Seward!

On our giant list of "things to do when we get back to town", one of the things I was most excited about was theroad trip to Seward, to visit the Sealife Center. So Friday morning we jumped in the car and drove the 2 hours or so to Seward.

The sun through the trees on the drive there

When we arrived in town, we got really excited to go see Exit Glacier, since I have yet to see a glacier and I've been in Alaska for 3 months. Once again, our plans were dashed because it, like a lot of things in winter, was closed. Booooo.

However, the town itself was very pretty, very small, and right next to the water. Apparently in the summer, Seward is where all the cruise ships come to dock, and when they do the town is filled with tourists. I tried to imagine mom and I running around seeing the sights as quickly as we could, like we did on our cruise. Oliver got excited thinking about driving the boat there one day, and making a trip of it. I got excited because we found the Sealife Center!

Oliver at the Sealife Center!

The first thing we did was run in and grab some tickets. They were $20! Holy cow, this place must be awesome. But then the girl at the front desk asked us if we qualified for any of the discounts, and Oliver went into the story of how he is really kind of a resident, only he has been out in the bush for so long he rorgot to get his new license... blah blah sob story. So she shrugged and gave us both the resident and student discounts! It ended up only being $28 for both of us. Score!

So here are some pictures of the place, I sadly didn't take too many because I was distracted by all the animals. You understand. Also ignore the horrible lighting/flash as, once again.... distracted by animals!

Shrimps hanging out on some rope


Oliver and I are amazing puzzle makers


This duck was so friendly, I think he was looking for a handout

Amongst all the neat things they had, the coolest by far was the diving bird tank. It is a deep tank, full of fish and birds. The cool part is going under and watching the birds dive down looking for food. I took a video, and will try to post it later. The deepest diving duck can go 200 ft under, and the deepest diving bird can go 600ft! It was crazy to see them swim underwater admist all the fish.

We also saw sea lions and seals, tons of fish and crabs etc. We talked to a really nice older man all about eiders (a type of duck) and their conservation program. We also talked about their volunteer opportunities and got me pretty excited... too bad Seward is so far from Soldotna.

After we toured the whole place we found a really nice restuarant to have dinner: huge hamburgers! Then we drove around until we found....... the buey tree! Sarah had told us to look for it, and you should have heard me scream when we drove past.

We found it Sarah! The Buey Tree of Seward!

Finally it was getting late and, after calling my pop to wish him a happy birthday, we started the drive home. As the sun went down, we could just glimpse it turning the top of the mountains pink, and after many half taken shots, we were able to pull over and take a better picture.

The last bit of sunlight on the mountains

All in all, a very good day! If any of you are ever in the the neighborhood, (haha) it is certainly worth the drive to Seward. Take my word for it!

`Danielle

Homer

The 31st of October is our anniversary, so Oliver and I decided to head down to the Homer spit and have some fun. Plus, I had a surprise to show him at the Salty Dog Saloon (this may be spelled, Salty Dawg). The weather was great, with bright sun on the water and a balmy 37 degrees.

Sadly, Homer being a tourist town, and tourists mainly exisiting in Alaska in the summer, everything, even the bar, was closed down. Two things were open, a bead shop and the visitors center. So we went to the bead shop and talked to the lady there for quite some time, who was very nice. She recommended the FREE visitors center, which has just been redone.

So off to the visitor's center we went. It was really neat and we had a fun time until we realized we were going to be late for Halloween shinanigans and got back on the road to Soldotna.

Oliver playing kissy face with a seal

You can't tell from the photo, but the grey screens in the background were live videos of seals on the beach! It was a really cool idea.

Me with some seagulls

A gorgeous painting

So, despite Homer being shut down, we had a lovely day and a great roadtrip. Happy one year anniversary to us!

`Danielle

Halloween!

Giant beard? Check. Red checkered shirt? Check. Big ax? We can make that. Blue ox costume? Umm....

None the less, for your and everyone in Soldotna Alaska's viewing pleasure, I present, Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox!

Don't be too alarmed. And if you are, don't worry, so was everyone else who saw me. Especially the little kids. Oy. However, to my credit, we did put this together in one hour! Ha.

cute feet!

However, as scary as I looked, I'm nothing if not stuborn, and I'll be damned if I'm going to make a costume as awesome as a giant blue ox and not go through with wearing it! So we went out with Oliver's neices and nephew, and followed them around gathering candy, confusing little kids and getting "oooos" and "ahhhs" from adults who know their midwestern folklore. To those people, thank you.

The little punkin heads: Alexis: Hannah Montana, Keegan: Thomas the Train, and McKenzie: SuperGirl (who says the belt goes on your waist, it fits much better as a crown)

`Danielle

Care Package!

What makes coming back to the real world much much better? Mail! I got a letter from Brooke, and card from Mom and a care package from James! I feel like the richest person alive. I love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amongst many many neat and flavorful things in the package, we found gummi domo teeth. Here we are modeling them. I think this is the most attractive photo I've ever had taken. You should all be so lucky I actually went through with posting it.

RAWR!

`Danielle

The Last Day

One more morning at the lodge, not so ready to leave and make it back to civilization. Despite sunrise being pretty late this time of year, this is officially the first sunrise we were awake to watch!

We are getting on the plane in a few more hours, after closing up shop here, and then it is back to the real world. And all the questions the real world poses for us. Drat and double drat.

`Danielle

It's Bat Boy!

Pumpkin carving is a fun activity. This is made somewhat more difficult if there is only one pumpkin, to be shared. I generally choose happy or silly faces, while Oliver prefers the angry scary pumpkins. Somehow, between the two of us, we came up with....

Bat Boy! (the pumpkin)

He's silly, he's also scary.... he's also 3-D!

`Danielle

PS we roasted his innards and they were lovely

Scenery

I had some pretty pictures of the scenery here, so I thought I'd just post some all in one place.

22 ft tide. It makes it seem like we live right on the ocean!

Another big tide, with the sun going down

As we get closer and closer to the date we leave (the 29th) things seem even more beautiful than they have before, making our departer all that more bittersweet. *sigh* Back to civilization, kicking and screaming.

`Danielle

Bread and Walnuts

Today, Oliver thought he would try his hand at making bread. He also thought he would forgo the recipe nonesense. So off he went to create a one of a kind dough. This involved throwing a large amount of water and yeast into the mixer, followed by an even larger amount of flour. And some honey. Why not.

Here he is, proud of his stretchy creation

Pretty rising loaves

By the time he got the dough molded into the pans, (including one heart-shaped loaf for me, aww) I was pretty jealous. If you remember, my own bread making was lacking half the water, and thus was lumpy and not so pretty.

The finished (gigantic) loaf

However, things were not exactly as they seemed. The loaves grew enormously in the oven, and when they emerged, althought they looked lovely to behold, their insides were quite raw. Also, because of the extra flour, they had very little taste. The honey seems to have had no effect either way. So, between the two of us, we could have had very nice bread. However, we ended up with mine being ulgy but ok to eat, and his being gorgeous, but not the yummiest thing you could imagine.

While all this bread experimentation went on, I decided to go with a proven winner: Candied walnuts!

The spread

Oh delicious goodness!

`Danielle

Fall Feast!

Today, to celebrate the coming of the pumpkin (thanks David, $10 well spent) we decided to have a fall feast. I decorated the table with branches and pinecones and candles, and we cooked steak with blue cheese and sauted mushrooms, cauliflower with cheese sauce, garlic hand-mashed potatoes, spinach salad with roasted pine nuts and feta and fresh tomatoes, and a nice glass of wine straight from the box.




Doesn't it look good? Aren't you jealous? To make it all better, we ate it after a lovely fall walk out on the beach.

Food always tastes better after being outside for awhile!

`Danielle

Milk

Here in the wilds of Alaska, we take our milk the way we take our whiskey- straight up.

`Danielle

Biscuits

So, all I want to do this morning is make some biscuits. I go to the pantry to find some quick and delicious bisquick. Then I remember: the baker, Andrew, had a misguided hatred for the stuff and never ordered any. ARG! Next I look online, and discover biscuits are not the quick easy project I thought they would be. Then the propane on the stove went out....

I JUST WANT SOME FREAKIN BISCUITS MAN!!!!!

The moral of the story; go out right now in your cars that you get to drive whenever you want, toodle down to the nearest grocery store where, hell, you could probably just buy some biscuits if you really needed some fast, and purchase some Bisquick. Because you can. Because you should.

`Danielle

PS. Hell, go buy some milk and some fresh produce while you're at it!

Pie

Today was a really bad day. What better way to fix a bad day than to make pie?

We found 5 old red apples at the back of the pantry. No good for eating, but plenty fine for pie! Thus, Oliver and I had our first experience making apple pie.

Oliver crimping the edges

What a mighty fine pie!

The finished slice!

Thanks to mother's recipe, and our crust making finese, those 5 apples gave their wasted lives to a good cause. It was a very yummy pie.

Even though the power went out and we ate it in the dark!

`Danielle

Stoat video!

Here is a clip of the stoats tunneling in the snow next to the wood pile.

PS This took almost 40 min to upload for you, so you better love it!!!

`Danielle

Stoats Playing in the Snow

During a trip to the wood pile today we heard some scuffling amongst the logs and hurried to take a closer look. It was the stoats! A big one and a smaller one, and they were having a blast in the snow.

The little stoat peeking out from the logs

It was a little dark for taking pictures, and the little buggers are so fast! But Oliver was able to take some cool photos of them fighting. Here are some of his:

Snow on the nose after a dive

Teeth!

They are so vicious, but were really just playing

Here the big one is actually dangling the other by his face!

I think I've said it before that these little creatures are my favorite things about Alaska, but just in case, I'll say it again. I love the stoats!!!!

`Danielle

Snow Days

Everything is more fun with a good layer of snow on the ground.

Bringing wood in for the fire (I feel like Laura Ingalls!)

We decide to make a "trek" to the shack in the back to gather the last of our things and move them inside.

Snowy path to the shack

Oliver looks like a traveling musician carrying all his guitars back!

Frozen Lake Canoe Trip

Since we have been cooped up either in the house or the yard for so long, we decided to take a walk to the lake and go canoeing. However, we did not expect to find that the lake was indeed frozen.

Being the people that we are, we decided not to let this discourage us, and, with me at the front chopping a path and Oliver at the rear providing sheer strength, we forged our way out into the lake.

Here I am with my paddle stuck in the ice

Eventually the ice was too thick to paddle through any longer, but we did not turn back until we had seen the trumpeter swans! We guessed there were about 45 swimming out in the deep part of the lake (that of course we couldn't get to) making a huge racket and preparing to continue their migration.

We paddled back through our trail in the ice, then made a little hike around this peninsula to get a closer look at the swans.

See those little white dots in the distance? Swans. Oh yeah! But really, they were neat, and we could see and hear them well despite being so far away. Hurray for frozen canoe trips!

`Danielle

What I've been baking

As I have had some free time on my hands, I decided to try my hand at some baking.

Behold, my first ever attempt at bread!





Ok, so maybe between mother and I we got the recipe a little off and left out half the water... just because they are a tad dense and a little misshapen doesn't mean they don't taste good!

An easier task for sure was creme brulee, since I have made it before. However, since I also had a half gallon of cream at my disposal, I was able to do some tweaking to my recipe until I finally created the perfect ratio of cream, vanilla, and egg yolk. The consistency is PERFECT. The crust is a thing of beauty. Bow down to your master!

Close up of the carmelized goodness on top

Yum! Needless to say, we have been eating a lot of creme brulee and bread.

`Danielle

First Snow!

This morning I woke up, stretched, and peeked out the window to find.... SNOW!!! Inches and inches of the stuff. So exciting!

This is the view looking out towards the ocean from the deck

Another view from the deck, facing the Coho Cabin

The snow got so thick, it began to slide off the roof in great sheets

As the snow slides off the roof periodically, it makes this great loud "whoosh" that sounds a lot like great big animals mucking about outside. To complete the picture, they fall off from all sides, one after the other. At night, this makes it sound like the house is being surrounded by killer bears, closing in for the ambush!

Oliver encourages these thoughts, especially when the generator is off and the power is dead. Not helping matters is the story he first told me during one of these dark scary nights. Apparently, one year David and two of the crew were watching a scary movie in the living room. Right at the scariest moment when the bad guy jumps out, a bear came crashing in the hallway door, ran around breaking things, then rushed back out into the darkness!

Not to worry though, I carry a headlamp and a fire poker around at all times, for just such occasions. ;)

`Danielle