My Life as a Traveller: More form the Refuge and the Cooke Inlet Beach Access

I started my first day of orientation at my new job at Central Peninsula Hospital. 6-bed ICU, 36 bed floor, 8-bed ED and a small maternity ward. I think I’m going to like this place. I’ll get to do some EKGs, stress tests, assist with births, and some pulmonary function testing, along with all my other duties. I finished my orientation and Paul, my supervisor, and Gary, one of my new co-workers showed me around the hospital. I’m very excited about starting my first full day on Thursday.

This afternoon we went back over to the Kenai Wildlife Refuge. We got a much better idea of the animals you see up here in the “last frontier.”

(I hope we can be here long enough to catch one of these fish!)

(Thankfully they are all hibernating now!)

(Check out the size of that bear paw!)

(The local swans are beautiful...I hope I get to see a live one!)

(Matthew kneeling in front of two sets of moose anters)

We then traversed over to the Cooke Inlet beach access (about 15 min away from the city of Kenai). It was beautiful- the beach was completely covered in ice up within 10 feet of the water’s edge. I think the sand was actually a good mix (if not almost all) volcanic ash. It was so smooth and dark. One of my co-workers explained that the Redoubt volcano exploded 2 years ago so that would definitely explain the sand. I’m willing to bet that we could see the whale migrations in from this view.

(The Redoubt volcano overlooks the Cooke Inlet and it is breathtaking at this time of year since it was so clear! If you look closely you can see the volcano steaming in the cold weather)