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Yesterday our guests went king fishing and they brought home the bacon. Or the salmon. Either or.
Two of our guests knew how to make sushi, sashimi, etc., and so a Raw Fish Feast was had last night.
This little gem is topped with king salmon eggs pulled from the very belly of the fish we were mowing down on:
This is the coldest and wettest July since 1928, according to the local newspaper. Four years ago I would have been depressed and moody, but this year I am just moody- a month of pure rain is just plain silly. So here is a picture of our lovely greenhouse on the one sunny afternoon we have had lately. I am going to gaze at this picture and gaze at it some more and then go and gaze at it again:
I came into this post with a bucketful of excuse on why there have been no posts as of late, but when I started writing this I thought, hey wait a minute, how do I even know that there are any Loyal Readers of this blog, and I have no interest in explaining myself to The Internet, so the only reason I will supply is that July is the busiest month of the entire year in The Lives of the Beckleys, and I have been spending what free time I have playing with my dog and reading a book of Flannery O'Conner's letters. And writing run-on sentences. But now, with a few minutes time on my hands, check this out (please say that last phrase in a fake Russian accent).
One of the dinners we make is a Kabob Dinner Deluxe, and here is half the pile of food I cut up for it You will also notice in this picture the small size of our kitchen- what you are seeing is 1/2 the total space in there:
Taylor and some other Construction Fools went out to Bear Camp to build some more tent platforms, and spotted this bear from a close distance. Then his camera died, which is why there aren't any photos proving his boat trip out to an island 3 miles off shore in the middle of the night with a drunk captain and a sinking boat, or how he had to jump start the camp's truck using his body as the conductor, which threw 250 volts of electricity through his body over 20 times, and made it so his hand was involuntarily clenched tight for several hours, or how the truck didn't have a tow hitch and so he traded off holding the hitch of a trailer full of drums of water as they drove down a beach, him sitting in the back of Said Cursed Truck while Said Cursed Trailer bounced around on the rocks and almost pulled him off. So, because none of that was documented, here is a very Calm and Pretty picture of a bear, taken right before that bear tried to break into the kitchen and eat the goodies being cooked in it:
Here's a long one!
My lack of writing on this blog is all due to the fact that we have had a full house of guests every night the last three weeks- and I don't mind admitting that entertaining so many people is exhausting. But before we this string of people, I got to guide a group of ladies on a Kenai Fjords National Park tour, and then out to our company's Adventure Camp- a sea kayaking camp located on the edge of this great little cove.
Driving twelve ladies all together requires a pretty big vehicle, and so I was lucky enough to drive this enormous thing of beauty. It can be said that Taylor was more than nervous about me driving so many people so far (he was taking into consideration my high school vote as Worst Driver), but I performed admirably, all things considering- the bus did start puffing black smoke, and the steering wheel was all loosey goosey.:
Then we all hopped on a catamaran to see the glaciers and animals of the park. I was really hoping this piece of the glacier would calve when we were there, but no such luck:
I like AC so much, here are two different views of the place:
Kate, the manager of AC, is one of our best friends here. She's one of the most inventive people we know, and one of the only people I could see easily surviving in the wilderness. Here she is chopping up kindling with her knife, because the hatchet had broken:
When Kate and I took the ladies out sea kayaking, I played the role of sweeper in the back, making sure no one floated out to sea. I was paddling along, and all of a sudden I hear all this snorting and snuffling right behind my boat. I turned around and there was this really, really big sea lion! He, or she, dinked around my boat for a while, but moved away quite a bit by the time I retrieved my camera from the depths of my kayak:
And, finally, here's a picture of me, taken by me, with Resurrection Bay in the background:
I flew out to my company's Bear Camp to help out for a couple of days, and as usual great times were had by all. There are bears everywhere out there, like this one that strolled through camp:
Whenever we would see a bear, my coworker Caprice and I would instantly fall into these bonafide safety positions- 'The Arrow to My Happy Place' and 'Back to Momma's Belly':
Back here on the other side of the inlet, the water in our river still isn't rising fast enough, so we kayaked up today to see how deep it is (the water is still 2 inches deep, dangit). Moma crowned herself Queen for a Day, and took over our kayaks in true royal fashion:
And then, and this is what I am dying to tell you all... I found a (slightly) mysterious abandoned cabin right near our lodge! For years now our coworker Gary has been telling us that he has heard there is an old cabin out by our place, and he was right!
After we arrived at the lodge we run, I was tromping through the woods, and first I saw this, an old trapper's cabin. They make them small because when you are trapping in the middle of winter you are just going to stay the night there, and the smaller space to heat up, the better:
So as I was walking closer to it to peek inside... I saw the cabin! Joy of all joys! I ran back and got Taylor so we could both explore it together (because that's obviously more fun), and even though the roof has fallen in, it's awesome, and it's ours:
All my frustration over the river's water level slid away, and my day sprang up happy, and all because of our Found Cabin.
A cabin! And I found it!
Our transportation of choice to get us up the river to the lodge we run is a flat-bottomed jon boat powered by the mighty Go-Devil engine. Our current Go-Devil is getting old and cries a lot, so Taylor made a daring journey to North Pole, the Christmas-year-round town near Fairbanks to buy a new boat and Go-Devil from the Go-Devil Jedi of the World, Stu.
Here is typical North Pole street scene:
Here is Taylor's room at the B&B he stayed in. Crossbows, Swedish songbooks, Christmas trees, and Lord Fauntleroy figurines all together as one- I think the theme was 'Christmas with the Scandinavian Robin Hood':
And here is our new beauty, a 24-foot government-issue-only Go-Devil. The orange bucket is covering up the prop. The loverly landscape behind is typical interior Alaska scenery:
You may all think that we are getting pretty excited about nerdy things like new swamp boats, and you would be right. So of course there are going to be many more pictures of the two boats, both with fresh coats of paint and new names (the old Go-Devil, which has been bequeathed to me, by Taylor, is now named George Washington Hayduke).
...and we will send you something really great from up here!
Our mailing address is:
Taylor and Adalie Beckley
General Delivery
Sterling, AK 99672
Presented by another Classic Alaskan Moment.
