Cousins and Friends

As the summer winds down, the town is getting quieter and we haven't had a lot of guests around. The air has started to feel like fall but spruce trees just don't pack the same punch in the autumn as the fall colors of Minnesota :) AND, there are not any apple orchards around here so I'd say it's about time to head home! I'll be leaving in about two weeks, after the people that I am house sitting for get back and as soon as I can find a ride to Anchorage to avoid paying for a flight. I will be kept busy these next couple of weeks though. I hope to go fishing with Captain Pete one more time to bring home some more halibut. You might be asking yourself, "is she CRAZY?" but even though I got deathly, horrifically, viciously seasick the last time I went out, Pete is a nice guy and offered me another trip out if he can't fill up his boat with paying customers some time in the next couple weeks. Plus, he contends that now that I know what it's like and if I can go on a calmer day, I should be just fine. I am trying to convince myself. I also want to go kayaking, the one big thing that I have been wanting to do but haven't yet. If I can foot the money I'll be out there next week. There are a few guests in and out of the lodge here and I am spending the rest of my time working for Ahna Iredale, a local potter. Ahna is a production potter here in Homer and makes really quite exquisite pieces, a lot of them! She has a large studio that I am helping her organize and if I were to stay a bit longer I would actually get a chance to use her facilities for my own purposes. There is always next summer.

A few weeks ago we hosted a wedding rehearsal dinner at the Inn which was a lot of fun. Half of the family was from Pensacola and stayed with us all week. They were very sweet, extremely considerate, southerners which was a refreshing change from some of the high maintenance people we've been dealing with this summer. The dinner went well and was really more like an actual wedding if you ask me. They had so many toasts I was afraid they were going to run out of things to say at the actual wedding. Here is Mindy setting up the buffet.

I also made a friend at the wedding who hung out with me for a couple days after the whole wedding business was over. It was nice to have someone my age to go hiking with! I showed him my favorite spot in the entire world, the Diamond Creek Trail, and we spent a good part of the evening hanging out at the beach.I finally got to prove to everyone here that I do, in fact, have friends...really good ones at that because they came to visit me!!! Lydia and Joe managed to pull together some money and flew to Alaska two weeks ago! It had been raining for a good two weeks before they got here and the minute they left the rain started up again but while they were here it was gorgeous! We went out for halibut tacos the first night they were here and spent some time on the harbor looking for the Time Bandit, which we found.

I took them right over to Bishop's Beach which was at low tide so we did some tidepooling. Joe, the aquatic biologist that he is, was in heaven. Here we are touching a jellyfish.The next day we dropped Joe off at the fishing hole to try and catch some salmon while Lydia and I toured the art galleries. He didn't have much luck his first time salt water fishing so we decided to go up to the reservoir. Lydia and I went canoeing while Joe fished for trout. Here are the three of us at the reservoir. Notice the hats, gotta represent.I love this picture of Lydia and Joe. I think it is quite representative of their relationship thus far an also a glance at what a large portion of their marriage will be like:

On Friday, Lydia and I hopped a water taxi across the bay to go hiking while Joe (you guessed it) went fishing. Although I had done it before, we went on the glacier hike because it is just too beautiful to pass up. I tested my "popping glacier ice" theory but it didn't really seem to do anything. Then Nick and I licked a piece, just to say we've done it. We hung out in the sunshine at the lake for a good hour, mostly because we were not anxious to make our way back into the forest among the bears. We successfully avoided seeing any but they were around all right.While we waited at the end of the Saddle Trail for the taxi to pick us up, Lydia put her feet in the ocean for the very first time :)The water is frigid cold but we were good and sweaty from hiking up a small portion of the alpine ridge trail which is the steep ridge that runs along the right side of the glacier if you go back and look at my picture from my first hike to the glacier. On our way back across the bay we could see the fog rolling in and pretty soon we were engulfed. It was very eerie feeling like we were lost in a bubble in the middle of the ocean but we made it back after a while. We were so excited to hear if Joe caught any salmon while we were goneand he did! Even though we were all tired and it was super foggy, I took them to my favorite spot, which you all know by now. The Diamond Creek hike is so beautiful because you can hear the creek roaring underneath you as well as the ocean approaching as you walk down the bluff side and if you look to the horizon through the trees you get a good view of the distance volcanoes and the Kenai Mountains across the bay. The fog hindered any such view, but I think Lydia and Joe really understood what I was talking about as I raved about this hike all week. When we got to the beach it was high tide which is not very exciting and so we decided to hike a bit up the creek. We came across a couple little waterfalls that we played around for a while.

What I'm not showing you is when Lydia and I took off our clothes and jumped off the waterfall. The picture kills me...even though we are jumping, our heads are still above the waterfall, we could have stepped down but jumping seemed more exhilarating.

The next morning we dropped Joe off with Captain Pete to go halibut fishing and then went back to bed for a while. Those fisherman get up too early if you ask me. Lydia and I then went for a trail run up here on the Homestead Trails to the blueberry patch. Let me reword that, I took Lydia on a "run" through the "trails." Finally, someone I know can laugh with me about the Alaskan version of a hiking trail. We considered going to the spa after our run but realized we didn't have enough time. I told Pete what us girls had planned for the day when I dropped Joe off in the morning. When we picked him up later that day, Pete asked us how the spa was. We told him we didn't go to which he responded, "let me see, you didn't go to the spa so my guess is you hit up the Salty Dawg, the meadery, the brewery, and the winery." He was on to us. Lydia and I went wine tasting and scoped out the Salty Dawg that afternoon. Joe had an amazing time on the charter and caught two good sized halibut and a bunch of cod that he also got to keep.

I snapped a picture of Pete filleting Joe's halibut. He is cutting out the cheeks which are supposed to be the best part of the fish. To me, they taste like halibut. Alaskan's call them butt cheeks. (Get it, halitBUT cheeks?)That night we hit up the Salty Dawg and tacked our dollars to the wall. Lydia and Joe's said, "The next time we come back, we'll be MARRIED!" Which I thought was cute. They started talking about coming back the second they got off the plane.

Unfortunately, they had to leave the next morning but I couldn't send them off without seeing a moose!This was exciting for me too because it was the first bull moose that I have seen. NOW my moose experience is complete. No more moose pictures, I promise.

And so, they headed back to Minnesota, back to school and job searching just like I will be doing in two weeks. They felt the connection with the landscape here after just a few short days as I knew they would. You just can't beat days like this,

or nights like these.