Roxborough State Park

With the boys off from school, me off from work and Mike out of town it made sense (a lot of sense) to not sit home and listen to the boys fight. We headed south of town to one of Colorado's State Parks. We walked for a few hours and saw lots of weird bugs. Not a bad afternoon according to the boys.

Saturday

Home today. Got Mike to put up the new ski racks I ordered. Would seem the skis have been out in the garage multilpying somehow. Hopefully they won't jump out and trip over my feet when I walk by anymore.

While we were out by the garage we found some weird, large spiders. We had to move them away from the garage since they really weren't ones we wanted to find moving into our living quarters. Turns out they are Orb Web Weaver spiders or Cat-faced spiders which Ben thought very wierd.

Homer

Coastline of the western side of Kenai Peninsula. Accross the bay (to the left) is the first of several volcanos that lie on the other side:

Di and the boys on the beach:

We spent Friday and Saturday in Homer which is on the west side of the Kenai Peninsula. We has a nice drive over, spent some time by the ocean before we arrived. Neither of us thought much of the town of Homer. It's all fishing and tourist which seem to go hand in hand here. It is also expensive...more so then any other town I've been to.

Saturday we time the tide and set out for a well known tidal pool area. We found tons of sea anenomes and a few starfish. Ben slipped off a rock and was wet to his knees and complained about the cold and sand all the way back to the car. We did get sun in the afternoon which was the first opprotunitiy we had to view the mountians across the bay. It is a beaufitul view.

Starfish:

Eagles on the beach:
Eagle prints on the beach:

The lupines are almost in full bloom. The flowers are everywhere, growing in masses along the road sides. It's been cool the whole time we've been here. I've heard in said by the residents in every town we've been to that spring is about 3 weeks late. Just our luck! We have lucked out with the rain holding...we've had overcast days but only one full morning of rain (this morning).
We have a midnight flight out of Anchorage this evening and will be back home in Denver at 7am Monday morning.

Seward

View of Resurrection Bay from our hotel:

Otter that lives by the rocks at the south end of town:

We headed down to the Kenai Peninsula on Tuesday morning. The drive alone the highway was beautiful, Seward (on the eastern side) is surrounded by mountains so the town kinda hangs on a small area of land. There is a great aquarium with native species and sea otters that live in the rocks right off the parking areas.

Di and Michael on the "Alaskan Explorer"

Wednesday we took another boat tour out into Resurrection Bay. This was a bigger boat (about 94'). We did get close to one of the Glaciers but it was a totally different experience then the last trip we took. The waters were colder and so there wasn't as much ice in the water. The glacier was active and there was quiet a bit of calving going on.
We saw a tremendous amount of sea birds nesting...at points there would be so many birds on the rock face it looked like a hive of bees. Both Ben and I loved the puffins...ungainly little fat things that only looked graceful when they were in the water.
We saw Sea lion rookeries, Orca and Humpback whales. We stopped to watch a Mom and baby humpback and when the Mom would dive down the baby would stay up top and play. He would roll over, stick his fins out and swoosh water with his tail and try and breach but with his fins up instead of this head. He wasn't very coordinated but I guess that's how they learn.
We stopped for a Salmon dinner on an island on the way back. The dinner was good and the beach had perfect flat, round stones that the boys spent the majority of their time trying to skip.

The "Alaskan Explorer" docked at Fox Island for dinner:

Thursday we went to Exit Glacier National Park where we could actually walk up and touch a glacier. One of the guide books that if you spend enough time in Alaska you get tired of seeing glaciers but not me. It's kinda like the Eagles that are all over and most people here take them for granted. Mike says the natives in Juneau don't really like the Eagles since they are scavengers and are a nuisance.

Family by Exit Glacier:

Kittywakes nesting:

Sea Lion rookery:

Humpback whale breaching:

Puffins nesting:

Denali National Park

We arrived in Denali about 1:00 (5 hours from Anchorage). We arrived just in time to hit the visitors center and shuttle over to the dog kennels. My biggest surprise was the size of the dogs...they were very leggy and about 100 lbs. The dogs were friendly but were set up in a way that they could seek attention from the public or retreat to their dog houses if they didn't want the attention.

One of the only ways into the park is by park operated shuttle buses. They are basically green and white school buses which were actually pretty comfortable. We had to be at the shuttle stop at 6am Sunday morning but getting their early got us first in line which gave us great viewing seats on the bus. We saw moose within the first 2 miles and then shoe shoe hares (billions of them), fox, ptarmigan, caribou, Dall sheep and a Canadian lynx. Our bus driver was very knowledgeable and entertaining which helped as the ride was 3 hours each way. The day started out sunny and clear and we were able to get a view of Mt.McKinley which is fairly rare. Our bus driver has been driving his route since mid-may and he has only see the peak 2 times.

Mt. McKinley:

Sign that local bear have been eating. This is the third sign the park service has put up and the bears come and rub against the nails at the bottom of the sign.

Bull moose:

We did end up going back into the park (you can drive the first 14 miles) in the evening to try and see more wildlife. We didn't end up seeing much of anything except more rabbits.

Monday morning we headed back to Anchorage. We saw 2 more moose out in the wetlands but it was rainy and overcast so we couldn't see the mountains. The area around Denali was different and interesting but dominated by black spruce which really weren't very attractive trees. Anchorage is a typical city and not very attractive but the mountains that surround the town are spectacular. The remind me of Denver except these rise up much higher and there really aren't any foothills. Of course, the mountains are on the east/north and I find myself turned around and directionally confused most of the time.

Rock Ptarmagin:

Snow Shoe hare:

Douglas Island

Abandoned lookout building at low tide with Alaska's 2 types of birds: Eagles & Sea planes

Another trip over to Douglas Island yesterday. We went to the south end by "dog beach". Yes, dog beach since everyone goes there to let their dogs run. At least I was able to get my dog fix while I was here. This area also was the location of an old gold mine that operated until 1917 when it collapsed and flooded. The kids thought the area looked like a movie set from an Indiana Jones set but they wouldn't go in it as it was "creepy".

Since Juneau is a popular port of call for the cruise ships they are always coming and going. The kids wait to see which ships are new each morning when we drop Mike off for work. There always seem to be 4 in dock and with 8,000 passengers on each ship the town can get pretty congested.

Douglas Island

A walk in the forest

Another rainy day here in Juneau....did I mention that is rains here a lot? And if it's not raining it's cloudy and grey? Well, rain clouds and all the boys drove over the bridge to Douglas Island. It's a 42 mile, narrow island that lies across the channel from Juneau. We hiked through a very pretty temperate rain forest type climate. The boys were concerned about mosquitoes when they got out of the car and say one so I had to break out their bug netting. I did try and convinced them that there weren't any bugs down by the water (there weren't!) but the bug netting didn't come off. Lot's of nice pictures of kids covered in netting. We could hear Eagles in the trees behind the beach but only saw one flying around. It's pretty funny....the eagles are everywhere...you can always find a few off the road hanging out in the tidal river areas.

Boys on "Barnacle Island"

View of Mendenhall Glacier from across the channel

Collector of shells On his path into the sea

What do you do with all those old skis?