Alaska Days 7, 8 & 9

     From Seward we had a free day so we headed down to Homer to see it and to catch a glimpse of the Time Bandit. We LOVE Deadliest Catch and watch it faithfully, so when we heard it docked in Homer sometimes we had to try. 

  

   The Drive was beautiful. We could see the ocean to whole way. Dave stopped along the way ans ran over to see how far the ocean really was and this is what he can to. He told he it's a good thing he stopped running a few feet before or else he would have toppled over the cliff. It doesn't look so bad down, but look along the ridge......It's a cliff. Good thing I was sleeping in the car, that would have been helpful for him had he fallen off.

   The Homer sign.

      Kite surfers. Dave really wanted to do this but I told him no. These guys we flying all over the place. Not safe and not going to happen! Sorry Dave.

   We wondered up and down the harbor and never found the Time Bandit...bummer. We did find a store they have there in Homer along the ONE street in town. Dave was so excited to climb in the crab pot, he wanted to play more with it but there was a family with younger kids there too and I think he was self conscious.

   As we were driving out of town, we saw people gathered at the bottom of this scraggly tree with cameras. We saw the nest and it was big so we stopped, we didn't want to miss anything. Then this Bald Eagle flew in and landed in it and then this baby popped his head up and she started feeding it. The baby is dark brown/black color and not small.

    We didn't see as many Moose as we thought we might, which made us sad. We stopped along this lake to look for some, they had to be around somewhere. The ground was so squishy, not wet just really spongy. Every step we sunk into the ground cover, it felt like we were walking on a mattress.  There were no Moose. We finished driving to Soldotna, where we scheduled a fishing trip the next day. The Guide, Tom picked us up from the dock at 5:30 in the morning and took us out all day. We were fishing for King Salmon, the biggest kind. We were very excited until he explained that you could only catch one. We thought okay, we will fish for something else. NO, once you catch your one you are done for that day. Pull in your pole and watch everyone else fish. I was so mad! I searched for the perfect fishing trip for Dave and now he would get to fish for 10 minutes and then sit in the boat for 8hours and 50 minutes. Dave reassured me that he would have fun either way, he was fishing for Salmon in Alaska. The trip ended up being so much fun. Dave wants to go back when the boys get bigger so they can fish the Kenai River.

   Dave, bright and early after our french toast breakfast. We stayed at a B&B, which is different in Alaska. We stayed at someone house, literally. We knocked on their front door to get in and they showed us to our room. Then they showed us the bathrooms and the shower rooms, two different rooms. It was weird but we had a good time.

   This is the dock on the property. They said when the Salmon run started your could us a net and catch Reds/ Sockeye from the dock.

   The bait we used, they were BIG fish.

   Dave caught one after we had been out for 2 hours longer than we were supposed to. Tom felt bad that only one of us had caught something so he kept us out. He kept saying just a little longer they are here somewhere. Dave's fish was about 12 lbs. He let it go, it really wasn't worth keeping and shipping home 5lbs of meat.

  I hooked a fish....a big one. I fought it for about 10 minutes. I kept begging Tom to take it so he could get it in the boat but he wouldn't. He wanted me to get it myself. I was so tired and the stupid fish wouldn't give it up. Dave was so encouraging and kept snapping pictures. The fish finally came to the top, showed us how big he was and then spit the hook out and swam away. I was so disappointed but I was shaking so bad from fighting him, I was just glad it was over. Dave hooked his fish right after I hooked mine, that's another reason he didn't keep his.



  This man and his wife were with us and he caught his within the first hour. It weighed 47lbs. Tom said mine was at least 50 from just looking at it. But mine got away.....

    Sorry the pictures got out of order. They call this combat fishing, you start all the way back and then you float along until you get the end and then you start over again.

     A close up of Dave's fish.


   This lady, Cindy didn't even get a bite. They were from South Dakota and Tom is from Spokane. We loved Tom. He talked the whole time about how during the summer his guides fishing on the Kenai and then he goes home to Dental school. He wants to be a dentist, noble except he CHEWED the WHOLE time. It really was funny!

  We finally saw a Bull Moose as we were leaving back to Anchorage. It was right of to the side of the road next to a big sign about how many Moose have been killed this season. 

                                        



  We drove down to Kenai to see where the River met the ocean, and we came across this. The whole time we had been there everyone was talking about how the Reds were late and the 'run' should start any day now. Apparently it started and the river on both side were packed for miles. Everyone just had nets and were catching Salmon like crazy. If you are a citizen you can catch as many as you can/want, since that is all they have to eat. We stopped under this bridge and watched for a while, it was really cool.

   We then headed back to Anchorage and stayed the night before we flew out the next day. We had so much fun. I love Dave so much and we have a great time together, but we hadn't been alone in over 6 years and we needed some alone time! It was so nice to have him to myself and get to know him without our kids. We did miss them and couldn't wait to get back to them, but we got to sleep for 9 nights UNINTERRUPTED. That is priceless. We are forever indebted to my parents for watching them for us and keeping them safe. The boys would love for us to go somewhere else so Maymee and Papa Jerr can watch them again. I here on a weekly basis, "Maymee let us have dessert after breakfast!" or "Maymee lets us eat Poptarts!". I'm so glad they love my parents and they were good for them. I hope it means they will do it again......?

                                         

Alaska Day 6

 

  We wanted to take a cruise to see a Glacier and some whales. While we were at dinner the night before we talked to some people who had been on a cruise and saw a whole bunch of whale and one jumped completely out of the water. We were so excited to go after she told us about it. The tour was 9 hours and included a Prime Rib/ Salmon lunch. Lunch was AMAZING, I could have kept eating it. The tour was so much fun, and we ended up seeing lots of wildlife. One thing that we thought was funny was how the boat stopped so people could take pictures of Seagulls.We sat there for a good 20 minutes. I guess Seagulls are a novelty for some people; we went inside becausee, hello Seagulls??

   Dave trying to convince himself not to get sick. We hadn't even left the marina. He took some Dramamine.

      Us on the boat. 

  Dolphins. They were black and white, like mini Orcas.

  Humpback Whale


    Three Kings, three holes in this rock wall, that opened to a differant Bay.                                      
   Another Humpback Whale.

   

    The boat scrapped against this little Iceberg. It wasn't that little.

    The Glacier calved while we were there, not a lot, but still cool.

  

   The crew pulled in this little iceberg and chopped it up and made Margaritas with it. We didn't have one.

  Seal Island. They stunk!

   Killer Whales!!

  There were 5 in this pod. So cool. We had to stay 30 feet away from them by law.



   Dave stopped fighting the Dramamine and had a nap, poor guy.

Alaska Day 5

   On Day 5, we got up early and went to pick up our rental car. We wanted to see all that we could, but if we had a guided tour it would take so much time and we didn't have lots of that. We drove from Anchorage to Seward, a 2 hour drive about. The road followed the ocean for a good while. It's no wonder that this is one of the most dangerous roads in the US, there was so much to see. About 45 minutes into our drive we stopped to get a drink and see this random train stop. The train was going to Prince Edward Sound, and along the way there were several glaciers to see. We decided to drive up that way and see ourselves a glacier. They were all quite a ways off the road, but so big that you could still see them great. Then we came across Bryon's Glacier, which you could hike to. We really wanted to hike on a glacier so we stopped in. It was a mile hike just to get to the snow. We wanted to hike up to the blue glacier ice, but after 3 hours we settled for the view. On our way back down, we found several holes in the ice, turns out we had been hiking on the glacier the whole time. 

   Along the highway. It was low tide so you could see the sand here and there all the way across.

    We stopped along side the highway to hike down and look for Beluga whales. There were signs everywhere telling people to look for them. Turns out we had just missed them by like a week. It was fun to explore anyway.

    The water is pure glacier run off. Beautiful.

  I love Alaska, glaciers everywhere.

 Bryon's Glacier.

   Snow in July, we were pretty excited.

  What we hiked up.

     We parked in the trees all the way at the bottom of the picture. It was a mile hike in before we even got to the snow.

    If you zoom in on the picture you can see people actually climbing the wall back there. We wanted to climb all the way to it but we had already be hiking for a few hours to get this high and were really tired so we decided not to.

    Dave says the rock was slate so really fragile and easy to scratch writing into it.

    

   We made a snowman for the boys. They asked us if we would build one if we saw snow and how could we not on a glacier.


     Dave saw something that looked like a hole and ran down to check it out. Turns out is was a big hole!

   Like a huge hole! Of course he had to climb in.

     It was so blue.

   Then I got in on farther down. We were on the glacier the whole time.

   After our stop at the glacier we finished our drive to Seward. We stayed right on the water.

     We saw several Bald Eagles. They were eating salmon that the fishing boats had filleted.

  Fishing boat. We sat out here for a long time, I was sure if we stayed we would see a whale. I've seen Free Willy so I know they come up close....but they didn't. Oh well.