Goin to the Big Waters

I have been getting all sorts of grief for the delay in posting these photos. Never mind the fact that I've been out of town without much in the way of internet access, that the person giving me the grief took the photos but can't post them himself, nor has he composed any sort of commentary to explain what the heck you're looking at. Well, here ya go. My part of the job is done! So there!

Ok, knowing that you probably won't get that commentary any time soon, I suppose I can tell you that these pictures are from John's trip to the outer coast a few weeks ago. Although Juneau is on the coast, we're set on the inside of the, wait for it... "Inside Passage," aka the Alexander Archipelago. This trip is, to me, the epitome of why we will probably never move from Juneau. John has lived here for somewhere around 15 years (I will not mention that I was only mid-way through high school 15 years ago) and this was his first fishing trip out to the coast. I'm sure it will not be the last and I think he was considering it an exploratory mission for next time. I find that the longer we're here, and the more new places we visit, the longer our "To Do" list becomes. I honestly don't think that we'll ever be able to do and see everything we'd like. But we can try!!

4th of July

When we last checked in, we were getting ready to head out on a 4th of July adventure. And oh what an adventure it was!

To digress just a little, last year we were the lucky recipients of several gift certificates for one of the local small airlines with float plane service all over Southeast Alaska. I think Andrew had heard me complain enough about the guys always flying to cool places without me, so now John had no excuse to not take me!! We asked Dave and Colleen, a couple of teachers with very flexible summer schedules, to join us. Last year we flew out to Young's Lake on Admiralty Island (the closest USFS cabin that we could get to by air only, so as to maximize our flight moola) on Thursday evening after work and proceeded to do just about nothing for 4 days. Somehow the fireworks fairies even managed to leave us a nice stash of toys to light up the skies for a few minutes on the 4th.

Our plan to maximize our gift certificates definitely paid off because we still had some credit left over after last summer's trip, although not much so we chose to return to Young's Lake. I think I probably asked Colleen if they were game for Round 2 sometime back in December because I couldn't stop thinking about how much fun we had on the first trip. This time, my normal Friday off fell on the 3rd which was also the State holiday, so I got to take Thursday as well. This meant we could leave right after work on Wednesday and really make the most of our time away.


Last year, the first evening we arrived, Colleen and I stayed awake until a respectable midnight or so. The guys, on the other hand, finally drew themselves away from the camp fire and stumbled into the cabin as the sun was coming up around 3am. The last thing I remember hearing before heading to bed the first night on this year's trip was Dave saying, "There's no way I'm making it til 3 am this year." But Dave is no quitter. Not only did he make it to 3 am, he and John found the energy to take the boat out at about 3am for some early morning fishing. They came back and fell into bed around 730 am. New record!! Of course, that also meant that they spent most of the following day sleeping, but considering we had no agenda and the nighttime hours are more like constant dusk than dark, I'm not really certain it mattered too much.


The rest of our weekend was filled with hot weather (hot enough that I went swimming, but only in the shallowest part of the lake!), blazing campfires, too much food, great company, a bit of spin casting and a bit more fly fishing. Oh yeah, we also had an awesome 4th celebration. Dave and Colleen just returned from a 3 week camping trip up north. On the way home they stopped in Haines and picked up a huge box of fireworks (which you can't buy in Juneau). This year's show was even better than lasts. And John only lit his shirt on fire once.


It was tough to leave when the float plane showed up on Sunday afternoon, but all in all, it was again one of the best weekends of the summer. I think next year we'll aim for a new locale but other than that, I hope very little changes.

After These Messages, We'll Be Right Back

Does anyone else remember that sing-songy phrase from Saturday morning cartoons a million years ago? Hmmm, maybe it's just me.

So we'd like to take this short break to tell you...

First we were here, then we were both gone, then we were back and then I was gone. I got back and John left; John came home and I left. Now we're both here and we're both about to leave. Together. With some friends too.

There's not enough time to do it now, but I'd like to share a little about my trip to Anchorage last weekend and I'm hoping some of the folks I was with send me photos to share with you since I forgot my camera.

I also know we'll have some stuff to share when we get back after the long weekend.
Here's hoping you have a safe and exciting 4th of July weekend. We'll touch base again when we get back into WiFi range.

And now, back to... ahhh, whatever it was you were doing before.

Hey There! Remember Us?

Over the past few years I've truly felt time speeding up. Every year seems to fly by faster than the last. Unfortunately, the number of days between our blog posts only serves as further proof that what feels like a short moment in time is more like a month or two. I'll try to catch ya'll up on the highlights of our last month.

Last fall my younger sister, Suzi, got married in Spain. Knowing that most of her family and friends wouldn't be able to go, they planned to have a reception in the states this summer. Because her husband, Jeff, grew up in Philly and we grew up in Spokane, the plan evolved into hosting what I refer to as bi-coastal wedding receptions. To allow for travel and maximization of time together, each party was planned around a three day weekend this summer. When they started making plans we let them know that we were unavailable for the 4th of July weekend (more to come on the reason for that), and I'm not sure they were really taking us into consideration but they did plan for Philly over Memorial Day weekend and Spokane for Labor Day weekend.

Philly happens to be one spot that is tough for us to get into. Tickets run around $700-800 and because Alaska Airlines doesn't fly in there, we either have to pay full price, cash in miles, or fly to a relatively nearby location that AK does fly to (Boston, DC or Newark) and then drive. This go round we cashed in miles and the only seats available were first class (darn it!). Our plan was to fly to Seattle first thing Friday morning, catch a connection to Salt Lake, meet my parents there and fly on to Philly, arriving around midnight. This would give us a shot as a decent night's sleep before helping set up for and then enjoying the reception. Unfortunately, even the best laid plans can go awry.

We made it to Seattle just fine, but after walking from the far end of the C terminal at SeaTac to the far end of the A terminal, we heard the announcement that our flight to Salt Lake would be about 5 hours late. Not to worry - we'd all been rebooked. Right. Simple math made it pretty obvious that even if we got right on a connecting flight when our delayed flight finally reached SLC, we'd reach Philly no sooner than about 6am. Our prospects turned out to be not even that good. We were told that we'd been rebooked and would arrive in Philly at 6pm on Saturday. The reception started at 4pm. Not gonna work. I heard an announcement that there was a flight leaving soon for DC that could accommodate folks who were trying to get to Baltimore. I'm sure you know this - DC is much closer to Philly than Seattle or even Salt Lake. I hopped in that line and got us on the flight to DC with the thought that we could drive to DC if need be. Fortunately, the agent found us a 6am flight to Philly instead and they offered to put us in a hotel for the night. So off we ran - to the North Satellite.

I won't go into all the gory details, but needless to say, we were not in first class anymore. We had 2 middle seats, one right behind the other. All of our luggage was tagged to Philly via DC, but 2 pieces came off on the carousel so we spent an extra hour trying to figure out what was up with that. We waited a hour for our hotel shuttle and another good long time for someone at the hotel to figure out how to use the airline voucher. After a nice 3 hour nap, we were back at the airport for our flight to Philly. The little commuter flights don't pull up to a terminal so we were shuttled out by bus; only they couldn't figure out which plane they wanted us on. The bus did circles around the planes, they let us off at one, put us back on the bus and drove us 30 feet to another. Luckily, the sunrise was beautiful so we had something to be thankful for during the wait.

The part that makes me laugh now, but baffled me at the time, was our luggage situation. We had checked 3 boxes of frozen fish and one little suitcase. In DC, one fish box and the suitcase came off on the carousel. I decided to pull out all my party clothes from the suitcase and put them in a carry on, just in case. John poo-pahed me, but sure enough, when we got to Philly we had only 1 fish box show up. The fish boxes were delivered mid-party on Saturday and my suitcase at about 11pm that evening. Apparently the suitcase made a side trip to Phoenix during the day. Luckily the fish had been well frozen and packed tight so most of it was still partially frozen and nothing was ruined.

After all the chaos of travel, we spent a terrific weekend with my family trying to empty kegs and refrigerators while enjoying the balmy spring weather in the backyard of my sister's in-laws. The trip home went as planned and we appreciated those first class seats all the more for the experience on the way over.

By far my favorite part of the weekend was when we pulled out the Alaskan delicacies. Renee's (Suzi's mother-in-law) family also stayed for most of the weekend. Sunday morning Jeff's (Suzi's husband) cousin brought bags and bags of bagels which we smothered in cream cheese and John's smoked salmon. I can hardly believe how much salmon we went through but everyone seemed to enjoy it. As the day wore on, we nibbled on left overs and worked on the kegs. By about 4pm, a real meal seemed like a good idea. We broke out the fish boxes and pulled out some dunginess crab, shrimp and king salmon. John bbq'ed two full king salmon fillets while I boiled shrimp and crab. You would think that no one had eaten in weeks. I could barely get the shrimp out of the boiling water before I was swarmed. I know people had singed fingers and burned tongues, but no one seemed to care. I knows at least one person, who shall remain nameless, ate an entire shrimp, shell and all (all I can think is, "that one's gonna hurt in the morning!"). It was total seafood mayhem and I loved it! Suzi made the comment that everyone was high on seafood and I think she was right. I wish we had photos!

Two weeks after Philly, I made a quick trip to Seattle to go camping with my best pal, Sharon. We had a really great time hiking and touring around, plus just hanging out at a campfire is about as good as it gets in my book. My folks were in the neighborhood for wedding, so they joined us for one day of wine tasting and camping which was sort of the icing on the cake.

Yes, Sharon is taller than me (isn't everyone?). Not that much taller though!

Right after I got back from Seattle, John took off for a week of fishing with his buddies on the outer coast. I'm going to let him (or make him) tell you about his trip since my version would be something like.... he left, he fished, he came back and the house was clean the whole time he was gone.

In the time between our trips, I've been playing some golf. We "golfed" a few times at an amazing municipal course on Kauai a couple years ago (the view made up for my score), once in town last summer and once on Whidbey Island last fall. I say "golf" because what I had going was nothing akin to true golf. My goal this summer is to go from hideous to horrible and then work my way up from there. There is a ladies league on Thursday nights and I've conned a couple of my hockey friends to join me. Our first time out they let us all play as a group and it was a best ball scramble night so our score was decent (keep in mind that our course is 9 holes, Par 3). We decided to meet up the following Sunday to try a real game and we limited ourselves to 10 strokes per hole. After that game, my goal became finishing the course under 60. When we showed up for Thursday league, they informed us newbies that they limit players to 6 strokes per hole to keep everyone moving. Well look at that! I had achieved my goal without even teeing off! Since then I've been consistently terrible with a score of 53 (that means one double bogey, maybe a couple triple bogeys and the majority cut off at 6 strokes). Each week there is a different twist on the game - only score the odd holes (in which my best plays are on the even holes), one club (6 iron was NOT a wise choice), closest to the pin (on the drive? not gonna win that one!). I hear one of the nights will be most holes with the same score. I'm thinking that category's got my name all over it (6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6). This Thursday was my best so far; I scored a 49 - 2 bogeys (4), 1 double bogey (5) and a handful of honest triple bogeys (6). Unfortunately, I played in a fundraiser on Friday night and I just quit counting strokes because it was so bad.

We've also gotten a little fishing wedged in there along the way. Here are some photos from a couple weekends ago. The little guy is our 2 1/2 year old neighbor, Luke. I think he would have climbed into the cooler with the fish if we'd let him

There's actually 3 fish there. Mine is the largest though :)

So, next up for me is a quick trip to Anchorage to help put on the Stockholm Junior Water Prize national science fair competition. It will also give me an opportunity to spend a little time with my cousins, Craig and Holland, while I'm there. Immediately after that we're flying out to a USFS cabin on Young Lake on Admiralty Island for the long 4th of July weekend. We should have some great photos and stories to share after that trip!

Until next time, we'll be fishing you were here!

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

It's been a while and I'd like to say that we've been incredibly busy slaying fish and raking in the shellfish. I try to keep the tall tales to a minimum though.

In all honesty, we've had amazing window for spring time in Juneau so we have been making the most of it. The Spring King Salmon Derby runs for the entire month of May and as long as I've known him, John has made a habit of getting up at hideous hours and hitting the water with the rising sun. In return, I have a habit of putting a pillow over my head and rolling over when I hear the alarm at 4am. Many recent evenings we've raced home, changed clothes, grabbed dinner and headed out to the boat launch. Clear skies and flat calm waters make for a nice evening, even if the fish don't bite.

The Good

Last Tuesday was just such a beautiful evening. After a quick dinner, we loaded up the boat and drove the 2 miles to the boat launch. For some reason, the harbor department didn't put all of the floats in this year, so the ramp is miserable at low tides, not to mention if there is more than one boat coming or going at the same time. John didn't have the patience to wait for all the yahoos to clear out, so he decided to launch from he beach adjacent to the ramp. Rather than backing up through the entire parking lot and past the ramp, he carefully turned a tight u-turn at the far end of the parking lot. Just as he finished the turn, he jumped out of the cab to investigate a suspicious noise. My first thought was that perhaps we left the motor down and the lower unit or the prop was scraping the pavement. Little did I know it was probably even worse -(Here comes The Bad) a broken axle on the trailer. Thank goodness its a double axle trailer. And that we weren't driving down the highway when it broke.

After staring at each other for a few minutes and looking closely at the axle as if it might miraculously fix itself, we both came to the same conclusion - the boat had to come off the trailer. So, John limped it down to the beach, blowing out the right rear tire in the process. With the most immediate issue resolved, we made a plan for John to take the boat over to the harbor at Auke Bay while I drove around to pick him up. Only problem was, John was not going to leave the trailer in the parking lot and there was no way I was going to drive the trailer home with a broken axle and flat tire. Another thing to be thankful for that evening - we live only 2 miles from the launch ramp.

While I waited for John, my job was to hold the boat's line and make sure it didn't float away or turn sideways to the beach from the current. As I sat on the beach waiting, I struck up a conversation with a gal originally from Japan, most recently of Lake Tahoe, on her way to her summer job as a waitress in Wrangell Saint Elias National Park. Turns out the waitressing job is really a way to get up to Alaska so she can take photos which she will hopefully then sell to travel magazines. She asked if I would mind her taking photos of me and the boat (she kept saying I made a great model - like I could say no to that!). Who knows, maybe our toy will end up famous some day. Here are some of the pictures she sent to us the next day.

By the time John dropped off the trailer and got back to the boat launch, it was about 8pm. We swapped out and both headed to Auke Bay. For him it was a 5 mile boat ride; for me it was a 20 mile drive. John tied the boat up and we drove halfway back to town to pick up his buddy Tom's trailer and then back to the harbor. You'll never believe this, but turns out the boat doesn't really fit on Tom's trailer. So, after several tense moments, and many silent prayers on my part that we would not become the people who dump their expensive boat on the boat launch, back in the water it went for a night in transient moorage. By now it was 10pm and I was ready to hit the hay so we headed home, towing Tom's trailer so that we wouldn't wake his kids by returning it in the dark.

We both have a talent for hunting down bargains, in fact, John found the boat on Craig's list for a steal. So, I wasn't terribly surprised when he called me the following morning to report that he had found a great deal on a new trailer but that we'd have to decide fast because someone was bound to snatch it up quickly. I was a bit surprised that we were talking replacement trailer, because the night before we had discussed getting a slip at the Douglas harbor for a month while we figured out how to replace both the broken axle and the other one that was bound to break soon too. That was before I'd heard what Paul Harvey always called The Rest of the Story.

A friend of ours occasionally parks some of his heavy equipment in our driveway overnight when they are working nearby and don't want to leave the equipment on site and available to vandals. While we were playing around with the boat and Tom's trailer in Auke Bay, a loader ended up in our driveway. The following morning, one of his guys came to pick it up and somehow didn't take notice of the trailer. Until he backed over it. Now we don't have to wait to find out when the second axle is going to break.

The Ugly

So, now we have a trailer with two broken axles and a new trailer.

The good news is that the fish are starting to bite and John's early morning rod hours are starting to pay off. There's just nothing quite as delicious as the first king fillet of the year hot off the barby. Except for maybe the second... Hopefully more to come soon.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Well, it's official. No more hockey for us until the fall. Unless you count Stanley Cup playoffs and since the Bruins are actually playing well, I expect we'll be watching Versus quite a bit between now and early June.

John has a strong will than I and retired for the season several weeks ago. I suppose that also had to do with his somewhat lame teammate threatening other players with lawsuits if they looked at him wrong and the refs sending his best pal home for 5 games for fighting (sort of). Oh yeah, and then there's the call of the boat. Must be like dog whistles where only men can hear that particular frequency. I on the other hand held on as long as I could, went to another fun tourney in Anchorage and played as much as I could until there was no more hockey left to play.

So now we're moving on to the other addictions... fishing, fishing and more fishing. My little sister Suzi is having bi-coastal wedding receptions - Philly in May, Spokane in September - and we're hoping to bring a haul of Alaska's finest seafood with us. Guess that means we need to start hunting and gathering to make that May deadline. Luckily the salmon regs are pretty liberal this spring with 3 kings allowed a piece and 2 rods per person through the end of June. If we can't get a few fish under those circumstances, we're in trouble!

In other news, the sun has been kind enough to grace us with its presence quite a bit in the past few days. Speaking of grace, our next door neighbors welcomed their beautiful baby girl, Katharine Grace (Kate), almost 4 weeks ago and my cousin Christa has a month or so to go before her son arrives. We are so lucky to have friends and family with great kids for us to share (and then send home). Seriously, it must be great to have your own kids, but to have a 2 year old say "I love you" all on his own and he doesn't even belong to you - that is pretty cool too! And of course, I love them dearly too (John does too, but he'd never admit it!).

So, for now, no new photos and not much to report, but the snow is slowly melting from the yard, the crocuses are blooming and the boat is ready to hit the water. There's bound to be good stuff coming our way and we'll be sure to share them with you as we go.

I Think I'm in Love All Over Again

Last fall when we visited Munich during Oktoberfest, most everyone was ordering massive steins (mass) of lagers, but I was in hefeweizen heaven. For the past few years, my beer of choice has been Blue Moon Belgian Wheat Ale. Many a Saturday nights after hockey, the ladies and I have stopped by the Pub for a Blue Moon garnished with a slice of orange. Lately it seems like Blue Moon is become more widely available on tap, which, as Martha would say, is a good thing. But I think I may be ready to move on to something new and not necessarily so different.

Today, the Alaskan Brewery released its newest year-round brew... Alaskan White. Same basic idea as Blue Moon... wheat ale seasoned with coriander (aka cilantro) and citrus (the reason it tastes so good with the orange slice). I had heard it was coming and meant to pick some up the other day when we were out near the brewery, but realized half way home that we'd forgotten to stop. It was a tragic moment and I almost made John turn around and drive all the way back. Today he surprised me by bringing home a 12 pack - what a great guy!!!

Apparently the Brewery was planning to start selling the Summer Ale year round, but their distributors liked the novelty of the seasonal style. So instead they decided to go a different route with the White. I also just heard that they've decided to return the ESB (formerly Frontier) to a seasonal brew. Honestly, as long as they keep making the White year round for the rest of my lifetime, I don't really think I care what they do with the others.

I've been a fan of Alaskan since I spent a summer in Girdwood working for the USFS after my first summer in college. I drank so much Amber that summer that I still can't really enjoy it all that much any more. I'm a huge fan of oatmeal stouts and the Alaskan Brewery does a mighty fine job in that arena as well. But with summer coming (or is it already here?), I'm ready for an easy drinking, spice and sweet hef.

Thank you beer gods!

Check out more at http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/040609/loc_426356016.shtml and http://www.alaskanbeer.com/abw.html.