In rural areas of Alaska like Homer, cabin fever has been known to drive even the most peaceful of souls to hysteria. So with the sanity of our volunteers dear at heart, we’ve been focusing on excursions that get us out of the house and into the Alaskan wilderness.
Just over a week ago, Casey and Andrew led half of the Collective on our first trip across Kachemak Bay. This was a momentous occasion, as the hefty cost of a water taxi ($75/person!) had kept us snug on our side of the Bay for the first part of the month. Luckily Casey and Andrew managed to tap into a deal with the National Park Service, allowing us to do park cleanup in exchange for a discounted ride across the way. So we woke up at the ungodly (yet sunny) hour of 6 AM, piled into our respective water taxis and cleared a ragged trail for the first four hours of the day. As terrible as all that might sound, the view from the deck of our water taxi as it charged towards the opposite shore justified everything. Wind and adrenaline in the morning put coffee to shame. 
Glacial Ice
Photo by: Andrew Otto
After our park cleanup duty, we hiked to a nearby lake and the sight of my first glacier hit me right in the face. Words don’t begin to suffice here; slap your cheeks a couple of times and dump a bucket of ice over your head, and the effect should be something like what I felt. We attempted to walk around the lake to the glacier, but dive-bombing birds and the setting sun put a stop to our plans. We hiked back to the yurt we rented for the night. There, I realized that I had ingeniously locked the key inside the yurt, so TTT pulled his first yurt break-and-enter. It was pretty nifty. We made a fire, had a face-making contest and slowly dozed off to sleep. The next day a couple people hiked all the way to the glacier, and ran into two bears on the way! The bears ran away, and Andrew swears he “wasn’t scared at all.” Mmmhm.
This past weekend another small group celebrated summer solstice with a trip to Seldovia for the folk festival. Seldovia is a tiny town with a slick marketing plan (the site advertises it as “Alaska’s best kept secret” above a plug for “UFO Day”) (http://seldovia.com/). It turned out to be a stunning little seaside ditty with 300 locals and a few tourists (a local told us there would be 3,000 people in town for the festival…I’d estimate there were 350. Total.) During the day we went to various workshops on harmonizing, playing the didgeridoo, and understanding music. Afterwards we found an awesome island-like oasis at the edge of town. It was inexplicably warm compared to the rest of Seldovia, so we played and napped until the evening. The festival itself was fun, and we spent the night roasting apples, singing and playing ukulele on the beach. We camped out on the black sand next to the bay.
Seldovia
Photo by: Andrew Otto
Our return to the collective house was greeted by our new chef Nick’s first meal, which was delicious, to say the least. Things are speeding up as the week begins, and I’m rejuvenated and excited for the future in our little cottage.
-Laura