Two more days

Yesterday we went out to Fort Abercrombie to walk the trails around Gertrude Lake and out along the cliffs with their old WW II bunkers and gun emplacements.

See the bunker on the cliff in the trees

Lots of puffins here!

Emmi and Lily (two more Kodiak babies) arrive from Seattle.  We meet them at the brewery.  Lily has plans with old friends and so Emmi comes along with us to once again look for bears.

No bears this evening, but a lot of beauty!  We missed the bears by several hours, so we will go earlier tomorrow.

Then up Pillar Mt. For the sunset

Today we picked Emmi and walked the north trail on Near Island.   (Lily had to work)

Looking across to town

Emmi, Kila, Mark, and Deva

Lunch and then out again to look for bears........Who's obsessed with bears???

Only saw lots of pink salmon where we last had spotted the bears..

We picked up Lily and headed by Emmi's old house and out to Spruce Cape where the belly pictures were taken.

Two of the babies that were in the bellies 32 years ago.

And then back to see the little lake where we took our children ice skating and the little park that is there now.

Nice slide!!

Updating my animal sighting list

Marmot

Sitka Black-tailed Deer

Kodiak Bear

Fox 

Common Loon

Kingfishers

Oystercatchers

Pigeon Guillemot

Magpie

Kodiak Fun!!

Yesterday it rained more than it had the whole month of June.  And what do young women in Kodiak do when it pours like that??  Well, Molly and her friends pulled on survival suits for a float down the Buskin River.  Orange Team GO!!

Molly helping one of her friends into her suit

Zipping up!

Ready

Set

Go

And what do you do on a rainy day??

Next evening, MORE of the same bears

Today it poured, but we went to the National Wildlife Refuge Center and the Alutiiq Museum.

Tonight we left at 9pm to go see if we could see the bears again and they were there!  This time there were probably 8 people watching. These photos were taken at 10pm!

BEARS!!!

Yea!  Tonight (10pm) we saw a momma bear and her two cubs, first at Salonie Creek and then again at Sargent Creek where we took the photos of the school of pink salmon a couple days ago.  The momma was catching fish and sharing them with her cubs.

The momma is in the river and the cubs are on the right bank.

This made this rainy day a very special one!!

(One thing about the daylight......I never know what time it is.  We tend to get to lunch around 2pm and dinner from 7 to 9.  This bear photo was taken around 10pm.)

Rain and shine or I should say, shine and rain

I must post a photo that Kila did at pizza night.

They sure were delicious!!

Yesterday the weather was much better so after eating breakfast at Java Flats, we went hiking to Pelenga Bay near Termination Point at the end of the road at Monashka Bay.

Near Java Flats we stopped to look for salmon in a river.

Then we drove to Monashka Bay...

End of the road

It is like a magical, mystical kingdom along the trail.

Pelenga Bay

                                           

    

And back on the beach near the parking Lot.

We hiked 6 1/2 miles in a magical place.

Now today it is raining again so we went out to coffee, then went to the Baranoff Museum, the aquarium at the new National Marine Fisheries Center on Near Island, and watched the planes take off in Trident Basin.

Believe it or not, when we went into the coffee shop Deva thought she recognized this woman, Claudine, (from a photo on Facebook ) who had lived near us when we lived in Kodiak.  Turns out it WAS the woman and she was visiting from PA.  Her sister had found Deva on Facebook and they all had become friends there.  

And to top that off we have seen a friend of Kila's from Santa Rosa three times since they arrived!

(These next ones are for you, Leonie)

Nat'l Marine Fisheries and aquarium 

We are hoping for better weather tomorrow.

Touchdown and pizza

They arrived on their second attempt just 24 hours late.  For some on the plane it was their forth try.

We drove home so they could settle in, drove out to Monashka Bay, drove by our old house, and went to Marty's for a build your own pizza dinner.

Six pizzas are a lot to eat!  We have leftovers!