Addictive Alaska

I think I always knew I would come back to Alaska. This is my third summer here and each time I become more addicted to living here. I'm back in Seward at the Windsong Lodge working in the restaurant. Although I often miss the rewards of being a teacher, I'm really enjoying this break from teaching. It's been fun playing in the forest again, and I apologize I've been so bad at keeping up my blog.
Each morning I stumble over to the restaurant at 5:30am and serve breakfast to tourists (mostly those coming off or getting on cruise ships). The view from the restaurant makes up for any complaints about cold coffee or expensive prices on the menu.
Memorial Day weekend I had a special visit from my brother Jed and his wife Lisa. This year is their 15 year anniversary and I invited them up to come stay at the lodge with my employee discount. We had lots of fun hiking, seeing the glaciers, and going on the boat tour to Kenai Fjords National Park.

Every 4th of July tens of thousands of people pour into Seward to watch crazy people run up a mountain. Back in the 1800's some drunk guy at the Yukon bar made a bet that his buddy couldn't run up Mt. Marathon in under an hour. The guy made it back in just over an hour but it started a yearly tradition. Now the record is 43 minutes.
I found the women's race more interesting because there were two girls neck and neck the whole way and they were both Olympian cross-country skiers. This is the mountain they run up - 3000 feet of forest, mudslide trail, and rocky shale.Later in July a friend that I met at church invited me to go salmon fishing on the Russian River. They call it "combat fishing" because you stand shoulder to shoulder with other expert fisherman and pull out giant salmon left and right as they fight their way upriver to spawn.
The first time we went I didn't really know what I was doing and didn't catch anything. Luckily we went back out again later and at the end of the day I caught 3 nice tasty salmon. There's no way I could eat it all up here so I shipped it home in a frozen box. Merry Christmas, family!Every week we have been getting together with all the singles in the branch at the missionary couple's house. The Poulsons have become my family away from family and have opened their arms up to all of us singles working for the summer.
One week I requested a Saturday off work so some of us could take a trip up to the Anchorage temple. It was a nice experience and afterwards we went to see the final Harry Potter and do some shopping since it's much cheaper than touristy Seward.
One of my favorite times is when the Alaska wildflowers come out in full bloom. My favorite is the fireweed because it takes over the sides of all the highways. It's the first plant to break down soil after a glacier recedes or a forest fire and it's edible.
Coming in a close second are the dainty little Forget-Me-Nots, Alaska's state flower.
I have a thing for blueberries. After getting a tip-off from the Relief Society president I finally found a place to go picking wild blueberries (actually it was in her front yard).
My friend Jolyn (another single girl who lives in Seward) and I also picked wild strawberries, fireweed petals and clovers. We tried to make fireweed clover honey after learning how at a Relief Society activity but something went wrong and it didn't turn out. (Maybe because we were trying to make it at 11:00 at night and laughing too much.) The wild strawberry jam was amazing, though. We still have to go back for more blueberries before we make jam out of those.

That night we also cooked up some of the salmon I had caught. It was delicious!The next morning we went out on the Kenai Fjords tour boat and saw lots of wildlife. There were quite a few pods of Orca around the bay.
We also saw a bald . . . . . um . . . . . eagle. (in the tree)
And of course, the mighty glacier.
I'm trying to soak in all the glaciers, rain, ferns, flowers, and wildlife that I can because I've just made the decision to teach English in Saudi Arabia for a year once I finish here. The dry desert and strange culture will be quite different from what I'm experiencing here but I'm excited for the next adventure!