Spring Fever

Our first shrimp pot of 2008!

Did we get any shrimp?

Eric cleaning up our "campsite"

Alaska Railroad in Whittier

Whittier with 40 feet of snow!!

Sunrise in Whittier, AK

This weekend, Anchorage FINALLY hit 50 degrees and sunny! Cabin fever is over. Eric and I decided to take our boat out after a looong winter. It's still early, but the shrimping season opened on April 15 in Prince William Sound, as well as the bear hunting. Eric and some of the guys are going to hunt for black bears next weekend, and we wanted to scope out the action.

It sucks having a boat just sit all winter long, but now that the sun is shining, and the snow is melting, it's time to get it out to stretch it's legs. As we drove along the Seward highway, it seemed like everyone from Anchorage was out. Anchorage has lots of paved bike trails along the highways, and we saw hundreds of bikers. It was a gorgeous weekend!

Whittier is the gateway to the Prince Williams Sound - one of the most amazing places I have been able to visit. We had a blast exploring the sound last summer - and can't wait to get out again. Whitter is about 60 miles south of Anchorage. It is really a crazy "town", if you can even call it a town. It has a huge boat dock, and the marine highway stops there. Locals head down there to use the dock for their boats. You have to pay 2o bucks to get through this one lane tunnel which connects Whittier to the rest of the world.

When we arrived in Whittier Saturday afternoon we could not believe how much snow as still there. We were planning on camping, but the snow was still over 10 feet deep! Only one dock was open, but some die-hards wanting to get out on the water were there. I always love going there because I am the only chick there. I say it's because I'm so tough and can handle the water and dealing with the fish, Eric says that the guys like to leave their women folk at home, and just hang with the guys. But whatever the reason, who cares - the water was as calm as glass, and sun was high in the blue sky and I did not want to be anywhere else.

We set our shrimp pots out, and cruised around the sound Saturday afternoon. It's hard to put into words how incredible this area is. On Sunday, we went back out to our shrimp pots. We got a few large shrimp - not great, but a good first try. We were both exhausted from a cold night's sleep, so headed home.

I need to figure out how to download my video camera on my computer because I got some amazing footage. I caught on video two bald eagles swoop down on some unsuspecting seagulls, and grab one out of the water. I'll try to post that on this blog.

So, it's now Sunday night, and I'm exhausted. A very successful weekend in Whittier - we got the boat out and enjoyed some sun.