Thanksgiving 2020

 What a year it has been.  Between COVID-19, lockdowns, and an election, I'm exhausted and ready to hibernate for the coming winter.  But before that, I just had to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Let me tell you about the one I had. It was as unusual as 2020 has been!

For several years, I have hosted Thanksgiving dinner for a group of friends; usually about 7 of us gather to eat and chat. I'm the host because one of my favorite things to do is cook Thanksgiving dinner. I enjoy cooking, especially when there are people who enjoy eating it.  As my sister described on the phone yesterday when asked how she was doing "I'm having the time of my life!"  That describes it very well. But this year was not to be like any other. 

Earlier in the season we pondered whether to have Thanksgiving at all.  None of us were willing to be indoors with anyone except family members.  I've been really strict about this since I'm one of those who are compromised health-wise. In the end, we decided that we could get together, but it would have to be outdoors. The weather at the end of November in Albuquerque can be a bit iffy but we figured that if we used a couple of space heaters, a charcoal grill, and a gas grill, plus dressed warmly, we would get by.  Rules were established -- only 2 people in the house at one time, with masks on. We were all set, sort of. 

Two of our group decided that this was too risky for them, so they bowed out. Then a couple of days before Thanksgiving, another of the group reevaluated his status (he's a nurse and while he doesn't treat COVID patients, there is so much COVID at the hospital that he felt he couldn't risk the rest of us getting sick if he unknowingly was infected. You gotta admire and respect that kind of decision.  That left 4 of us. 

About 10 days before the holiday I placed my online grocery order for everything I would need for the dinner, turkey, potatoes, and all the other stuff I didn't have on hand. The grocery store texted me just before I was to pick up my order -- no turkeys, would I like a turkey breast instead.  No thank you, I said.  Then promptly e-mailed all the other guests and told them my predicament; would they please look for turkeys as they did their shopping and let me know.  Kathy found some at Costco that afternoon and called -- 3 or 4 times -- but I didn't hear it because I had left my phone in the car.  So she went ahead and got the smallest turkey they had -- 20 lbs!  At least we had a turkey! But there were going to be a lot of leftovers! 

Since we were eating early in the day (to take advantage of the sun) the turkey would need to go in the oven pretty early in the morning, making it prudent to assemble the stuffing ahead of time.  That was accomplished on Wednesday morning with only one small cut on my finger.

The next job was pie.  One of the guests normally gets one from Costco, but I really like making pie, so this year was able to convince them not to buy one, but let me do it.  They relented!  Pie achieved on Wednesday afternoon. By now I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself and my organization skills! 

Thursday morning dawned early, and by 7 AM my turkey was stuffed and in the oven.  I hadn't thought about just how heavy a 20 lb. turkey might be, but it was a struggle to get it safely in the oven.  

The forecast for the day was sunny and about 55 at midday.  A bit cool, so I gathered some quilts and put them on the backs of chairs just in case they might be needed.  Table set, drink area arranged, potatoes cooked, mashed, and put in a crock pot to keep warm. I'm on a roll!  

About noon, I decided to check how the turkey was coming along (it was supposed to come out of the oven about 12:30 PM) but when I stuck the thermometer in the breast, it sailed way past 160 degrees to almost 180.  That bird was DONE.  I didn't think I would be able to lift it out of the oven safely, so I called Dave (who lives just around the corner) to ask if he could help.  Of course he did!  

By dinner time, it was 60 degrees on the patio, the sun was shining, and we didn't need any space heaters or anything else.  We were out there in shirtsleeves (and fleece vests!). Dinner was lovely, even though I forgot to turn on the surge protector that all the crock pots were plugged into, but the gravy was hot and that made everything OK.  We all had a most delightful time, until the sun went behind the neighbor's house and it began to cool off pretty rapidly. 

 I spent this morning dealing with the leftover turkey.  There is LOTS, even though everyone took plenty home. The carcass is stewed, broth strained, meat removed and saved, and now I'm dreaming of turkey and dumplings, turkey soup, and any other turkey dish I can think of that will feed me through the winter. 

   

Happy holidays, everyone! 

Seward

From Homer, I went to Seward for a few days.  On my last trip here six years ago, I had spent a very long time in the Seward Aquarium, and I was looking forward to a return visit.  It did not disappoint. 

The section I looked forward to most was the sea birds.  They have an enclosure, sort of like a butterfly exhibit at zoos you might be familiar with, but this one is full of sea birds.  According to the caretaker, there are 64 birds in the enclosure of at least six different varieties.  They have both horned and tufted Puffins, Kittiwakes, Murres, Pigeon Gulemots, Black Oystercatchers and ducks whose variety I can't remember. They are all flying free in this enclosure, and it is up to the viewer to stay away from the birds.  If they land near you, you must move.  That said, some of the birds are quite tame, and one of the horned puffins allowed himself to be handled by the caretaker (his name is Nemo!). I could have spent hours in there, just watching the birds. 

 

Horned Puffin (Nemo!)

Kittiwakes with a chick

Black Oystercatcher

Common Murres

Beautiful duck

They also have a very nice touch tank, although that part of the aquarium was fairly crowded that day.  But I got up close and personal with sea stars and anemones, and watched the critters in a barnacle tank.  That was most fascinating, because of the way they wave their antennae (is that what they are called?) reminding me of the flag twirlers in high school football half time programs. (George, I took this video especially for you!) 

 

Video for George

Anemone -- just beautiful! 

The next day, I did a glacier cruise that was OK, but it rained almost all day, and by the end I was soaking wet and very cold.  All I could think about was stopping at Safeway and getting some soup for supper (which I did) and then curling up under the covers to get warm (which I also did).  

 

Sea Lions

Seals

The Glacier

Nesting Puffins deep in those crevices. 

This is what it looked like out on the water. 

Seward is also famous for its murals; they paint a new one each year and they are displayed on the side of many of the buildings in town.  This tryptic tells the story of Raven and the Creation and was particularly moving to me. 

Seldovia

Boy am I ever far behind on blog posts.  Now that I have some reasonable Wi-Fi, maybe I can get caught up! 

Seldovia is a very small town across Katchemak Bay from Homer that can only be reached by boat or plane. That meant a day trip was in the cards, and Rainbow Tours had just the trip. It included some wildlife viewing on the way to Seldovia, then several hours in the town, and a faster ride back to Homer.

 

View on the way

The ride there included a fascinating, up close view of Gull Island, a bird sanctuary, and we saw thousands of birds, including Puffins, Murres, and Kittiwakes. The Murres and the Kittiwakes were nesting on the rocks, the Murres at the very top, and the Kittiwakes a bit further down. The Puffins that we saw were all in the water, because the places that they were nesting were deep in crevices in the rocks and it was too hard to see them. 

 

Murres at the top

Kittiwakes

We also saw quite a few sea otters, which are just the cutest thing you have ever seen. They seemed to want to pose for us! As the guide said, anyone who didn't get a good sea otter photo just wasn't trying…. 

 

He posed for quite a while!

There's a whole raft of them here! 

The other thing that was plentiful on Gull Island was flies.  The combination of low tide and the time of day when we were viewing the island was ideal for flies finding our boat and following us most of the way to Seldovia.  This wasn't just a few flies, no, this was a hoard of them.  If you were outside on the deck and stood up, a black cloud rose from your jeans.  Two of the crew members went outside with fly swatters and a hose and tried to get rid of them, but it was pretty hopeless, and most of us stayed inside for the rest of the voyage to Seldovia. 

It's a picturesque fishing town, with one main street with no more than two dozen buildings in all.  It was lunchtime, and luckily one of the buildings was a restaurant.  I had salmon and chips and it was delicious! 

Yum, lunch! 

 In a small park there were some chain saw carvings; these two in particular caught my eye. 

The town was mainly shops to entice tourists, but as I was looking around, I saw two men down on the dock cleaning their fish. I asked them if I could take photos, and they were glad to have me do it.  It was fascinating to see how quickly they could clean a fish, and they each had a big ziplok bag full of both salmon and halibut fillets by they time they were finished; it made me envious of their freezers contents for this coming winter…. The crows had a feast! 

Lots of salmon.

Filleting a Halibut. 

The crows eat too. 

Although these two men had been successful, when I looked off the bridge in the town, I only saw a few salmon on their way to spawn. But the view from the bridge was lovely. 

Bears, bears, bears

About five years ago I discovered the Explore.org wildlife cameras, specifically the Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park, bear cameras.  There are several of them focused on different areas of the river and falls (you can find them at https://explore.org/livecams/brown-bears/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls), and they can be addictive.  I'm living proof of that!  Over the past 5 years, I can't tell you how many hours I've spent watching those bears do all sorts of silly things.  I can tell you who some of the bears are (many of them have names given to them by the rangers or by people who comment on the website), I can tell you who had cubs and when; in other words, I've devoted a lot of time and brain space to these bears. Never in my imagination did I think that I would be able to see them in person. Too expensive, I said to myself, hard to fly when you need oxygen, plus myriad other reasons that it wouldn't be possible. 

Last Wednesday I arrived in Homer and started looking at the tour book to see what things I really wanted to see while I was here. At the bottom of one of the pages was an ad for Bald Mountain Air with day tours to Brooks Falls.  What? I said to myself. I thought you had to go for several days and stay in the lodge. I had no idea there were day trips to get there. Oh well, I figured, they are probably all booked up, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.  I called them, and lo and behold, they had one opening for Sunday the 21^st.  Well, I didn't have a set schedule, I could find things to do in Homer for a few days, and I jumped at the chance to go.  It was expensive, but I decided it was worth it to dip into savings for this. At that point, I was so excited that I called my sister to gush, and texted my sons (the ones in the US, sorry Drew!!) with the exciting news. 

It was hard to wait, but finally I woke up this morning and just started grinning, because today was the day! It was sunny and warm, and I was READY!!

8:30 AM: be at Bald Mountain Air to take our 10 passenger Otter, with pilot Doug. 

Beautiful scenery on my side of the plane on the way to Katmai. 

10:45 AM: land on Naknek Lake. I recognize the surroundings from the bear cameras. 

11:00 AM: Bear School at the park with a ranger.  There was a video about bear safety, and a talk afterwards that is required for anyone wanting to go further than the visitor center. (Eat some of the snack food you brought while you watch the video – no food on the trails). Get your National Parks Passport stamped!

11:30 AM: find a group to walk with (safer in numbers) and get to the bridge across the river.  First bear sighting from the bridge, a sow with 3 cubs, but over there are two sleeping on the beach, and two more swimming up the river, and wait, on the other side of the bridge, there are 6 bears in the river fishing for salmon, and most of them have one in their paws.  Holy cow, there are bears everywhere! 

Mama and 3 cubs

Mama eats first!

There are 6 bears in this photo -- click on it and it will enlarge! 

12:45 PM: tear yourself away from the bears on the lower river and hike (wait. two bears are coming down the road toward the bridge so we have to wait for them to wander off the other way) to the Riffles (a spot just a little way down from the falls, it has a big viewing platform and it is here we must wait our turn to go to Brooks Falls, which can only fit 40 people at a time on the viewing platform. There is a bear not 30 yards from us who is halfheartedly catching and eating salmon.  It's almost like he is really full, but knows he must keep eating! Sometimes he only takes one or two bites before he lets the salmon go. 

Looking for another fish.

1:15 PM: it's our turn to go to the falls, a short walk on a boardwalk to the viewing platform. Two bears are there, one in what is fondly called the Jacuzzi because of the way the water flows from the falls there, and another in the J – I don't know how it got it's name, but that's what it is called.  Salmon are jumping at a good rate – every time I try to count there are at least a dozen in the air attempting the jump – and the bears are catching them at a pretty good pace.

this one tried to pounce on the fish!

2:00 PM: leave the platform for the hike back to the visitor center and the plane.  Oops, can't leave yet, there are two bears just off the path, so we have to stay on the enclosed boardwalk for about 10 minutes till they mosey off in the other direction. 

2:20 PM: back to the lower river and the bridge, but there is a mama with one cub cavorting below us, so we stay to watch as long as we can.  A huge school of salmon is gathering at the bridge, getting ready to make the assault on the falls.  (And my feet ache, it's been a lot of standing and walking, and I want to sit down for a while.

Salmon stacked up waiting for the next run1

Mama and baby pretty close up! 

3:15 PM Back at the plane for the trip home. It's been a fabulous day, one I will remember for the rest of my life!  

 5:30 PM:  home at last -- got a bowl of chili at the takeout restaurant up the road, and that is dinner! Put my feet up, and write a blog!