Jeanette and G-Ma's visit!

Jeanette and Grandma came up around the 13th-21st-ish of September. They headed out for day adventures while Adam and I worked and then we all met back at the house for some yummy dinner and stories of the day. They went on some beautiful hikes (the trees were perfectly gorgeous while they were here) and went to the animal rescue/conservation center. They also checked out downtown Anchorage and went to some fun stores. They of course were a huge help to us-they made lots of delicious food, conquered a huge pile of Adam's clothes that needed to be sewn (and a few of mine!), took Adam fabric shopping for curtains, and lots of household stuff that we didn't need to worry about when we got home at night. Adam made his favorite recipes for salmon and halibut for Grandma to try. He also did a trial of clams and caribou steak!



The first weekend, we set out to the Kenai to show Grandma the scenery along the Seward highway and to see the last of the red salmon. Adam tried his luck fly fishing for trout. We went on a pretty rough hike...I tripped over logs and brush a good number of times-- Grandma and Jeanette were troopers! Especially when we came across some crazy bear signs and were given warning of a bear coming our way by some people on a floating raft! Keep in mind that Grandma was NOT AT ALL interested in seeing a bear!



The second weekend was the BIG ONE!! Adam put all of our names in for the Denali National Park road lottery. ONLY 4 days a year are open for people to drive their own cars all the way to the end of the road in the park, BUT you HAVE to have your name drawn. Well lucky, ducky us-- my name was drawn and we got to go! It is perhaps a once in a lifetime deal... you can always take the bus but it is a different experience when you can drive yourself and go at your own pace. We started the weekend with driving to Fairbanks to check it out, we stayed the night in the city, North Pole!! There was a look out point for seeing the Northern lights, you can see the horizon nearly 360 degrees around you, however, we didn't get to see them. (Adam and I have yet to see 'em!) Instead, we had to save the forest by putting out a raging hot fire that some crazy and idiotic people left burning. The flames were blowing like crazy in the wind. We were pist! The next day we went to Santa Claus' house...which was a little disappointing... just lots of xmas decor. We were really hoping to see the elves building toys! ;) After that, we took a beautiful drive back toward Denali National Park. We stopped at some pretty sights along teh way and even at "Dry Creek" to find some rocks. We spent the night at the White Moose motel (they had real pictures of an albino moose!) and set off early for Denali.



Denali was a dream... we had the best possible conditions. There was not a cloud in the sky and Denali was beautiful as ever. Some people don't even get to see the mountain due to fog and clouds. The wildlfe was also aaaaaaaaaaamazing! It was a VERY SCARY drive along the edge of mountains but well worth it and quite the experience!



Check out the pictures... the first few pictures are kinda in random order...they are Jeanettes and I uploaded them after mine.



G-Ma's version of the famous jumping picture! She insisted on staying next to the truck and far from the edge of the moutain. She got some air!

There go Jeanette and ADam... jumping on top of the world!! :)

Baby bear on his/her (pretty sure his.. he was pretty stocky!) hind legs. The park ranger said these cubs are 2 year-olds... I had no idea, but grizzly cubs are born in the winter dens and will stay with their mama even through the next winter. She will dig/find a den for all three of them! :)

Grandma with the road going straight toward Denali in the background!

This was a griz at the animal conservation center... I guess they were being a real hoot that day!

A roadside stop... Denali in the back

Cody and me at Hatcher's Pass

A griz paw, taken at the conservation center

Adam AND GRANDMA pickin on me! :)

This caribou charged Grandma (who was behind the fence of course... at the conservation center)... he almost made her fall on her ass. What a meany! :) ...... rutting season!

Beautiful!

Proud Grandma! Adam in his uniform!

Me with a mutated red... toward the end of his run

Adam fly fishin! He hooked into one... but didn't catch any that day

I think this is when we spotted a verrrrrry old King...he was actually molding!

Adam shooting his .338 for the first time! :)

We saw the belugas!!!

Can you spot the red in the water?!?!

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Jeanette and Adam picking blueberries at Hatcher's pass... yummy! :)

An arctic ground squirrel

Check out those colors!

Adam and I in front of Denali

Adam entertaining himself... watching himself be a monkey!

At Santa Claus' house

awwwwwwwww

Giant Santas everywhere! Oh.. his reindeer were also there! (they had caribou in a pen) A funny side note... a mother and her little girl, about 3 years old, were looking at the caribou and the mother flat out asked, "Shall we make them into sausage??!?!" The girl just replied, "nah!" The same mother and daughter were inside the building and looking at a life size Santa holding a walking cane and the mother said, "Look, Santa uses a stick to chase the fox away from the chickens too!"...... Just from overhearing those blurbs.. I can tell that little girl is growing up to be quite the Alaskan woman! :)

"bear butts!"

We were at the North Pole!

Dry Creek... yes, yes... very very dry! Pretty rocks though!

Our first wildlife sighting in Denali... big ol bull!

Nice full-curl ram.... we saw SO MANY dall sheep! Most were pretty far off, or high up in the mountains though

...eeeesh... our road! Check out the video below!

Mama and her cubs. Mama and one cub are pretty blonde for griz bears! She called them in close to her because she was spooked by the noisy flock of birds flying overhead. (arctic cranes, I believe)

Just watching the bears. You can see Denali and the cars on the road as well.

This is how close/far we were from them... however you interpret it!

Breath-taking!

A couple random caribou... far from their heard

..... that would be Grandma!

Check out this big boy!... if you know what I mean!

The tones of color on the mountains were unreal! And very hard to capture on camera.

Some more sheep

This is me shooting our .44 mag for the first time. We have had this gun for awhile and carry it with us when needed but haven't shot it yet due to AMMO! The ammo up here is ridiculous expensive, so we bought some from the lower 48 and had it barged up with our furniture. I don't remember if I told you all that..... we picked out furniture from a store up here and ordered the exact same stuff from the lower 48 and had it barged up here for cheaper than just buying it in Anchorage. ....crazy huh?

....this is at a gun range not far from our house (15mins).... suppose to be one of the top ranges in the nation. We met a couple out there who helped Adam to sight in his new rifle and scope for the moose hunt. They just moved up here and have been married for a year as well. The wife is a teacher and grew up with horses as well... we seem to havea lot in common and hit it off right away. Adam is now out on a goat hunt with his pharmacy buddy. So I went to the range with our new buddies again yesterday. I am getting pretty comfortable with the 44! I think they also have convinced me to buy a .270 for myself.... I shot hers and she has it set up so well that it kicked less than my 12 gauge!

...Adam's goat hunt. I know I've wrote about it before. They ended up biking in 6 miles to set up camp. (two crazies!) They left SAturday and are coming back out on Tuesday. .... we'll see!

This video shows a bore tide.... an extremely low tide shifting to a high tide. Kinda rare to see, you have to time it right... we happened to come across it this time! The wave can get so big that people actually surf on it! There are pictures on the Anchorage Daily News website.
http://www.adn.com/

Moose hunt update

So I found out today that I was actually hunting in an illegal area for my first Moose hunt!!! Turns out I viewed a map incorrectly and the "Anchorage" area extends a lot further South than I thought. It's a DAMN good thing I didn't shoot anything or I would have been slapped with a hefty fine.

Take a look at this map (which I was not aware of prior to the hunt):

McHugh Creek is in the lower, left hand corner. As you can see, I was a little too far North!

Well, like I said, I learned a lot from this hunt!!!

Next week is the goat hunt... which we know for a fact is legal to hunt :)

My first solo moose hunt!!

So I decided to document as much about my first solo moose hunt as possible.

I packed everything up and my pack weighed close to 85 pounds!!! (Way heavier than I really wanted it. Thank goodness I had a great pair of trekking sticks... those were life savers this weekend!

Well the regulations say you have to be at least 0.5 miles off the road before you can discharge a weapon hunting. Unfortunately, this means horizontally and not a straight line from the road system. i.e. you could not shoot a sheep if you were on top of mountain that went straight up just ten feet from the road, even if you were 2 miles above the road. That made for some tough trekking before I was within legal shooting distance, seeing that my chosen trail was basically all up hill!

Anyway, I set my GPS to alarm me when I was exactly .5 miles off the road system. You would have thought I set it to tell me where a bull and cow moose were laying because as soon as I reached the 0.5 miles mark, there was a cow and bull moose just waiting for me. (I didn't have my video camera going yet). The bull moose spooked easy (not typical of moose), but I was able to see that he was a legal bull. He was easily within shooting distance, but I would have never got a better shot than right through the butt (not an advisable shot). He trotted off along with my hopes of ending the hunt early.

Soon after, I arrived at a decent looking camp area... and I'll let the videos and pictures take it from here...



NOTE - I just now noticed that about EVERY video I took, I introduced the filming with an "alright". I apologize if this annoys anyone other than me :)

ANOTHER NOTE - You'll also notice I did not film during most of one day. This is because my battery was going dead and I did not bring any extra camcorder batteries with me. After I was content with my battery going dead on me, I started to film more (hence the last videos).

LAST NOTE - The zoom feature on my camera is not the best, so some shots are hard to see. I apologize for this as it is not ideal, but this waterproof camera/camcorder is the best thing since sliced bread and I don't typically need a good zoom feature.











Now I mention mile marker 2 in the following video... however... this is mile two of the trail, and it is actually a 1.5 mile hike to the trail head. Keep in mind the entire hike is straight up a mountain (as you can see from my scenic views).



































































So unfortunately I did not bag an animal. Although it may sound cheesy, this didn't bother me at all... as I learned A LOT while being out there (so much that I won't bore you with the details). It hard to imagine that I live in this beautiful area of the world. It's also hard to imagine that I can go to my local sporting goods store, tell them I want a black bear and a moose harvest ticket (regulations allowing in certain areas), and receive them for free to try my luck with. Simply amazing!

I will be taking a week off next week and then hopefully heading out for a week of mountain goat hunting with a buddy from the pharmacy. I'll let you know how that turns out!

Girl's Weekend X2 and Tyler's visit

hey everyone... here are pics from two girl's weekends and a few from when Tyler was visiting. I do not have pics from the boy's weekends.... but maybe we don't want to see those anyway!?!? I'll leave that up to Adam!

Angel-Mama sleepin w/ her new pink flamingo!

We had the gang over for dinner before the Mitchams left--- the military transfered them to Kentucky :( This was the best of 5 picture attempts--it was a fun but sad night.

A lil peek at the "road" you take back to Jim's Creek. It's not an official road. You are more likely to see 4-wheelers and mudding trucks on it than regular trucks (no cars!). At one point, you drive through a shallow part of the river. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!

Adam and Tyler as we made our way up Baldy Mountain in Eagle River. I was ahead of them most of the way up, but only because they were packing stuff up! Tyler had all of his camera equipment and Adam stuffed his hunting day-bag full of dirty laundry to get his body ready for the upcoming goat hunt!

We saw an airforce jet/plane drop parachuters!

Interesting photo-- Denali mountain in the backgroud, a wall of clouds, Knik Arm (water), and a personal plane.

We can see Anchorage from the top of Baldy. The sun was setting.

Absolutely gorgeous!

THOSE ARE MOSQUITOS swarming Adam! :) :) :) It's so strange... they are not vicious here, I have had probably a total of 10 bug bites from Alaskan mosquitos this summer. Must be all that moose and bear blood they get full on!

Unreal!

Anchorage all lit up. You can also see the Glenn Highway lights... the only road between Anchorage and Eagle River

FINALLY............... MY FIRST BULUGA WHALE SIGHTING!!!! There was a pod of about 30 swimming right along the shore!

They barely surface and just look like white blobs!

One off to the left, when zoomed in, you can see this one's eye!

Girl's weekend outta Seward. We took Kelly's boat out on the ocean for a GORGEOUS day of fishing! The first silver salmon catch went to Erin!! (pretty big fish 'eh?!?)

The other three girls- Kelly, Kim, and Erin

Kimmy's silver salmon! (she is a crazy-good fisherwoman and doesn't even eat salmon!)

Erin's yellow-eye rock fish! AMAZING!!! The rock fish are down so deep that when you reel them up, they burp/vomit up something from inside. (I don't remember what it is.. an air bag!??!) These fish are totally new to us and I can't wait to learn more and catch one!

Sitting round the fire with our massive hotel-tent in the background!

Tyler and Adam fishing at Jim's creek. Hard to see.... Knik Glacier is in the background

Tyler and I got groceries on base..... however, when trying to leave the parking lot- we were blocked in by military and police. Nobody could enter or leave the commissary parking lot. The car in front of us got searched but we were not told what the H*** was going on. ........after sitting for an hour, we decided to start eating the icecream since it was MELTING!! we searched the entire car for something to eat it with and right before we started to dig in with our fingers, I found a small sand shovel and a little scooper for Tyler. Best icecream ever... but our tummies started to hurt after eating 1/2 of it! .......OH- we sat in the parking lot for 2 hours until they finally started letting everyone out ONE entrance/exit. So we had to wait in line. No explanation at all--we'll never know!

Byron Glacier near Girdwood. Erin's sister was visiting for the week and we had another girl's weekend. We went to Hope for the weekend-stayed in a "hostel" AKA cabin. We were thankful to have a warm place to go after white-water rafting in the rain and freezing water. We also had a microwave so we didn't have to mess with cooking! :) We rafted, fished, and hiked over labor day weekend. We stopped at Byron Glacier on the way home. We found a couple Salmonberries- yum! We also sang/yelled for the entire 15 minute hike becuase fellow hikers (hiking out) had just seen a black bear on the trail. We didn't run into the little fella... I THINK he heard our singing.

Of course, Chena, went with us. She was completely tuckered after our busy days outdoors.

Smores in the microwave!

Chena going for a swim!

Erin's sister, Blayr, with her first salmon. This is a red, Sockeye, salmon at the end of its run. You saw pictures of fresh reds a couple blog entries back. They enter the fresh water looking normal and end up like this after they spawn and are dying off. Silver to red in color. They grow beaks and teeth.... it's crazy! These are no longer good to eat, but fun to catch!

You can see them in the water pretty easily when they are so bright red!
Us with our wet suits on in front of the rafts. WOW.. what an adventure! We wore these wet suits, life jackets, and helmets. We had to take a swim test by floating down the river and then swimming across the current at a certain point. The water was freezing... our hands were not covered and water went down my neck!

We did 3 canyons. The first 2 were pretty simple and class 2, 3 rapids. The third canyon was type 5 (the highest you can raft in). We had sooooooo much fun on the first two and did a great job paddling together so decided to go for the 3rd (we had already paid for it anyway!). The third canyon was pretty intense but awesome. At the VERY LAST rapids...my paddle got stuck on a rock and I tumbled out- feet over my head- backwards. I came up right away and reached for paddles that Erin and our guide were sticking out to me, I grabbed one. He pulled me to the boat and then grabbed me by teh lifejacket and hoisted be over. It was pretty fun/funny afterward--- I was the only "swimmer" for the day, but it was pretty scary. The water pulls you all over, there are huge rocks everywhere(I have a sore hip from hitting one), and luckily-- I didn't come up under the raft. BUT IT WAS AWESOME and I'll totally do it again!
This is a very large bear track we came across while hiking on the Resurrection Trail (NOT as big as the one we came across right before dark on our spring hike up to Crescent Lake though!)
The biggest pile of bear poo evvvvvvvvvvvver!!! I thought for sure it was still warm and stuck my finger in it, but it was cold. My question was.... where did he/she get all those blueberries!?!?
Our cute lil hostel/cabin in Hope. Hope is itty-bitty with like 6 kids in their entire school. All of teh buildings are extremely old and cute. We went to the town bar one night and had a blast with the locals. Even though we were only there for an hour because we arrived at 10, not realizing it closed at 11!!!

Our leaves have been changing color-- the mountains are very colorful and beautiful. I have raked leaves in our year twice now. Temperature highs have been high 50s, low 60s. Jeanette and Grandma come to Alaska on Saturday for 10 days. We have our Denali trip next weekend... once in a life time tickets!!!! CAN'T WAIT!

ADam spent his weekend in Vegas! His buddy and best man, Kenny, got back from Afghanistan in May-- so they were celebrating, VEGAS STYLE!!! They had a great time... Adam is defintely exhausted and a little dehydrated!! A couple other guys from college went too, also some of Kenny's buddies who were in his platoon.

We had a moose calf in our neighborhood last night(1 block away).... I did all I could not to stop and gawk! I think I have finally passed the point of taking pictures of every single moose... although its hard!

Angel spends a lot of time outside. We keep a close eye on her though... there are bears in the neighborhood (we live right next to the actual river... Eagle River) although we haven't seen any yet. There are also plenty of eagles (imagine that!) I sure hope they woudln't swoop down and scoop her up, hopefully 15 pounds is too heavy!

An update on my favorite kiddos in the woooooooorld..... All of my Kucera girls are in school now. Syd is in 6th, Brooklyn is in 2nd, Shanin is in 1st, Heidi is in 1st, Breanna is in Kinder, and Annie is in preschool! AHHH they are growing up way tooooo fast! Kaners just had his tonsils removed and had to go back in for a second surgery because his throat started bleeding again. He is a tough lil guy though! He is talking A LOT and has the sweetest little voice! Emma enjoys going out to Grandma's garden EVERY day... she eats all the tomatoes before they get to the house!! I'm sure she is missing the garden now!

love you all

OH OH OH... videos!! enjoy! :)

Bulugas... in very close to shore. There was a pod of about 30. They were super cool, but they don't do much. You can see the sprays of water and occasionally one will surface but they just look like white blobs. We heard one make a "grunting" noise, but I didn't get it on video.

Two of the three times I have seen sea lions, they have been laying lazily on the rocks. It was neato to see them swimming around!

These are porpoise. They are VERY fast and VERY playful. They usually swim along boats but these guys didn't get very close to us.

HAIL in Alaska. Adam, Tyler, and I were going for a hike when it randomly started hailing on the mountain... which is very strange. No hike on the mountain that day! We drove out of the valley and found a flat trail to walk for awhile.

Check out all of the Reds (sockeye salmon). All salmon turn red but these are actually called reds. We heard gun shots two different times that day.... they did not sound like rifle, but hand gun. Which made us very curious! Also... there was a partially knawed on salmon under a tree near this fishin hole! the bears are picky and don't like the 1/2 dead salmon either, so it left it! :) OOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRR we scared it off!?!?