So far in Alaska...

First off.... I love moose! Oh how I've missed them! View outside the kitchen window!

Here is a peek at what I've been up to over the past 2 weeks. The first weekend I was here we went canoeing on the Lynx Lake Canoe Trail System (same as last year). The weather wasn't nearly as good this year; it was really cold and rainy, but it was still lots of fun! This past weekend was really full. On Friday night we went hiking up a huge mountain for Cohan's birthday. We didn't summit till midnight!(don't tell mom and dad) I know the pictures don't really show it, but it really was still light enough to hike. It was really fun, until the last stretch of ridge to get to the summit. It was so windy, rainy, and cold cold cold. We made it safely back down and then got up and drove 5 hours up to a little town called Healy, near Denali (Mt. McKinley) National Park for the Regional YSA Conference. Needless to say, my legs were incredibly sore after sitting in the car for the long the day after climbing a mountain. We made it up to the conference just in time for dinner and the dance (it was awesome!) On my way out to the car after the dance I saw my friend, Grace, standing next to 2 guys with 2 motorcycles. She was putting on a helmet for a ride. So I went over and asked if I could have a ride too. So much fun! My new friend, Scott, gave me a ride to the campground. What is better than a motorcycle ride in the midnight light of Alaska with a new cute guy? We camped in the rain (Thank heavens I put my clothes in a ziploc baggie) and I woke in a soaking wet sleeping bag. Then we took the tent down, changed into a skirt, they provided some breakfast, and then we all went to church. I think that may be the only time I ever go to church straight from a campground without washing my face. Here is the photo documentation...

Jody, my roommate, and I - She's a trolley driver/tour guide, and voted the best tour guide in Anchorage 3 summers in a row!

Pictures from the hike up O'Malley. This is about 10:00 pm

And this is about midnight. It was much lighter than it looks

Pictures from the YSA conference campground

Grace and I (wish we would have gotten it with the motorcycles)
Emily and I

I could be slightly retarded....

So I don't know how I posted a blank post. I've been trying for the last 1/2 hour to do a post, but for some reason the picture icon won't work when I click on it. Everything else works, just not that button, so I can't add any pictures. And then somehow I added a post without anything. Real smart, real smart. It's been kind of a dumb day overall though. For example, on the ride home from the YSA conference today we were reciting nursery rhymes. Here is the dialogue:

Marilyn: Hey! What's that one about the egg that sits on the wall?

Everyone else (voices very condescending and in a way that says 'you idiot'): Humpty Dumpty!

hehe

Happy Halloween!

Hello all! The Alaskan Adventure continues! Happy Halloween! Oh - and a big thank you to Catherine for the costume!

I 'Hope' I catch a fish

Fishing is probably my new favorite thing! We went down to the little town of Hope last weekend to go fishing for pink salmon. Hope is across the Turnagain Arm from Anchorage. There isn't a bridge across the ocean because the glacial silt doesn't provide enough support so you have to drive all the way down to the end of the Arm and then back up. Pink salmon were running, but they aren't the best for eating, but they really made for a good day of fishing in the river. We all sported really awesome waders and stood in the water with our rods. When I first got up here people would talk about the salmon runs and how the rivers are just full of salmon. Its hard to imagine it until you see it! The river was literally full of salmon! I could see them all over the place and they swim into my legs. It was crazy! The male pink salmon have humps on their backs (pinks are also referred to as humpy's) and you could see their fins above the water. And the best part of it was that I caught one with my hands! I was standing in the water with my pole, and I looked over and saw a little pink salmon about a foot away from me. I set my pole down on the bank and snatched the fish right out of the water...with my hands! Sadly, I got a little too excited the the fish slipped out of my hands before I could get a picture! Below are pictures of Cohan and I trying to catch some more with our hands.

My friend Tyler let me use his fly pole for a little while and taught me the pitching technique: You pretty much pitch the line to where you see fish and try to get it into their mouths. I was so much better at pitching than I was at casting. I hooked about a dozen like that. I wasn't keeping any of them because they weren't 'fresh'; fresh means that it has recently come into the river from the ocean. You can tell by a pink's coloring if it is fresh or not because their skin turns dark and starts rotting the longer they are in the river. I finally hooked a good pink salmon!

I had crossed the river before I started pitching so I had to carry my pink salmon back to the shore. The river was moving so fast! It was so hard to keep my balance and not lose the fish! Once I made it to the other side Tyler made me punch my salmon in the head just over the brain until it died!
This is Tyler showing me how to rip the gills so the fish bleeds out.
And this is me ripping them out!


This is me filleting the fish. When the guys filleted our halibut on our charter they made it look so easy, but it is definitely not that easy to hold a slimy fish in one hand and a sharp knife in the other while making a smooth cut in the fish instead of your finger!

Canoeing!

Our adventure last weekend was canoeing on the Lynx Loop Canoe Trail System in the Nancy Lake State Rec Area about 90 minutes north of Anchorage. It was so much fun! I love it here! We drove Larry's RV up on Friday night, had tin foil dinners that night and then canoed all day Saturday. The trail system has about 14 lakes (we lost count after a while!) and you canoe across the lake and then pick up the canoe and hike with it to the next lake and do it over and over again! Its called portaging between the lakes. We paddled pretty quickly across the first few lakes, but then we stopped and ate lunch in the canoes in the middle of one of the lakes and after that we were super laid back. We went a lot slower after that, just drifting along. It was so nice and relaxing, maybe because I just sat there most of the time while Cohan paddled! It was beautiful out and sunny for most of the time, but when we had about three lakes left it started raining! It sprinkled at first while we were out in the lake, but it really started pouring while we were portaging between lakes. It was the coolest thing, and I really wish I had a picture of it! We carried the canoes over our heads, so the rain was hitting the top of the canoe and the bottom half of us got soaked! Hiking through the rain with a canoe in Alaska! It was awesome! When we got to the end of the loop we all jumped in a swam and played!

We tried to do a lift on the canoe - it obviously didn't work that well!On one of the portages I was getting ready to pull the canoe back onto the water and I stepped out into the water - my foot sunk completely up to my hip! Cohan had to come pull me out. I was trying to keep my flip flop on, but the suction was holding onto my flip flop, so I had to slide my foot out of the flip flop so Cohan could pull me out and the rest of the time I had to portage between the lakes with just one flip flop.

All the strong girls! My shoulders were so sore on Sunday!

Country Swinging!

So there was a huge YSA conference last weekend and there was a talent show on Saturday night. Cohan and I practiced for about 3 weeks for it - here is the final product! Hope you enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOFhdZRtRY

More 4th of July fun

I forgot a little about the 4th of July. After fishing we went over to my friend, Blake's, cabin. It is a beautiful cabin in the forest right on the edge of the Kenai River, which is glacial run-off. Molly and I were convinced by the guys to swim across it after they did. I was really scared to do it, but I secretly really wanted to. I was so happy we did it and it was so much fun! I had so much adrenaline going into it and the water was freezing so we swam it pretty fast.

4th of July Weekend!

I had the most memorable 4th of July weekend! A group of six of us (Janel, Stephanie, Cohan, Jason, Chase and myself) went on a little adventure! We left Friday to head down to Ninilchik to go halibut fishing on Saturday. On the way we made some fun stops. First we stopped at Girdwood to go to the Forest Fair. It reminded me a lot of the 24th of July celebration in Monticello except that it was a lot bigger, in the middle of a forest, and I didn't know anyone, and I was surrounded by hippies! I've never seen so much tie-dye and hula-hoops in my life! After Girdwood we stopped in Homer, there is more on that below!

Homer is such a funny little town down on the coast. The whole economy is supported by the fishing industry. We spent a lot of time on the Homer Spit, a really thin Peninsula, where all the boats are docked and there are a lot of little shops and restaurants. We skipped rocks on the beach for about an hour and were interrupted when an eagle swooped down and snatched a duck out of the water with its talons. With the duck in its claws it flew right over our heads about ten feet up and then up to a light post where it plucked all the feathers off the duck and ate it. We all just sat there and watched it until it flew off with the carcas. It was amazing!

We got up super early Saturday morning to go deep sea fishing out of Ninilchik. We chartered with a guy named Frank. When we got to the shore, a tractor backed the boat out onto the water and then pulled us out again when we were done. It was a much smaller charter than the one Cindy and I went on. It was just Frank and the six of us. It was beautiful weather! And the fishing was really quick. We each maxed out with two halibut in about 4 hours! It was so much fun going with friends! After we finished fishing we went back to Frank's place and took pictures, fileted the fish, and vacuum packed the fish! Oh, and I took pictures with the puke green mustang that reminded me of Dad.

If you look really closely you can see a mountain in the distance. That is Mt. Redoubt, the volcano that has been active recently, and it is smoking! Trying to bait my hook.

Janel, Stephanie, and Cohan

Jason, Marilyn, and Chase

Cohan fileting the halibutHalibut are really ugly fish. They have a white side and a brown/spotty side. Also, when a halibut is born they have one eye on each side of their head, but as they mature one of thier eyes migrates to the same side as the other. They swim on the bottom of the ocean on their white side, and so they don't need an eye on that side, so that is why both eyes are on the brown side, looking up.