Finally, part 2 of the Alaskan Adventures. Sorry it took so long. I get disctracted. If you'd like to catch up on Part One, it's here. You can also click on the "Alaska" tag at the end of the entry.

Friday: So we "woke up" sometime around 5:30 am, which seemed to be about an hour or two after sunrise. Considering we went to sleep about an hour after sunset, I'm going to go with the whole "sun's down for two hours" theory. Feel free to disabuse me of that, but I was there, yo.

We went to go catch our charter (well, actually, I went to the bathroom and then the coffee shop, first, where I first broke my carb fast and had some of Ali's muffin). Ali wandered around and bought rubber boots, which I mocked her for and then used the next day.



We had to wait for our ship to come in (ha!) and so we didn't actually leave until around 7:30 or so, 'cause once the Captain (Jerry) got there, Ali and Iree were off at the boot shop, or whatever. But Ali bought some of those anti-seasick bands, so I probably can't complain. But if you ever wonder what's on my wrists in the pictures of me on the boat, it's the anti-seasick acupressure band things. Yo.



Off we went. It was really a beautiful, calm day. That's excellent. If it hadn't been calm, I probably would've spent the entire time throwing up over the railing. As it was, I was fairly woozy/queasy the entire trip. I am, apparently, a landlubber.

Apparently the best time to catch halibut - which is what we were fishing for - is right after the tide shifts, or something. I didn't even know there were tides that far out. I am oceaniacally stupid. Honestly. So we had to wait a couple of hours, but we set up our poles anyway and just floated around the ocean. Did I mention it was a beautiful day? We were out pretty far (it was about a 40 minute trip at top boat speed, whatever that is). There were mountains on both sides, and a volcano that was crowned in clouds. Very awesome.

Around noon or so, the fish started biting. And when I say biting, what I mean is this: one fish bit, and we reeled it up, then there was at least one hit every five minutes. It was pretty much constant fishing for the next few hours. Everyone's allowed to keep two, including Iree and the Captain, so we were aiming for 12 decent sized fish. We got more than 12, but didn't keep them all.

Fishing is hard work. If I had felt better, I'd have drunk (drank?) more so that the horrible pain in my arms would've been numbed. "Ah," thought I, "this is why fishermen drink." And they're all in better shape than I am.



Pull up, reel down. The halibut fishing mantra. It's actually the flounder fishing mantra, as well, but there's quite a difference between a four pound flounder that's twenty feet down and a twenty pound halibut that's 200 feet down. Quite.

So there was fishing, and eating and drinking. There was picture taking and fish clubbing, which resulted in bloody fish. After you club the fish and cut their gills, you stick them in a partly submerged net-thing on the back of the boat, so that most of the blood is gone by the time you get back. Genius. Except also sort of gross. I don't like to be reminded that my food was once a living, breathing, quasi-intelligent member of the animal kingdom. It's a thing.

In the end, we caught our twelve, and brought them back in to be cleaned and fileted for us. We kept a few pounds unfrozen, and kept the cheeks, but the rest we had frozen for shipment back to the Outside (i.e. anywhere not-Alaska) or just travel back to Palmer. The cheeks were actually quite good (we ate them Saturday night), and are probably the closest I'll get to the taste and feel of lobster for the rest of my life. I just had to get past the cheek eating part.



We were all tired and hungry, so eventually we decided on a place to eat. It was a pizza place (because I'm wary of seafood places). It was actually pretty good, for an organic, hippy establishment. Then James wanted to drive around the Spit to find his friend, which almost resulted in mutiny, and then we finally went to a hotel to crash. We got a suite. Which was, you know, okay. Two rooms, two beds, one pullout, and one huge couch. I took the couch. It was still sort of early, and I didn't want to ruin my shot at decent sleep that night, so I just took a shower and then hung out and played video games.

James and Steven went back to the Spit to do some salmon fishing, and Ali, Iree and I went out to dinner. The dinner was expensive and not that great. I started to get the feeling that it's pretty dumb not to order fish at these restaurants.

After dinner, there was some talk of ice cream, but everyone was too full to have it just yet. Ali suggested we walk down to the Spit to meet up with James and Steven, bring them our leftovers, and get ice cream. I had the feeling that this was a bad idea, and that the Spit was farther than Ali thought it was, but I tend not to speak up enough in situations like this.

So on three hours of sleep, after being sea sick and fishing hard all day, we walked five miles to the Spit. When we hit the edge of it (four miles in?) we saw James and Steven drive past us, in the other direction, but couldn't get their attention. We left a message for them with the hotel, but they ended up parking in the wrong lot so the hotel people never saw them go in (we found out later). We walked another mile and eventually gave up at around 10:30, at some RV park area. Where we bought Good Humor bars and called a taxi.

I slept really well that night.

Saturday: We slept in, which was good, since we all needed it. There was a place next door to the hotel that had awesome breakfast. I had biscuits and gravy and grits, and almost died of sheer joy. Sheer joy.

After breakfast, Ali, Iree, and I went back to the Spith (this time in a car) to work out the shipping for the fish. I ended up shipping half to my dad and half to my mom. So I still haven't technically eaten any of my fish, and it's been over a month. Oh well.



Then it was off for some more fishing. This involved a lot more car time, as Saturday's fishing was to be on a river, not the ocean. On the way, we stopped at James' friend's house, where I saw my first ever team of sled dogs that weren't animated. This was cool. I bet it would be cooler in the winter, but it was still cool. I'm a dog fan, after all. These particular dogs, some of which used to be James', were trained to stand on boxes (y'know, their houses) when they wanted to be pet. They were also shedding heavily, as it was July. Makes sense.



Then it was back in the car for another hour or so, until we hit the Russian River. Well, actually, we stopped at some sort of general store first. James bought some flies (the feathery kind) and I bought a hat with a salmon that said "Kenai River, Alaska" or something to that effect. The Russian and the Kenai are both glacial run-off that eventually meet, I think. Feel free to check a map if you're interested. We were a couple of miles down from that.

Did I mention glacial run off? And me without my rubber boots. Not owning rubber boots was the main reason that I didn't have any. So for my first hour or so, I stood with my pants rolled up to my knees, wearing James' too-big Tevas. This is something like swimming in the ocean off New England in April, which I've done. Very very cold. The difference between swimming and fishing, though, is that you stand there for an hour while fishing, and when you're swimming you just sort of go in, move around, and get out. Very cold.

This was my first time fishing on a river, and my first time fly fishing (I think they're the same: can you fish on a river without fly fishing?). It's fun and very relaxing and methodical. I liked it a lot. The river was crowded with people, both up and down, which James says is called "combat fishing." Cool.



We fished there for a few hours. Besides being cold, the river was very rocky. This made balancing hard, even after Ali lent my her rubber boots to fish in. Eventually, the guy next to me (who'd already caught about 6 fish while we'd been there) got one in the back that got away. Five minutes later, it got on my hook. I thought I'd snagged another rock or log, so didn't do much. Then the rock started pulling back and I realized "Eep! Fish!" And started reeling in and scrambling for the rocks at the same time.

Apparently this is a very precarious and precise art: I didn't get far enough up the bank and the fish started flapping its way back into the river. Luckily the guy next to us (the same one who'd caught about 40 fish already) ran over to wrestle it to the ground. I sure as hell wasn't about to wrangle with it.

Then there was some more head clubbing, which I continued to not join in on. Eventually, the fish was officially landed.



So I caught a silver salmon (they turn red farther up the river, as they get closer to spawning). James cleaned it up and we let it sit in a little pool that Iree made while we continued to fish. No one else got anything, though, and so a little while later we decided to pack it in. We still had a few hours to drive, after all. So the crew waited for the ferry to come back to shuttle us back across the river, and then it was back into the van. This time Ali drove, so I got shotgun.



On the way back to the van, some carrion eating wasps decided to tag along. Joy. I spastically flopped around the parking lot for a little, trying to get them away from me. We decided to get a snack a few miles up and then eat when we got back to Palmer. This resulted in my first experience with pork rinds. They're absolutely disgusting and delicious at the same time. And better yet, James "The Genius" decided to buy cheese sauce to dip them in. Heaven. They smell terrible, but taste wonderful. Who knew?

Then back upwards for a few hours. We hit Anchorage around 9 or 10 and Palmer about 45 minutes later. James started cooking the cheeks and some of the halibut filets as soon as we got back, as the rest of us emptied out the van. So we feasted on the fish we caught around 11 or so. Very cool. I've never eaten a cheek before.

And then up for a little longer, while I read some comics James bought at a garage sale (AU Return of the Jedi; weird but cool stuff). Then bed.

To be continued in Part 3: The Palmer PD and Me, the Future ADA. Plus: why I'll never like Minnesota.

Prologue: As I write this, I'm sipping complimentary Jack Daniels on the rocks and wondering when I became old enough. Not old enough to buy it, that's pretty arbitrary, but old enough to want it after a long day, or a hard day.

I thought I'd kill time by writing this recap now and just typing it up later. Maybe this'll save time on the other end, too.

It was pretty much a six day trip, so I'll split into three parts. Pictures will come later, when I get a chance to transfer them, or recieve some from James and Ali.

Part One, In Which I Travel, and Then Don't, But There's Baseball

As you, my faithful readers, may recall, I started Wednesday off on a bad note by pushing myself too hard in the heat and then getting sick after my run.

I bummed around the rest of the morning, took a short nap, got all my stuff together, and then Kate came by to drive me to Logan. There was no traffic, as it was the middle of the day, so I got there pretty quick. I said my goodbyes and went to go fight with Northwestern's "self-service" check-in. Service in the loosest sense of the term.

I am by no means a techno-idiot, or phobe, or whatever, but that machine totally confused me. And sucked. The instructions made it unclear what, exactly, I could use to identify myself. I tried scanning my printed out boarding pass. No luck, but I did look like an idiot. I didn't have my passport (domestic flight), so I started to get concerned that I wouldn't be able to check my bag.

Then it hit me: try the credit card I used to buy the ticket. Thank Jeebus it wasn't my now-departed debit card.

So that worked, and the screen allowed me to enter how many bags I was checking and confirm that I was, indeed, me.

Then it reset. It didn't tell me what to do with my bag, didn't tell me where to go to catch my plane... basically just flashed the welcome screen, unhelpfully, as I stared at it. THe extremely unfriendly "agent" (who was, by no means, the sort of person that provided a consumer with agency) informed me, in the most condescending of tones, that the check-in tag was being printed on her side.

I offered to get my x-ray vision checked as soon as possible, and went on my merry, if disgruntled, way.

Security in Logan is a joke. Seriously. It's never, ever, even post 9/11, taken me more than five minutes to get through. I've waited longer at every other airport, including ones you wouldn't expect, like Providence. I didn't even have to take off my shoes. SO I whisked through that, killed an hour by the gate, and boarded my plane.

It was a pretty uneventful flight. I still didn't feel well, so I just drank club soda and tried not to die.

It worked.

Minneapolis. Woo. Not exciting. Lots of lakes, huh?

I boarded the other plane, headed for Anchorage. We had to wait to be "catered," which is not nearly as exciting as it sounds (which is to say: extreme lack of cavier and other such fineries that the word evokes in one's mind).

I sat next to a pleasant (no, really, in a creepy way) woman that re-applied her makeup, for no one in particular (herself?), every half hour in the five-plus hour flight, and was reading a book called Joshua: Warrior and Holy Man or something to that effect. I've since googled/wikied Joshua, in case you care to boost your biblical knowledge.

I arrived in Anchorage around 9pm local (1am my time). James, Ali, and Iree were waiting, which was nice as I had only expected James.

Also, for anyone that is, and never has before, traveling to Alaska, it's a frickin huge state. I google-mapped begore I left, only to find that my sense of scale was totally off. Though it looked like it's right next to Anchorage, James and Ali's town is actually about forty five minutes away. Actually, it is next to Anchorage. Frickin huge.

Anyway, we stopped in Anchorage to eat dinner. I was starving, but also exhausted. There's a picture of me at the time that I'll share when I get it from James. I look half past dead.

Meanwhile, it was about 11 or so (3 am!) and the sun was still bright and... sunny. Right, land of the Midnight Sun, got it.

Another drive and we were at James and Ali's place. I don't remember much else besides sweet sweet sleep.

[Interlude: It's about 10:30 pm Eastern, I don't know what part of the country we're over, but there's a huge lightning storm off in the distance out my window, and I can see the lights of a bunch of towns spread towards it. The lightning is turning the dark sky an awesome orange-purple.]

Thursday, I woke up to go to work with Ali. James and Ali actually work in the same office, but he left earlier to drive Iree to camp, or whatnot, so Ali and I walked over the the Public Defender's Office.

They introduced my around, then we went to the intern coral. I read up on one of Hames' cases that's going to trial so I could offer some suggestions from a different point of view.

We went to court, where I watched a couple of change of pleas, then I went to the jail with James while he visited a client. I nhelped with some research... then lunch.

I actually didn't mind any of this, for a couple of reasons. First, I was pretty wiped by the previous day's travel. Second, I was interested to see things in a PD's office, since I'll be working in one - albeit a much larger one - this fall.

In the afternoon, James and I took off a bit early to go get Iree and pack for our fishing trip. Then we went to watch an Alaska Independant league baseball game (the home team was the Mat-su Miners), which was cool. Kind of like college/A league ball. I got a t-shirt that they are kindly going to ship to me, as they were out of my size, without the shipping cost. I ate greasy burgers and hot dogs, drank some microbrews, spit some sunflower seeds. The game went until about 9:30. They didn't need to turn on the stadium lights.

It's entirely possible they don't even have stadium lights.

Ali met us in time for the 9th, when the Miners tied it on a wild pitch, and won on a deep double. Then we went back to their place to load the van.

We were taking a fishing trip down to Homer (heehee), for a halibut charter. We went with another PD intern, Steve, in his minivan. The picture of James tying one of the coolers to the "back rack" amidst the organized chaos is hilarious.

It was a long trip down to the Homer SPit (I'm so not kidding about that name). We didn't get in until about 3:30 in the morning. So I can say that I actually saw the summer sun set in Alaska, regardless of the fact that it rose again two hours later. Originally, we were going to get a hotel room but we were supposed to catch the boat at 6 am, so it would've been a waste.

So we "slept" in the can. Another new experience. I got a couple of hourse, I guess.

And then, awake for fishing!

To be continued in Part II: Sweet Merciful Crap! Fish!...