Passage Canal

It's been awhile since I have posted.  Drew and I have been on vacation, visiting my family back in Pennsylvania for a bit.  Now that life is back in order here in Alaska I can fill you in on what we've been doing.  The weekend before we left Drew was working a lot of course, as the middle of July is high tourist season.  I had a few days off so I ended up going down to the town Drew works in and spending the night.  We did a little hike in the evening and decided that in the morning I would go along with Drew on a trip he was taking out.   The next morning a group of 4 dropped out of the trip and so it was just Drew taking me and one actual client out.  He was a real nice guy from Denver, up in Alaska on business.  So we did the middle of the 3 trips that Drew takes people out on.  It was kind of a windy day as a storm was blowing in that night.  The water was a bit choppy but we could handle it pretty easily.  We went up and down the passage canal, which looks like this...except not so lopsided...it's hard to take pictures in a kayak that's blowing around on the waves:

We saw several bald eagles, which I thought was pretty cool, but is apparently pretty normal for Drew:

We stopped for lunch here:

It was funny to see Drew acting so professionally as the guide.  It was also weird to do something outdoorsy and still have it be so fancy.  When we go out on trips of our own, we are usually cooking noodles or oatmeal in a pot.  You get the royal treatment when you go outdoors with a guide! He set us up a fantastic lunch:

On our return trip we paddled up some streams and into some pretty inlets.  It was still too early to see the salmon jumping but Drew told me yesterday that he had several clients catch salmon with their bare hands this past week.  We also stopped on a beach and hiked to a pretty little waterfall.  There was a great view of Billings Glacier there:

The woods here are so mossy and green.  I don't know exactly what plant this was but it was really pretty blowing in the wind in this little clearing in the woods:

All in all it was a fun way to get to spend some time with Drew even though he was working.  We got back just in time too, as it started to pour right after we got back to the shop.  Yay for getting out and doing something in Alaska!