Family Visit!

My blog has been a little lonely on account of my family visiting from Texas!  I have been a little distracted and by the end of the night I am exhausted from running around with the family.  My two brothers, mother, and grandfather are visiting.  They arrived on the 26th and are leaving tomorrow already!  So lets begin with the 26th so that I can catch you up on the past four days.

After a day of work I headed into town to meet my family.  It was a simple night of grocery shopping, dinner at mcdonalds, and then headed home to crash for the night.  The airplane ride wore everyone out. 

On the 27th we went to Jack Sprat; one of my favorite restaurants in Girdwood.

For dessert we ordered apple bread pudding and raw apple pie.  My mom wants to go back for more apple bread pudding.
 This is the bread pudding....

The raw apple pie....

We headed over to the center so that I could show my family around.  I also wanted to let them give the moose calves their bottles. 

The family was introduced to Snickers.

The Wood Bison were moved into a new enclosure so that they could graze down the grass. 

This wood bison had an itch.

After touring the center we headed back to the condo and my grandfather prepared some delicious gumbo!  We popped in a movie and were out for the night.








On tuesday I had to work.  We had a porcupine presentation at the resort in Girdwood.  My family watched the presentation on such a beautiful day.  After the presentation they took the tram up to the top of Alyeska.  The pictures they got were amazing.

 I am so happy that the weather has been so nice so far.  Later, they went back to the center and fed the moose calves again.  They also walked around a bit more. 

That night my grandfather made spaghetti for everyone.  We also invited the other interns as well.  We had dinner and then played a game of quelf.  If you have never played this game it is hilarious.  There are always crazy rules and you have to remember them the whole game.  I highly recommend this game for any ages. 

On the 29th we went to Portage for the glacier cruise.  It is a really nice and short cruise.  It is only an hour, but it gets straight to the point and is never boring.  I actually really enjoy going on the cruise.  I always learn a few facts each time I go.  The view is always outstanding. 

We went to the Lodge after the glacier cruise.  The lodge is the ONLY place to eat in Portage.  It sure is yummy though.  I always get a grilled cheese, with cheddar, on sourdough.  I also get a side of sweet potato fries......I am hungry just thinking about it. 




We went back to the condo and we all took a little cat nap.  I had another porcupine presentation in Cooper Landing.  I wanted my family to come along so that we could go to the Russian River afterwards since last week I saw the four black bears.  I was not giving my hopes up that we would see one.  Well we didn't see any black bears......
we saw 6 Brown bears!!!!!!

  We were walking along the trail and some fishers in the river warned us to stop moving forward because there was a mother brown bear and her 2 cubs.  Another fisher that was in front of us kept on walking and tried to scare her away.  The mother growled at him and bluff charged him about 10 feet!  It was really scary!  So the bears eventually crossed the river.

 We eventually walked on and 20 yards later we came across another set of brown bears.  Another mother and 2 cubs were also fishing on the other side of the river. 

We know it was 2 different sets of bears because we saw both sets at the same time! 

We headed home and it was a late night for us.  We got back to the condo around 12:30 and finally got to bed.  We went to bed asap since it was going to be early rising for us the next morning.






We woke up around 6:30 (I didn't get out of bed till 7).  Parker, Corey, and I were going sea Kayaking!  I have never been kayaking before.  We were really excited.  It was in Whittier.  So we left around 7:30 so that we could feed the moose calves again at 8am.  Then we headed to go Kayaking!  The whittier tunnel is the longest tunnel in North America.  It is 2.5 miles long.  It is also a one way tunnel so we have to make sure that we time it right unless we want to wait half an hour to go in.

The town of Whittier is one of the weirdest towns in Alaska.  The town was used a lot in World War 2 to store supplies and equipment.  Since it is always covered by fog planes could not see the town from the sky.  Today we learned why no one knew the town was there......

The mountain was barely visible from the fog.

We suited up and went kayaking.

After kayaking my mom and grandfather picked us up and we had a yummy lunch at swiftwater cafe.  We were really exhausted from the weather and kayaking.  We headed back and lounged around the condo.  Later, my mom just couldn't resist having her bread pudding one more time.  Afterwards, we went to visit virgin Creek before calling it a night.  We also played a game of Phase 10 with the family and a couple of workers from AWCC.

http://youtu.be/Vj69FLnc72c  This is snickers doing his dancing....
Goodnight Lower 48,
Erin

Bear Cub Video

http://youtu.be/LyY5aRF-5Cc

Whew!  These past few days I have been so busy!  The center is getting more and more visitors every day!  Yesterday it was actually in the upper 60's which almost felt a little too warm for alaska.  I know, I know, you folks back in the lower 48 are probably laughing that I think that's hot.  Well spending almost 5 months in alaska weather would spoil you too!  The weather could not be any better.  I am getting ready for my family to come visit me tomorrow night!  I am so excited!!!!!

Unfortunately, my camera battery is dead so no pictures for tonight's blog.  It is also going to be really short.  But, I do have some good news....I have another video that I will be posting on youtube tonight!  I will make sure and add the link ASAP! 

Well I am gonna go and finish editing the video,
Goodnight lower 48,
ErIn

Russian River and a Cabin

Monday I was scheduled to work the bear enclosure from 1-5pm.  I always get to meet really cool people around this time.  I was also able to get a cute picture of Patron playing in the water with a left over tire.

After work Jordan asked Kristen, Jonathan, and I to help him try and move the bear cubs into a holding area.  We are about to switch the black bears and kodiac cubs.  The cubs will be going in where the black bears are, and the black bears will be going back into their old enclosure which is where the cubs currently are now. 

We were not very sucessfull with moving the cubs.....

Later, a few people where going fishing on the property across the street so I tagged along.  I wasn't fishing, but I was definitely enjoying the view. 

Tuesday and wednesday were my days off.  We had a trip planned to go and stay in a cabin.
We had a cabin rented for a night at the Eagle River Nature Center.  It was about a mile and a half hike to the cabin in the park.  There was a meadow called Bear Meadow just across the cabin.  We had pan grilled zucchini, chicken tortillas, and smores galore for dinner.

  Wednesday we headed back to the center.  We had a porcupine presentation in Cooper Landing at 8 pm so I was getting ready for that around 5ish.  The presentation went great, and afterwards we wanted to stop at the Russian River to look for any bears.  The salmon are starting to run through the river so people are fishing around this time down there.  When we arrived we heard there was a black bear and her 3 cubs in the area.  Sure enough, we spotted a black bear not 5 minutes later.  It was awesome!  I was able to see 4 black bears in one night!  The 3 cubs where hidden really well up in a tree. 

When people catch fish in this area they are asked to dispose of the left over fish and not leave the left overs in the stream.. However, people do not always do this and it attracts bear.  This black bear was getting easy meals by simply plucking the left overs that people just carelessly tossed back into the
stream.

A special Visit

Yesterday was a very busy day. We were getting the center ready for Senator Murkowski to visit. She is very interested in learning about our Wood Bison restoration project. So, first thing was first....take care of the animals...

We even cleaned up the bear exhibit....beleive me bear scat is one of the smelliest things I have had to clean up since I have been working at the AWCC. There was a nice reward of getting to work with the cubs afterwards. 

I think this next picture is one of my favorites so far...

Taquka was doing very well in training....

So today the Senator arrived and it was actually my day off.....well I thought it was at least.  I started working at 11 to help everything get prepared for her visit.  I actually got to feed the moose calves with her!  It was a lot of fun.  She seemed to really enjoy her visit and was very friendly.  She stayed for a few hours and discussed the future plans of the wood bison project with our Executive Director Mike Miller.  Later, we took a few pictures with her before she headed out. 

We also introduced our second moose calf in with Gilly.  They are getting along great!  I can not wait to feed both of them tomorrow!  I will definitely be using my gopro camera for that feeding.  I will also get some pictures of the two of them together for the next blog.

Goodnight Lower 48,
Erin

Short and Sweet blog

This is the view from my bed.  It is 9pm at night.

Gilly was more interested in his fireweed today than his 4pm bottle.

 Gilly was also very interested in meeting the caribou.  These are both males.  The caribou were not very interested in meeting Gilly.






As I was walking home today I stopped to say hello to Taqoka.  He was just sunbathing and eating grass.

6pm today and heading home from work.

Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn

Johnson's Pass

Yesterday was a drizzly day in Portage.  The bears were laying around all day long.

Hugo was just chilling by the cabin.

Joe Boxer found some protection from the rain under some bushes.

I actually had a short day at work since I was doing a presentation in Cooper Landing at 8pm.  So I headed in around 2pm...or so I thought.  Just as it was time for me to call it a day and get ready for the presentation; 4 tour buses arrived.  So I stayed a little longer at the bear enclosure.  After the buses left I was relieved from standing at the bears, and went to get brush for the moose.  They LOVE willow branches!

We headed out for Cooper landing around 6:30.  It takes about an hour to get there.  It is south of Portage.  We went to Kenai Princess Lodge where familys stay while on vacation.  We finished our presentation, and it went smoothly. 

Snickers was well behaved the whole night.  He is chowing down on some peanuts.

We wanted to stop at the Russian River on our way out.  It is one of the main places that the Red Salmon run though.  We were hoping to spot a brown bear or two.

There are salmon left overs that have been cleaned by people fishing.

We had no luck in the end, but we will be going next week for another presentation....so we will keep our fingers crossed. 

Today, thursday, I wanted to go to Girdwood to get a bike fixed up.  We have an extra bike that the center lets us use, however, the chain is broken and the seat is duck taped.  So, I figured I would get the chain and seat fixed so that I would now have a bike to use when I wanted to go somewhere. 
The bike was fixed up and I was ready to go for my first adventure on it.   We also went on a short walk as we were waiting in Girdwood for the bike to get fixed up.

This is Alyeska that I went skiing on this past winter.  Now it is ready to go hiking on.

 I know they are just dandelions but I still think they are pretty.

This river runs right through Girdwood.

After I picked the bike up we went back to the center to get ready for our bike ride.  We decided to go to Johnson's pass which is supposed to be a really nice trail.  The whole trail is 27 miles so I would like to be able to do that one day.  We hoped in the yukon with our bikes and drove about 10 miles down the road to the trail.  I quickly learned that this was a different type of biking that I wasn't used to.  I think I will invest in a helmet for the next mountain biking adventure.  It was such a nice day for this bike ride!

  About a mile into the trail we came across this beautiful waterfall.  We put our bikes to the side and hiked up to it. 

 There was also this cool looking plant that was every where.  I still don't know what it is if anyone may have ideas. 

We continued on....

The previous picture was the last stop we made before turning around.  We only went 4-5 miles each way and I am exhausted.  The trail was much shorter than the typical rides I go on, but the terrain made it much more difficult.  I had a blast and can not wait one day to be able to bike the whole trail. 

Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn