Day 15

Today we decided to go fishing. It was so rough out on the boat!! about five feet swells along with the choppiness of a normal day. We didn' t catch anything though... much to our despair. We didn't get any pictures on the boat, seeing as it wouldn't be too exciting to see, what with no fish being caught. So, I guess that it would be counted as being a little boat ride on Ralphie's boat. Check out day 17 for more fishing pics!!! Here are some pictures that we took of around the house, so you can see where all the action takes place :)



Later today we were lounging around the yard, just talking and stuff, when we came across two pheasants. Luckily, someone had their camera with them, so we were able to get some pictures. They were eating the corn that Ralphie puts out for the animals. The Dad pheasant is the big colorful one, the Mom is the smaller one, and they have 3 babies, but we couldn't get any pictures of them because they were hiding in the brush.

Day 14

Ok, so we haven't posted in awhile, but here we go...

Today was the day. That's right. The day that we have all been waiting for...especially Ralphie! You guessed it! THE SPIT RUN!! Deb had the creative idea of taking the dogs :) She and Alexis walked/jogged it with a time of about one hour and 40 minutes. Ralphie, on the other hand, had an astounding time of around 50 minutes! Great Job Ralphie! The race started at the High School parking lot, and went to the end of the spit, it was a 10k!!! Alexis, speaking from experience, thinks that going with hardly any prior training is not a very good idea.. :) Zoe, unfortunately was not able to run it, because of her bum knee.. she tore her ACL in case you didn't already know. She has run it before though, so she knows all about it :) Zoe, Grandma, Ralphie, and Pa-pa (emphasis on the last pa) were all waiting very patiently at the finish line for Alexis and Deb.

After the tiring spit run, we decided that for dinner we were going to have a firepit and cook burgers and hotdogs over it. The food was delicious!!

Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures, seeing as we were having too much fun to remember :) We did, however, decide that we need to put pictures up! So, here are some random pictures that we have taken throughout our trip... Enjoy!

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Here is a picture we took on the roof of an outhouse. Near the outhouse people were filleting fish and the birds were feeding on the scraps. There were tons of them!


We saw this eagle just off the side of the road on our tour with Bailey. The darn eagle wouldn't look at us... I guess he was just camera shy.


Alexis took this shot while we were driving.


Here is a cute picture of some swans that we saw out on Beluga Lake.


In this picture you can see their two babies in the middle :) How cute!


This is also a shot we took on Beluga Lake. These are planes that take people out to go bear watching.


Jess, Deb and Ralphie's kitty cat, decided he wanted a turn on the ATV.


This is a picture of an inch worm that attached itself to Zoe's sweatshirt. There are all sorts of animals here and they are everywhere!!


Here is a shot in Deb's shop. Papa is ooooing and ahhhhing at Deb's masterpiece! Her Show opens on July 3rd at Ptarmigan Arts! Her pieces are amazing!


We just could not walk past this sign without getting this picture. Here, we were in Halibut Cove walking around the boardwalk and this was the sign leading up to the outhouses!


This picture is definitely random... but sweet none-the-less.

Day 13

Day 13. We woke up really early to get to the boat on time. The boat left at eight, and we were on our way for a day of new experiences! As we left the harbor, we saw this "trap" that was filled with sea lions. They were huge! We also saw some islands with many different species of birds.

There were some birds that looked like penguins, sounded like penguins, and even carried their eggs like penguins, but they were not penguins! They were some kind of rare bird species called muirs. The captain of the boat was really nice, he explained everything from the history of the island, to the kinds of animals we saw.

Speaking of animals that we saw, we saw a humpback whale that kept blowing out of her blowhole, some sea lions resting on rocks just off the shores, and a few sea otters and harbor seals along the way. We also saw many dahl porpoises! The amazing thing was, that they were swimming with killer whales. That was the coolest thing that we have ever seen! If you looked out into the water, you would see two to three dahl porpoises speeding along, followed by a slower moving killer whale. Almost like a well choreographed dance.

Then, we had an amazing lunch of a chicken wrap along with a granola bar and some baby carrots. After going along for a while, we came to a glacier. It was huge!! and you could see it rapidly melting before your very eyes! We also saw parts of the glacier falling, and tried to get good pictures of it, but most of them did not come out right. This was the most amazing boat trip ever!!



On our drive back to Homer we saw some people pulled over to the side of the road looking at something. We drove over to where they were and saw what they were looking at. A BEAR! So, basically by the end of this trip we had seen almost all of the possible animals we could see! This trip was AMAZING! Thank you Deb and Ralphie!!!!

Day 12

Today we drove to Seward for a couple of days. When we got there, went to the Sea Life Center first. There was a place in the center that had lots of different types of birds in it, and from downstairs, you could see them dive into the water. There was also a sea lion, he was HUGE!! Unfortunately, he didn't stay out for us to watch him for too long... We also saw some seals swimming laps around the pool. As soon as we got downstairs, right in front of us was a body of a giant squid in a tank. We got a picture of Zoe laying down next to it, it was as big as her!! Then Zoe got some sweet pictures of two fishes, and an underwater picture that came out really good!!



After we went to the Sea Life Center, we ate dinner at Ray's (which was really good), and then we took a hike to Exit Glacier. It wasn't too long, just a couple of miles. When we got to the glacier, Deb and Ralph searched for wildlife. Ralph found two bear and a mountain goat! But they were too far up on the mountain for us to get a picture of. The Glacier was extremely large, and there were signs on the side of the road telling us where it used to be over the last 200 years. Glaciers are constantly moving forward, but it has melted a great distance over the years. We saw moose nuggets on the way up, along with some trees that they had pulled off the bark and branches to munch on. There is also a picture that shows the scratches on the rocks from the glacier moving across them. Ralphie was about to dive into one of the pools of water, but we are glad he didn't. He did not have his helmet with him, and those puddles are not that deep!




We saw this sign on our drive back from the Glacier! :)



After Exit Glacier we went back to the campsite where we left the camper. We decided that it was definitely way too cold to sleep in a tent, and it wouldn't be so comfortable sleeping on the gravel. So, we decided to sleep on the couches in the camper. Here is a picture of us around the campfire we started. While we were out there we saw a family of about six sea lions pass by the shore.