First Impressions

 

I've been in Alaska a little over a week and so far so good. Homer is a lot less redneck and much more northern California that I would have expected. I have been pleasantly surprised by the people, restaurants, and activities for young kids. I will clearly need more colorful knit clothing to fit in. The other day, I was trying on some fall footwear that was admittedly a little funky looking. Kate looked at me and said, "Oh great now you're going to start wearing big earrings too." I spit up some coffee (they have great coffee and an insane amount of it here) and vowed to keep the little loops I've been wearing for 10 years. The farmers market had ukeleles playing last week and marimbas this week. I saw a bumper sticker that says, "Homer is a quaint fishing village with a marimba problem." ? More to come on bumper stickers later.

 

Dancing to ukeleles at the Farmers Market

 

Our house is good and the view is phenomenal. We have plenty of storage for Brian's toys and junk, and I figure location is most important. We are lucky to live on a paved road and to have a mailbox (more uncommon than you might think). We can walk to a little park and a restaurant or two, so I am trying to overlook any other shortcomings the house may have.

View from porch

House

I still haven't seen a moose, but the ship has a morale boat that we can use, so we went out yesterday with another family. I was hoping to catch a fat halibut, but for now I'll settle for the 20 legged starfish I pulled up. We also saw some whales spouting and one breach. We got close enough to Gull Island, a bird rookery, to see puffins and to make me want to hurl. The seagulls crap all over the rocks and you can smell it from a couple football fields away.

 

Starfish looked cooler when laid out on the side of the boat, but it

slipped off too quickly.

Kate started school last week and loves that she can take off her shoes at school and has two recess periods. The parent handbook says prolonged outdoor activities will be canceled if the weather reaches -30 and to dress accordingly. This made me both laugh and cry at the same time. Actually, I don't think the winters will be unbearably cold, just long. The average high for the winter is 32. I suppose that's why they say the roads are so icy.

In this photo, the kids are wearing their Xtra Tuf boots that Brian had waiting for them when they arrived. Think of it as receiving both a lei and sunscreen upon arriving in Hawaii, functional and fashionable. I think I will do an entire post on Xtra Tufs and/or Homer fashion later.

Brian loves the ship as you can imagine. He drinks coffee and hangs out professionally. True they do dangerous stuff in the Bering Sea, but they also fish, hunt, and see cool stuff. He found several large whale bones on his last trip, so I am expecting some scrimshaw in the near future.

Brian's boat (CGC Hickory)

 

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