Kodiak

Work trips don't usually take me places where I can see friends, but once in a while the stars align. Last week I had a meeting in Kodiak, AK, and got to spend time with friends Natura and Michael, whom Steve and I met while living in Juneau.

They have an beautiful, sun-filled house on a hillside above downtown Kodiak. I loved watching to ships come and go, and could usually be found sitting by the windows staring through the binoculars. I even saw a sea otter!

They have six egg-laying chickens in the yard, and four more young ones that are in the house (in a dog kennel) until they have enough feathers to live outside with the rest. We spent some time trying to get them used to being around people and being handled. For dinner we made fresh pasta using some of the eggs from the outside flock.

The sun came out so we sat in the yard, enjoying the newly-build burn barrel. As the fire really got roaring, Michael realized he'd built the structure over the top of their house's PVC sewage pipe...but further investigation revealed there was enough soil and rock between the fire and the pipe to keep it from melting. Whew!

This is the main harbor, as the sun started to peak through the clouds. Kodiak is a gorgeous town always, but on a sunny day it's spectacular.

The airport for Kodiak is out the road a bit, so as you depart you get a nice view of the town (and the plane's propeller!). In 6 days there, there were only 2.5 rainy days - that's pretty good! My flight out was only 1/3 full, and I asked the airline agent if that was normal. She said 'Not at all, it's nice out so people delay their flights...then complain when the weather's bad and we can't get out!'. Haha, so true!

Admittedly, photos from an airplane window are never good, but you see such interesting things from the air.  The sandy spit in the middle of this picture is the Homer spit. The end of the spit is the ferry terminal, which is where we departed from on our ferry trip from Homer to Dutch Harbor and back.

I can't resist one more. This is just before Homer, I love the swirly patterns of the sediments and the rivers.