well, here we meet again...
the short story is i didn't hike much lately ,but I had a good time, quiet and relaxing holidays, cursed-and-wonderful-time in homer, and I'm leaving Alaska.
the long story...
well, after the ROSH HASHANA dinner i had a very quiet and pleasant Saturday, not doing much...
Hatchers' Pass
----------------------
on Sunday i didn't have any plans. but waking up to see such a perfect sunny day, i decided to go hiking.
so i took the car and midnight (the dog) and drove to Hatcher's pass - a place I've heard about from the last ride back from Resurrection pass. it's quite close to Palmer, and it's a very beautiful place. high in the mountains, snowy peaks, autumn colors, the usual... but close to home... and you can go with the car quite high (already the snow was very close to the parking lot).
i just went on a short hike, mainly because i was quite tired, and after a very short but steep climb i got to the snow and it wasn't much fun walking on it. and i could see the beautiful scenery even from the parking lot, so why should i be slipping my way up?
bottom line - it was a very nice short hike.
on Monday (the 25th) i didn't do much again.
but at that night, i saw the northern lights for the first time!!!
they were almost colorless, and it was short and they were very hard to notice, but for me it was a thrill!! actually Kim said they were "the poorest ever". but, you know, the first time...
Homer - take II
----------------------
Tuesday i started a new adventure.
Paul, his friend Daniel and me, drove to Homer.
the way was still so beautiful... even after going south of anchorage 8 times before (twice to Seward and back, once to Homer and back and once to Resurrection Pass and back), the entrance to the Kenai Peninsula is just so amazing!!!
in any case, we got to Homer late in the afternoon, and it was quite obvious that Homer just won't work out for me. i mean, like the in the first time - Homer is a very beautiful place, but i just have a very bad luck with that town.
why do i say that? well, it started with us having no place to stay at Paul's regular place. so i went to Homer Hostel and Paul and Daniel went to some hotel, but the more serious problem was that Paul couldn't get hold of Glenn - the man whose skiff we were supposed to use in order to get to Halibut Cove. and it started raining quite hard...
Halibut Cove (or there and back again)
-------------------------------------------------------
On Wednesday morning (27 Sep) i woke up, had a look through the window and still - bad luck... very thick fog. i could barely see across the street... well, Paul picked me up, and we just went to his hotel.
Still unable to get hold of Glenn (not that it mattered much due to the heavy fog), we just waited for check out time (noon).
at noon we noticed that the weather got much better! we went over to Glenn's place, and had a nice conversation with Nel Stadt - his wife's father. a retired pasture 87 years old, very clear, very bright and very pleasant. after a while Glenn joined us. at last...
He was very nice, and even said that he got a new battery for the skiff...
well, we replaced the batteries, and took the skiff - a very nice one! - to the harbor.
Rich, the guest from ROSH HASHANA told Paul we can stay at his place and he even has a row boat* we can use (most of the time the trail head is not accessible by the skiff).
it seemed like things were coming together even though it's me and it's in Homer...
well, we drove happily to the harbor, only to discover that something is wrong with the fuel system. well, as i said - i have very bad luck when in Homer...
to make a story short**, after a long hour in which Daniel and Paul tore apart all kinds of things from the fuel system, and after Paul drank quite a lot of fuel, we had it working almost properly. almost, because Daniel had to press real hard against some little hole in some filter (weird thing to have a hole like that, but there it was). so we started going, but since we couldn't really go like that, we had to get the best material to seal it. chewing gum***
well, after that we sailed and got to Halibut Cove without any further problems.
and the place was just amazing! a nice little inlet surrounded by a green and yellow forest, and just a handful of houses right on the water. so quiet, so peaceful. and Rich's place was wonderful. very nice House, the porch just above the water (on a cliff's end).
we had a nice dinner and went to sleep.
by the way, while on the boat we saw a bald eagle and a sea otter...
next morning (Sep. 28th), we set out to go on the saddle trail.
well, when we tried the boat we found out that the battery went dead. the brand new battery... apparently Paul only turned the key halfway... well, fortunately, Paul new the neighbour - Ray, and he's a very nice man, so though he wasn't home, we searched his place, took a battery from a generator he has, and sailed out with it.
well, we got to the general area where the trail head should be, but couldn't see it. we tried landing in some spot, but we got it wrong. after a few phone calls, we finally found it. we anchored the skiff, rowed to the beach, dragged the row boat ~5m up the shore, and tied it to some pole designated for that purpose.
after climbing the path for a little while, Paul reminded me that i forgot my walking sticks... anyway, we climbed up through the nice forest, and went to the glacier lake. a beautiful nice lake at the bottom of an impressive glacier... very beautiful. we had a lunch there, and then hiked on another nice trail to a river with a tram across it - little 2-man-tram that is hanging above the river, and you just pull yourself across with a rope.
neat!
plus, we saw a few eagles flying around.
by the time we got there it was already raining, but not too hard. still, we decided that we had a nice hike, and now it's time to head back.
when we got to the shore we discovered that our little boat was in the water.
apparently, Halibut Cove has the second highest tide in the world (anybody knows who has the 1st?). ~5m difference between low tide and high tide...
well, we got it back, rowed to the skiff, and started home. after a short while, i saw a little dolphin (though i thought it was a big fish) jumping out of the water. cool!!
we made it home, started the boat again with our battery (using jumper cables hooking it to Ray's battery) and Paul went for a ride to recharge it. i went home... When he came back he said he saw a sea otter with a baby on the chest!!!
after ~2 hours it started pouring very hard, it was very rainy all night.
but waking up, it was a very nice day (Sep. 29).
we packed our stuff, reorganized the house, and set out. only to find that the battery isn't working. apparently, either Paul didn't charge it enough or there was some problem with the connections...
well, trying to jump it again the other battery went dead as well. but fortunately there was some guy outside there and he brought us battery charger...
the whole thing took us about 2 hours, but we finally set out back to Homer at around 10:30.
but it was soooooo windy that we couldn't make it. after 30-40 minutes, when I'm a little sea sick and we are very wet^ (especially Daniel who didn't have good rain gear) we gave up and went back.
we waited to the wind to calm down.
and waited
and waited
and finally it calmed down. but it was already after 18, so we decided to stay for another night...
most of the day i was sleeping, reading or eating.
Homer again (still a part of take II)
------------------------------------------------
next day (Sep. 30) we got back to Homer, had a very nice breakfast, switched the gum with a steel thingy, and went to visit Phlip and Margarete - friends of Paul's and Daniel's.
they were really very very nice. they are Israel supporters, and they were very interested in talking with an Israeli guy (yes - even though it was me...)
after that we went to meet another friend of Paul's. but this time, instead of going to his home, we met him at the airfield and he took us to a 90 minutes ride in his airplane!!
it was awesome!!! so brilliant!! this flying concept is soooo nice!
anyway, after that we went back to Palmer...
oh, and on the way we saw a mama-moose with a cub!
YOM KIPUR^^
------------------
well, YOM KIPUR went by quiet and easy. in the evening i played cards with everyone, and i spent most of the following day reading and sleeping.
after the day ended, James, Kristy and i watched the movie "V for vendetta" which was really nice.
and later at night i saw the northern lights again. this time they were much stronger, it really danced, it lasted for about half an hour and occasionally even had a greenish shade to it!! still, not close to what you see in the pictures, but it was neat!!
almost done
------------------
later yet (around midnight) i struggled with a few sites but couldn't make reservation for flying tickets to Mexico. so i called the customer service, but to no effect.
so Tuesday's morning i tried again, and called another site, but still - nothing.
only later, when i went to see a travel agent, did i make it through and got flying tickets for the coming Friday.
so that's it... I'm leaving Alaska...
on October 6th, 23:59, I'm flying from Anchorage to Cancun (with a connection in Denver).
on Wednesday i just hung around here, played some cards, went to meet with Sam - the travel agent's husband and an Israeli supporter that has been to Israel and wanna come again...
and i downloaded the last bunch of Alaskan photos, and...
discovered the (hopefully...) last event on my_cursed_Homer_related_events_list...
more than half of my photos from this adventure were lost. during the flight, at some point the camera stopped reacting. i couldn't even turned it off. so i took the battery out, and put it back. it seems like all the photos taken before that happened were lost.
all the pictures from Halibut Cove, Rich's place, the hike we had as well as a lot of pictures taken during the first half of the flight went down the drain.
there's still a little hope - the camera card shows as if 116 MB are being used, when all the photos combined take less than 28 MB - but i wasn't able to find the lost photos :-(
well, as I said, Homer and I just don't get along too well...
Today, Thursday (Oct. 5th) i spent mainly at home, trying to organize things.
in the evening i drove to anchorage, and met Susanna at my second favored restaurant in Anchorage (yes, we went to other restaurant than the moose's tooth!) - Thai Kitchen, which was very nice and delicious, and after that we picked Antara up and went to a new Irish pub in downtown Anchorage, and we had a very nice time there too (though the pub is not too Irish).
Observations I made during this period of time
------------------------------------------------------------------
* when people talk about sailing, skiffs, and things like that, and they say something about "a robot" and you can't work out the connection - it's possible that they said "a row boat"...
** not really - don't get all excited
*** even that was quite complicated... the shop was closed, the Pub didn't have any, and the restaurant - well, they had ... a candy machine with gums :) i always knew candy machines are really a good thing to have around...
^ apparently, boats tend to be a wet business
^^ YOM KIPUR is the most holy day for Jews. it's the day on which your destiny is decided based on your sins and the good deeds you've done in the past year. in that day we are to torture our soul. that means fasting (including water fast), not waring leather, going to the synagogue for hours and hours ;) , and other such things. and of course, like every Sabbath, we are not allowed to work, drive, use electricity, etc.
that's it for now...
