17 Days of So Much Fun- Homer and Adventure Camp

Day 13-
This morning was another early one for me between the fishermen and the birds.  Since it was a cook day for our group I went ahead and got up to shower early.  Even then it was too early so I sat in the truck and wrote.  Eventually I got everything out and Ulli helped me get the stove started.  The campsite next to us looked like a scene out of "Birds" this morning.  I guess the guys had a bit too much fun last night and forgot to put their food away.  The birds helped them with that by making a really big mess.  Entertainment with our breakfast.  We finished eating, packed up and were ready to leave 10 minutes early.  Our group rocks.  On our drive back toward town I spotted an eagle sitting on top of 3 poles in the water.  Fortunately, David and Natalie correctly interpreted my, "Wow, check that out!" to mean wildlife sighting.  We stopped for 10 minutes or more to watch and take photos.  The eagle just sat there and posed for us.  David said he was majestic and he knew it.  I said he looked like he thought he was too sexy and he knew it.   (Sorry, my humor is goofy at early hours.)

Eagle sighting as we left Seward

Just outside of Seward we stopped at Exit Glacier for a hike.  The goal was to go to Marmot Meadows.  If people still felt good they could continue to the cliffs overlooking the Harding Ice Field.  It was 1.5 mi up to the Meadows and 1600 vertical feet.  At the bottom of the hike you have to sign in so the Rangers know who is out there and if they came back.  We loved the sign that told us what to do in case of a Black or Brown bear attack.  Under grizzly it tells you to play dead.  But if it starts to eat you, fight back.  Cripes, who wants to wait until it's eating me to fight back?  As we set out, I knew that Ulli and Evie wanted to hike fast.  I was startled though when Mary told Ulli to set the pace and we'd follow.  With Ulli setting the pace I knew I wouldn't see them until we hit the meadows.  As expected, I struggled and fell behind early.  I hiked with Natalie and Thorsten which was a good group for me.  Natalie asked at one point if I wanted to pass her and go faster.  I told her I needed her to pace me and if we could go slower and still be moving that would be fine.  Toward the end David dropped back to check on us.  That was fine until he got behind me.  He called it adding pressure to keep me going.  I never doubted I could get to the meadows.  I just did not see myself keeping up with the pace set by Ulli, Evie and Mary.  I knew that they would keep going and I've learned my short legs and I will not be keeping up with them.  I hate to miss things, but I also know my limits.  If I had all day, I would have continued on.  But with the time we had I decided to just enjoy the hike to the meadows and call it good.  It took the slow end of our group almost an hour to reach Marmot Meadows but it was worth it.  Everyone but me and Thorsten opted to continue and David said he would stay with us.  Thorsten wandered off taking photos.  I hung out on the big rock with David that overlooked the glacier.  A group of Italian couples came up for photos.  They were having fun and were entertaining.  Before we left we saw the super couple who had passed us on the way up, running down from the cliffs.  They might be nuts.  David calculated when the others would hit the cliffs and we headed down about then.  Down was almost as hard as up.  On the way up my calves and glutes were sore.  Going down it was my knees protesting.  There were a lot more people coming up so we had chances to stop and step out of their way.  I had my IU soccer hat and an IU basketball shirt on, which received a few comments.  We even chatted with three girls, one of whom was wearing a Purdue shirt.  She didn't actually go there, but she is from Fort Wayne.

Exit Glacier

We stopped in the visitor center at the bottom and I got a stamp for today.  Outside we saw on the sign that we missed seeing a bear by about 30 minutes.  We headed to the truck to get lunch ready.  I wasn't real hungry after the exercise, but had some chips and a drink.  Natalie and Renee showed up about 20 minutes later.  They made it to the cliffs before turning back.  Ulli, Evie and Mary went to see how much further they could get in the 20 minutes Natalie gave them.  While we waited I walked over to recycle some of our cans.  A nice older gentleman asked me where I was from and we started chatting.  He lives in Colorado Springs now and was OSI in the Air Force.  He told me he trained with the CIA and had different identities for use.  I even learned one time he thought his double agent might have messed up so he slept with his gun under his pillow that night.  It was interesting to hear his stories until his wife returned from her hike.

The rest of the group made it back, the rest of us had lunch and then we prepared to head to Homer.  Before we left, some of us ate our lunch on the sidewalk in the sun.  A ranger warned us about dropping crumbs for the bears.  Natalie also went in the visitor center and earned her Junior ranger badge.  She is very proud and has a video of the Ranger giving her the oath.

I dozed off on the way to Homer.  We stopped at Moose Pass to drop postcards at the post office.  I hope the postmark says Moose Pass.  We also stopped at a Fred Meyer for groceries.  We had 20 minutes to run in.  This place was a super store on steroids.  I used the restroom and then decided it would be easier to ask customer service about maps.  After waiting a few minutes it was my turn.  I explained to the guy that I needed a fold up map of Alaska, not a book of maps.  He walked a couple feet over to the check out line next to the desk and grabbed a map.  Talk about tired, I hadn't even noticed them as I stood in line.  It was what I wanted so I grabbed one along with a Dr. Pepper and headed out to Atka.

The rest of the drive to Homer was really pretty.  We had a nice view of the Aleution Islands and Mount Redoubt.  I needed the map to figure out where we were.  My geography up here needs work.  Our campsite is at the end of the Homer spit right on the beach.  We all opted to put our tents up in between the dunes as protection from the wind.  The views were beautiful.  We had a great sunset and a beautiful view of the moon for awhile.  Natalie made a nice pasta, pork and veggie dinner for us.  Between sunset shots I helped put things away.  Then I took off down the beach for a bit of a walk.  David was back when I returned.  I handed him a skipping stone with a comment about how perfect they were.  He took it and then I told him that now he was dead.  It was worth missing my chance on Fox Island to see his face now.  That leaves me, Natalie and Thorsten in the game.  I have Thorsten.  I have to get him with mosquito spray while eating.  Not sure which one of us should be eating but hopefully I will find a way.  

View from our campsite on the Homer Spit

Tent on the rocky beach.

Sunset and a Memorial for those lost at sea

Since we had a campfire we pulled out the marshmallows.  I made one s'more and roasted a 2nd marshmallow.  Mary tried roasting a marshmallow and  an Oreo together.  We joked that would be called a Mary Special.  Evie roasted one of her many marshmallows with the piece of chocolate stuck in the middle.  She had tried it at home with M&M's.

We have an early morning tomorrow for both groups.  David, Mary and Renee are going fishing.  The rest of us will head across the bay to Adventure Camp.  Time to go see how sleeping on rocks will feel.

Day 14-
This morning a strange flapping sound woke me around 3:30am.  It kept moving so I was not sure who or what was trying to get in our tent.  It didn't seem to bother Mary any.  I finally decided it was the wind messing with our tent, but not before I was fully awake.  I tried to use my ipod to drown out the sound, but it didn't help much.  It sounded like Ulli was having a rough night on the rocks next to us since I could hear her shifting, but she said later that she was fine.  Then the alarm went off for Mary to leave for fishing.  I waited for that group to leave and then I got up.  It backfired on me since the truck was locked and the key was not in the usual hiding spot.  Somehow we all managed to get ready, take down tents, have breakfast and still make it to the water taxi on time.  The other three would head over after fishing on the 1pm taxi, while five of us took the 8am taxi.  Along with our gear we couldn't forget the essentials, the beer and wine.  It was a beautiful morning for a boat ride.  I saw at least one sea otter and lots of birds.  We arrived by 8:30 and were greeted by Kyle (he works for the camp) at the beach.  We used a ladder to get from the bow of the boat to the beach.  Poor Kyle had no idea he would be helping us get a cooler of beer to the camp.  At the camp, Tony (owner) met us and gave us a tour. It is a fabulous place.  The girls had an option of a 4 or 3 person platform tent.  Evie and I grabbed the 4 person near the beach.  We were surprised, but happy when Ulli came in since she has had her own tent.  I was afraid our surprise hurt her feeling when she went off to the other tent.  After putting our stuff down we went to the main building for hot drinks or a soda in my case.  I was so tired that I just sunk into the couch.  We had free time until lunch at noon.  Some of the group decided to go out and walk, I decided to nap in our tent.  It felt so wonderful, but I did manage to drag myself up again for lunch.  It was a delicious spread of chicken salad sandwiches, veggies, fruit, chips and salsa. 

Taking the essentials to Adventure Camp

Elephant rock

Our tent (similar to my Girl Scout camp days)

After lunch Evie and I decided we would walk but first she wanted to read her book that she almost had finished.  I settled in with mine while I waited.  She finished about the time we saw the water taxi pulling up with the rest of our group.  Since we sat talking about books and authors we were still there when they came in.  Mary guessed she had about 25 lbs of fish after they cut them down.  As we were looking for the path to the road we saw David and Renee.  David's guess on weight of fish they will receive was 40 lbs.  Who is downplaying or exaggerating?

On our way out we asked Ulli if she wanted to go.  David pointed us toward the steps up the hill to the road.  He joked about doing them a few times as a work out.  Once was enough!  Wow.  They are built into the hillside and go straight up forever.  You go up through the trees and there are ferns everywhere.  It's really pretty but a tough climb.  When we saw the van at the top we discussed whether we thought there was a pulley system for moving gear up and down that hill.  Or maybe everything comes in from the water side.

The road is a wide, hard packed dirt road.  We chose to go left for the more forested area.  I had two ziplock bags to use if we found berries.  Good planning since we found lots of Salmon berries along the way and some blueberries a bit higher up on the hill.  Salmon berries look similar to blackberries but red.  Mostly they are sour, but addicting after a bit.  We filled our bags with some of both types.  It was a nice mix of eating some and collecting some for later. 

It was a really nice walk.  We talked about traveling and our families.  Ulli and I have similar stories about our families and the type of travel they want to do.  We aren't sure how far we walked.  It didn't seem like very far on the way out since we meandered and picked berries.  It took awhile to get back and involved hills that hadn't seemed like much on the way down.  When we got back Evie and I wanted to head for the beach to walk some more.  While I was in the bathroom she got distracted by the rowboat on the lawn.  The vote was unanimous to sit there and enjoy the sun while we could.  David, Natalie and Thorsten worked their way up to us from the beach.  Natalie and Thorsten had been trying to get a picture of a fish jumping while David trash talked.  While we chatted we lost the sun so I convinced Evie to head to the beach for a walk.  It didn't take long before she was cold and hungry so headed in.  I turned and headed for the spit.  Ulli and Renee were headed my way so I waited for them.  Along the way we saw a bald eagle in a tree above us.  A bit later we saw it move into a tree near by.  Ulli had seen juveniles earlier so we started watching for them.  Down the beach a ways we found three juveniles lined up in a tree.  As we walked past, one moved into the nest.  I have some photos, but since they match the nest it's hard to see them.  We went a bit further before turning around for dinner.

What a delicious dinner.  We had salmon, a broccoli egg casserole, potatoes, salad and bread.  For dessert we had a yummy rhubarb cake.  Some of us had a manners discussion at lunch so they laughed when David requested the pepper and I also gave him the salt.  We had to explain that was one of those things we had been taught as kids, that they get passed together.

Earlier today we ended up playing musical tents.  Evie and I had dumped our stuff in the 4 person tent near the beach.  Ulli had put hers in the 3 person tent.  When the fishing group showed up both Renee and Mary put their stuff in the 3 person tent.  I never did see the tent but it sounded like 3 was really a crowd.  Ulli ended up bringing her stuff back to the 4 person tent to hang out with me and Evie.

After dinner we enjoyed the main room.  Some people were on laptops, others chilled and Thorsten beat Mary repeatedly at chess.  We also got two great quotes from our wall from Thorsten.  My favorite was when he said, "If I zoom (his camera) and you zoom on my display and Renee zooms on your display, then maybe we can see Russia."  It was also entertaining to see David rocking out to the heavy metal someone pulled up on their phone while wearing a granny blanket on his lap.  We had a nice, relaxing evening.  Tomorrow is kayaking.  Praying the weather is gorgeous again.

View from our tent

Evie enjoying some sun in the rowboat

Day 15-
I finally slept past 3:30am.  I didn't make it to the alarm but it was an improvement.  I love sleeping in a platform tent.  It was cloudy when we got up but seemed like it would be okay for kayaking.  Evie and I finally dragged ourselves out of bed about 20 minutes before breakfast.  We had fruit, cereal, toast and hard boiled eggs.  It was all yummy and filling for our active morning.  Before we left I "killed" Thorsten by giving him bug spray  while he was eating.  I had gotten my bottle of spray back from Ulli for a few minutes and put on a drop while telling him that I was getting eaten so he might need some.  I think it was too early for him to be thinking about whether I was up to something.  Now it's just me and Natalie left in the game.  I have to kill her with a cup or glass in the back locker of the truck.  So I have a day to figure out how to do that.  Renee had such a look of glee when she saw me walk in with the bug spray this morning.  We had discussed yesterday what I had to do to get Thorsten.  So now I refuse to tell anyone how I have to get Natalie.

At nine we met Kyle out at the boathouse to get gear.  Evie decided to partner up with Renee this time.  I immediately turned around and asked Natalie to be my partner (she had been Renee's canoe buddy).  That left David and Ulli together again and Mary with Thorsten.  Mary Jane also joined us for our kayak adventure.  All three days that involved paddle trips it has been fun to watch David and Ulli as partners.  He sits in the back to steer and she does the majority of the paddling.  And they still are ahead of most of us.  Doing most of the work does not seem to bother Ulli.  I think it keeps her from going crazy if we are going too slow.  It was drizzling as we left but not too bad.  We followed the shoreline for a bit before they made a decision on where to go next.  Mary Jane was telling us about the Marine Bio class at the NOAA facility we kayaked past that is for high school teachers.  It is offered by UofA Fairbanks.  I definitely have to tell Nora (my favorite h.s. science teacher with a marine bio degree) about that and the organization Renee will work with in Indonesia.

After that they decided that since it was calm on the bay that we would cut across the bay to an island 3 miles away.  Going across didn't seem so bad and went quickly.  When we reached the other side the end of the island was a high rock wall with red rock worked through it.  We worked around that end of the island enjoying eagle sightings, sea otters and coves with cave cut outs.  It was starting to rain again so we opted to take a quick pee break and head back to camp for lunch.  (Side note, we had packed our lunch along with us and it was stored in the kayak with me and Natalie.  Made things seem heavier on the way back.)  We pulled up on a beach and went to find a tree.  Natalie and I were back in our kayak quickly, but had to wait for the others.  I opted for my green windbreaker today, which was very wet, but at least this trip I was mostly warm.  We worked our way around the whole island before we could cut back across toward camp.  It was raining a bit harder but not a downpour.  Getting back seemed to take way longer than going over.  Isn't that always the way?  Natalie and I had a nice chat with Kyle.  I had him point out which dot on the shore was our goal.  Turned out the easiest thing to spot was our tent near shore.  We asked how long our total kayak trip would have been and Kyle decided 9+ miles.  We rounded it up to 10 miles.

Fun kayak trip

When we returned to shore and had taken our gear up I ran for dry clothes in our tent before lunch.  The bottom half of my layers were mostly dry, but the top half was soaked like in Valdez.  Lunch was salmon salad sandwiches, very yummy.  After lunch five of us headed into Seldovia for a bit.  This involved us climbing that hill up to the road again.  Killer work out.  Kyle drove us into town and showed us the highlights before letting us out at the historic boardwalk.  There is only a small portion left after the 1964 earthquake.  From there we walked over to the Native Association Visitor Center that has a small museum.  It had some interesting displays about the history of the area, people, marine life, etc.  It also talked about the 1964 earthquake and how much they lost from that.  I really enjoyed the display of native dolls.  By the time I finished in there I had lost the rest of the group.  I wandered past the little craft market and headed toward Tribal Cache at the other end of the town.  I couldn't resist buying some salmonberry jelly, fireweed jelly and some postcards.  I'm a little nervous about the fireweed since that is a flower.  The young man working there said they were good.  He was chatty and funny.  Guessing he is still in high school.  Kyle told us that K-12 has 40 students.  I can't imagine a school that small.  From there I walked back toward the middle of town snapping some photos on the way.  Everyone else was already at Perry's Cafe.  I ordered a drink to take with me as we headed back to camp.

Seldovia view from the boardwalk

Natalie was nice enough to let me use her laptop to check email when we got back.  I had over 300 to clean out.  There was some good news that I had received a scholarship to cover registration for the NACWAA Convention in San Diego this October.  Everyone from my IAA class last year in Denver was emailing about meeting up for dinner when we got to San Diego.  I'm glad I can go this year.  After checking emails I went over to check Facebook.  That's when I got a shock.  One of my closest friends from college had a status about her mom passing away during the Perseid meteor showers.  She decided that her Mom had ridden a shooting star to heaven where she was met by loved ones with a cocktail party.  Now every August we can wave as the meteor shower passes.  It was a lovely way to put it, but hard to find out that my New York Mom was no longer with us.  I met my friend and her family on move in day freshman year at Towson University.  Over the next four years they became my East Coast family.  There were quite a few weekends or holidays during those years when they took me in.  I have been fortunate to find myself on Long Island the past two summers to visit with my New York family.  I am even more grateful now that I had that time with them.  Future visits won't be the same without my New York Mom.  I finished up online and went back to the tent to call my friend.  I was not much good in being supportive, I ended up a crying mess as soon as she answered the phone.  She held it together better than I did.  She had sent me a Facebook email shortly after I got to Alaska telling me to call when I got home since the news about the tests had not been good.  I didn't see it until today after I saw her status.  I was told you could see her Mom decline by the hour after the test results came back.  She had passed away Monday morning and the funeral was Wednesday since Thursday was a Holy Day.  We chatted and cried for awhile before she had to go.  I was amazed that my friend hadn't wanted to call and leave me the news while I was in Alaska alone.  Here I wanted to be supportive of her and she was taking care of me.  I never thought to consider myself alone since I had made such great friends on this trip.

I managed to get myself back to the main building for dinner without letting on to what had happened.  I was still trying to process everything.  Dinner was delicious again.  We had chicken with artichokes, rhubarb chutney, cooked veggies, bread and Spanish rice.  For dessert we had a spice cake that was divine.  We sat around the table chatting for awhile afterward.  It was nice to be full, warm and relaxed.  When I moved into the main room David came by and I asked for a hug.  He knew something was wrong so I told him the news.  After giving me a big hug he sat down and talked to me for a bit.  I am definitely not alone on this trip, I have old friends and new friends around me.

Tonight we all picked out one favorite photo from the trip and Natalie posted them as a contest on Facebook.  I chose my kayak photo, Thorsten submitted an eagle shot, Evie used her sea lions on the buoy, Renee gave a glacier hike photo, Mary's was of sunlight over a lake and Ulli opted to use her sunset photo from MacLaren.  It was fun with all the debate on which one we should use.  Some of the group members have been playing games at the table while the rest of us lounged around relaxing or writing.  Tony made us popcorn which was perfect.  I really love this stop just for a chance to chill.  I think everyone needs to stop here for a visit with Tony and Mary Jane.

Thorsten trying for another jumping fish shot

Tomorrow is our last full day before the trip ends Sunday.  We lose Ulli when we get back to Homer.  She is off to McNeill to spend 3 or 4 days viewing the bears up close.  We are all a little jealous and sad to see her go.  She won a lottery to have this opportunity.  It sounds amazing.  Tomorrow is also Renee's birthday.  I believe we will do lots of celebrating.