Alaskan Vacation - July 2007

This is our first attempt at blogging, but we are hopeful that it will help us keep in touch better with our friends and family now that we will be moving back to Alaska shortly. Lauren and I have talked about starting a blog to track some of our trips, adventures, and close calls so that we can share them.


After suffering through several weeks of 100 degree weather in Utah, we were quite ready for our two week trip up to Alaska. After an uneventful, but torturous red-eye flight up to Anchorage, we were greeted by the midnight sun.


The next day, June 30th, we had an open house at my parents home. Thanks to hundreds of hours of work by both of our parents, it was an amazing success. The home looked really special and the food was marvelous.


Once we had the formalities out of the way, we were able to move on to the exciting parts of our vacation.... fishing, kayaking, and camping.


Our first stop, once we left town, was the Russian River. This place has a special meaning to it for us because it was almost a year ago to the day that we went on our first date there! The good thing about this year was that we could do the camping portion right now that we are married. (Last year Lauren slept in the tent while I pretended that I was not a 'bear burrito' in my sleeping bag outside on the ground.)


After spending a day on the Russian we drove down to Homer and caught a flight over to Seldovia to spend a few days at my parent's Cabin. The first few days were spent in the company of John and Stacy Hamm, and my parents. While it was nice to spend time with them, we really enjoyed spending some quality time alone together. At that point in our marriage, ( 3 months) we could count on one hand the number of days we had spent alone together. With the beautiful scenery, wonderful company, and fun things to do, we quickly forgot all about student teaching and the CPA exam.


While in Seldovia, Lauren had the opportunity to try ocean kayaking for the first time. Like most things that Lauren tries, she pretty much had it mastered in no time at all. At first we took a few small trips around the cabin to figuratively 'test the waters.' Soon though, we made a few longer trips of 3 and 6 miles where
we saw sea otters, eagles, fish, mountains, and the elusive 'elephant rock.'


Lauren's favorite part of the trip, without a doubt, was when we were able to catch an octopus in front of the cabin! Unfortunately we didn't have a camera with us when we were able to tempt it out of its den. In relation to other octopus the Hamm familiy has caught in the past, this one was quite small, but to Lauren it seemed huge. In reality, the smaller ones are better because they are less chewy and you don't waste as much. After cleaning it in front of the cabin, we made fried calamari and a paella for dinner. We tried a few as we were cooking it over the gas stove in the cabin and it tasted so good that we were unable to hold back. We ended up eating all the calamari as soon as it was cooked without waiting for 'dinner.' It was wonderful. We were both sad when we became full, if it wasn't for our full stomachs, we would have kept eating till it was gone!



The next day we used the rest of our octopus as halibut bait when we took a 15 mile drive out into the ocean to go deep sea fishing. The water was amazingly calm, and we were able to catch quite a variety of fish. As usual, Lauren out fished me. By mid afternoon when we decided to call it a day, we had caught 6 cod, 4 skates, 4 flounders, 4 Irish lords, 1 greenling, and 5 halibut. We kept several of the cod, and most of the halibut. Once again it was lots of fun to be out there together, living our Alaskan dream. Latter that night, Lauren admitted to me that it was her favorite halibut fishing ever. :)


When our two week vacation came to a close, we were just starting to feel at home in Alaska. Although we were sad to leave, it was made much easier knowing that we were returning in a few months. I start work on October 1st at Mikunda Cottrell, a small CPA firm in Anchorage. Lauren will look for a job at that time, and will subsitute teach to get a feel for the Anchorage School District.

Please check back in the next few weeks as we will be posting more adventures soon. Lauren finishes her student teaching on August 17th, I will take my final CPA exam on August 20th, and we will hit the road on the following day. Our tentative plan is to drive west to San Francisco, drive north along the coast to Seattle, drive through part of British Columbia, and then we will take a ferry up to Alaska. It should be an adventure!


Love Mark and Lauren