WHAT?!? A POST?!?!?

No, this is not a mirage. You are not just extremely dehydrated and seeing things you wish to see that are not actually there. This is, in fact, a new post on my blog. *collective gasp* I know, I know. If no one even checks this anymore (except you, Ryan, and I love you for it), I understand and it’ll just be for my own gratification. But I couldn’t RESIST because have I got a STORY FOR YOU!
Well, friends, I will be honest. I was not exactly thrilled to the core about returning to Haines. Of course I love Haines, but being home for two weeks kinda got be back in the Seattle groove of all- night grocery stores and the ability to buy clothes that aren’t designed for Woodstock (though I never got used to the traffic- UGH). However, coming back to gorgeous weather, and I mean GORGEOUS, has made getting back into the swing of things a little bit easier. It’s the time of year where it doesn’t get dark and the cruise ships are in, two things I’ve had to get used to, and the town is hoppin’. We even had Beerfest this past weekend and the nightlife in Haines was at its best.
With all of this lovely weather, we’ve had several campfires, Frisbee, picnics, gardening, and last Friday we went out on Mike’s boat to Chilkoot Lake. We packed sandwiches for dinner and headed out to the beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. After just riding around and even trying some fishing, we headed to Mike’s bait site. Bears are waking up here in AK and it’s about that time to start attracting our furry friends to kill them.  Mike does this. I don’t. I had no idea what we were getting into when we got there- I thought we were just going to look at it and he might set some stuff up for when he wanted to attract bears in the future. No…after pouring old cooking grease, dog food, and instant potatoes into a hole and climbing up into the bear stand not too far away, I began to understand that we were inviting bears very near to us to we could watch them. HEH HEH! Mike got busy bringing more grease to a boil on his camp stove and slowing adding molasses to waft towards the hungry bears out there…no joke. Two and a half hours later, still no bears. But Mike could "feel them out there." We decided it was late and time to head back, so we climbed down and headed toward the boat, all the while keeping an eye out (especially toward a particularly dark area of trees). Once Lori and I were in the boat, Kenny was taking out the knot, and Mike was packing away his bow, a group of bears charged toward us then headed for the bait. I've never seen Kenny lunge so fast for anything then when he went for that knot and all I had time to do was sit and say, "holy crap." Two huge grizzlies and three smaller ones went after that bait just yards away, our hearts pounding, Mike still outside the boat with his bow, and Lori saying, "so how do I start this boat?" HEH HEH. It was amazing. Let's just say that as much as we were disappointed that they clearly waited until we were out of there to go after the bait and we didn't see them from our formerly nearby perch, at least Lori and I both agreed that if we had see them from the bait stand, we never would have LEFT the bait stand out of fear for our lives. Better they waited until we were in the boat...thanks, grizzlies.
I had some pictures for you, but as usual I can't get them to upload (darn APT Alaska and its lame internet connection). But maybe somehow I'll figure out how to get them on here. Well, summer is upon us here- the crazy cruise ship people are out and it's fun being a "local" of sorts.
I'll try to post here more. LOVE YOU