#1
While we were planning our trip to Alaska I told Sarah that our friend Craig grew up there and that I would ask him for advice. A couple weeks before we were to go, I received an email from Sarah saying that she had met Craig a few nights before. They were out at a strip club (in portland neighborhood bar = strip club, they’re everywhere!) and she saw another friend of ours and recognized him. They met once at a party here in Seattle. Craig was with him, and as they chatted it became clear that he was the guy I had been talking about.

#2
Craig and his family are the nicest people in the world. His parents put us up while we were in Homer. Neither of us had met them before, but in the great way that parents just are they welcomed us to their home with open arms. Literally, in the case of Craig’s mom.

Sarah says:

We arrived in ragged but happy shape in Homer only to meet the glowing Host. After we chatted and unloaded our luggage into the basement apartment I went into the restroom to heed the call of nature when I look up on the wall and see this odd painting on a chunk of driftwood.

It’s of an old (trawler?) called the Maritime Maid complete in kick-assedness with a helipad on back plus helicopter. After excitedly showing Keely I inquire and sure enough, our hosts own the Maid and run her crew.

The weird coincidence is that I spent 10 days on that boat last summer with the Alaskan Forest Service crew and it was SOOOOOOOOOO wickedly fun. I was conducting ‘quality assurance’ on the budding lichenologists who conduct lichen surveys for forest health monitoring (= your tax dollars gloriously at work). This entailed living in a bunk on the boat, complete with a chef, and being transported by helicopter to a forested plot every day to look at some of the sexiest lichens I’ve ever seen. I’m frothing just writing about it.

[landing on the Maritime Maid]

When the weather got crappy and we had to bivouac one night (which sucked. My stupid MRE consisted of ‘beefy mac’ with dehydrated peaches and crackers made of cardboard. Blech. ), we were rescued the next morning in a skiff, greeted with cheers as we boarded the Maid, and served cheesecake for breakfast.

So meeting the Maid’s owners was a crazy surprise. In fact we missed my colleague from the Anchorage office by 2 days as he’d been to their home to wrap up some final details. Keely and I visited the Maid, sans helicopter, in the dock behind the Salty Dawg. She be a fine, fine old boat.

Here’s the Maritime Maid as we saw her, docked in Homer:

What a cool story! Sarah will spend another 10 days on the Maid this summer, and this time she’ll know exactly who it was that made sure there was cheesecake on the boat.

I don’t have a report from Sarah yet (Sarah!!!), but I can tell you a bit about our time in and around Homer.

The town is ridiculously cute. A big feature is the natural spit, jutting out into the sea, with bars and restaurants and camping grounds, as well as the boat docks. We really enjoyed walking around down there, and eventually found ourselves back on the spit every time we ventured out.

Everyone we told about going to Homer enthusiastically told us to go to the Salty Dawg. It’s a tiny little bar on the spit, with a crazy look, in and out. Adorable and full of incredibly friendly folks.

The ceiling inside is completely covered with dollar bills people have written on, tshirts, and underwear. THe ceilings are very low, it’s like walking into a gnome house or something!

On our second day there we decided to jump over to Seldovia, another small fishing town across the water. At first we thought it was an island, because the only way to get there is by boat or plane, but it is actually a part of the peninsula, it’s just that driving there is rather difficult. According to what we read, Seldovia used to be bigger than Homer and was the major fishing port in the area, while Homer was an agricultural town. Now Seldovia has a little over 300 residents, 30% from native tribes.

We took a tiny 6-seater (including the pilot) plane over. I was nervous at first, I’ve never flown in such a small plane, but it was a lot of fun! We were lucky to have beautiful, calm weather, so the ride was smooth, and wow! the views were awesome!

As we expected, Seldovia is darn cute. The view from our hotel room was a tiny Russian Orthodox Church perched on a hill, and we were near… well, we were near everything. It’s not a big town. We walked from the airport (air strip?) to our hotel! It was very quiet and many of the businesses were not open for the summer yet. At times it was like walking around a ghost town. We walked down the main road, and out to a small beach where we took in the view and poked at the sealife. Then we decided to get dinner and went in to the one open place, a bar & grill. That’s where every one was. Walking in was one of those stranger in a strange land moments, everyone noticed us, and looked at us, since we were probably the only people from out of town there. [on a side note, that once happened to me and Jay in Galway, Ireland. We walked into a pub and I swear to god all conversation stopped and everyone turned to stare. If it had been a movie, the record in the jukebox would have screeched to a stop. In fact, in my memory that sound is there. Seldovia was nowhere near as dramatic, but the feeling was there.]

We spent one quiet and lovely night in Seldovia, and then flew back to Homer. We kicked around a bit, went to the Salty Dawg again to get online and find ourselves a place to stay back up in Anchorage before flying home and took a last good look at the town. We agreed that we would like to return to Homer some day. We’d love to spend more time there, and maybe to hike in some of the surrounding areas. We pretty much steered clear of the forests on this trip because the bears had just woken up and were rather hungry. In fact, shortly before we arrived in Homer a bear took down a moose in someone’s driveway. They caught the end of it on video: and posted it on youtube.

In the afternoon we started the long drive back to Anchorage, where I had found us a true blue fleabag motel to stay in. It would have been right at home on Aurora here in Seattle. I wasn’t aware of its quality when I booked it online, and it was the only place I could find that we could afford, as all the other places had implemented summer rates during the week: a $100 increase over what we paid at the beginning of the trip! As we drove in everyone who lives there was in their doorway smoking and staring at us. It wasn’t too bad in the end. Though it was really run down and creepy, the linens were clean and people were quiet.

I have just a couple more stories left to tell, including Sarah’s. Until then, enjoy this chainsaw art from Seldovia:

After we brought Mike to the airport Sarah and I went in to Anchorage and booked a room at a motel. It was evening, and we thought it best to hang out and then set out on the 5 hour drive to Homer the next day.

The drive, like everything so far, was stunning. We got to traverse the Seward Highway between Anchorage and the Sterling Highway once again, which is a constant bombardment of unbelievable vistas.

We oohed and awed our way down the highway, eventually turning west toward Homer.

Part of why we were on our way west is because it had been recommended to me to visit Homer by several people, including our friend Craig, who grew up there. Also, every one we met in Alaska ahead of time confirmed that we should go, and that we should visit the Salty Dawg. (seriously, EVERY ONE. And yes, we went to the Salty Dawg. About that in a later post).

The drive west across the peninsula was also quite nice, though it became increasingly bland (for alaska) as we drove. We stopped in the odd little town of Sterling (4 lane highway, small scattered businesses on the side. It looks like a town that plans to be big, but for now… not even really a town). We wouldn’t have even bothered, but we were hungry and didn’t know how long it was until the next chance for food. We ate a truly awful lunch and then got back on the road, only to discover a town with many more options about 10 miles up the road. Oops.

About an hour before Homer the view finally opened up again, eliciting yet another “holy crap” from the two of us.

Shortly afterwards we encountered the adorable town of Ninilchik. I don’t know how many people live there, but it looks like about 50.

Finally we descended on Homer, and I called Craig’s mom, who we were staying with there. We had a very confusing direction giving /receiving few minutes, not do to Homer’s complexity so much as my inability to see what she was pointing out while she tried to guide me real-time over the phone. Craig’s mom is the biggest sweetheart, and got a real kick out of the real-time guiding, wondering to us “what would we do without these cellphones?” I often wonder the same thing, completely unable to recall what I did a mere two years ago at the mercy of landlines.

Craig’s parents live at the base of the Homer Spit, with a super-awesome-omg-wow view. The picture does it no justice.

His parents are wonderful and it was lovely to arrive at their home and get the parent treatment a bit! Shortly after arriving we discovered the craziest coincidence. I hope to get Sarah to write here about it because her telling of the story is better. So:

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of our meeting Craig’s folks. Same bat-channel, some bat-time.

On Monday we went to Exit Glacier, where you can hike in right up to the glacier, which is pretty impressive. Thinking about how these glaciers have molded the landscape is pretty awe inspiring. They have carved out the most beautiful mountains, fjords, lakes, valleys, you name it, all over. Here in Alaska there are so many glaciers still working their magic, and being able to learn about them and walk right up to them is pretty cool. (sure, I’ve skied on the glacier at Whistler, but it’s just a part of the rest, you know?)

Along the 1/2 mile snowy hike to the glacier we saw an unbelievable number of moose, as my grandmother would say, “calling cards.” Though I grew up in an area with some moose, I don’t believe I have ever seen their scat. I was suprised really, it looks like a giant rabbit took a crap, not something like a moose. I expected their droppings to look more like that of a cow or horse. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you consider the prospect of an angry moose), we didn’t see any moose along our way. We did see one on the way back up to Anchorage to drop Mike off at the airport, and Sarah and I saw one on our way to Homer. I only caught his butt in the photo. I kind of wish I caught his butt while he was relieving himself, so I could fully confirm those little rabbit turds.

alaska 092

Originally uploaded by lady3jane.

I have seen these crevices of snow, and/or waterfall all over as we travel about the Kenai Peninsula. A lot of them are totally water at this point, the tops of the mountains are thawing and the water rushes down the sides. This particular photo is on Resurrection Bay.

So much Alaska, so much to write. I promise to tell you about the Exit Glacier, our drive to Homer, Homer, and beyond. Right now I’m in Homer, and have spent so much time uploading these photos, sipping on cocktails and chatting that I need to stop. Food is important too!

Our good friend Sarah, a passionate lichenologist who can hardly go ten minutes without wanting to stop the car to explore lichens, comes up to Alaska sometimes to work. As Alaska is among the dwindling number of states we’ve never visited (and is supposed to be very beautiful), we decided to come up and visit her, and she has extended her stay.

Alaska is home to uncountable breathtaking landscapes. The fly in on Thursday evening was incredibly beautiful. Even more beautiful, we hesitantly agree, than the fly in to Cleveland.

Waiting for Sarah to finish up her work (she was spending 16 plus hours a day doing wacky lichen identifying and such – an intensity facilitated by the daylight hours: fairly light from four thirty in the morning until eleven at night) Keely and I explored Anchorage a bit. It is a fairly unattractive town nestled among stunning mountains and sea. There seemed to be a vacancy in the town with the tourist season not yet being in full swing. We did, however, come across some kind of poorly attended street fair type of thing, where soulful country / folk musicians would, after surprisingly long explanations, play the audience a song. One comment during the preamble to a song we heard was, “many people in the audience may want to sing along with this next one, but don’t, because that’s not the way we’re doing this”.

A culture of eating and wearing animals prevails. Even at restaurant chains you can upgrade your sausage to reindeer. The city was incredibly clean, other than the pervasive gravel remaining from the snowy season. We visited a unique out of the way cocktail bar featuring a dragon water fountain and a fashionably funky wait staff. No pierced eyelids or angry cherub facial tattoos, but modest ink. We probably missed the really wacky kids in town. The mudflats were very nice by land, but quite amazing from the air when flying in.

Saturday afternoon we drove south to Seward. After a couple hours of breathtaking landscape, we arrived at the cute town at the end of Resurrection Bay. Yesterday we went on a boat tour and saw quite a bit of wildlife: eagles, otters, mountain goats, sea lions, etc. No puffins, bears or moose, though, unfortunately. It was a wet and cold trip, but very fun. The half hour or so spent outside the bay on the Gulf of Alaska was quite rough, the slightly under 200 foot boat we were on was tossed around pretty nicely.

Today we’re going to visit Exit Glacier and head back to Anchorage so I can head home to class.

We arrived in Anchorage around 10:30 last night, in time to see a beautiful pink sunset reflecting on the mountains below us as we approached in the plane. It was finally dark by midnight, though the horizon still held a royal blue hue. I’ve been enjoying the lengthening days of spring, it isn’t dark until well after 8pm now in Seattle, and by the solstice it’ll extend until after 10pm, but this is still impressive!

The views around Anchorage are beautiful, snowy mountains and blue sea. Today we walked downtown and to the coast trail, where we took a short walk. Mike has homework he needs to attend to, so now we’re enjoying beers at a local microbrewery where he can work. I had a moment of worry about wasting the beautiful daylight, but remembered that we’ve got many hours left of that.

From our wandering of the town I’ve quickly boiled Anchorage down to flat, small, and full of fur, ivory(!), and other shops that Mike and I cannot (will not) enter. Visually, it’s a cute city, but I wouldn’t come here for the architecture.

Later today we will meet up with Sarah, and tomorrow afternoon probably head down to Seward and the Kenai Fjords and Exit Glacier.