ALASKA {Juneau to Gustavus}

 Really didn't think it would take me this long to post about our trip to Alaska, but once I got started editing our photos the task became daunting. I whiddled 700 pictures down to 256 and still that is way too many to put on a blog. I think I figured out a way to showcase all of the beautiful pictures we took by grouping like pictures together and creating multiple collages in Picasa. There are still a lot more that I regrettably had to leave out, but if you are so inclined, please take a look at our complete album here.

We had an exceptional time in Alaska and it was both Scott and my first time there. My best friend, Rachel Fifer {now Gibson} went there three years ago for a summer job, met an alaskan boy and never came back to California :( but on a brighter note, it was the perfect excuse to go to Alaska and visit.

We flew into Juneau, rented a car and went straight to our kayak rental place to secure all of our gear for our trip the next day. Then we drove around the town and stopped at their "in-town" glacier, Mendehall Glacier as well as a lake nearby and meadow. This place was absolutely breathtaking.

The next day {bright and early} we packed up our double kayak and hitched a ride with a small tour boat that took us into the Tracy Arm Fjord. There are two glaciers there, the North Sawyer and South Sawyer. A few days before we arrived in Alaska some of the glacier had broken off which caused it to be pretty thick to maneuver through in the boat. Our skipper pressed on and went as close as he could. We managed to get to the South Sawyer Glacier, but the North was not permitting. We saw so much activity from the glacier too {called "calving"}.  Check out a video Scott took here.

We weren't the only tour boat there, we also saw the National Geographic's Adventure Tour there {on left}. Also, we saw several very pregnant mother seals near the glacier just laying on top of ice bergs. The skipper told us they were due to have their seal pups any day. Sadly they didn't whole 3 days we were there. Here's another video of the ice bergs swirling in different directions.

After we saw the glacier, the skipper turned the boat around and about a mile away he and his crew member lowered our kayak into the water with just rope and we climbed in down the side of the stairs of the boat. We said our good-byes and he said, "Now remember you're on your own tomorrow. No tour boats will be coming through here till Sunday." Yikes! but we had a two-way radio just in case we had an emergency {the closest we were to civilization was about 3 hours away by boat}. When we got dropped off, we took our time paddling around the ice bergs, touching them, and also watching them break in half and flip over. Another thing, the next day while were all by ourselves in the fjord, we got to witness several {I mean more than a dozen} avalanches. See the video here of what Scott captured.

The real clear blue ice bergs really do exist! They were so spectacular. I couldn't get enough pictures of them, but of course limited myself to only posting 4.

We had fun naming shapes of the ice bergs we saw like this one {bottom left} that I called the mustang ice berg. We also saw one lonely seal swimming by. He was too quick for me to get a good shot though.

Here are a couple of pictures of us in our full body dry suits {for just in case we flipped our kayak and fell in the water}. Luckily, the kayaks were pretty stable and we didn't have to test the dry suits out. The water was freezing though and if we had fallen in it wouldn't have been very pleasant. The one bad part about those dry suits were they were pretty difficult to get in and out of and being in the fjord there weren't very many places we could pull off to the side and get out if we needed to relieve ourselves so we just opted to drink water very sparingly. Oh, did you see the picture of the bear? Yes, that bear came the two nights we were camping around the same time 9pm {That's right, it doesn't get completely dark in Alaska till at least 11pm and then it's day again by 5am}. Back to the bear though, fortunate for us he never came to our side of the camp. The only thing separating us from him was a 10 foot wide stream. We really tried to be careful not to leave any evidence of food by us and washed our dishes in the ocean and had stored the rest in bear cans.

This is our camp site and we had the whole place all to ourselves! A beautiful waterfall across the way and amazing mountains to admire. The picture to the bottom right is seaweed that we would have to drag our kayak across when we would arrive at low tide. The tides there would fluctuate about 20 feet between high and low and we would always seem to get to camp when it was at it's lowest tide so we would drag that kayak about 100 feet! Not fun.

When the tide was low, Scott spotted mussels under the rocks when he was washing his dish. We decided to wash them, steam then, and then EAT them. Definitely worth it, just wish we had brought a little butter and garlic along.

Our third day at the fjord we got picked up by the same tour boat who dropped us off and we got to see the glacier a second time and more calving. We stayed in Juneau that night and flew out to Gustavus the next morning. We took this little hopper plane {seats six} and flew 25 minutes. It was my birthday so when we got to Gustavus my best friend, Rachel prepared a beautiful and tasty birthday dinner. Loved her cute mason jar cups and the turkey chili was delicious!

Our first day we arrived in Gustavus to see Rachel and her family we walked down to the dock and snapped a few scenic pictures and also of this bald eagle. I'd never seen one up close before and had no idea how big they were. If you're not watching your small children, I'm sure it would swoop down and take one away.

Did a day hike in the Glacier Bay National Park. It was so green and so lush. Unfortunately, we didn't see any bears or moose, but on another day, we did see a porcupine. Here's a short clip we caught as he was tromping across a stream. Kind of a cute little animal. 

That night, we went to The Gustavus Inn. They were serving smoked salmon so Rachel and Jacob treated us to a fantastic "official" birthday dinner. The Inn has a garden and mostly everything served came from there. We had the sweetest turnips, wonderful rhubarb jam, kelp salsa {yes, as in kelp from the sea. It was absolutely tasty.}, kelp pickles {tasted just like sweet pickles}, red currant cheesecake, chocolate mousse pie, and herbal tea with herbs they grew in their garden too. What a gem of a place. If you're ever there during the high season, this is a place you shouldn't miss out on.

Some pictures of the town and Rachel's backyard. We tossed a turkey carcass outside to try to lure a bald eagle. One did swoop by after a while, but never took off with the whole carcass. Instead, we got a lot of pictures of black crows and an occasional raven.

A few things we did while we were visiting were: playing golf {I only lasted 4 holes... it was a lot harder than I thought}, the local cafe/art museum where we had sweet and savory crepes for breakfast and then shared a slice of apple pie, bought salmon and halibut filets from Pep's {her smoked fish is the best in town so of course we had to buy some and bring it home}, and we took pictures by the only gas station in town {not just any gas station, but a really awesome retro looking gas station at that}.

Took a beautiful nature walk with Rachel and the kiddos. Elijah had so much fun trying to runaway from us, picking up rocks and wanting to eat them, and having fun playing with Scott. 

That Friday we were there, the lodge was having a social event to welcome the new season. We took an hour boat ride around the bay, were greeted by the Tlingit Indians at the dock, and then enjoyed some free hor dourves back at the lodge. We didn't see many people all week, but when we went to the Lodge's social event everyone came out of the woodworks... so to speak ;) Oh, and I mustn't forget, for dinner Rachel made an awesome white sauce lasagna with halibut. To. Die. For. 

 Rachel and Jacob, thanks so much for such a wonderful stay in Gustavus, for the delicious food you made, and for the opportunity to visit with you and your beautiful family. Scott and I had a truly amazing trip.

The Visitors

Lillie and Hung came to visit us here in Sacramento in April. Lillie was able to spend Easter with us and enjoy a delectable dinner prepared by Ken Katschke (Scott's oldest brother who lives just an hour away from us). In honor of what Christ ate when he was resurrected we had fish and honeycomb. Not just any kind of fish though, it was on top a bed of sauteed mushrooms and a pilaf/ruby red grapefruit mixture with a delicious grapefruit sauce drizzled over it. Wow, that was amazing. For dessert we had molten chocolate cake. So rich and so good.

The next day, we went to Muir Beach. About 1 1/2 hours away near San Francisco. The beaches here in NorCal are nothing like the ones in SoCal. There are beautiful homes nestled in the cliffs with lots of beautiful trees and shrubbery surrounding it. It turned out to be a great day. It was forecasted to be raining the whole week Lillie and Hung were in town, but lucky for us it rarely did. It was overcast, but not cold.

This is the path we hiked up to the top of the hill.

It turned out to be a beautiful day at the beach. Mostly cloudy, but definitely not raining.

Skipping rocks

Showing off our pedicures. Even Scott got one!

Beautiful from the top.

Ate at a local burger joint in town. This is Lillie's burger with jalapeño, avocado, and bacon.

This is Scott's crab cake and bacon burger.

Even though we were stuffed after eating we still had room for ice cream.

We had a little fun in a nearby novelty shoppe too.

Lillie with her Diamond Ring Mug.

Scott and his toupee

Scott and I trying out their hats with built in beards. These were so funny.

We picked up Hung that night and the next day I took them out on the lake. We rented kayaks and a hydro bike. We pretty much had the whole lake to ourselves until around 2:30 when the Sac State Row Teams were suiting up. And it didn't even rain on us!

That evening we got all dressed up and Scott and I treated them to dinner at our favorite restaurant... Chicago Fire. Yummy deep dish Chicago style pizza with lots of cheese.

Here we are celebrating Goldie's birthday. Happy birthday Golds!

The next day we went shopping at Koreana Market to pick up our ingredients needed to make Vietnamese Pho. That was one of the dishes I really wanted Lillie to make while she was in town. Now I have the recipe and hopefully it'll turn out just as good.

Voila! Homemade Pho.

Thursday, Scott had another day off from work so he got to go with us to San Francisco! I was actually really happy he could go since he used to live there for about 2 years and knows the area. I on the other hand don't know the city and was not willing to take my sister and Hung there on my own.

Here we are on a ferry to Alcatraz. After visiting San Fran several times, I finally got to take the tour of the island. It was really great that we could take a personal audio tour and not have to be lumped into one big group barely being able to hear a tour guide.

After the Alcatraz tour we walked down to this chocolate factory, Tcho. A girl from the Boudin Restaurant told us about it on a previous visit. They have factory tours as well as samples. We liked it way better than Ghiradelli.

We walked down Pier 39 for a bit and had lunch at Boudin. Sourdough bread bowls, my favorite.

Here we are walking along the store front shops and Lillie covering up her hair. I did a smoothing treatment on it and it said she couldn't get it wet for 48 hours. If it gets wet, you must dry it "immediately!"

Went down to China Town in search of knock-off Prada or Louis Vuitton purses. 

I've never seen fish with such huge eyes.

Hanging ducks

Beautifully colored fruit stands. They had dragon fruit and star fruit to name a few.

Lillie found her sign

Chef Hung... who knew he had a restaurant there?

An accident happened in China Town. A few cars got rearended, parked cars got damaged and a couple went up over the sidewalk. Luckily we were not close by when it all went down. That would've been frightening

Bought Taro Boba drinks and Almond Puff treats. Those were really tasty. I'll have to look for them the next time I go.

Driving down Lombard Street.

Showed them the iconic "Painted Ladies". Across the park from the opening scene of Full House.

I love the tangle of cables throughout San Francisco. Makes for a very artistic photo.

Took Hung to see Castro District. He was very happy.

 The following day we just went shopping at the outlet mall near us and later that evening Lillie and Hung showed us how to make delicious spring rolls. I couldn't believe they were so easy to make.

Ingredients: pork belly, sliced apples, spinach, green onion, limes, cilantro, and vermicelli noodles.

The finished product.

Thanks Lils and Hung for coming to visit. We had so much fun showing you around our area even though you thought no one lived here. I swear there are people, lots of people, who live here. Come again soon!