My New Home

I wanted to post some pictures of my new place. Though I am just temporarily here, it's a home for me. In exchange for house and dog sitting, I get a whole house to enjoy. Up above is a picture out the back deck. On clear days, I am blessed with a beautiful view of Mt. Redoubt and the other mountains across the inlet.


Here is the kitchen and the resident dog, Lincoln in his favorite place. The garbage can looks a little silly on the table, but some furry friends made some poor choices and now it must remain high out of their reach! :)



And here is Lincoln! What a silly looking doggie! His ears always flop this way and that. Him and Oliver are best buds!


Here is an extension of the living room. They have huge windows to show the view of the mountains and all the beautiful colors.



Lastly, here is my bedroom. I am happy to have larger than a twin size for the first time in my life since both dogs decide to curl up with me each night. Still never seems big enough though because they both try to squeeze themselves as close to me as possible no matter what. I'm fortunate to be able to live here and there's much more to it than shows in the picture. I finally get a garage to park in (which makes mornings so much more nicer when you are not scraping ice and snow off the car), there's an indoor hottub, and little workout area too.
Now you all need to come over and visit because there's definitely room for some guests!

Hiking around the peninsula

I have been doing a ton of hiking since I arrived up here and I wanted to put up a few pictures of some stellar hikes. I found a hiking group through MeetUp online and they take me to some awesome places and hikes that I never knew would exist. We also do some regular favorites and even when it's not the best weather, we always have a great time.
The picture above is the Hope Point trail. That's definitely a difficult trail as you are going up, up, up for 2 and a half miles but it offers great views of Anchorage, Cook Inlet, and the surrounding Chugach Mts.


This picture here is from the Weible Mine trail near the Hope cutoff road. I never knew this trail was here, so it's another hidden gem. Very boggy, but leads you to an old mine and a series of pretty lakes.


This picture here is another fabulous hike. Definietly off the beaten path, this is called the Tern/Jerome Lakes Mountain hike. When you are at the intersection of the Sterling and Seward highway, this is the mountain you are staring at while sitting at the stop sign. There is no trail up this mountain so the first 45 minutes or so are some bushwacking through alders and tall grass till you get up to more of the tundra and then up to the ridge. We (or shall I say, Oliver) saw a black bear, picked some late season blueberries, and got some fabulous views from the top. Not your average hike, but a good one to do.


This is taken from the Seven Lakes trail in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge system has a good number of easy to moderate trails that are well traversed and offer some nice views. I didn't get to go the whole way on this trail, but it was such a beautiful day and I am glad I decided to do this one. The lake I am standing by is Hidden Lake.

Lastly, this is another common trail with a little twist. This is the Carter Lake trail. We went up the incline of the normal trail to the lake, but then took a right turn and decided to bushwack up the side of the mountain. We made it about half way to sit and eat some lunch, pick some delicious blueberries, and view the lake from a different perspective. I'm usually a fan of if there is a trail to use, to use it, but it was fun to step where maybe no one has ever been before. I've ton a ton more hikes since all of these so hopefully I will get some more posted as time goes on...

Until next time, cheers!

Byers Lake Camping

Over Labor Day weekend, I took a little roadtrip to a campground called Byers Lake. I found this campground while on a search for a place to stay with good views of Mt. McKinley. Though the weather was not so cooperative, I did take a drive up to the national park where the fall colors were stunning and I could escape the rain. I also stopped at the Denali kennels, a place I cannot remember the last time I went to. It was pretty cute visiting all the sled dogs lounging around. At Byers Lake, I was able to rent a canoe for an overnight and boy did Oliver have quite an experience in a boat for the first time. I had a good time on my few days off and it reminds me how I need to get out camping way more often than I have...

Peterson Bay Field Station

I was offered the opportunity to take a field trip to Peterson Bay Field Station which is located across Kachemak Bay from Homer. We went with McNeil Canyon Elementary School's 6th grade class to do some nature hikes, tide pools, campfires, yummy meals, and marine life discussions. Not only were the tide pooling explorations incredible, but I saw more blueberries then I ever have in my life. I got up early both mornings just to go out and pick them before the kids got up. I think the best part was seeing all the varieties of sea stars. It was definitely an awesome experience and I hope I can get back there on my own time for some more exploration, berry picking, and hiking. Oh, by the way, there was tons and tons and tons of bear poop and one of the pictures was one of the biggest piles I have ever seen in my life!

Driving to Alaska August 2011

I am having some difficulty uploading pictures so I will attempt to do that after all the text.
Next journey was my drive to Alaska to start my 10 month long internship with the Kenai Fish and Wildlife Service. I, with the help of my parents, got my cousin Jeffy to tag along (and my doggie Oliver too!) so I wouldn't be driving 5000 miles alone. We headed out on August 4th and arrived in Alaska 7 days later without a hitch.
It was a beautiful drive as we passed through Chicago, the Badlands, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada, and then even up to Fairbanks just for the heck of it. No car trouble, decent weather, and beautiful sights made for quite a nice trip. I decided however, next time I make this journey, whenever that may be, it's going to last 3 weeks instead of one. There's just too many things we didn't have time for or just drove right by that deserve a visit.

I've been really behind...

So I have been incredibly behind on my blogging on here. Thought I would bring this thing back to life so I have another place to cronicle my adventures other than facebook. Since I have not done an entry since May 2010...not sure where to start. I think I will do some from summer time in Seward and then start documenting the drive back here and my adventures around my new home.

It was definitely a beautiful couple of weeks for the 4th and I decided that made up for all of last summer when it rained, rained, rained.

We did the usual trails, including, but not limited to, Mt. Alice, Mt. Marathon, Flattop Mt., Falls Creek, Caines Head (0vernighter), and Mt. Marathon waterfall. The overnight at Caines Head was very nice and even though we didn't make it out to Fort McGilvray, it was a fun time nonetheless. My next overnight cabin rental will be Lost Lake. Get ready people!

All in all, it was a beautiful time in Seward this summer and the weather did not dissapoint.

CHICAGO

The city of Chicago, Illinois
February 19-21, 2010

So my parents and I took a little weekend trip to visit my sister in Chicago. I had only been there once before and traveling to semi-new places is always a nice adventure for me.

On Saturday, we got our day public transportation passes and started to head into the city to do some sight-seeing.

We first went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I have to admit, that place creeped me out. A lot of the pieces of "art" were so random and out there, I wasn't too impressed. Good thing they saved the better stuff for later on the higher floors. Here are some pictures of the displays.

After the art museum, we traveled around the city and made our way to the Lincoln Park Zoo. I do enjoy a free zoo, even though they always make me sad. Such large animals in such small cages...

After the zoo, we did a bit more traveling and saw the weird "bean" statue. I was a bit mesmerized by this creation and took a lot more pictures then I have on here. We need one of these things in Cleveland/Akron.

For the evening, we had the awesome deep dish pizza for dinner and then headed over to see an improv comedy show called "Whirled News." It was an entertaining weekend and as I say for most big cities, they are always fun to visit but I could NEVER live there...