Friday, June 25, 2010.

Daddy left the RV at 6:25 AM to take a chartered fishing trip with the Aurora. They will have the possibility to catch halibut, salmon, lincod and rock fish. Daddy caught a 25 # halibut, a 15# halibut and a 7# salmon. He caught more; but you can only keep a certain number of each species, so he had to throw some back. Nobody was allowed to keep any lincod because they are out of season. He had a ball; except it rained the whole day on the ocean so he was cold. He didn't take his rubber bibs or his boots; so he did get wet.
I had a 2 hour horseback ride through the state park below Mount Alice. We rode through the Resurrection River and on the shores of Resurrection Bay. Located in there is the "old town" of Seward that was totally destroyed in the earthquake of 1964 that was at least a 9 point on the scale. It was the strongest earthquake in North America. The national forest has taken it over and is growing over top of the cars and tractors that were swept up by the tidal wave that followed the quake. The wood of the houses has deteriorated but the metal things are still laying there rusting away.
Within this park we saw several bald eagle nests and the birds that built them. The bald eagles sit up in the very tops of the trees and really seem to prefer the tree tops that are missing leaves. Therefore, they are very noticeable. The nests are the size of a small toddler's swimming pool. Since the eagles do not leave this area when winter comes, they stay in the same nest year after year. Each spring they add even more branches to the nest so it is constantly growing. Sometimes it gets so large and heavy that the tree will collapse and then they have to find a new site. The eggs hatch in July and the chicks stay with their parents for 3 years until they are adults. Maybe that is the reason the nest becomes so heavy. The immature bald eagles do not have the distinguishable white head and tail feathers. They are big and white with lots of brown splotches all over them. While we we riding below them the adults kept their eyes on us all of the time, especially when we were close to their nests. I'm sure the eggs are already in there.
There were also lots of birds that resembled our eastern sea gulls from a distance. When I asked what species they were, I was very surprised. They are the Arctic Terns that summer here when Antarctica is in its winter. So they are the same birds Daddy and I saw from the cruise ship when we were in Antarctica in January. After taking a close look I remembered them. That is a long way to travel between seasons. I guess they just really like it rather cool! In the area I felt was wetlands because they have gotten so much rain, every time the horses took a step our legs and feet would get splashed. When we rode through the rivers, all of us on short horses had to lift our legs up or they would get wet. In these wetlands there was a trumpeter swan. We only saw 1, but they are always in 2s and they mate for life. Maybe the local bears ate it.
There were 7 of us riding horses and the guide. The guide is the young girl that actually owns this business. She's 24 years old and just graduated from college in Colorado. When she was in high school her parents told her she had to get a job to pay for her college. So she started this horse back riding company when she was 15. Of course you can't ride until May because of the snow and the snow starts again in September, so her working hours are limited. She saved up enough money for her college and she is still doing it now. She owns all of her horses too and quite a few of them have been with her from the start.
Her horse that she leads with is 19 hands high and his name is Max. He is all black. There is 1 other black horse who is rather petite and is 20 years old. You can see some gray hairs starting on his neck. His name is Ranger and he is a rather fast horse because he is one of the American saddle riding horses. The horse she had me ride was the only girl horse, Penny, and she is 2o years old too. Penny and Ranger were bought together and have been together all of their lives. Since Ranger walks very fast Penny does too to keep up. She thinks that's what she's supposed to do. Penny also wants to be the lead horse and she kept trying to go around Max who walks much slower. The guide usually won't use Penny as the lead horse because all of the other horses can't keep up. All of the other horses are boys and 1, named Cisco, kept making his own paths instead of exactly following the other horses. The spunkiest horse, supposedly, was Orca, who is a Paint horse because he is black and white spots. Well he wasn't spunky at all today. He stayed at the back of the line and didn't cause any trouble.
None of the paying customers had ridden horses before, so she placed me on Penny. She warned me that Penny doesn't like playing second fiddle and sometimes she'll decide to lay down in the soft sand or grass. I had to keep reining her in so she wouldn't get ahead of the lead; but I let her stop and eat grass all of the time. Well, apparently she got pissed off because she wasn't in front and decided to lay down in the middle of the park where the trail was so narrow that when she laid down I wound up in the bushes and mud! So now I have to stop her from eating the grasses and flowers because you can't tell the difference between her putting her head down to eat and the movement of her deciding to lay down. And it happens so fast that it feels like she's walked into quicksand. I figured since she did that ponce, she had gotten it out of her system. NO!!!! She did it again, this time in even more mud! The guide told me she won't do it when she's walking in water! Let's hope not! This whole area is really full of water because they have gotten so much rain recently. Well, Penny had to do it again and this time in water! Then I got to ride Max and the guide rode Penny up front. She didn't do it again because she got what she wanted- the front! She was pretty smart; I just wish she didn't use me in the process! It got to the point that I had to keep my eye on her that I couldn't enjoy the scenery. And to add insult to injury, the saddle on Penny was nice and padded. The saddle on Max was not. Now my rear end is saddle sore and I was glad to get off of Max. I have ridden horses millions of times and never have I had a horse lay down while I was riding. The guide said that Orca, the young painted horse used to do it when he felt like it; but he also closed his eyes. Penny never closed her eyes. Everybody behind me was glad they weren't on Penny!
There seems to be a lot of new experiences on this vacation!!!!
There were places near the streams and rivers that we could see bear and moose tracks; but we didn't see the actual animal. We also saw some moose scat in several different spots. The trails here were very narrow and we had to bend and duck to get around lots of trees and shrubs. This was also a very muddy trail and parts of the trail were actually through the river itself; so you could not walk this trail. All of the wildflowers were blooming: spiderwort, Queen Anne's Lace, wild purple Irises, wild daisies, and something called "koontquish" which is really pretty; but if you place the sap on your skin and the sun shines on it, it'll burn your skin! Not a very friendly flower!
Tomorrow we leave Seward for Soldotna which is in the Kenai Peninsula. It's been rainy all day here. It just drizzled when I was out riding; but it rained all day where Daddy was. Today was 60% chance of rain. That is the forecast for the next 2 days also. We will see.