Memorial Day Weekend

Last weekend we took a trip to our friends Jon and Krissy's cabin. They let us use their cabin as home base down in Soldotna for the weekend. The trip started out fine. We stopped by Jon and Krissy's to get the cabin key, directions, fishing poles, and the 4-wheeler. We didn't leave their house until about 11pm. Jon showed Garrett how to start the 4-wheeler because it was a little different than the older ones.

Once we got on the road, Oscar slept in the truck at my feet the whole 3 hour drive. We were given directions to the cabin and didn't get there until about 2:30am. There was still some light to be seen, but we still had to use flashlights. We borrowed Jon's 4-Wheeler to get things from the road up to the cabin. Last week when Jon was out there, he got stuck in the mud and spent the next few hours digging the truck out. So when we arrived we took the straps off the 4-Wheeler and tried to turn it on only to find that it wouldn't start. The guys had just run it 3 hours earlier! We were tired, and frustrated. We decided we would just walk the stuff into the cabin.

The only down side to walking stuff into the cabin, was that we knew it was approx 300 yards up the road, but didn't know WHERE or WHAT we were looking for. Also, we were in the middle of the woods, in BROWN BEAR country walking down a narrow road in the dark...anyone else see a problem with this? Luckily we didn't see any bears but Garrett and I were sore and tired after hiking in gear.

The next day we were going to go out fishing early, but we decided to try to get a new battery for the 4-Wheeler. Garrett commented on how it couldn't get any worse. We found out that the 4-wheeler had a pull cord as a back up so Garrett tried that. On the 3rd pull, the cord broke! So not only did it not start, but it also had a broken pull cord. Garrett tried to change the battery but couldn't get the battery out. After that we decided to stop messing with the 4-wheeler while we were ahead.

We met up with our friend Brett and checked out a few fishing spots for the next day. We decided to just hang around the cabin for the rest of the night and enjoy not having to do ANYTHING! Oscar slept outside of the cabin in his kennel and he did great! He didn't bark or cry at all. I did notice in the morning when I got up that he was shivering. I decided to throw another blanket into his kennel so he had something else to warm up in. That morning we went fishing at Rainbow Lake. Garrett caught the only fish on the trip. It was a rainbow trout and it looked to be a wild one. Garrett was pretty excited. Oscar came with us to the lake but was afraid of the water. He fell in once while trying to get to Garrett and he wouldn't go near the water again. There was another black lab puppy at the lake about the same age as Oscar. Oscar loved playing and wrestling with her. Unfortunately we are working on the dominance issue. The other puppy had never gone in the water before and she came to me in the water, but Oscar wouldn't follow suit. He is a scaredy cat...we are going to have to work on that.

He was tired after all the playing and passed out on a rock.

We built a number of fires next to the cabin and it only took Oscar one time of trying to take a hot stick out of the fire for him to realize that was NOT a good idea. He started by standing on a hot log and then stuck his nose right in the fire. We don't think he will make that mistake again! Brett was enjoying building fires and he was the potato king! We made foil potatoes on three different occasions!
Later that night Garrett, Brett, Oscar and I headed down to the beach to watch the sunset. We could see Mt. Redoubt (the volcano that exploded) from the beach. It was a beautiful night! Brett and Oscar became good friends because Brett didn't mind his muddy feet all over his clothes!

The next day we packed up and headed to another lake to do some fishing. No such luck. Garrett and I decided to take some family photos along the way back to Anchorage. It was such a beautiful day and the mountains were so crisply defined.
We also stopped at the Portage Glacier so that Garrett could see one up close...as close as you can get to it without taking the tour boat. We decided we will have to come back again to hike on the trails around the glacier. There were still icebergs in the water near the glacier and the water was such a crazy blue color.

We got home and unpacked everything and showered. We definitely all smelled. We even gave Oscar a bath. He was filthy...I didn't know that the water could be that shade of brown!

Garrett and I decided to spend our last night together before I left for Fairbanks. We went out to Red Robin for dinner and took Oscar for another long walk. We sure have a good time together! :)