Bowl o' Butt

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That's what I had for dinner. A bowl of butt..that's what they call the HUGE bowl of beer battered halibut chunks at Thorn's Showcase Lounge in Seward, my new home for the summer. Between all of the fish I've been eating and this fresh sea air I'm inhaling I might as well just grow fins, poke a hole at the base of my neck, and live the rest of my life in Resurrection Bay amongst the humpbacks..on second thought, that hole might be better place on my upper back, lest I suffocate myself with my own neck fat (a side effect of the beer battered fish.Vicious cycle but hey, that's nature).

So by now you've gathered that we've made it to Seward. Our last morning in Talkeetna proved excellent, as we ate at a "local" restaurant where everyone was seated at the same table, necessitating either awesome conversation or the sound of someone slurping their scrambled eggs amidst bouts of awkward silence. I DID awkwardly slurp my eggs, however we still had an amazing series of conversations with the folks to our right and left. To our right, a bunch of hippies working on some birch farm for the summer in exchange for some fresh moose turds that they used to cleanse their aura or something along those lines. Super nice though. To our left was this great family from Anchorage. The father, a native Talkeetnan, told us that he loved Anchorage because he was only "30 minutes from Alaska." This was in reference to the many Alaskans who camp out on their couches in the city rather than the great outdoors! Sounds like a lot of the folks at App State:) The town was mostly empty, though we were told that trains and tour buses would soon bring upwards of 400 tourists A DAY into the small one-lane town.We decided to head to Seward after a quick stop by the Talkeetna Ranger Station's climbing museum..

As we arrived in the Kenai Peninsula we had amazing views of the Chugach Range, which still boasted upwards of 10-15' of snow in places. As we pulled into Seward we saw two bald eagles, another moose (Bullwinkle's ugly sister), and then the gorgeous fjords of the Kenai Coastline. The contrast between 5,000' snowy peaks rising abruptly from sea level and the deep green ocean of Resurrection Bay is hard to describe. Our lodging for the last few evenings has been the Moby Dick Hostel and Lodging, where one can rent a private room for about 65 bucks a night. We've met a whole host of great people here from as far away as Sweden, Chile, France, etc. The living is simple and clean, with shared bathrooms (very clean) and a kitchen where everyone congregates to play cards and talk in the evenings.

Yesterday was quite eventful..Dad and I took a cruise out into through the Gulf of Alaska into Aialak Bay to view glaciers, wildlife, and people vomiting into the ocean. He was one of them, and it took all I had to hold it down. The seas heading into the open water of the Gulf of Alaska were pretty terrible, and reminded me why I haven't been on the open ocean in about 4 years. On the bright side we had amazing views of the Holgate and Bear Glaciers, and saw mountain goats, black bears, bald eagles, two humpback whales, a number of porpoises, sea lions, sea otters, etc. The cruise was spectacular, particularly as we were able to observe the amazing coastline in the company of many green-faced passengers.

Yesterday culminated in a night hike of ~ 1500' worth of the 3300' Mt. Marathon. The beauty of this, and many Alaskan adventures, was that we started our hike at 9 p.m. and finished at 11:45 just as it was getting "dark." I was accompanied on that journey by a UNC student, and a Swedish p.h.d candidate who remarked that our quest to get above treeline to the snow was," very much like American politics...every time you think you've seen the last bush, another one pops around the corner!" Classic.

This morning I started my first day at work amidst a group of wonderful people. My house is an awesome three bedroom fully furnished apartment with table side views of the harbor/mountains, and a basement full of toilet paper, laundry detergent, and soap (provided free to the staff). Cha-ching. I have plugged in with a number of folks who climb (including one mountain guide from Patagonia) and have been given the skinny on some low-key climbing areas, so I am sure many adventures will be had. The rest of the week will likely be the boring 9-5 computer stuff that most of you are experiencing at this very moment, as you sneak my blog in during your workday. Don't worry, I won't tell your boss. Saturday I've signed up for a Resurrection Bay cleanup with the Resurrection Bay Conservation Association, and that should yield some good photos.

Next week I'll head to Anchorage on Tuesday, before leaving on Wednesday for a three-day trip to the VERY remote coastline of Ailak Bay. I am going to monitor the coastline (length/important waypoints/etc) and do some gruntwork and in exchange I get to spend 2 nights sleeping in a tent on a beach that is about about 1.5 hours (by sea) from the nearest electricity. The photos above give an idea of the setting.Sweet.Dad heads off tomorrow, and it'll be sad to see him leave this father/son trip of a lifetime.Sorry for the wordy post. Until next time...

Cheers,
Mike