My life has been so wonderful. Too wonderful to have my face stuck in front of a computer. So, I am only sort of sorry for not having written more recently...
The annoying though... SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED! So many things I've wanted to share and post! Arg!!
But, I will put my awesome house stories on hold to let you know how the last two weeks have been. In a word: AMAZING!
While Chad was shipped off to 29 Palms, my dad and I took our, almost-gets-to-be-considered, yearly trip to Alaska! I am not going to do this trip justice with this blog. I am, in fact, only going to dedicate this one post to it... so forgive the lack of details... but hellooooo this blog isn't called "Tara Goes North!"
We took this Alaska salmon plane as a good omen!
Alaska is amazing. It is especially amazing at the end of August, when the tourists have mostly fled and the salmon are abundant! The excuse we use to go at that time, is so my dad can take a shooting class and I... well, I get to go along and make sure the rental car and hotel rooms aren't wasted during the day. After the class is done, we find a cool place to spend a couple days, then grudgingly return to reality.
Let me just start by telling you how amazing the Kenai River is. There is no way I couldn't spend a whole trip here... between the beautiful blue water, the amazing people, the local wildlife, and the running salmon... really... I have a hard time imagining a better place.
Eagle Rock, my favorite fishing spot.
Centennial Park, suggested by 2 different people
In the four days I spent on Kenai's shores I caught a whopping 1 fish and that was on the last day... and that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't woken my dad up early in the morning, to take her fishing on the shore, where my friend saw us, and came and picked us up in his awesome boat! The other 3 days I just had a wonderful time fishing. Casting fun little bright yellow and orange lures. Reeling them in. Casting again. Having random conversations with others on the beach. Taking pictures. Basically, just completely enjoying myself.
Very soon after catching my fish we headed off to Homer! The Halibut Fishing Capital of the World! Where - you guessed it! We fished some more!! We did a good job helping to control (or destroy...) the halibut population! We caught 4 halibut, 4 king salmon, a silver salmon and a pink salmon. It was a ROUGH day at sea... with occasional 5 foot swells.... which made me most sad becasue it made wildlife viewing impossible... which is half the reason I like going on these fishing trips... oh well. WE GOT FISH! Soul soothed.
No, we didn't catch ALL of these, but we did catch about half of them!
We spent the next couple days recovering from our fishing expedition. We recovered with one of my favorite activities: HIKING! Lots of hiking. Oh and coffee. Lots and lots and lots of coffee.
Short hike from our hotel
Glacier!
No moose....
Watermelon berries and high-bush cranberries
Without knowing it, we ended up saving one of the best activities for last: we went to the Alaska State Fair. Holy crap. WOW! What a GREAT fair! There were 3 best parts. First, a whole hall filled with reptiles and not just boring ones, super crazy fun ones too.
Look at this grumpy gus!
Third, HUGE CABBAGES!!! Like wheelbarrow filling cabbages! Like 100 fricken pounds of single cabbages! There was other big stuff too... but the CABBAGES! Hahhahahhah!
If you haven't been to Alaska yet, you really should. You, really, really should. I will be back next year. And the year after that.... and the year after that.... and... and.... yeah. Its that good.
Oh! And did I mention the Northern Lights?! OOOOHHHHH YEAH!!! I went searching for them one night at midnight and there they were! Life bucket list item: CHECK!
Oh! And did I mention the Northern Lights?! OOOOHHHHH YEAH!!! I went searching for them one night at midnight and there they were! Life bucket list item: CHECK!
No comments:
Post a Comment