Last Day of Summer

wedged. stuck. together. my bff.

get away from the landslide area please

Our spot. Ugak Is. in background.

surfers at surfing beach

Kodiak girl

Sea lion in harbor.

Abby loves going on boats (and getting candy). We went on a sailboat the other week, and she said"I don't like this boat. There's no fishermen on it!" Oh my Kodiak girl! Did I already tell this story? Probably.

SO rainy for two weeks! On Friday, I had some Kodiak Island Brewing Co. Devil's Club (or was that Saturday?), and we went and parked and listened to Pasty Cline. I definitely had my friend Clair on my mind. We would listen to Patsy together on vinyl! Now I listen to her with my new bff. I a lucky girl.

The Light of My Eyes

Community Archaeology - the final days

I was lucky enough to get to go out another half day to Community Archaeology. I am a grunt, so I will offer no profound revelations. If you want those, see:

http://saltonstall.blogspot.com/2011/08/amak-stratigraphy.html

http://odellcross.blogspot.com/2011/08/final-conclusions-backfilling-and.html

I will say that I dug through a tsunami inundation, it was a mix of rocky mess, to uncover a layer of charcoal and pebbles - it was going to get good, I could feel it. Alas, the dig was nearing the end, and rather than rush through what seemed to be complicated features, Patrick decided to tarp it and come back next year. So next year's dig will once again be at the Amak site.

My Girl

We went to the harbor and got to go on a sailboat, but she didn't like it cause there were no fishermen on the boat!!! Oh, I have a Kodiak girl! She then had a bit of a meltdown and accidentally ran into a sign near the harbor and got a bloody nose. :(

We were both a lil' tired and cranky, so I took her out to dinner at the Powerhouse restaurant. We lucked out and got to sit outside, and the night ended up being really enjoyable. She likes edamame! After dinner, we had fun reading books and snuggling.

This is Abby's drawing on the window of preschool. I recognized her art immediately.

Abby showing her trick at the playground. A summer day.

I survived the Burma Road

Bells Flats.

The Burma Road was an old WWII road that goes back behind Old Woman's mountain then down to the valley between Old Woman's and Barometer mountain.... Little did we know that it is about a ten mile hike! Again, I think it is mainly used as a bike or ATV trail.

No bear encounters, but enough trash and berry infused bear scat to constantly remind me to make noise, which works, cause we could judge by the little dots of super fresh bear turds that a bear was walking away from us at one point.

GREEN

A WWII pipe made of wood!

oh it just went on and on....

WWII crap.

Welded shut.

I was so happy to see this sign! We hiked for five hours!!!

Pulling a Treadwell

We walked down Saltery Road for a few hours. It was actually HOT! I wanted to strip, but people ride down with their ATVs, so I suffered through the heat. Although it is a technically a road, we still had a pleasant walk and explored areas slightly off the road.

The fireweed is in full bloom, and it is pretty much the last local flower of the season to bloom. When it reaches the top, "summer" is over. It's getting really close.

Again, we decided to take some trails just off the road. Pretty, but.....

As we were walking down one path, we started to quickly realize we were on a bear path, one used by them recently and often to get to the river. We got outta there fast! Probably not the smartest decision of the day. I think we "pulled a Treadwell!"

As we were nearing the the end of our walk, about 50 yards in front of us a very full-sized mature male bear walks out from the bushes to the road. I do have what I call "bear sense". I detected the bear before I saw him. (Hopefully I can keep this sense as I continue to explore the island.) He was a comfortable distance away, so I just waived my arms and yelled "hey bear." He studied us, thought about it, and then continued to walk across the road. (I did not get a picture.) Less than a minute later, we hear fisherman start to yell "bear bear!!!" That big boy surprised them! You could feel the panic. They shot off a cracker shot and obviously the bear ran away.

The big question for us at that point, since we needed to go down the road, was which way did he run off? We just briskly moved out of there laughing the whole way. If we would have got that on video, it would have gone viral. It was pretty good scene! We see very large bear, bear sneaks up on fishermen, fishermen panic, cracker shot fired....not sure I can capture it in words! It was just safe enough to be fun.

August weekend

On Saturday, Jason and I hiked up Old Woman's Mountain. The hike up, not so fun, but getting to the top was magnificent. It's really pretty once you get past all the tall alders and pushki. I took lots of glorious landscapes with sweeping views, cloud-covered green mountains with deep valleys and streams, but I thought the close-up photos of flora turned out just to be more interesting.

The last of the wildflowers.

On Saturday was Warm August Nights, an annual music festival. The music that I was there for was not so good, so really the best part was seeing a bear at the Russian River. Whose watching who? People watching the bears, or bears watching the people?

The crew, me, and the captain.

Bear!

On Sunday Abby and I headed out to Pasagshak for summer day #2 - a day were it actually feels warm! It was awesome! I thought I didn't take too many photos, because I spent an hour napping on the beach, but apparently I took a lot, or I liked all the ones I took....or Abby is just so cute!

Panting like a dog. Note the surfer in the background.

On Monday, Hannah, Abby, Jason and I went to the Russian to go fishing. Hannah snagged a fish. She was so excited!