Another weekend in Anchorage then the week of finals at UAA!

Brian has his last photography class tomorrow (and I don't care what he says, he is going for an A!), and then it's finals week -- he has a final critique of his portfolio, and I have grades to finish up.  The next two months, less than 2 months now, will go quickly as we prepare ourselves to go east for 5 weeks!  Saturday was a catch up day, not the least of which was cleaning the house . . . then a walk downtown, colder than we thought, really biting wind, so not as far as we had intended.  We stopped at Simon & Seaforts, one of our favorite late afternoon/early evening appetizer/wine kind of place that looks out over the water.  What a great afternoon, and then a walk back, settling in for the evening.  A part of me wanted to go see Silver Linings Playbook at the Bearstooth Theatre, but it was showing at 10:15, and we were nearly asleep by then.

We didn't get started as early as we would have liked this morning, but we did finally get out for another hike this afternoon.  We hiked someplace we've never gone, in the same general area along Turnagain Arm, but a trail that starts straight up from the road - pant, pant!  Much heavy breathing on my part, a surprisingly dry trail for about the first 20-30 minutes and then ice and snow that gradually deepened to probably 2 feet or more.  There was a narrow trail that had been tamped down enough with post-holing on the side if you got off-sides! 

Another beautiful afternoon and a steep enough hike that I had enough for the 2 hours that we had to spend -- we met several people on the way down that didn't seem inclined to go that far.  Another couple commented from their perch recovering from the first really steep 1/2 hour that you got to see how much weight you gained over the winter!  You'd think it would get easier! 

Brian has been working on Kakwik getting it ready for motoring on Prince William Sound, and he and Carl did a lot of work on it this winter.  It's just about ready for putting out the shrimp pots, and the lure of fresh shrimp any day now is so tempting!  We can't wait! 

Brian's sister Janet and her husband Fred are coming up to see us just after Memorial Day, and before they leave, I'll be going to a conference in Denver.  By the time I get back on June 8, we'll have less than 2 weeks before we're leaving for New York!  And, we're both flying to Santa Monica to see my daughter Jessica and my sister Christine (in Ojai) for Mother's Day weekend. 

It's light til nearly 10:30 pm now, and it's light when I get up, so we're entering that time when I don't see it dark unless I wake up really, really early!  It's pretty different to head into this time when it's light all of the time . . . and the bears are waking up -- it's official, there have been several sightings now.  We saw a park services guy today who said he saw a black bear at Rainbow, close to where we've been hiking the last two weekends, and our friends had a black bear at their house.  Grizzlies have been sighted too, but not close by that we've heard yet.  Graduation this next weekend will cut down on our hiking time . . . at least mine!