Seldovia

For Darrin's birthday weekend, we took a trip with our friends, Ryan and Carly, to Ryan's hometown of Seldovia, Alaska. First we drove over four hours to Homer where we had to board a boat and cruise for about twenty minutes across the bay to Seldovia (you can only get there by boat or little tiny airplane). This was our boat.

After docking near Seldovia, I tossed Jake onto the dock were he was greeted by a friendly old dog that scared him to death. He turned to flee in a panic and bashed his head into the boat battery that Ryan was carrying down the dock. This is his owie...it didn't get stitches so I hope it didn't need them.

After settling into our little cabin on the boardwalk, we headed out to Outer Beach for a BBQ and some fun in the ocean. Here is some of our fun...

The next day, Ryan's parents watched all three of our rascals in addition to Ryan and Carly's two toddlers and we headed out on a 4wheeling adventure to the top of Red Mountain. There is an abandoned chromium mine at the top so there is actually a road that goes there. Unfortunately, the road is washed out in two places and we had to hike up the last bit. About ten minutes into our ride down the road, we saw the first of the five bears that we would see throughout the weekend. He posed for me, wasn't that nice?

The following day Ryan, Carly and I took the 4wheeler down to the beach to do some clamming. This was something I'd never done so I was a little excited about the spurts of water shooting up all around me (and on me). But we loaded up a couple buckets and the three of us piled back on the one 4wheeler with our buckets and shovels and headed back. Carly and I dubbed ourselves the "Clam Killers." More pictures...

The kids enjoyed sorting the buckets into big and small and back again.

After clamming, we took a short breather and then headed out on the high seas in a little ski boat for some halibut fishing. The current was pulling pretty hard and our boat was drifting to the point that we couldn't keep our hooks on the bottom. Never the less, Darrin hooked dinner within ten minutes. Jake was excited to come along but he was a bit disturbed to watch the halibut flopping around the boat and he got really upset when Ryan stabbed it in the head to kill it. But daddy had a talk with him and calmed him down. We headed back shortly after that because I managed to get myself quite seasick. By the time we got to the dock Darrin had convinced Jake that we were going to eat the fish for dinner. He agreed but said he was going to eat the tail.

The following day was our very last day and we were sad to leave. Rather than boating back across to Homer, we took a charter flight. Our family filled up the entire 5 seater airplane. It was my first ride in a tiny little plane.

Here is Jakey in the cockpit...

We all had such a fabulous time. What an adventure! We can't thank our hosts, Russ and Sandy Geagel, enough for their hospitality and babysitting services. And we also thank Ryan, our official tour guide and Carly for helping put the whole trip together. Can't wait to go back.