At the start of this week we had to learn how to give nature tours. We headed to work early for the training and as we rounded the corner of the building we saw a moose with two babies down the road from the nature center. It was an excellent start to the morning. For this training we had our head naturalist, an amazing women named Ute, take us around on the trail and point out the various plants, animals, geology and history of our backyard. Wednesday morning, as she was showing us around, a small black bear crossed the trail not 15 yards ahead of us! It wasn't interested in us at all; it just went on its way. That was both surprising and awesome all at the same time! After training for the next two days we trailed fellow volunteers as they gave the nature tour and by Friday Ashley led her very own tour! The tour only happens once a day at 1:30 and takes a little over an hour to finish. Saturday was Adam's big day as he lead a tour on his own! We both have a lot of fun telling visitors about the local flora and fauna and we get to carry with us an air horn, bear spray, first aid kit and binoculars. Ashley even wore her "I Heart Glaciers" T-shirt for her very first tour. To say the least it is really fun giving tours and we are looking forward to giving more this coming week.
This past weekend we decided to go on an adventure. For the past month we had been staying close to home, checking out our state park and the various trails it had to offer. This month we will be exploring a little bit more outside of our Chugach State Park bubble. Sure it's a half-a-million acres bubble but it was time to explore more of Alaska. We decided to visit Homer for the weekend seeing as it was only 4.5 hours away and everyone was telling us how great it is. So we packed up our camping gear and attached the Sweaty Yeti and were off! We left early Sunday morning and took our time getting down there, exploring towns and parks along the way. For at least 90% of the drive we were driving on a Scenic Byway and the views were amazing. Near Coopers Landing we came across a river that was so blue we had to stop and do a double take. The water coming out of Kenai Lake and into Kenai River was gorgeous! We definitely plan on coming back to this area to camp later in the summer. As we continued on the drive we came to a stretch of road that paralleled the coast. We stopped at many of the look out points along the way to take in the stunning scenery and bird watching. Across the sea you could see two active volcanoes standing tall, Mt. Iliamna and Mt. Redoubt, which we were lucky enough to see since the weather is usually a bit cloudy or rainy. We ended up discovery a small state recreation area called Deep Creek that not only had a long beach front and a creek with many fisherman trying to catch salmon, but so many birds there were too many to count! Adam and I easily spent an hour watching the eagles as they soared high above us. Sometimes two eagles would come together, lock their talons and fall in a downward spiral until one of them was chicken enough to pull out and fly back up again. It was truly amazing. Then we decided to take a walk along the beach and as we looked out, what we thought was a driftwood log turned out to be a sea otter. We took as many photos of it as we could and it wasn't until afterwards looking at the pictures that we realized it was actually a mother otter with a little baby otter swimming along side her. After much animal watching we got back in the car and finished the journey to Homer.
Pulling into Homer was unreal. Getting to see the ocean and the mountains all in one stunning view was breath taking. We completely lucked out that it was a nice day! As we drove through the quaint little town we made our way out onto what is called "the Spit" which is a man-made piece of land that extends into the sea a few miles. On the Spit were campgrounds, docks, shops and restaurants. We were actually able to camp on the spit at a campground that had a large fishing hole next to it and that evening Adam and I watched as fisherman would try to catch fish and the seagulls would attempt/fail at getting a tasty snack. Once we got the camper set-up we went for a walk down the boardwalk to find some dinner. We had some delicious salmon and checked out all the shops and outfits along The Spit. The next morning however was not so nice. It rained and rained and rained. We packed up the camper and went in town to explore some of the notable locations. We had breakfast at Two Sisters Bakery and even in the rain hiked out onto the beach for a bit. After that we headed to the Alaskan Islands and Oceans Visitor Center which was pretty neat and we stopped at some of the local shops. We had lunch at Sourdough Express and boy was that delicious! And what type of Wisconsinites would we be if we did not check out the local brewing company in town. After seeing the shops it was still raining with no end in sight on the radar. We decided to go home to a hot shower and a warm cabin. On the way back we even encountered a moose friend who took his sweet time crossing the road. We had just reached the Turnagain Arm (a large bay) when we looked out to see a bunch of black dots. As we wondered what they were we quickly realized they were surfers catching the bore tide as it came in! A bore tide is a 2 to 6 foot wall of water formed by the tide coming in and pushing back any of the water that was still headed out from earlier in the day. To cap off a wonderful trip we stopped at Goodwill on the way home and did some shopping. It was raining so why not?
As we relaxed on Tuesday, doing laundry and cooking lunch, our boss Laura ran into our kitchen. She was looking for us and on her way down to our kitchen she saw a black bear sow with two cubs only 20 yards from the trail! She darted into the kitchen and we watched as the sow scratched her back on the near telephone pole and munched on some of the dandelions. They eventually moved on to the woods behind our cabin. Luckily, another volunteer saw them heading further north away from the cabin. These bears seemed totally relaxed and not aggressive in any way. It was so much fun to watch them!
In the photos below you may see one where it looks like it is snowing, now that is totally plausible here in Alaska but note the blue sky. This is all cotton. We have so many cottonwood trees and they have just bloomed. It literally is like being bombarded with fluff when you step outside. It is pretty nice to be honest.
Well that concludes this weeks update. We hope you enjoyed our program and will join us again next week.You stay classy Wisconsin. And for those of you not in Wisconsin, move there! It's nice.
-The A-Team
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