The Alaska Adventure: Dead Porcupines, Nauti Otters and Bears, Oh My!

DEAD PORCUPINES. So J comes home from a run on the beach the other afternoon and casually mentions seeing a dead porcupine on the sand. Indigo immediately perks up and demands a venture down to check it out. Thus began our quintessential after dinner dead porcupine walk. Her cause of death remains a total mystery: quills - present and firmly attached, eyes - bright and uneaten, body - dry and unbloated. (All of this confirmed through the use of a professional dead-thing-poker-stick conveniently found next to the deceased.) We feel confident that she is now nourishing the marine life at the mouth of the Kenai River and gave her a short seaside service, conveying as much.

Is it odd that we're so darn excited about this?

Yes! A dead-thing-poker-stick!

Very mysterious.

NAUTI OTTERS. No longer needing to uphold the high standards of a grandparent visitor, we decided to stay at the Nauti Otter Hostel over the weekend for another Seward adventure. Our cabin was of extremely rustic construction (yes, if Team Leslie thinks something is rustically constructed, it is completely fair to imagine protruding nails, gaping holes and copious amounts of duct tape), oddly contrasted with a DVD player set to go with Back to the Future (Indigo is now familiar with the original use of the phrase "Flux Capacitor"). Our bathroom was an outhouse with a flush-able toilet covered in red shag rug, and the classic Alaskan jokes and stories posted throughout. A sample:

"A boy is very unhappy with his family's outhouse. It is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter and always smells terrible. One day he decides to take action and push the outhouse into the nearby river. Later, at dinner, his father asks him if he is the culprit. The boy confesses. As his father gets out the leather belt, the boy bravely reminds his father of the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. 'Father, George Washington told the truth and his father did not punish him.' 'Yes Son, but George Washington's father was not in that cherry tree.'"

A note to Gran: We put paper down on the toilet, washed our hands a bunch, and checked for bedbugs... there were only a few and they seemed friendly.

Nauti Otter lair.

Strangely cozy.

Spoiler: Bear habitat!

BEARS. While exploring said cabin upon our arrival, I opened a blind on the back window, revealing a rocky hillside covered in low vegetation very close to us. "Let's keep this open; perhaps we'll see a bear!" And moments later, a medium sized, pretty-darn-adorable, black bear came lumbering past the window... not exactly the ferocious, towering, grizzly encounter out in the wilds that some might have been waiting for, but a bear none the less! Our weekend adventure was complete. (And yes, J got in his September ski. And a bike ride. And homemade waffles... Team Leslie packs it in!)