Alaska - Day 2

Sunday, August 16, 2009

We slept in a little bit after such a long day yesterday, then had eggs, bacon, toast, and smoked salmon for breakfast - delicious! Josh joined us.

We weren't sure what to do after that. It was pretty overcast, but not rainy, so I thought maybe we'd get our bearings, so we went into town. We went to the brand new Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge (http://kodiak.fws.gov/) Headquarters. About 2/3 of Kodiak Island, which is the 2nd largest island in the country, is a wildlife refuge, and home to the Kodiak Brown Bear - the largest terrestrial predator in the world. The headquarters building was brand new and very nice. They had a nice video and very nice exhibits about the refuge and the animals in it. They also had a complete grey (I think) whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling from one that washed up on a local beach a few years ago. I was impressed - a great place. The ranger there was from a small town basically right beside us here outside of Philly, too.

Once we left, Josh had to go to Trident Basin, where his float plane company is located, to leave for a flight. So, we went with him and borrowed some kayaks. Sarah and I together in a double and Ed and Jeanette each in a single. We left from the docks heading northwest and around Holiday Island, but by the time we got about 1/2 way there, Josh took off and flew right over us - literally. It felt like he was just a few feet above us. It happened so fast we didn't have time to video it. A few minutes later he landed even closer right over our heads. Man those things are loud. We could feel the wind from it. Still to quick for a video but here's a picture.

Path of our kayaking adventure. Click on it for bigger view.

Sarah and I as we're leaving the docks.

Here's Sarah being a spazz - I know, it's a shock!

We rounded Holiday Island and headed for Bird Island. Josh told me this island is a Puffin rookery, and he was definitely right. We got out of the kayaks on a beach and then walked around the perimeter of the small island. Most of it was cliffs and we had to stay on top. Once we got to the top of the cliffs we started seeing tons of the. Tufted Puffins. Beautiful birds. I took a ton of pictures, trying to get them flying, but almost none came out very well. We were able to sneak up on a few pretty close to some on top of the cliffs standing on the ground. They live in burrows in the sandy soil at the tops of the cliffs. It was really cool to see these birds, all while hearing the waves crashing on the rocky shoreline all around us, and the constant cry of gulls and other sea birds. I love this type of coastline - so completely different from what I'm used to in the southeast. Of course it is way too cold to swim, but incredibly beautiful. I would love to have sat on the edge of those cliffs all day hidden with some camouflage - those birds would let you get pretty close, and I'm sure with time I could have gotten much closer.

Ed on the north end of Bird Island.

Jeanette kayaking.

Ed & Jeanette kayaking

Kodiak had a nice surprise since the last time I was here - 3 enormous wind turbines on top of Pillar Mountain, right above the city. Our total kayaking trip was a couple of hours and nearly 4 miles long. We had a great time, but headed back to Trident Basin when the kayaks began to get uncomfortable. So, after putting them back, we drove to the grocery store to buy some things for dinner. We were planning to drive on top of Pillar Mountain to cook out, but Josh surprised us by flying us on a very short flight to Long Island.

Jeanette looking very worried.
Ed & Kody (Josh's dog) in the back seat. Coming in for a landing.

Approximate path of our hike on Long Island.

We pulled up on a nice beach and went for a nice walk across the island along some old trails and roads. Most of the way was through the forests, where we passed a lot of old military buildings, like barracks, bunkers and an old lookout tower left from WWII.

Some cool orange fungus growing on the side of a dead Sitka Spruce. These forests are just about the greenest forests you can imagine.

Josh climbing the lookout tower.

Eventually, though, we got to the far end of the island where the forest gave way to meadows and we were walking along beautiful cliffs above the ocean. This was really a beautiful place. There was also a huge old WWII defensive gun emplacement destroyed by the military after the war.

After we returned to the beach, we started the charcoal for our sausages and Jeanette's rotisserie chicken, and had chips and stuff while they cooked. We enjoyed a beautiful evening and sunset on the beach with a few of Josh's friends that drove over on their boat. I can't believe we didn't take very many pictures here. It was a great time and the weather was perfect.

The day started off overcast, but while we were kayaking the clouds broke up and it was absolutely beautiful the rest of the day. As it turned out, that would be the last time we saw any real clouds the entire time we were in Kodiak! That's pretty rare here - to have 5 or 6 perfectly cloudless and beautiful days in a row. We couldn't get over out good luck.

Pictures Added From Ed & Jeanette's Computer

A bear sneaking up on Jeanette in the welcome center to the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. She bearly made it our alive!

Grey Whale skeleton at the Kodiak Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Josh with his plane.
Hiking on the island.

Getting ready to fly to dinner.

Jeanette & Sarah

A seal swimming beyond Josh's plane in Trident Basin.

There is still a lot of the old Russian influence in Alaska, no more so than with the old Russian Orthodox churches.

An old WWII ship now docked permanently in downtown Kodiak, now used as a cannery.

Alaska Trip - Day 1

Saturday, August 15, 2009

On Friday night, Sarah flew back to Philly from Birmingham after dropping off Jackson with my mother. I picked her up at the airport and we drove straight to Ed and Jeanette's house on Long Island. We arrived somewhat late and pretty much went to bed soon after arriving - I knew we had a long day ahead of us.

I was right. We left the house at about 7:30, and Jeanette's dad drove us to La Guardia Airport for our 11am flight. We had a 2 hour flight to Atlanta (I know - it's absurd - completely the wrong way), then a VERY long flight to Anchorage. To make matters worse, Priceline.com screwed us, and despite entering our seat preferences when I ordered the tickets, they apparently completely ignored us, because we were all separated and most of us were screwed with center aisle seats. Somehow Sarah and I finagled seats together, but the flight was long.

It was great to fly back into Anchorage. As soon as we got our bags I went outside just for few moments to get some nice clean cool air. The view from the airport is beautiful - high mountains on the not-too-distant horizon. We walked around, got a snack, and then found the terminal for our next flight.

The final leg of the flight was supposed to leave at 9:50pm local time (4 hours behind Eastern Time). But, the flight was delayed for an hour or more because of "mechanical issues", but it was rainy and overcast where we were. As we were sitting there, Josh called and said the weather in Kodiak was worse and getting crappier by the minute, and warned us to be prepared to have to stay in Anchorage for the night. This is not exactly what we wanted to hear after such a long trip, but I know that this is pretty common. The weather in Kodiak is very often quite foggy and rainy. Eventually though, we were able to take off and arrived in a very cloudy and rainy Kodiak, at about 12midnight local time. Josh picked us up, drove us to near his company where we picked up a car (his friend was very kindly loaning us her car for the week), and then we found our bed and breakfast after a bit of searching.

The Bed and Breakfast we stayed in is called Overlake Cottage B&B (http://www.overlakecottage.com/) and we were very pleasantly surprised. This was really just an addition to the owner's house, but it was very nice. 2 bedrooms, living room with a big tv, full laundry room and fully stocked kitchen. The kitchen and food was great because even though we were splurging on a B&B, it allowed us to save a ton of money on food. I'd definitely recommend this place to anyone. We only saw the owners a few times during the stay, which I liked. They weren't overbearing or intrusive - they just let us do our thing. They only came over a couple of times to take some smacked fish out of the freezer for breakfast (YUMM!!!) a couple of times and to make sure everything was ok. They let us do our own thing for breakfasts, which was perfect with our weird and constantly changing daily schedule. It worked out perfectly for us.

We were exhausted after ~21hours of traveling and went to bed pretty soon after arriving.

Sorry - no pictures from this day. There will be plenty later!

Here are some pictures of the place.

Sarah and Jackson in Birmingham

We couln't take Jackson to Alaska with us, so we left him with mom in Birmingham. I was pretty nervous about this, as was she. It's been a long time since she was around a baby and I know I'm ready to pull my hair out after 2 days alone with him. He's a great baby - it's just a lot! Anyway, here are some pictures from that trip.

Ok, this is still in our house in Philly, but just right before they left. He wasn't giving people hgs yet, but he had just started hugging Lincoln a lot.

He loves his new truck.

He loves his granny, too.

The Cove

Just another little thing while we're away in Alaska.

I've heard a lot about this movie on various NPR shows lately. It is about a Japanese village that massacres hundreds of dolphins every year and tries to cover it up. They also sell the heavily tainted meat all over the world. I don't have anything personal against the Japanese, but they do some pretty horific things to dolphins and whales in general. Take a look at the trailer below. I really want to see this, and hope you do too. Check out the website for locations.

http://www.thecovemovie.com/

There are a couple of different trailers out there. The 1st one is from the movie's own website.

National Parks Documentary

Sarah and I are going to be gone for a while, and I don't know if we'll be able to post anything for a couple of weeks or so (we're going to visit Josh in Alaska, so we'll have plenty to write about when we get back). So, I thought I'd post something long and important (well, to me, anyway).

As you know, this blog is about our goings-on, but it is also dedicated to our travels through the national parks and NP-related news. Well, in September (the 27th to be exact) there will be a new documentary on America's National Park system by Ken Burns. If you've never heard of Ken Burns before, then just know this - Ken Burns is one of, if not the best documentarian ever. I really believe that is not an exaggeration. Everything he's done is amazing. He's set the standard for documentaries today. He became famous for his documentary on the Civil War in the early 90's (I believe), then worked on many other things, like films on Jazz, baseball, and the Lewis & Clark expedition, which is one of my all time favorites. Anyway, the documentary in September will be fantastic - I guarantee it - so don't miss it. Below are a few preview video clips PBS used to promote the show.


The first one is commercial to promote the show - it's only ~35 seconds long.

The second is about the making of the documentary and is <5>

This last video is a ~27 minute long preview of the movie shown by PBS a few weeks ago. Don't worry - it won't give much away - it is just a teaser.

Here's the NPS' website about the documentary, also with a video.

Check them out and let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Off to Alaska!

Sarah is in Birmingham now dropping off Jackson with Granny Schein (a.k.a., Mumzie), and then tonight we're driving to our friend's house in Long Island, and then tomorrow morning we're leaving with them to go to Alaska! We'll be back on the 27th. We probably won't be able to post anything about that trip until we get back, but I've set up a couple of posts to be published while we're gone. Both are pretty interesting, I think anyway, so keep checking back!




Here's our basic itinerary: We're going to spend almost a week in Kodiak visiting Josh, and then we're flying back to Anchorage, renting an RV and driving to Denali National Park (http://www.nps.gov/dena/) for a few days. If we're lucky we may get to visit Katmai National Park (http://www.nps.gov/katm/)while we're in Kodiak, so we'll get 2 more parks on our list. We can't wait - fishing, hiking, nature, cool weather . . .

Mount McKinley (Denali), the highest mountain in North America - 20,320 ft.

Pictures from the 4th of July and Family Visit