved road, not the hiking trails. They also have bear spray to take when on the trails, but experts say that the horn is more effective at scaring bears away).

Midnight Sun

I got a sunburn! As promised, it did warm up a bit and so I weathered the bug bites and dirt in the garden to wear my bikini and pretend it was warmer than it actually probably was. Tonight I am back in my sweats. I've been busy working the past week cleaning rooms, baking, gardening, etc. but I have managed to get out into town a bit. I went out on the Spit to a few gift shops and I got a chance to see the docks and go out on to a boat. There is also a small farmers market in town on Saturdays that I went to and bought a mermaid bone hairpin. Today I went to church and then walked to one of the many galleries in town. I have met a couple potters in the area and word got out to another potter that I was here. She gave me a call and wants me to come to her studio and do some work for her which is exciting! This week another potter who lives near by wants me to come over and watch her do a firing in her wood kiln. These will be great experiences for me and I hope to learn a lot, there is so much in the world of ceramics that I have yet to see.

I regret to say that I haven't taken many more pictures because I haven't seen a lot of new things but I promise to post them as I see them. I am planning a halibut trip as well as a kayaking trip and I hear there are a lot of parties and celebrations for Solstice. I did have a close(er) encounter with some moose which are still a thrill for me but I'm sure it won't last too long.

North to Alaska

Even though I am 3,358 (driving) miles away from home, this city reminds me so much of Minnesota. Take all of my favorite aspects of the land of 10,000 lakes, add snowcapped mountains and a few more fishermen and you'll have Homer, Alaska. The B&B that I live at is up on a ridge above town and it looks and feels a lot like the bluffs of the Mississippi River Valley. The harbor and bay, because it isn't as vast as the open ocean reminds me of Lake Superior and Duluth. Now, I've never been the type of Minnesotan to complain about the cold weather but I just was not expecting the chill around here and I feel like such a baby. I've been cold since I got off the plane (not on the plane, I was sweating on the plane and not because of the chill in the air...because of the effects of turbulance on a 10-passanger aircraft flying over the ocean). I am told that it stops raining sometimes and that it can get into the 70s for a portion of the summer. I'll be waiting for that.

Flying here was actually more beautiful than being here. For a good part of the flight we were over the Canadian Rockies and it blew my mind. Some of the peaks reached above the clouds and the farther we got into them the more glaciers and rivers there were. I couldn't believe how rugged and unexplored they looked. From Anchorage I took a small plane to Homer. I was only in the plane for 59 minutes and I tried to breathe through it but 5 more minutes and I might have lost it. I was not afraid going into it but it felt much more like a rollercoaster than I anticipated.

My hosts picked me up from the airport and welcomed me in right away. I can't get enough of their adorable children and they quite obviously can't get enough of me. About five minutes in the car and their little girl was asking why I had to leave so soon (the end of summer).

The good news is that there aren't any ticks or mosquitos. The bad news is that there are moose and bears (black and grizzly). I am not too concerned. Actually, I would like to see a bear, at a distance. I was getting the low-down on the wildlife and was told a number of times that they really don't see bears on their property, maybe twice in the past five years. When I woke up this morning they told me last night when I was still awake getting ready for bed they saw a young moose booking it up the ridge behind the pond in their back yard. It was followed by a black bear. They debated telling me. I hadn't yet seen any moose but I was told they use the trail that runs right in front of my cabin. I woke up the morning and the first thing I did was look out the front window and sure enough

Today they took me around town getting me acquainted with the lay of the land and the way of life. Things here seem really easy going. We went down to the spit which is a 5-mile jut of land out into the Kachemak Bay to pick up some halibut that was getting processed for them. The fishing lifestyle is something so out of my rhelm of everyday living but so interesting, I've already learned so much. We also went to the beach which was at low tide so I got to walk out a ways and do some tidepooling. The weather was rainy and windy but it cleared for a moment to get a shot of the mountains across the Bay. This is also pretty much my view from on top of the ridge.

I won't start working here at the inn probably until tomorrow and I am looking forward to helping out and exploring the area on my own. They really want me to meet people and try new things and I am all for it. I just got here yesterday and have seen so much but I have the whole summer to soak it all in.