"If you don't like Lee Greenwood, you don't like freedom!"

Once again, slacking on the blog. Besides work work and more work here at the Lodge, I have gotten away a day or two to do some more fishing and some camping. I went down to Homer again (one of the most beautiful places in Alaska I’ve seen so far) for my third trip with some people and drove out East End road. It’s about a two hour drive out and back and winds through a forest right on the edge of the inlet. There had just been a wild fire so for a couple mile stretch all the trees were brown from being burned- it was actually really pretty. In general the drive is gorgeous- with Kachemak bay in front of snow peaked mountains and green trees to frame the view. There are Russian villages all down the road which are pretty interesting and mostly self-sufficient. We also went to a delicious bakery for breakfast and stopped at the Pratt Museum on the way out of town. In the museum they had a TV screen with a live feed of bears from Mcneil River. There is a park ranger controlling the camera to catch shots of the bears fishing in the river. And as boring as that sounds, it hypnotizes me. I stood in the museum staring at the screen for 10 minutes just watching a bear standing in rushing water. He never caught anything, but the possibility that he might kept me glued there. Apparently the same feed used to run on channel 3 cable in Alaska. You’d turn on channel 3, pop open a beer, and space out- only with an occasional “YEAH HE GOT A SALMON!! YOU GO BEAR!” outburst. It’s a good thing they don’t run that channel anymore. I’d never get any work done.

I also went on a fly fishing excursion up to the Russian River with the same peeps. The Russian River is pretty close to being bear country but we didn’t see a single one the entire time we were there. We didn’t catch a fish either. Well actually someone did, but it wasn’t me- one of the guys caught a fish while I caught a rock. When he traded me rods to get my line unstuck and replace my hook, the fish on his rod that I was holding decided to swim downstream and escape… Not only did I snag an inanimate object and make him stop to fix my situation, I cost us what would have been our only lonely fish of the day. Oops. He said it’s a good thing I’m so cute I can get away with things like that. I had a ton of fun though haha There actually weren’t that many fish in the river anyway so we kind of gave up and took a hike up to the falls. There were hundreds of red salmon sitting in pools taking a rest before their charge up the gigantic rocks and rapids. There is a manmade tunnel that runs up the side of the river to make it easy for the fish to swim to the top. Not all were so bright as to actually use it. We saw a few trying to jump up over the rocks through the falls and it was really neat and pretty impressive how much power and how little brains they have.

The 4^th of July wasn’t quite the same here in Alaska. There are no fireworks as it never gets dark, and the 4^th doesn’t feel like the 4^th without some explosives. But we made up for it on a camping trip in Granite Creek listening to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” on repeat while linking arms and swaying. Cheesy- but it worked.

We’ve been having awesome weather here lately- high 70’s, never any humidity. I actually broke out the shorts yesterday, and felt a little naked but it almost felt like a real summer which was pretty cool. Last summer in Alaska was apparently cold and rainy 98% of the time so I guess I brought the sunshine with me this season. It’s hard to believe I have less than a month left up here. Still so much to do! Although you could probably spend a lifetime in Alaska and never do everything there is to do, I can still try.