Still here!

In case you missed it, I am still in Alaska even though I was supposed end my internship 4 months ago! I finished my summer internship at the Alaska SeaLife Center (the only aquarium in Alaska),

Mom and Dad came for a visit,

And I went back to work in Soldotna at the Kenai Fish and Wildlfie Field Office doing the same internship I did last year.  It's nice to be back doing something I have already done once before and it gives me more time to figure out what my "next step" is going to be.  I know I have been very sporadic at posting here, but now that I am living somewhere with constant internet access, I am going to try to be more regular.  Plus, now I have lots of stories to tell about the summer.

Flying by

Less than 3 weeks left till I am done working at the SeaLife Center.  Here's a little bit of what I've been up to:
Taking hikes, working at the SeaLife Center, learning the names of all the wildflowers, working on the tour boat, and sneaking into the bird department to look at the baby harlequin ducks!

Ptarmigan Creek Trail

I went on a great hike yesterday! The wildflowers are starting to bloom, it was great to be outside on such a nice day, and as always, I was amazed by the stunning colors of the glacially fed waters.

There are not  many hikes free of snow yet, so it was a great discovery to find this trail in the Chugach National Forest!

Sun!

After returning from a fantastic (but far too short) trip to Tennessee, I spent 5 cold rainy days straight on the tour boat.  Of course the two days following that I was stuck inside working at the SeaLife center while the weather was beautiful and sunny.

The good news is that I have today off and the nice weather has stuck around at least for one more day!

I have to go outside and enjoy the weather now...

Sunshine!

One of the things I have heard the most about Seward is that "It rains all the time there," but my first week here has done its best to prove me wrong. Since I moved in, the clouds have been at bay... until today. It's a good thing the weather has been so nice because the last week has been full of lots of training and walking. It is so nice to live in a town where everything is easily in walking distance (especially since I don't have a car). As with most jobs, a good part of our training was filled with listening to people lecture us about all of the rules and regulations of the SeaLife Center, but all of the time spent watching powerpoints was made up for a hundred times over when we got our training for going out on the boats. Basically our day consisted of sitting back observing the park ranger and enjoying the ride. Here is some of the wildlife from that day:


Sea otter

Dahl's Porposies (look closely and you can see their shadows under the water)

 Sea lions

Mountain Goats (its the little white dot in the middle of the mountain)

Another part of our training was taking a hike to exit glacier.  All in all, its been a pretty good week.

New Town, New Adventure

Dan helped me move to Seward yesterday and I start work at the SeaLife Center tomorrow.  I am very excited about this summer.  The SeaLife center is a very cool organization and I think I will enjoy getting to see what it is like to work in this type of atmosphere.  I am also very excited about living in Seward for the summer.  I have visited Seward twice, once for fishing, once for the SeaLife center, but today was the first day that I have gotten to really look around the town on my own and find things out.  This is what I have learned so far:

You can walk around almost the entire town covering most walkable area in about 3 hours

If you walk along the shore line, you will almost certainly see wildlife (sea otters, sea lions, diving ducks with fancy markings and fancy names)

The coffee shop not on the main street in town has more character but doesn't take cards for purchases under $10

bunnies run wild here (really, like the kind you would find in a pet shop)

I will have pictures to post soon.  I don't have internet where I live, but I will try to re-start blogging again, as I expect that I will have something to write about this summer.

Big News!

I got a summer internship with the SeaLife Center in Seward!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

I'm very excited about it.  I am going to be spending half my time doing programs at the Center and half my time with the National Park Service helping a ranger lead programs on a boat in the Kenai Fjords National Park!  I can't wait to get to live in Seward and am looking forward to all of the amazing scenery and wildlife I am going to see.

Also, I have decided to stay in Alaska through next year.  I am going to do my internship again once my summer one is over. 

LOST!

Tuesday nights are LOST nights! I have a growing group of friends who watch the show which is awesome because we can get together to have dinner and discuss theories before the new episodes.  What night is complete without getting into arguments about quantum physics? hahaha, I love it!

I can't believe it's the last season!

 

  

 

Yay Seward!

Dan and I got to take a day last week to visit the SeaLife Center (for enrichment purposes only, of course).  It was really really cool.  They have a lot of great exhibits that really draw you into the center and make you care.  They also have one of the world's largest underwater aviaries (think puffins and tons of other diving ducks), sea lions and seals.  AND the SeaLife Center is in Seward.

 

Seward is a special Alaskan town because it has a really nice little downtown area where Dan and I got a bucket of Halibut for lunch and walked around looking at the mountains.  Exit glacier is also in Seward, but it is too dangerous to try to get to this time of year.  The drive between Seward and Soldotna can be a little treacherous; luckily we decided to  go the day before a big snow storm.  Now the whole town is white again, and I am happily back in Soldotna.

P.S.  I applied for an internship at the SeaLife Center as well a bunch of other places, so wish me luck!

I Am an Eskimo!

Well, at least I can pretend like one!

There are ice sculptures all over town because of the winter games.

This one at the visitor's center is my favorite!

Just a short walk on the beach...

Dan and I thought that we were going to be having an easy Sunday by skipping our usual hike on the refuge to go for a walk on the beach.  First of all, we should have known our walk was doomed from the start when we couldn't get to the beach from the parking lot because of the lake of melting ice slush blocking our way.  Then it might have been a hint when we were walking towards trouble when we had to keep on getting closer and closer to the water because all of sand on the bluff side of us was covered in massive ice chunks.  But really we would have been okay if we had just paid attention to how fast the tide started coming in.  Ok, so actually our timing wouldn't have been that bad if it wasn't for all that ice.  While we started out having a great walk on the beach, we ended up slipping and sliding our way back while the water crept closer and closer, and our walk ended with a climb...up the side of the bluff.  oops.  I didn't remember my camera which is too bad because it was a beautifully clear day and we could see all the mountains across the inlet, but I do have proof of our trip...

Mittens? check!

I finally finished knitting my convertible mittens!  They are super warm and perfect for stream trips where finger tips are sometimes necessary.  Plus if I ever get the urge to take my ipod outside, I can still work the touch screen without taking my gloves off.

 

Here is the pattern I used to make them. 

I just though I would post this since I was working on them for most of my Christmas vacation.

It still isn't old yet

Bertha is back! I saw her the other day while driving home with BOTH of her calves. I am so happy they are still alive and together.

They were hanging out beside my window today while I ate lunch.

Just one baby with her today, though. The other one must be off in a neighbor's yard finding his own food.

I love seeing these guys hanging out around my house.

Just a little weekend trip...

I made it back to AK safe and sound, and my first few days at work flew by.  I started off on the first day with a class visit and spent the rest of the week in the office. 

Last weekend, Heather invited me to come on an overnight trip with her family to a cabin on the wildlife refuge.  We had a ton of fun! The cabin was about a mile away from the road on the other side of Dolly Varden Lake, so we packed up some sleds and set out across the lake (it was totally frozen).  One huffing and puffing trip later, we made it to the cabin where we roasted hot dogs for lunch, played in the snow, made s'mores, ate a delicious dinner cooked over the wood burning stove, and spent the rest of the night playing cards and farkel.  Heather and her family had never played before, but now they are hooked.  Fortunately, the wood burning stove kept the cabin warm all night, and we woke up the next morning, ate breakfast, packed up and left. 

Heather, Shaun, and Wyatt at the cabin:

Dolly Varden Lake/our trail:

Inside our cabin:

 (more pictures here)

It was a great way to come back to Alaska.  We were really lucky that the daylight hours were totally bright and clear, and it never got too cold (in fact, I think it was warmer here than in Tennessee).  Everybody had a great time, and we all took a moment during the sun set Saturday night to remember how amazing it is to be living in Alaska!

Too bad christmas is over

because I want this sleeping bag:

 

 

(source/source)

Merry Christmas!

i'm home!

I made it through hours of flying and waiting to finally make it home Saturday afternoon! Now its time for 3 weeks of relaxing and Christmas fun.

Ahh!

(I am a plant)

Here are a few pictures from a lesson Dan and I did with a third grade class.  The topic was habitat.  We did a few different activities, but the funniest was when we acted out a food chain.  The food chain went plant->bunny->bear->dead bear->mushroom-.>plant (from the nutrient the mushroom made)...  When we were planning out the class, Dan told me he wanted to do a food chain without explaining exactly what that meant.  I found out what it meant when he handed me a green feather wig and told me to act like a plant.  I love my job.

(now I am a bear)

It warmed up to 20,

so we decided it would be a good day for a hike.  And no, I did not miss type.  Today was the warmest day in the last 1 and 1/2 weeks at the tropical temperature of 20.  I have been adjusting to the sub-freezing temperatures okay.  My new snow boots have been put to the test and they work pretty well, and I am soooo glad I got a new coat before I moved up here.  The hardest part about the quickly approaching winter is the disappearing daylight.  We are down to 6 hours and 43 minutes of light tomorrow!  I have been getting through the dark by making sure to get outside and do something during the daylight every day, even if it is just going for a walk around the neighborhood.  Luckily, most days we have a stream trip to get me outside for an hour or so.

Anyways, my goal of getting me outside let me to accept an invitation to go hiking with my co-worker Dan today.  We took a 4 mile hike on the Refuge which let to an amazing view of Skilak Lake and the glacier. 

 The hike was only 2 miles to the top, but the added challenge of hiking in snow made it pretty interesting.  What's more, when we finally got to the top, we were almost blown away by the gale force winds!

Regardless of the weather, I love getting out on the refuge to go hiking, and hiking in the snow comes with the added bonus of getting to see tracks.  Even though we didn't see any animals willing to come out on a windy day, we saw snowshoe hare, moose, mouse, and possibly lynx tracks.  Here is a picture of the elusive snow monster track.

I have a few more pictures here.  I miss everyone and am looking forward to the quickly approaching visit home I will be taking for Christmas!

Everybody's heart melts for a 5 year old in a construction paper hat

Last week, Dan and I got an invitation from the kindergarten class we have been working with to see their very first school play about all of the things they have been learning from our creek visits.  It was probably the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life.  Not only did they sing songs about everything they had learned, explain how pH measures if the water is "acidic like orange juice, neutral like fresh water or basic like a soapy mop bucket," and act out how they learned to pull invasive weeds; they also acted out the story of how the beaver got a flat tail.  The kids did a great job remembering all of their lines, their only problem was that they were all scared of using the microphone because some of them had gotten shocked during their dress rehearsal. None the less, it was a very good performance, and it was nice to see how much they had learned from our visits.  After the show, we got to go to the after party where we got cookies and juice and all of the kids wanted to introduce their parents to us.  Cute kids, cookies and juice, and appreciation from the kids for all of the work we have been doing: a good night indeed!