Thursday, Friday and Saturday

As I sit here in the Anchorage Airport (the Board Room... la tee da) I am filled with mixed emotions - I feel so blessed to have been able to come back to this amazing state and witness first hand some of God's most beautiful creations... I am also terribly sad to be leaving! At some point during our trip in 2011 someone told us that they came here and couldn't leave because Alaska "got in their blood." Jason and I completely understand that! We are so torn between Virginia - the place that we we both born and raised and this place that just seems to call to us!! Rest assured (MOM) that we still have two more seasons to visit in before we make a decision!! Well that's enough of that... this is what our Thursday/Friday/Saturday in this amazing state have been like...

Thursday: We packed up and headed out of Anchorage with the small coastal city of Homer in our sights. Yes Deadliest Catch fans - our destination was the home town of the fishing vessel Time Bandit and her ever entertaining captains!! Homer is about 3-4 hours from Anchorage but with many sight-seeing stops in between it was more like a 7 hour trip for us. We started with a stop at the Portage Glacier, the weather was FAR from the beautiful blue skies and warm temperatures that we had the past three days but nothing would stop us from enjoying this trip - even rain (even cold rain) was created by our God! :) The Portage Valley consists of 5 Glaciers, all ranging in size. At the bottom of the valley is a Glacial Lake (with broken ice chunks and all) that flows out as the Portage Creek. Here we got to see something REALLY cool - salmon - in crystal clear water... and some of these were late spawning sockeyes (YUMMY) so they just absolutely shine through the water. On the banks there was evidence of a bear's recent dinner (proof that they do actually exist even though one never made an appearance for us).

From there it was a few hours of stopping at random pull offs along the Kenai and Russian Rivers (both filled with spawning salmon) in hopes of spotting a bear - with no such luck!! But those were two beautiful rivers - both a glacial blue/green in color! At one stop I spotted and picked some fresh raspberries that I munched on for some of the trip. Oh... and a moose sighting too...

We arrived in Homer around 4:30pm checked into the hotel and headed down to the spit. Homer is the end of the Kenai Peninsula and is surrounded by mountains (and active volcanoes) on three sides - I wish I had pictures to share but unfortunately the rain/cloud cover had fallen to the point where the mountain tops were not visible and the bottoms were barely visible. The Homer Spit is this little "spit" of land with shops, restaurants, charter companies, and LOTS of boats!! Dinner at Patty's (a suggestion from the hotel manager) was great. After dinner the rain had died off a bit so we headed out onto the beach to do some beach treasurer hunting... I left with a couple of the smooth beach stones, a crab shell and conch shell to put in a shadow box!! We headed back to the hotel and made our way down to the beach there but as we started walking the rain picked up (heavy mist) so we hiked back up the hill and called it a night!

We woke up Friday morning and pulled ourselves together for a day of Halibut fishing! We both ended the day with two Halibut each (the legal daily limit) and had 15+ pounds of that YUMMY fish shipped home!!

 The captain's dog Max

 A cute little crab that joined us on board (not long after this picture was taken he was squished by one of the deck hands)

 Jason's 2nd Halibut

 Our catches getting ready to be fileted

 All of our yummy goodness in the bag ready to go to the processor

We managed to make pretty good time and get back into dock before we were expected and quickly punched into the GPS the address of a local Meadery (a "Winery" that makes Honey Wine) - they closed at six but we made it in the door around 5:50pm. :)  Their tasting selections were all delicious but I picked three to bring home - FINALLY some Alaska grown/made wine!! :D 

Saturday consisted of the drive home to Anchorage - no pictures to share for a couple reasons... 1) it was still rainy and the clouds were hanging really low, 2) we made no special stops because we were trying to make it back in time for the Downtown Anchorage Market to do some shopping!

We made it and enjoyed the drizzly afternoon walking around the market and then driving around town scouting out home and property for sale!! ;)  After two more moose sightings we finished the night with dinner at the Snow Goose just like last year - reindeer stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer, blueberry/rubarb salmon for both of us and a blueberry cream brulee for dessert - the perfect meal to close out a perfect week!!

Sorry to not as many pictures - I am tired and I'm tired of waiting on the wi-fi to load them!! We are enjoying our final complimentary board room drinks and then we will be headed down to our gate and we will be saying goodbye to this beautiful state once again with an estimated return date of May or October 2014!!

By the time that most of you read this we will already be in the lower 48 and we expected back in VA around 6pm Sunday night!!

Goodnight all - thanks for your prayers - we'll see you soon!!

This place is feeling more and more like home!!

Hello All!!

I'm sorry that I am one day late on this but we were out and about rather late yesterday trying to spot some Wildlife at Potter's Marsh (it's where we saw quite a few Moose last year). Some locals shared with us that bears had been spotted playing in the water there recently... we sat and we waited... we were able to see/hear some beautiful bald eagles and watch an incredible sunset!! Okay - I jumped ahead...

We started Tuesday morning with a chilly walk to one of our favorite restaurants and Anchorage's best breakfast spot - Snow City Cafe!! This year we went with a reservation so we waited about 15 minutes compared to last year's 1hr+ (it feels REALLY good to blend in with the locals this year since we know what we are doing)!! Jason enjoyed their biscuits and gravy while I tried their August Special... Lemon Ricotta Stuffed French Toast. The description is below with the picture, but let me tell you - they were DIVINE!!

From there we drove out to some walking areas that we discovered last year and then to a new one that a local had suggested. Started on the coast and found that the mountains on the other side of Cook Inlet are still snow covered and beautiful. We also quickly realized in both areas that this time of year the forest's are like walking into the Rain Forest. I have no idea how many miles we walked but it was all beautiful and we were a little sore this morning. On top of the beautiful flowers, berries, and other landscape, we were very blessed to be able to stand about 20ft from a momma and baby moose as they were dining on some greenery right off the trail...

 The birch trees are already turning bright yellow!!

 After a few hours of walking in Kincaid Park we headed into Chugach National Park to do some seasonal "re-takes" of some of our favorite pictures from last year.

As you can imagine - after all of that walking/hiking we had worked up quite an appetite and we had 7pm reservations to get to at Glacier Brewhouse (the wait when we got there was 1hr+ but we walked in and were sat immediately - it REALLY feels good to blend in with the locals)!! Appetizer: Calamari, Dinner: The "Fresh Catch" of the day was a Cajun rubbed Halibut with a Cajun sauce, popcorn shrimp, a rice patty, and seasonal veggies, Dessert: their "World Famous Bread Pudding" (which is DELICIOUS)!!

We ended the night at Potter's March (we were there are 10pm and probably would have stayed longer but the gate closes at 10pm)!! The sunset was amazing... the views were beautiful... the mosquitos were HUNGRY (yes, that's right - we met the famous Alaskan masquitos yesterday)!!

 That sunset was the end of a WONDERFUL night in Anchorage.

Wednesday morning we woke early and dropped back by Snow City for some fresh baked goods and their delicious Espresso drinks...

 Then we were on the road and headed North. Destination: Talkeetna with a stop in the Eagle River area for some sightseeing and trail hiking. We were able to walk part of the original Iditarod Trail, and go out on a viewing deck over the river and see lots of salmon there!! One of the other trails that led down to the water was closed with a sign that said "Closed due to Brown Bears feeding on Salmon" - there might have been some great pictures down there but I would imagine there were also some very territorial bears!! Here are some of our pictures from our time in Eagle River...

 Salmon

 A rather fresh Wolf print - but no Wolf in sight!

 Looking for evidence of bears...

 Lots of yellow up there on the mountains!!

Eagle River isn't far outside of Anchorage so we hit the road... destination: Talkeetna!! Once we were on the Talkeetna Spur, just outside of the town we were greeted by an Alaskan beauty... Mt. McKinley. Only 1 in 3 people who visit Alaska get to see her... well this year we not only saw her from the road, but also from Anchorage and from WAY up in the air while zip-lining.

Here was our view from the photo pull-off...

We went into town... Talkeetna is this tiny, one-street town but you immediately feel like you are at home! We went to West Rib Pub (they were one Man vs. Food and they were closed for the Winter when we dropped into Talkeetna last year). There we enjoyed yet another great meal - Me: a cup of Alaskan Chowder and Halibut Chunks & Chips... Jason: a cup of Caribou Chili and a Caribou burger.

There was a mix-up with our zip-lining start time so dinner was cut a little short but it was soooooo worth it. 9 zip-lines, 3 suspension bridges and one repel later we had had so much fun flying through the tree tops and enjoying an unforgettable view!!

 The view from our "ground training"

After zipping we treated ourselves to some homemade ice cream. This ice cream is made with a maker that is actually powered by a John Deere engine - now THAT'S Alaska style!! :) 

A little bit of wandering around town and we said goodbye to the beautiful town of Talkeetna. With one last stop to say goodbye to McKinley we realized how lucky we were as she was now covered by clouds and looked like a completely different mountain.

We had a beautiful 2.5 hour drive home to Anchorage... mountains, mirror like lakes, sunsets and MOOSE!!

 

In addition to all of those wonderful things we have found LOTS of houses for sale... soooooooo tempting!!

Alright, Goodnight all (actually, it's probably Good Morning for all those on the East Coast). We'll be checking out of our Anchorage Home tomorrow morning and heading down the coast to Homer - "The Halibut Capital of the World". On the way to are hoping to get a glimpse of some bear enjoying salmon on the banks of some of the rivers... and we'll see what Homer holds when we get there!