June 17

Linda cooked up a huge bacon-and-egg breakfast, and then we visited the Soldotna visitor’s center, and drove to Ninilchick to make photos.  Ninilchick is a quaint little fishing village on the Sterling Highway that is overlooked by a beautiful little Russian Orthodox church.  While we made our photos, we struck up a conversation with a guy from Anchorage who was showing some relatives from somewhere down south around.  He seemed to know his stuff, so I asked about the unusual crosses around the church, which have 3 cross members instead of the usual one.  He explained that the lower member was the footrest for the victim, and that the upper one represented the sign placed above Christ’s head, reading “Behold, King of the Jews”.

The skies were gray, so it wasn’t the best day for photography, but it was probably the only day we would have the extra time to spend there, so we took what Mother Nature offered.  The tide was out and the locals were out clamming on the mudflats.  When we had been here last year (a few weeks later), the beach had been crowded with RV’s with plates from Florida and Alabama, but today it was almost deserted. 

While we didn’t have sunshine, we did have eagles.  About a dozen adults and juveniles patrolled the beach, picking up scraps from the clammers and watching for a careless fish.  There were about a dozen around, a mix of adults and juviniles.  Several chose a big rock by the waters edge for a perch, and Lana got some nice shots.

When we got back to Eric’s house, we found most of the Conners were napping, which we thought was a capital idea.

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