Summer Evening in Anchorage

One of our last evenings before going east . . . and a beautiful one.  We had dinner and spent time on Carl and Diane's deck with Carl's children, Ian and Margot.  Shrimp and salmon, how could you go wrong with that?  It started out as a really nice night, and then the dark clouds began to build.  We had thunder!  First time that I've heard thunder in Anchorage, as it's unusual to have thunderstorms!  It was 71 according to our car thermometer yesterday, which is the warmest that we think we've seen it in Anchorage - we missed most of the summer being east last year, and by the time we were back, it was definitely cooler in August (and rainy!).

Hopefully going to Kakwik after work today for one last time on the boat til August.  Went for a hike yesterday that we'd intended to be longer, up in Prospect Heights.  We didn't get there til 5 but figured we still had at least 7 hours of daylight!  We hiked for about 1/2 hour and it started raining and continued another 15 minutes til we reached the fork for Wolverine Peak.  We wanted to know how far it was from that direction as we'd gone that far from another direction just the week before - they were about the same distance.  At that point it was raining hard, and we hadn't even brought rain gear, so we turned around and hiked back - oh well, 1 1/2 hours isn't NOTHING, it just isn't MUCH!

Getting Ready for the Trip East

Slow weekend Brian says - no pictures of anything, but we took a long, long walk yesterday along Ship Creek, paved trail the whole way, and then watched the fishermen fishing for salmon along the creek when we walked back.  One man had a pretty big salmon he'd caught, probably a King, but most were catching it looked like.   Wikipedia says that Ship Creek is an Alaskan River that flows from the Chugach Mountains into Cook Inlet.  The Anchorage Museum website cites Ship Creek as the site of a "Tent City" in the early 1900s and says "Anchorage was established as a railroad construction camp early in 1915. The Alaska Railroad was being built by the federal government to develop Alaska’s resources, particularly coal. Many construction workers and entrepreneurs first lived in “Tent City” along Ship Creek. In the summer of 1915 a town site was laid out on the bluff above tent city, lots were auctioned off and people built homes and businesses in what is now downtown Anchorage. Between 1920 and 1940 the Alaska Railroad remained the largest local employer and the population slowly built up to about 2000 residents, making Anchorage one of the five largest towns in Alaska. The military (and population) build-up caused by World War II and the Cold War changed Anchorage from a small town to Alaska’s largest city."  


Today we took another walk but stopped to listen to music, have a beer and some salmon chowder in the Town Square, where there is free music every Friday night for the summer from 5-8 pm.  Then we walked along the coastal trail from 5th Ave. and back home before watching Series 2 of the Wallander series (Swedish detective stories, BBC production).  Judy has read all of the books by Henning Mankell about Detective Kurt Wallander, and the movies are good too!  


Lots of packing up and getting ready to go at this point, and Judy's in The Wisdom Course this weekend.  We will be leaving early morning on the 21st, so right at the peak of Summer Solstice.  It's 10:00 pm now and broad daylight, so when our plane takes off at 12:30 am on the 21st, we'll be able to see the view still for an hour or more, maybe longer - it will be light til almost 2 am!  And light again by 4 or so, so not much darkness at all - a lot to get used to!  


See all of you in the east soon, and we'll look forward to it but also look forward to our return to Alaska!  

First Year Dip Netting as Alaska Resident!

Had to make this bigger to make sure you didn't miss the lineup of coolers along the bank here.  This is the drop off point at the Copper River for dip netting (personal use) for Alaska residents.  Sal-mon, sal-mon, sal-mon - it's that time of year! The coolers are there to hold a place in line for the boat shuttle to take you out and drop you off along the cliffs for "your spot" - not quite shoulder to shoulder but closely lined up designated spots along the shore!

First dip netting!  First King salmon for dinner!  First time to the Copper River!  Did we mention how delicious the salmon was cooked on the grill, shared with Mary and Lance downstairs?  By the way, it was Lance that fixed the salmon!  We've kept hearing the king salmon are the best, and it seemed that way tonight!  It turned out the salmon hadn't made it up the river in quite the time they were expected, so instead of the 40 Copper River reds Brian was allowed, he came home with 8, but with a king salmon too, and so did Ben who was there as his fishing partner!  Still better than the two guys just below them who caught NOTHING the whole day.  Now Brian's got the experience and he thinks he'll go back when he comes back from out east.

What else?  We've both been working and getting ready to move out and settle in to upstate NY again for about 5 1/2 weeks.  We hope to sail for two of those on Petrel, across Lake Ontario to the Thousand Islands - I hope Petrel doesn't get jealous that we've put Kakwik on our blog - not even a sailboat, but more practical on Prince William Sound out of Whittier!!

Judy's still finishing up work, Brian has a couple of jobs to complete, and we head out on the Summer Solstice, late late late on the 20th, or early on the 21st -- that'll be cool because it'll still be light as we flyout of town - good views of the mountains, glaciers, etc.

Looking forward to seeing all of our friends on the EAST coast!!  

Memorial Day Weekend in Alaska

Saturday - Prince William Sound on Kakwik - first time that Judy went out.  Brian and our landlord, Lance worked on the boat first (Judy pretty wiped out from week, just wanted to read), rainy day, but we went out to the rookery just to take it out and then drove back - it's about an hour and 15 minutes from our house, and you have to time it to get through the single lane railroad tunnel -- late dinner of salmon cakes and macaroni and cheese with salad -- we're tired of salmon from the freezer, and the runs are about to start for new salmon, so we haven't felt like eating the frozen filets - Judy cooked a couple and made salmon cakes out of them.  She's going to a canning workshop (pressure cooker) on the 13th of June for a refresher on what she learned in "fish camp" last year in Klukwan.

Saturday we did errands, cleaning, Brian worked 1/2 day, and then we went back to the boat and went out for longer this time - still overcast and rainy - picked up the shrimp pots and brought home shrimp for appetizers.

Judy at the helm of Kakwik with Mary Mearig 

New recipe from Lance - shrimp on the grill, Vietnamese style - clip shell over back of shrimp and grill 2 minutes on each side.  Meanwhile, prepare small individual pots with sea salt on one side, ground pepper on the other, lime wedge in between, and a chopstick for each.  When shrimp are done, squeeze lime and mix with salt and pepper, peel and dip shrimp.  Excellent!  Followed by salmon cakes, macaroni and cheese, salad and steak!

Today was finally a sunny day, beautiful - we went for a walk in the morning around the lagoon, and then another walk in the afternoon to Walgreen's for errands!  Then back to the apartment to finish up some work for the weekend, do laundry, you know. all those things you have to do to keep your job and live in your apartment!  We had some great risotto tonight - onion, green pepper and cremini mushrooms - we love risotto!  Oh, I forgot how we started the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc with a glass sitting out on our park bench in the sun about 3:00, which made it easier to finish off the bottle tonight!  Holidays are good!

Not to forget Memorial Day and everyone who has fought, been injured, or lost their life in wars - remembering all of you/them.  Judy has been reading Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky, and just finished today.  It's a novel about Occupied France, written by a Russian Jew, turned Catholic, who had lived in France for maybe 20 years before the Germans invaded, and was married with two children.  She was picked up and transported to a concentration camp in July 1942 and transferred almost immediately to Auschwitz, where she was sent to the gas chamber just 3 days later.  Her husband, frantically trying all diplomatic channels that he could for his wife, who was, after all, a famous and published author, was sent himself several months later, also to Auschwitz, also gassed.  Their two daughters were hidden and moved from place to place ahead of the French and German police, and survived the war.  the oldest, just 11 or 12 at the time, packed her mother's writing when they fled, and only many years later was brave enough to read what she thought was her mother's diary.  Instead it was this novel, which was published in 2006, complete with her notes about the novel she was writing, and the correspondence between her husband and the authorities when she was arrested.

Happy Memorial Day!  Be present to all of the suffering that's gone before us and be a stand for peace in the world!

Spring in Anchorage

Flower pots are hung around the city, leaves have unfurled, but boating can still be chilly, even cold and rainy, with snow-covered mountains still surrounding Prince William Sound in Whittier.  Brian took these pictures last weekend, and it was about the same today as we went down for a few more "repairs."  The hot water works, but the windows leak, and the boat had been sitting for two years out of the water.  Brian and Carl went out with another friend for two nights last weekend for the "maiden voyage" while Judy was at a conference in San Francisco (with Jessica!).  

Kakwik is again a work in progress, and Brian and Carl have done a lot of work already to change an engine, begin to restore some of the woodwork, and work on some of the other systems.

We went down to Whittier today with Lance, our landlord, for a few minor repairs and to spend some time on the boat - went out a short ways but not for long - just to a rookery with thousands of birds on the cliffs surrounding the water.  Notice how much snow there is from some views!  Brian and friends anchored in two different coves last weekend.

We'll go back tomorrow or Monday and go out again - it needs to be cleaned up inside - but maybe we'll pull up some shrimp and grill them off the back of the boat  . . . it's a tough life!  Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

What a Day!

Here is a day in the life of Brian - only in Alaska!

7:15 am - leave to meet Carl to drive to Whittier

7:45 am - driving along Turnagain Arm (Cook Inlet) they see a 4 fit rolling wave that's so strange they finally pull over to watch the bore tide.  Here is an explanation of a bore tide from Wikipedia that actually gives a picture, though it's from 2005, from Upper Cook Inlet, probably almost exactly where Brian was watching it from!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_bore.  He said he'd never seen anything like it, and Carl, who's lived here for 20 years, had never seen one like this one.

8:30 am - Driving through tunnel to Whittier, snowing and raining with gale force winds.  The harbor master says no boats are going out, and it's not possible to move our boat OR to go out and pull up the shrimp.  Started up the engine at least and did some more work on the boat.

11:00 am - Back through the tunnel on the hour.  Saw Dall sheep on the way back on the cliffs, a moose along Potter's Marsh, and then a black bear moseying across the road on the way back up to Carl's, a yearling.  The bear decided to cross the road, part way across decided to go back, then seemed to think, "Well, maybe I'll cross over there after all!"

4:30 pm - Back home -- probably saw some eagles too - pretty common sight now.  The hooligan are coming in (fish) and the eagles hang around for them.

6:00 pm - Judy came home, made dinner, and we watched a new tape that we ordered with Ron James, a standup comedian from Canada.  Then took a walk before coming home to watch The Mentalist!

No more animals on our walk, none other than the usual anyway!  The moose aren't in town anymore - in the winter, we never knew if the moose would be walking right down our sidewalk!

Kakwik is Launched!

It wasn't a pretty day particularly, or a warm day, but there they were in Whittier, Brian and Carl, finishing the bottom paint and launching the boat, leaks and all!  You can look up Whittier for some pretty interesting information, and we've probably told you before, you drive through a 3 mile railroad tunnel, one way traffic (you have to go through on the 1/2 hour from one direction and the hour from the other), to get there.

It was really windy, so they weren't able to move it to the "real dock."  It went from being windy to very nice and back to windy - it happens to be one of the rainiest spots on Prince William Sound, though it hasn't really rained at all in Anchorage in months, save a few drops a week ago or so.  There was some orchestrating to do, as anyone who has ever owned a boat knows, but all was well after a long day.

Too windy to go out and pick up the shrimp pots though -- had to settle for turkey and leftover risotto and asparagus for dinner!  The mountains around this harbor are breathtaking, and you've seen pictures of Prince William Sound on this website too - check out the side pictures!  Hope we get a few trips in on Kakwik before we leave to go out east!