As previously mentioned, this past week I took a work trip with a coworker to Kenai, AK.  When I look back at what I did other than work, mostly it involved eating in wacky restaurants, which is one way of keeping yourself occupied. 🙂

We drove down on Monday afternoon, enjoying the full range of AK weather – from sullen spitting rain and fog to brilliant sunshine – on our 3 hour drive.

Once we got there, my coworker’s sweetie, who owns an experimental plane and goes to Kenai all the time for work, flew down to meet us.  For aviation buffs, he built this himself from plans.  So he’s a little handy!

After picking him up at the airport, we went to one of their favorite restaurants in Kenai, Louie’s Steak and Seafood.  As their name implies, they specialize in steak and seafood, so that is what we had.  It was pretty typical of older-style Alaska restaurants, which is to say it is plastered with taxidermied animals and serves big hunks of same.

It was a pretty good restaurant, though my personal food was sort of problematic.  It was the pepper-crusted steak, which turned out to be a hunk of beef the size and shape of a brick, literally crusted with pepper and deep-fried.  The problem with that is that the outer inch or so of this thing is going to cook, but the rest is not, and I am not a raw meat fan.  I wound up cutting most of it in little cubes, which cooked perfectly in the microwave in my room the next morning. But other than that, it was good.  The green beans were fresh, and the baked potato was perfect.  And the meat was actually quite good, once it was cooked.

The next day after work, we went on our only real sightseeing jaunt of the trip, to the beach!  Despite having a LOT of coastline, Alaska doesn’t have much in the way of beaches.  We have a lot of rocky strips that happen to border on the ocean, and a lot of mud flats.  So an actual beach was a real treat!

It was a beautiful sunny day, otters were popping up and down in the surf, we could see the volcanoes across the inlet from us, and we found some interesting souvenir rocks!  Also, we got to see a baby salmon shark!  Some guys were fishing and one reeled this little shark in. It was maybe as long as my arm, but he definitely looked dangerous.  The fisherman did throw it back in, which I was glad of.  I had never seen a shark in person before (other than in an aquarium), so that was really interesting!

Then we went to Acapulco (restaurant, not city) for Mexican food. It was very kitschy and fun!   I appreciated that the carved wood bird statues had hats.  🙂

 

We split an appetizer and a desert, because we had had a big lunch that day, and were still over-meated from Louie’s the night before.

The last notable meal we had in Kenai was at the Firehouse BBQ Pit. The patches and shirts you are seeing on the picture on the right are all from fire departments all over Alaska and the rest of the US!

The folks at the site we were there to work with took us there for lunch.  At their recommendation, I got a BBQ Sundae.

Which is not as disgusting as it sounds.  There’s no ice cream involved, which is the only reason I got it.  The bottom layer is pulled pork, then cole slaw, then brisket, then potato salad, and that is in fact a rib sticking out the top.  I ate maybe half of this, and then had to give in.  Too much food!  They make their own BBQ sauce, which was all delicious!  Though again, this is more meat than I would normally eat in a week.

I did get some knitting done in the evenings – made good progress on my cardigan fronts!

Hopefully will soon have them done!