Sunday, July 31

Yesterday, Trish, Luke and Lily flew into Columbus. Sara came in on Tuesday afternoon so we have been catching up on lots of things. Now we have a house full and it is absolutely wonderful. Luke seems so much more grown up each time we see him and Lily is just as cute as ever. She is just now starting to walk and it is so much fun to see her deciding if she wants to walk or crawl. Not to mention, she is quite the little Diva.

Last night Matt's sisters had a baby shower for Sara in Cincinnati. We had such a nice time and the baby received lots of very cute gifts. I can't thank them enough for the wonderful shower.

Thursday, July 21

One of the adult red-headed woodpeckers

The young red-head has learned there is food here. Hopefully next year he will be back.

I have at least 5 regular blue jays that visit every day.

I know a lot of people consider the grackle a nuisance bird, but I think they are really pretty. but I think this is the 2nd batch of young this summer and they eat a lot.

Wow, can you say HOT? Makes me want to head back to Alaska. We haven't done much this week. I worked at the zoo on Tuesday and yes, there were visitors there braving the heat. Oh, and we removed a black rat snake from the aviary. It was a small one, only about 2 feet but they will eat not only eggs out of the nests but also birds. Mr. B actually did some mowing today despite the heat. After we finish up tomorrow, I doubt we will have to mow again for a long while if it stays this hot.

I have had a pleasant surprise this week. We have a family of red-headed woodpeckers visiting our feeder. We used to see them all the time but it has been more than 15 years since they have brought their young and visited the suet I put out. Check out the pictures, the one with the gray head is a newly fledged juvenile. Between the woodpeckers, blue jays and grackles and go through an entire block of suet each day. But they are beautiful to watch.

Sunday, July 17

This week was pretty uneventful. The temperatures have cooled down as well as the humidity. It has actually been very pleasant. Thursday we decided that we would go to the Madison County fair when we learned that one of our former basketball players and the 2011 Garrett Award winner as well as the Athlete of the Year was going to compete in Ladies Barrel racing at the fair rodeo. Yes, this is a pretty extroidinary young lady. The rodeo is actually part of the pro circuit and Josie was competing against gals that were 10+ years her senior. The bull riding was first and I must say it was pretty boring. Out of about 24 cowboys, only 2 were able to stay on their bull for the necessary 8 seconds. Either the bulls were awesome or the the cowboys were pretty bad. Needless to say, we were relieved when the last one got bucked off so we could move on to the barrel racing. We were in the grandstand and the rodeo was held on a very small portion of the track. The course for the barrels was much shorter and narrower than it should have been and made it difficult for riders that had bigger horses. Josie was one of the last riders and since she was a local she was also the crowd favorite. Her time was not good enough to place but it was an exciting ride and we enjoyed watching her.

Last night we went to the wedding of a former basketball player who also played volleyball for Ohio State. Megan, who will always have a prominent spot in my memory as the only player that I ever coached that did a round-off back handspring after we won the Madison county basketball tournament was one of a kind. What a great kid and what a beautiful bride she was yesterday. We had a very enjoyable time and were so excited to have been invited to such special ceremony.

Tuesday, July 12

These Violet-Green Swallows were everywhere gobbling up those pesky mosquitoes.

Pretty sure this is a Song Sparrow, although it could be a Savannah.

Dwarf dogwood plants, they were abundant throughout Alaska.

I saw this dark-eyed Junco on our XY Lakes Trail in Talkeetna. These same birds come to our feeders during the winter but they nest in the boreal forests of Canada and Alaska.

This morning I was up early, 5 am, so I could get to the zoo and prepare the diets for the aviary. It is always good to get back to the zoo. They always make me feel so welcome and today since they were a little short handed they really appreciated having the extra help. I also did a wolverine watch from 9-11. Basically I watched them sleep from 9:30-11 because it was so very hot and humid. Let's just say, they weren't making any babies today!

We had a pretty busy afternoon including a lunch buffet at Flyer's. At 2 o'clock Mr. B had a meeting with a group from OSU Rehabilitation Services. They are developing a web page and will be using Mr. B to represent the brain injury group. They will be telling the story of 6 individuals who have been through extensive rehab and today they were taking pictures. So we had an actual photo shoot down in the middle school gym. It was really quite humorous as Mr. Bichler said to one of the gals that he thought that they would just bring a Polaroid and snap a few pictures and call it a day. They actually had a professional photographer who spent at least 30-40 minutes taking pictures. I am pretty excited to see how the story on the website comes out. They also want to include the first year of our blog because they think it could be helpful to other families who are recovering from traumatic brain injury. I wish I would have taken my camera to take pictures of the photo shoot. I'm pretty sure that even though he was exhausted at the conclusion, he was also thrilled that he was chosen to be a part of this project. It was a definite boost to his self esteem. Go get 'em Coach!

Monday, July 11

Greetings from a friendly sea otter.

A playful harbor seal eating fish near the fish hatchery.

This sea gull is trying to get a free meal!

Finally getting settled back into the life of a "flat-lander". I'm missing the mountains and the cooler temperatures. Wow, is it ever hot and humid?! I must say our pool is pretty inviting and the water temperature is perfect. Mr. B and I are all caught up on the mowing and we are thankful that our nephew was able to get it mowed while we were gone.

Right now we are excitedly getting ready for a visit from Sara. Not sure I have mentioned this in the blog, but she and Matt are expecting their first child. The ultra-sound points towards a girl? She has another on the 22nd of this month. Also, Matt has been deployed and will not be back until January and the baby is due December 2. Sara and Matt worked to get the nursery started before he had to leave and now Sara is working on the finishing touches. We squeezed a visit in at the end of July, after her ultra sound and before her August doctors appointment. I know Matt's sisters are just as excited as we are and I anticipate much baby planning to occur in the next few weeks. Keep Matt in your prayers as well as his ship mates. You can contact me if you would like his address. As promised, I will continue to add some of my favorite pictures from Alaska for a few weeks. Lord knows I took enough of them. I think the final count was 976 pictures and at least 3 video clips.

Wednesday, July 6

Anchorage, our last day, was spent sight-seeing the city. Barb loved the huge hanging baskets of flowers. This is what 21 hours of sunlight produces.

Oh, and did I mention that we bumped in to Sarah while shopping. She was gracious enough to stand while we got a picture.

Left Anchorage Tuesday night at 10:15 p.m. and landed in Chicago 5 hours later at 7 a.m. Chicago time. We had a 3 hour lay over before departing for Dayton. My sister in law picked us up and by 1:30 we were home. Now all we have to do is get our bodies back on Eastern Standard Time. I picked Molly up from Buckeye Boarding and it hasn't taken her long to settle in. With in the hour Molly was sound asleep next to the couch and Mr. B was snoozing in his lazy boy.

Thursday, July 7

Slept in until 8:30 and getting caught up on all those post-vacation chores. Unpacking, sorting through the mail and mowing took up most of the day. I did take time to jump into the pool which felt really good after working in the yard. The water must be 80+ degrees. In Alaska the average temperatures were around 55 until we got back to Anchorage and it was 65 and sunny. We had an unbelievable trip and hope you enjoyed the pictures I was able to get uploaded during our travels. I will be putting up other pics over the next few weeks that I think came out pretty good.

Monday, July 4

Boarding our plane with pilot and guide, Zach. He was an awesome guide.

Barb standing in front of one of the first bears we saw, he was sleeping.

This was about an hour later and more and more bears were coming into the meadow.

A special treat, we saw a pack of 3 wolves chasing several bears. Even our guide Zach had never seen that before!

Our Dispatch picture, I finally remembered to take the paper with me!

Two young bears playfully sparring.

I call this "smack down, WWF"

As we were getting ready to leave, we saw this female with her 2 cubs down on the beach

Independence Day! First of all, there were no fireworks here and it may have something to do with the fact that the sun doesn't go down until about 2 a.m. But....we did get to go on our Bear Viewing trip this morning to Hallo Bay in Katmai National Park. It was nothing short of phenomenal! We saw at least 15 or more bears in the 3 hours we were there. It was such a different experience than when we visited Brooks Falls and watched the bears from a platform as they caught fish from the river. Today we walked through a meadow and watched the bears as they ate the sedge grasses or dug for clams out on the beach. Some of the bears were as close as 30 yards as we watched them eating, sleeping and sparring. The flight there and back was awesome as well as we passed over snow covered peaks and crossed Cook's Inlet. When we finished our trip we grabbed a quick bite to eat at the Sourdough Express in Homer before driving the 4 hours to Anchorage. We ate pizza at Milano's Pizza and are back at the Arctic Fox B & B where we began our adventure 16 days ago. Tired and ready to head home we have many pictures and stories to share with our family and friends. Thanks for traveling along with us. It was a great adventure and hope you were able to get a feel for the wonderful state of Alaska.

Sunday, July 3

The trail outside the visitors center was a good find. A well maintained 3/4 mile trail complete with moose!

Mom moose crossed the boardwalk and baby was a little reluctant but he finally followed.

There were at least 2 pair of sandhill cranes with chicks in the slough.

Here is one pair with their chicks.

The local ravens (AKA dumpster chickens) were out on the trail with us.

This morning was a glorious morning. Where was the sun yesterday. No matter, we went to church this morning at the Homer United Methodist Church. It was a wonderfully warm congregation with a husband and wife ministry team. We were greeted at the door and given a small gift bag that included homemade raspberry jam. The sanctuary was small but warm and inviting with a beautiful stained glass window in the front. After the service they gathered in the downstairs solarium for cookies, brownies and punch. A wonderful beginning to our day. We had lunch at the Fresh Catch Cafe on the spit. Barb and I had the yellow-finned rockfish sandwich, Sharon had a cheeseburger and Andy had the prime rib Philly sandwich. We then went to the Alaska Island and Ocean Visitors Center in Homer. It had some wonderful exhibits and several short films about the area. The last film was about Alaska's grizzlies. As we were walking to the car we decided to walk the short hike along the beluga slough. As we rounded the first turn we saw a moose with her calf. I ran back to the car to get Mr. B so he could see them. Once he was on the boardwalk he finished the walk with us. We walked all the way to Bishop's Beach on the sound and saw some sandhill cranes with their chicks. Tomorrow we are so hoping the weather holds and we will be able to go on our Bear/Wildlife viewing flight. If not, we will head back to Anchorage and see what kind of mischief we can get into while we are there. As for tonight our plan is to dine on the 4 pints of Hagen Daz ice cream that we have in the freezer and have a Hostess cupcake for dessert. YUMMY!

Saturday, July 2

This is the eagle that landed in the tree 2 houses down from our B & B.

I think this is a yellow-crowned sparrow sitting outside our window

A Pacific fox sparrow in our yard.

We awoke to a cold rain. It appeared clear initially when we were getting ready to go into town but the weather just was not going to cooperate today. We checked in at Homer Air and waited about an hour before they informed us that the fog and cloud cover was not going to allow us to go on our Bear Viewing Adventure today. As of now we are hoping the weather clears on Monday so we can go then. If it doesn't, we will get our money back. Feeling a little let down over the disappointing news we drove down a few scenic roads and did manage to spot several bald eagles. We even had one land in the tree not far from our B & B. We had a great lunch at the Caribou Family Restaurant and have spent the rest of the day catching up on our sleep and just being plain lazy. (I hear that is really what a vacation should be!) I hope the weather is better back home.

Friday, July 1

This is our ferry the Aurora.

It was rainy and overcast for the entire trip across the Prince William Sound.

These were some of the seats on board. Later we found more seats like these in the front of the ferry.

When we got near the Columbia Glacier we encountered many boat sized chunks of blue ice floating all around us.

Sea lions were stacked on top of one another on many of the beaches.

This was our whale sighting. A great picture for me. Last time I was in Alaska, I only got the vapor from the blow hole.

Here we are entering the Whittier Harbor.

The Aloha B & B is situated high on the hillside above Homer. We have a great view of the Homer Spit. (a spit is a gravel bar the extends out into the water)

The living area at the Aloha, complete with a tv and Dish network!

The Salty Dawg Saloon at the end of the spit.

Rolled out early this morning so we could be at the Ferry terminal by 7 a.m. for our 8 o'clock ferry ride from Valdez to Whittier. We pulled on right after a double decker tour bus. We waited a minute or two thinking the ferry might sink but it was fine so we pulled on as well. The entire ride was about 5 hours. The upper deck was completely closed in with comfortable seating, some seats would recline and a cafeteria in the back with a pretty good menu to chose from. We did see otters, sea lions, porpoises, and a whale. The whale was pretty far off so our picture was not very clear. When we disembarked we still had another 5 hour drive to get to Homer. We arrived at our bed and breakfast and it is beautiful. It is called the Aloha B & B and the owner is from Hawaii. From our window we can look down to the city of Homer and the Spit. For supper we drove down onto the Homer Spit to the Salty Dawg Saloon. What an experience! There were dollar bills tacked to every beam and the complete ceiling was covered. After we determined that this was only a saloon and did not serve food, we went next door to the Happy Face restaurant to eat. Then it was back up to our home on the mountain side to get rested up for our Bear Viewing trip tomorrow.