Kenai Peninsula part 2

A week after the trip we finally got ourselves to finish the Kenai Peninsula. After the part 1 entry we went four wheeling (mönkijä, quad) on the beach by the Pacific Ocean. It was fun: Pauli drove while Nina held on tight. After a while we wanted to change our roles, but then the vehicle died. Luckily, we had Dale with us so we didn't have to walk back home. He managed to call rescue and Diane picked us up.

After the four wheeling we cooked for our hosts, pasta, bacon and sun dried tomatoes in a creamy sauce. Mmmm. Carbohydrates for the next day.

Early in the morning we left the house. Our goal was a canoe launching site on the Swanson river about an hour drive away. Yes, there was a canoe trip planned for us (by us). Thanks to Diane everything went out smoothly: she dropped us (Pauli, Nina and Dale) off and picked up us from where we ended up.

The canoe trip itself was amazing. After a short while our arms hurt and we suspected that ten hours of paddling might be really hard. But our arms warmed up and stop hurting so we were able to admire the scenery.

Paddling along the river slowly was nice with breakes every couple of hours: there was not enough room for our legs in the canoe so we needed to strech them every now and then. And of course we needed lunch breakes. Eating is necessary and fun.

One thing we were really looking forward to was seeing a moose or a bear. It was a bit of a dissapointment when none appeared; all we saw were tons of ducks. No moose, no bear.

The weather was nice except in the end when it started raining all of a sudden. We were so close to the end that we decided not to put on our raingear so we got a bit wet. Dale got a bit more wet because he had to leave the canoe often and push us free of the rocks we got stuck on every now and then. Espec
It was a really nice trip, even though we didn't meet mr Moose nor msr Bear. A good workout for our otherwise so spaghettilike arms.

The next day we did a trip toially in the end, where it seemed that there were more rocks in the river than water.
a city south from Kenai, about two hours away. On our way we stopped at some beatiful sites to see the ocean and bald eagels. In homer we walked the beach, ate hotdogs and icecream,and drank rootbeer. Pauli was starting to feel slightly ill. In Homer visitor's center we went to listen some dude telling about hiking on the Kenai Peninsula. He had written a book about it and was really enthusiastic about it. We wanted to do the same. Later we got back home and did nothing.

[INSERT An unexpected adventure]

After the hike we visited another city on the Kenai Peninsula called Seward. We were supposed to hike yet another mountain (Marathon Mountain), but we were so tired from the hike the day before that we just settled on staring at it. In Seward we did not do much, just had a coffee and a ice cream. Sweard is a nice looking little town by the Resurrection Bay.

Near Seward there is an easy access to a glacier. Neither of had been there 9 years ago so we decided to go see it this time. The glacier is called the Exit Glacier, because some dudes back in the day had used it to exit the Harding icefield which it is part of. We could walk right up to the glacier and hear the ice cracking as it melted in the war Alaskan summer sun. After walking with our sore legs up to the glacier and back we headed back to Kenai.

Before leaving Alaska for good (for now) Dale took us flying with his airplane. Pauli had never been on a airplane that small so it was a nice experience for him. For Nina it was more about conquering her fear of flying. We flew around the Kenai Peninsula. On our way we saw a herd of caribu and passed the places we had hiked a couple of days before. We also saw Anchorage from the other side of the Turnagain Arm. It was a strange experience to have a such a big city so close to almost complete wilderness and only 60 miles from Kenai as the crow flies (takes 4 hours by car). On our way back we got finally the chance to see some wild bears. We spotted around six or seven black bears from the plane. They were eating nature thingies (plants) and having a good beartime in the sunshine. It was a nice flight indeed. Thank you Dale.

Last day in Alaska. For some reason we had decided to take a bus from Kenai to Alaska. As it turns out the Alaskan bus companies are not the most accurate or professional in the world. The bus we took was two hours late and after ten minutes we had to get off the bus to make room for some other people. Two more hours of waiting. Finally we got on anther bus, but suddenly after an hour of driving they decided that we were gonna change buses again so waited for one on a parking lot for 15 minutes. The new bus did take us to Anchorage, but the driver was slightly unstable to say the least. He drove so fast that it made Nina a bit uneasy, and he did almost crash the bus in Anchorage while fiddling around with his cellphone. Fortunately, we had reserved plenty of time to catch our flight so we weren't late. In fact we had time to have dinner in Anchorage and say goodbye to Alaska with some Alaskan Amber (beer).

The following twenty hours were unpleasent sitting in airplanes. Nothing more about that. In Amsterdam we were too tired to do anything special. We just had picknick in a park where we also met Jessica who had housed us on our way to Alaska. Thank you Jessica. The final train ride from Amsterdam via Osnabruck to Oldenburg was a dreamlike experience. We were so tired that we just floated from one place to another finally crashing to our beds in Oldenburg. Thank ya.