Memorial Weekend in Homer 1

The weather could not have been better on Friday as we headed out of Anchorage and drove south down Turnagain Arm. It was warm and sunny so I gave all of my outside plants and flowers a good soaking in the morning before we left.

 

D purchased an '06 Toyota truck last fall and it is fairly luxurious compared to his old one. Looks great with the new topper and it's convenient to have second row seating back there.The window between the cab and bed is electronic so it rolls down with the touch of a button.

Whizzing by on the highway. The dilapidated structure is an old home near the Whittier turnoff that was destroyed during the 1964 earthquake.

This is Canyon Creek, the area where D proposed to me almost 2 years ago.

4.5 hours later, we arrived in Homer! The thin piece of land jutting out into Kachemak Bay is the Homer Spit, which is where we stayed this time. 

 

Although the weather was great on Friday in Homer, we knew the rain was coming. This is our tarp city - encompassing part of the boat, truck and tent in our campsite.

We purchased a site with electricity to run the freezer and vacuum sealer.

Vacuum sealer from home, to package our halibut filets.

New Coleman double-burner stove! D made some great breakfasts on this, and we had fresh beer-battered halibut and pacific cod on Saturday night.

One of our smaller chest freezers from home.

This is luxury camping for us! All the extras that we can't usually bring along on boat trips due to weight restrictions...real chairs, a big water jug, lots of food, a big stove & grill (as opposed to our tiny backpacking stoves), extra clothes (for me, ha ha) and of course, running water, electricity and SHOWERS!!!

Time to eat!

 

More to come!

Holiday weekend

Memorial Day is almost here! Can you guess where we are going for the weekend? I was able to get Friday through Tuesday off from work, and D recently finished a year-long construction job so we will have a leisurely and LONG time off for Memorial Day in....Homer! Yay for halibut fishing, trolling for king salmon and party time on the Spit. Although I am sort of over the party atmosphere now - we thought about staying in a secluded campground above town but the downside is no electricity. In order to legally keep more than the 4 halibut possession limit we need to process our catch. And that means bringing a vacuum-sealer and loading a small chest freezer into the back of the truck. I know that sounds awfully weird but we will be down in Homer for 5 days and it's important to get the fish packed and frozen. There is a company in town that will do all that for sport fisherman but I'm cheap and don't want to spend the money!


In exactly one month from today D and I will celebrate our 1-year anniversary. 2010 and now 2011 have both sped by so fast. I'm a bit bummed that I have to work an event on June 25th, so that means no leaving town on our anniversary weekend. Well, D will probably go fishing without me but I am stuck in Anchorage! I need to check the freezer and figure out where our wedding cheesecake is hiding.


This past Monday after work I spent about 4 hours digging and potting flowers. The back deck and front porch look much more inviting now and I can't wait to see how everything looks in mid-summer after the flowers have bloomed.

Sounds like D's brother may come up for a visit this summer so that should be fun. Was hoping my sister could come sometime too but her job and school schedule are pretty packed.


Happy Memorial Day everyone! Will have recaps and photos next week after Wednesday.

Oh grow up

May 31st is the official start of the outdoor garden season in Alaska.  It's industry standard to wait until the holiday weekend to put out plants and flowers, but most of us get impatient and try to push it a week or two earlier. We're supposed to get indoor starts going in mid-March but I haven't invested in a grow light and we really don't have a good area for a mini greenhouse. So, all of my random seeds were started last week: cosmos, peony (not sure if these will grow well here), some other wildflowers and a really cool plant from Tennessee that my mom gave me last November. These all go outside during the day and come in at night.

A friend had given me these 12 petite planters with a different set of seeds for each month and I never got around to doing anything with them. Better late than never, right? I love the colors and how small they are - each can fit in the palm of a hand. Once the seedlings emerge and I plant them in a bigger container, I'll use these ceramic pots around the house.

I tested my flower knowledge by trying to match up the seed packet with the photo of the flower on the front of each pot. I only had to look up 3 out of 12.

 I took inventory of my growing collection of outdoor planters, pulled out the dirt we saved from last year's container gardens and made a shopping list for my 2011 flowers! Most came from Walmart, including two cute little perennial shrubs, because the cost and quality were pretty good. My geraniums are from Home Depot since Walmart's selection was pitiful. It was really windy yesterday when I went plant shopping and the wind was whipping up dust in the outdoor pavilion and knocking plants over, so I was in and out in a flash. 

The back of my car, all loaded up with fun plants! Can't wait to get my hands dirty this week. 

Early May in PWS 4

Last set of photos from our lovely weekend in early May...

This was actually the earliest that I had camped in the Sound and it was not nearly as cold as I expected. The temperatures out there vary so dramatically that it's hard to predict what to wear or bring, so we err on the side of caution. The down and heavy-loft sleeping bags came with us on this trip and I brought a winter fleece as my mid-layer.

Another ferry - not the fast one.

Sea creatures on top of more sea creatures.

Tell the dog to fetch a stick and this is what he comes back with. Over-achiever!

Rained on and off Sunday. Took a nice beach walk while we waited for the shrimp pots to soak one last time.

Pretty green water.

Do you see D in his yellow rain coat waaaay off in the distance? He was checking out a skiff that had washed up on shore, maybe during a storm?

Shrimp!

This is our friend Clark. We finally caught up with him after a year or so of being in PWS around the same time! His wife was working so he took a solo weekend trip.

This crazy octopus snuck into one of the shrimp pots and sucked a few of them dry. I hate to lose even one shrimp to a interloper. They are slippery suckers and it was hard for D to get a good grip on this one. My mom says we should have kept this and sent it to my grandma. Asians love octopus (it's pretty good with some hot sauce, no lie) but I'm not quite sure how we would have kept it fresh. Alive, they can get out of any container and I didn't feel like cutting off the head!

D released the octopus JUST IN TIME. It hit the water, squirted ink and bolted! Can you see the pinkish/orangey ink in the water?

View from the door of the tent.

Seal-watching.

My weekend beach-combing  treasures: starfish, scallop shells, mussel shells and sea glass.

Early May PWS Trip 3

Laying back and taking a break. It was nice until the mosquitos starting buzzing about.

Our half yellow/half chocolate lab. He was all muddy shortly after this photo was taken.

Signs of spring.

My thighs are burning from all of the hiking we did. And now that I think about it, the hiking isn't what killed me - it was the high-stepping over logs and trees and up the side of cliffs. Forget stair-climbing at the gym - all you need is a weekend in the woods!

These rocks are a lot bigger than they appear - most were larger than me or D so we had to scramble up and over them. The dog didn't like it at all.

The sun made a short appearance.

Evidence of otters - mussel shells everywhere.

Early May PWS Trip 2

It's still winter in most parts of Prince William Sound. The snow lingers, but here and there we saw signs of spring. Trees and grass emerging from a snowy canopy and green buds appearing on trees and plants.

Always in attendance? Creatures from the sea...

Sideways heart. I found a smaller version and brought it home to live on a bookshelf in the living room.

An abundance of moisture means moss grows everywhere. This was big enough for me to crawl inside. Tried to get the dog in there but he was not interested in cooperating.

Drift always has a good time in the forest.

This photo didn't turn out so well, but I was attempting to document my many layers.

I'm so temperature sensitive and tend to wear lots of layers so they can be taken off or put on, depending on my current state. The hike overheated me and I had 3 layers to take off: Marmot rain jacket, Arc'teryx fleece layer and Smartwool long sleeve. I was walking around in a tank top! On the bottom I still had my Smartwool long underwear, REI hiking pants, Marmot rain pants and Xtra-tuff rain boots.

 

Some of the snow in these areas won't ever melt - the piles get smaller but cool temps usually prevail out here.

Early May PWS Trip Video

 On Sunday we stopped to pull pots in the afternoon and encountered some wildlife...it gets good at 1:45:

(don't turn up the volume unless you want to hear me telling the dog to pipe down every 5 seconds - he went crazy!)