Back Outside after a Writing Workshop and Conference Travel

Memorial Day Weekend- so tempting to just go have fun, but we started the weekend with a workday outside, planting flowers and making a tiny raised bed vegetable garden!  Brian put that together for me, and I planted arugula, spinach, lettuce, basil, and 2 tomato plants.  We aren't here for 4-5 weeks in the summer, but I'd love to have the fresh greens when I am here!

My first time out on Kakwik this year!  Brian has been out several times for shrimp from late April/early May, but we went down to Whittier today, even though it was raining - it rarely rains very hard here.  Lots of shrimp - yay!  A bit on the cool side but always beautiful in its own way.

And a short hike afterwards to Virgin Creek Falls in Girdwood after an excellent late lunch/early dinner at the Silvertip Grill.

There is no shortage of beautiful places here, that is for sure - not as long of a hike as we would have wanted, but a nice place to visit at the end of Timberline Drive in Girdwood.

Mother's Day in Seward

Mother's Day brought together two different silent auction purchases - one for the Alaska Railroad and one for a "Close Encounter with the Puffins" at the Sea Life Center in Seward.  I love riding the train, and we had a great time on this route that divides from the Seward Highway once you are past Portage - so a part of the countryside that you can only access from the train.  Brian took a couple of pictures of this picturesque gorge, but we passed two glaciers, and we could have been taking pictures out the window the entire time.

They have a full dining car, and it is a pleasant way to spend the 4 hour trip each way by having breakfast on the way and dinner on the way home - a surprisingly full menu too!

But the real treat was the puffins - we got a behind the scenes lecture on puffins then were brought in with a feed bucket to feed them individual pieces of herring - and then chopped up hooligan, which we were told was like their dessert!  Each puffin as a name and their own personality, and they told us some of them are really smart and won't eat until the good stuff comes out!

It was really fun.  The puffins were smaller than I expected them to be, and they only just got their spring plumage - in the winter, they are not nearly as colorful!  We found out that they usually mate with the same partner year after year - unless they're unsuccessful, in which case they will often search out a new mate.  They seem to be sad when they don't have a mate and spend a lot of time with the staff.  I recommend it, and the Sea Life Center has other close encounters to offer too!

We had just enough time for a beer and snack at the Seward Brewing Company and to try a "flight" of their beers.  We especially liked the red and the stout.

More Spring Hiking

A funny season in late April/early May - it can still be snowing in the mountains and even down below, but not this year.  Hiking means guessing, "Do I need spikes?"  "How much mud, how much snow?"  Brian's been wanting to hike the Fall Creek Trail along Turnagain Arm, a popular trail, but oddly you don't see many people along the way!  The hiking book says that "like nearly all hikes starting from the Seard Highway, heads uphill without delay."  This is true!  After 1 1/2 miles, you leave the treeline and are out in the open mountains, with gorgeous views!  We ran into snow about 1/2 way up, which made the trip a little slipperier.  The goal was to get to the Falls Creek tarn, and it wasn't obvious where it was.  The elevation gain is 2900 feet and the high point of the trail is 3920 ft.  with a distance of 5 miles.  I sent Lance and Brian up the last bit by themselves, sat on a rock in the sun and meditated in the beauty and stillness.

The next day we did another hike, a little less but still a significant uphill, about 2 hours total, from the top of Basher Road.  What a mud bog!  We had prepared for it though - we were stopping at Carl and Diane's for a glass of wine so we brought clean socks, clean shirts, and we both had pants that had lower leg coverings that zipped off - we were almost fit for company!  I love the hiking that we do this time of year though, messy as it can be.