Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Alaskan Adventures

As you probably know, I had a wonderful post-graduation adventure up to Kodiak, Alaska for about five days. It was a wonderful, relaxing vacation away from life, with a few adventures thrown in. Stories contained here may be out of order, but who really cares, right? The scenery, although partially hidden by the clouds for my visit, was amazing. I got to see all ends of the road over the course of two days. When Gramma K.C., whom I was visiting, told me we were going to the 'end of the road', I envisioned something like what I would see here; the end of the pavement, or a switch to dirt-bike territory or something. Imagine my surprise when we rounded a corner and it was, quite literally, the END of the road. No, seriously. There was no more road and no more chance of one without the demolition of a mountain. Cool, right? :)

The next day we drove out to fossil beach and the other ends of the road. Gramma K.C.'s friend Martha went with us and helped me to find some really neat fossils. Mostly shells and such, that just happened to be completely engulfed in the rock. Some of the larger ones looked to have tree-ring type markings, so I assume that we were looking at the cross-section of fossilized trees. Call me a geek, or a nerd, but I thought it was epically cool!

Later that day, we stopped at another beach for some old-fashioned beach-combing. The kind where you look for 'real' shells instead of fossilized ones. We found some really neat ones and were thoroughly inspected by a sea-lion/seal. He was SO cute and curious, but seemed a little shy. He would stay off-shore and stare at us, then bob under for a bit before surfacing in another place to stare some more. We didn't mind at all.

After going down to the third end of the road the same day, we had worked up an appetite, so we decided to stop at this little restaurant, I forget the name of it at the moment. It seemed like it could be sketchy, but we were hungry and how bad could it be? On the way up the front steps, Martha suggested that I get on the same step as Gramma K.C. and jump a little for fun, it would be a nice and bouncy ride. :) We walked in on a scene from a B-rated western: Two guys playing pool in the center of the room and three people up at the bar drinking and smoking. No one seemed to be working and because of the positioning of the pool table, there really was no place to sit. We used the restroom in shifts (since we had been out all day we all needed to). We had been there a few minutes when the game of pool wrapped up and one of the players went behind the bar and served a drink to the other. It wasn't until about ten or more minutes before one of the gals at the bar turned around, realized they had customers, and turned back to her drink. Let's just say we did not stay to eat. :)

We had some very lovely dinners out with lovely friends of Gramma K.C.'s. One of which I got to play with the most adorable two year old and another of which I got to eat crab for the first time EVER! We also got to see some amazing wild-life which included, but was not necessarily limited to, eagles, ducks, seals/sea-lions, an octopus, magpies, buffalo, and various sea-creatures courtesy of the Kodiak touch-tank. :D We also had some lovely evenings in with movies, scenery, and chatting.

There were many other adventures of which I could tell, but I must leave SOMETHING for real-life conversations you know. :) Overall, it was a wonderful kick-off to post-college life and the adventures it will undoubtedly hold.

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