My Stay-cation in Anchorage, Part 3, The Decision

 

Adventures, Challenges, and Quality of Life Decisions

 

As reliable as the tides, the new year of 2024 changed the page on the calendar, bringing with it some much-anticipated plans and some that were not-so-welcome.

 

My friend Leilani was to move to Florida in June so our bird photography outings were coming to a close.  She was always the "ears" for our outings as with her acute hearing could hear and identify birds while driving slowly down a remote road with the window open.

 

Still, when she called and suggested a trip to Homer in early March, I thought she might be a bit barmy.   Way too early, I thought.   We went and saw several birds that I had never seen before (and some wonderful scenery).   We call those birds “lifers,” as in first time in my life.

Evening grosbeak.   Blown off course and rarely seen in this part of Alaska.

Long-tailed duck, formerly called an Old Squaw.   One of the few drakes that is prettier in its non-breeding plumage.

Sea otter with starfish.

Sunrise in Homer

An old cabin in Ninilchik on the way to Homer.

Moose

I began my 18^th season of cleaning up litter along 44 miles of the Seward highway in early May, and made it through 17 miles before  I had to quit for the foreseeable future.   I was plagued with those continuing back pains when I absent-mindedly tightened my abdominal muscles so I took a lot of breaks to wait for them to go away.

 

I’ll tell you one thing: trying to unlearn Mom’s admonition to “hold your stomach in” is almost impossible.

 

Leilani and I, along with two friends from Canada,  had plans to fly to Nome in early June to photograph migrating birds that we never get to see in our part of the state.   Plus, there were muskox all over the place, right in town.

So away to Nome we went, a place  I had never been before.   It was a roaring success, with several “lifers”.

 

 

The extraordinary Bluethroat, the prime goal of the trip to Nome.

Rock ptarmigan.   I've seen lots of willow ptarmigan, but this was my first rock.

Long-tailed jaeger!!!

American golden plover.

A herd of muskox crossing the road.

 Then, with a short gap in between,  I was once again picking up folks at the airport.   My two cousins, Bud and Bob, came to replace three sets of exterior stairs that were rotting away after a couple decades.  Bud is younger than me by five months.   Bob, by five years. 

 

Mission accomplished and now it was my turn to embark on some home maintenance projects.    I had three walls of my log-sided home to refinish as the Behr Log Home finish had failed.   This was not the first time, but almost an annual necessity.

Hauling around ladders and planks to jerry-rig scaffolding, hanging onto a 4-1/2 inch angle grinder with coarse sanding disks was not easy and again I found myself taking frequent rest breaks to wait for pain relief.

The facia needed restraining.

 

Then, in August, a windfall!   A completely unplanned trip to photograph the huge Coastal brown bears and puffins!

 

Digging razor clams.

Horned puffins.

By the time autumn arrived, I had to face that quality-of-life decision.   That pain was interfering in everything, including holding up my camera with its heavy, long lens.  Can’t have that.

I contacted the gastroenterologist I had seen a couple years before and requested an appointment, promising that I would go through with the surgery this time.   Eventually, he referred me to surgeon, and I followed up on the appointment.

 

Of course, I moaned about how scared I was and the various reactions I’d had to meds and procedures and how I feared I might not pull through one of those reactions etc., etc.,etc.   All excuses.

By the time I left his office (awed by the certificates from Duke, Yale, Cornell, and one other medical school that were displayed on his wall). I consented to the surgery.  

 

But first two more tests were required.   I’d managed to talk him out of an endoscopy.   He said he would do it while I was under the anesthetic for surgery, thereby eliminating double anesthesia.

 

So, the worst was the barium contrast X-ray.   This test had caused problems for my mother and I was not looking forward to it.

 

But, I went, swallowed the barium, rolled around on the X-ray table, and never did see the barium again.

By now, it was 2025.   I spent the next couple months terrified of the upcoming surgery date of March 24.   I also made meticulous plans, arranging a ticket for my step-daughter to fly up from Arizona to be my nanny during the operation, making hotel reservations because I had to remain in Anchorage for five days after the surgery, and stocking up with clear liquids to consume pre-and-post.

Then, it was time.  I was off to do something I’d been postponing for a long, long time.

 

 

 

Birding in Mid-March???

 

Sunrise over Kachemak Bay in Homer.

(Almost all the photos in this post are from past years.   We were chasing birds, not taking tourist shots.)

When my birding buddy Leilani called to invite me to accompany her to Homer to photograph the first evening grosbeak sighted on the Kenai Peninsula, I looked at the huge 10-foot high piles of snow in my yard and thought she was nuts.

Birding in mid-March?   That's the very definition of March Madness and has nothing to do with basketball.

But, I realized it would do me good to get out of the house for a while, even if we could never find that yellow bird that is way north of its normal range.  So, I packed up a change of clothes, my travel laptop, made sure the batteries were charged on the two cameras I would take, and all the paraphernalia required for the devices.

Leilani lives about 150 road miles north of me.   The trip was aborted before she got within a hundred miles of my place.   A blizzard with white-out conditions was raging along Turnagain Arm, notorious for its windy weather.   She called to cancel, turned around and went back to Palmer.

Parked on the Spit.

We both went back to bed for a couple hours, each in our own homes.

As it usually does, the weather did an about-face and, while not great, was decent enough for her to try again.   She arrived late-afternoon and we decided to stay here for the night and start out early the next day.

One must be flexible when one lives in Alaska.

In a previous chapter of our road trip, I mentioned stopping off in Ninilchik to see if we could find the beautiful Harlequin ducks in the creek that runs through the village.  HAH!  It was frozen solid.

We found some cool old buildings and a couple song sparrows to photograph, and went on our way to Homer.

It was too early to check into the hotel, so we went right to the 4.5-mile long gravel arm that reaches out from Homer and is called The Spit, and is thought to be part of a moraine left from an ancient glacier.  

From an overlook above Homer, with The Spit reaching out into the water.

For practical purposes, it's a dividing line between Cook Inlet that runs up to Anchorage, and Kachemak Bay, the body of water to the East.

It's a lot different today than the Spit I recall from the 1960s.  That Spit used to wash out in places with every big storm.   Since then, it's been fortified, built up,  and reinforced with large boulders.

Instead of an emphasis on commercial fishing, freight, and maritime support, it is now a tourist mecca with dozens of small shops built on  pilings and boardwalks on one side of the road.  On the other side, are buildings with their feet on the ground.

Scattered here and there are campgrounds and RV parks.

Years ago, when the canneries were operating here, employees would camp in tents as there was no housing.   They were called Spit Rats.

Many fishing charters are based here, with salmon and halibut being the most sought-after fish.  There's a lot of recreational fishing here, too.

Leilani and I were in Homer last summer when the lupine was in full bloom and making quite a splash.

Today, we headed right for Freight Road.  It curves around to the far side of the small boat harbor.  Kachemak Bay is on one side and the more industrial operations on the other.  

We kept our eyes on the bay as we drove along the bluff.  Nothing.  We parked at the far end where the entrance to the small boat harbor is and chatted with a very vocal American crow, then walked toward the small boat harbor.

Right away I spotted a couple red-breasted mergansers, waterfowl we don't see much of during the summer.   That did it.   We were stoked.

The light was against us and getting decent shots was almost impossible.  As the mergansers and some goldeneye moved farther into the harbor, we decided to go to the boardwalk and gangways on the other side.

The iconic Salty Dawg Saloon on The Spit:   these are photos from other years.

Note the eagle on the roof.

Eagle on roof.

Mules on beach.

This adult bald eagle had just stolen an otter carcass from a juvenile eagle and is celebrating.   I names it Rocky Bald-eagle.  (Think Rocky Balboa)

Condos and campers at the end of the Spit.

Downtown on the Spit during tourist season.

A rainbow and some nice light I caught one day.

Ferry from the Alaska Marine Highway system tied up to the dock in Homer.

Camping on the beach.

There's even a volcano you can see from the Spit.   This is Mt. Augustine, the first of four volcanoes on the west side of Cook Inlet.   Sometimes they erupt and spread volcanic ash all over tarnation.

Road Trip to Homer

 From my house, Homer, Alaska, is but 130 miles down the Sterling highway, at the end of the Kenai Peninsula.   You pass through a few small towns on the way down.

We had a couple errands to tend to in Soldotna, the first town of any size, and the next stop was the village of Ninilchik.  During the fishing season, Ninilchik is a popular place to launch boats into Cook Inlet for salmon and halibut fishing.   The boats are set into the sea with huge rubber-tired tractors that back the boat and trailer into the water at high tide.

IF you're just passing by on the highway, this is the most photographed building in Ninilchik.   It's a Russian Orthodox Church that sits on a bluff overlooking the village and boat launch.

Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord Chapel, built in 1901

Today, however, fishing season isn't open and the creek that flows through the village is still frozen.   We drove around and stopped at an old cabin.

As soon as we got out of the truck, Leilani heard a song sparrow.   Sure enough, a couple of these little birds were singing their beautiful songs from the spruce tree next to the cabin.

I wonder if that's an outhouse just a few steps from the cabin door?

I can't tell you how good it was to hear these songs that promised spring after a long and harsh winter with lots of snow.   That snow, by the way, is still there in eight-to-ten feet deep  piles in places around my yard.

From the wood shed to the fence line at right, snow is stacked in a 40-Ft deep by 50-ft across area.

For size comparison, the orange pylons are 42" high.

"I wish the song sparrow would land on the cabin, "Leilani said.   And it did.  Right where she wanted it.

We continued a short distance down this road and found a couple more buildings to photograph.

This cabin has Cook Inlet in the background.

A new RV trailer parked in front of a beautiful old barn.

A detail of the loft door and its richly-colored lumber.

With no other old buildings accessible, we headed up the hill and back to the Sterling highway.   Just up the hill is a view that most people recognize as Ninilchik.   It's a Russian Orthodox Church that sits on a bluff overlooking the valley.

This photo was taken a a couple years ago.

A few miles down the road, we saw our first moose, this one a cow.

She would not be our last!