Propane, Diamond Beach 7-11-10

Today did not go as I had planned, but it turned out better than I thought it would! I had a rough start this morning due to some weird pain in my chest when I breathe waking me up all night, and feeling even worse this morning. Fortunately it goes away a bit with Ibuprofen, so that's what I've been living on today. While waiting for the pain to go away, I talked to George Finnell on the phone about the strange bird I've been trying to figure out since I got here. We went through a list of birds on a really cool website he knew, listening to their calls. We still haven't figured it out, but I guess I'll keep trying!

When the pain was finally subdued, I headed for the stand. After it was all open and ready to go, and I had made two lovely batches of kettle corn (which were bought the minute they were on the table), I had to stop due to running out of propane. Ray told me to take it to get filled, etc... so I loaded the HUGE thing in my car and dragged it to the gas station, where they refused to fill it because it was more than 12 years old. Go figure. So we loaded it back into my car and we are going to swap it out tomorrow in Soldotna.

After that, I went back, completely closed down the stand, and decided to go on a hike Ray had recommended. Eddy and I went down the dirt road and found the trail at the end of it. We headed down the trail (yes, literally down), and eventually got to one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life. It was called Diamond Beach. Eddy and I pretty much had it to ourselves. I sat and wrote in my journal for a while, barefooted on a rock, while Eddy played in the waves. The pictures attached to this are from that beach. It was fantastic. I really needed something like that today.

I haven't been to a beach with crashing waves for a while. This was the highest I've seen the waves since I've been to Alaska. They were actually rolling and crashing on the shore. It was so hypnotic. What a gorgeous day. All the rainy, cloudy days here really make you appreciate days like this.

Slow day, more rain, more Grey's Anatomy 7-10-10

Ok, today wasn't very exciting either. I made kettle corn, not enough people bought it to make the day worthwhile, so I closed slightly early. I rented the next Grey's Anatomy disc, got some chicken tenders at Safeway (a real Safeway, unlike Leadville's ghetto Safeway), and came home. Once again, a rather boring day. I think this will be my last boring day. There's time after work to make any day interesting. I didn't come here for boring days, darn it! :-)

Back to the grind, Grey's Anatomy 7-9-10

This wasn't really an exciting day in any respect. I got up, made kettle corn, came home, and watched a disc of Grey's Anatomy. Yep, that's pretty much it. :-)

The ferry back to Homer, recovering 7-8-10

We woke up in the morning (not much earlier than the previous day) and started packing up to leave. We had slightly lighter packs this time due to having eaten a lot of our food, which was very nice.

As we were getting our bikes ready to go, I let go of mine for a second after Eddy was clipped to the Biker Dog, and he chose that moment to go on his own. He pulled the bike over, which scared the crap out of him, and he got away because he had actually broken a piece off his biker dog. I was less than impressed.

After we rode back to town, we hung out at the little cafe and had lunch for a bit until the ferry was ready to go. We all slept most of the way back on the ferry, staying inside this time for warmth.

When we finally arrived back in Homer, we jumped in the car, took a shower, and went to a Thai restaurant for dinner. We went straight home and watched a movie.

Rain, Camp, Cards, Linwood, A dark and scary bike ride back 7-7-10

We slept in really late this morning. I guess we were tired! We decided that since it was raining we'd just hang out on our beach for a while. It was nice. We played cards, made up a "throw the rock in the pot as many times as you can" game, played some Poker for dog food and cereal "chips," and roasted brats on a little baby campfire. We did all this in our natural dry place that was protected from the rain by some overhanging rocks and trees. It was really nice to have that spot, as everywhere else was very wet.

After a while, we took the bikes and headed back into town. We had dinner at the Mad Fish again (there really weren't many options). This time I wanted to try some fresh seafood, so I had scallops with fettucini Alfredo. It was amazingly good. I never thought I'd like scallops, but they were sensational!

We ended up back at the Linwood, played a couple games of pool (Ray one the first game, and I won the second only because he scratched on the 8 Ball). We threw some darts, which I won 2/3 games, bought sweatshirts that say "Linwood Bar. Drink like a local," and in a very drunken state got on our bikes to ride back to camp in the dark. Ray fell off his bike twice at that point, and I almost did a couple times as well. It was hard to see, and we were a little inebriated, but we made it! I'm pretty sure we crawled into our tent around 3:00am. Ouch...

Oh, and I just thought the bathroom doors of the Linwood were funny enough to take a picture, as you can see above, and apparently this town has something for decorated fire hydrants.

Ferry to Seldovia, Outside Beach, Linwood 7-6-10

We got up early today to finish packing and pick up groceries for our camping trip to Seldovia. Seldovia is a cute little fishing village across the bay that apparently you can't get to other than by ferry or plane. For this reason, I was surprised to find so many vehicles when we did arrive. Anyway, Ray checked in while I searched my bag for the dog leash I bought and thought I'd packed somewhere. We let the dogs run on the beach for a few minutes before heading to the ferry. We were carrying huge backpacks, pushing our bikes, and holding dog leashes (I used a rope and carabiner). For a second it looked like we wouldn't fit on the boat, but they helped us on and we ended up outside in the front, which was exactly where I wanted to be anyway.

The ferry ride was beautiful, as you can see from the pictures. We saw sea otters, lots of seagulls, puffins, tufted puffins, red-faced cormorants, cormorants, clam catchers, magpies, crows, bald eagles, weird diving birds (I don't know the name), and best of all... a HUMPBACK WHALE!! It was so amazing. The whale was a check off my bucket list, but I really want to see some up close. The sea otters were fun to watch too. They floated around eating fish like they didn't have a care in the world. I was almost jealous.

When we got to Seldovia, we put our packs on, got on the bikes, and headed for Outside Beach, which is where we were planning to pitch the tent. Riding bikes with those huge, heavy packs proved to be rather challenging, but we made it eventually. At one point we stopped at a campground thinking it must be ours, but turned out we'd passed the beach entrance and had to go down a rather treacherous path to get to the beach. At one point, I over-compensated when my bike slid and actually fell off, pulled by the weight of the backpack. It had to have been rather comical. I laughed. :-)

The ride was worth it when we saw the beach. It was beautiful. We saw a camper pull away as we were riding down to it, and no one else was there, so we claimed it by putting up the tent and leaving some stuff on the picnic table. We were lucky we got there when we did, as multiple vehicles came driving through to check it out. I'm starting to think Marmot should hire me to pitch their tent in random beautiful places and take pictures of it for their ads. Just a thought.

After Ray hung our food in a tree to keep it away from potential bears, we rode our bikes back to town with the dogs running alongside, and went to a cafe for a sandwich. We then went to the local bar, which is apparently the place to go for locals. It was okay. We had a couple drinks and headed to the Mad Fish for dinner. It was a delicious burger! We rode back to camp and went to bed after a few Reese Cup S'mores. They were an end to a fantastic day.

Day off, catching up 7-5-10

After yesterday, I was so exhausted I decided to take a day off. This wasn't a very exciting day, but it was rather theraputic for me, and for my aching body. I did laundry, took a hot shower, bought rain gear, walked around the spit, had a cup of love (from the coffee shop), walked with Eddy on the beach, re-scheduled our ferry trip to Seldovia, and basically just took it easy.

I woke up wanting to get a glue gun to put things together. There are many ways to psycho-analyze this, but my original idea involves shells and cool rocks, and other such things from the beach. Stupid, maybe, but it sounds like fun, so I also bought a glue gun. I also bought socks. :-)

When I got home and Ray arrived, we re-packed, planned for tomorrow, and watched a movie. It wasn't very exciting, but it was a nice day.