Being back in my hometown, appropriately called Homer, in Alaska, is odd but overall comforting. Ran into a girl my age that I have known off and on even after I moved away, and went to see her very first art show in one of the galleries. It got me thinking to what path I might have taken if I had stayed living here. Not that I am in any regretful of where I am these days, but I want to be an artist too!

Instead, I’ve been hiking (Ressurrection Pass Trail), fishing for halibut, and yesterday took a breath-taking flight across Cook Inlet from Homer to Katmai National Park, where we hiked around the beach at a river mouth and saw half a dozen brown bears. The fish aren’t quite running strong yet, so the bears were mostly being lazy. Sleeping on the side of the river and looking like a beached log kind of lazy. Every so often they’d roll over and stretch. Of course, there were a few walking around in the grass and such as well, and generally just chilling. Pretty damn amazing. And on the way there we flew by a big ol’ glaciated mountain and saw some steam vents indicative of the volcanic activity happening down below. Did I say yet that it was amazing?