July 9th

THE DETAILS

THE WEATHER: Today started out sunny for a change! Clear blue skies and a high of 75. By the afternoon it had clouded back over and we were back to where we have been the last week or so.

THE DISTANCE: traveled 80 miles today, but returned to Soldotna


Today we decided to take the RV out for a test drive. We stopped at a couple of stores to pick up some necessary items and the Ford Dealership in town so Gary could talk over the problem of the truck. It seems it’s a mystery to everyone, but their best guess is the same as Gary’s. Either bad gas or water in the gas tank. So after putting some dry gas into the tank, filling it up with fresh gas and adding Techron, we were on our way along the Kenai Spur Hwy. It is a 40 miles drive that comes close to the Cook Inlet. It would have been a prettier drive if we had not had the interruption of oil refineries between the road and the beautiful view but we got some nice shots of the glacier in the Aleutian Mountain Range on the other side of Cook Inlet. This is where Mount Redoubt is located, Alaska’s active volcano. I’m sure Dan will educate us on that particular volcano.

After returning to Soldotna we had dinner and then went to the river for another 3 hours to try and catch some fish. Still no luck. Not many people were catching them yesterday. There is a fish sonar counter that counts all the fish entering the Kenai on a daily basis. I took a picture of this calendar that has been kept for the past 4 years here at the campsite. They update it every day and the numbers are staggering. The daily numbers are in red… today, 7/9 there were 5,978 fish that swam upstream. The second column, in black, is the total to date. There has been 59,081 fish that have entered the Kenai River! Notice on 7/28/2009 there were more than 40,000 in one day! No wonder this is a world renowned fishing river. Can some one tell me why, if there are 5,000 fish in that river WE can not catch even one of ‘em!!

Maybe tomorrow.

July 8th

THE DETAILS:

THE WEATHER: same

THE DISTANCE: 0

Nothing new today. We stayed in Soldatna so we could shop at the local Safeway and Gary could spend some time on the engine. He’s baffled by the engine problem of cutting out on us while we were driving last night… which makes me a little uncomfortable. He talked to a few guys in the campground and they gave him some ideas, so hopefully it is fixed. Time will tell! The food prices up here are very high. I hate to even go into a store to buy food. Of course it would be more expensive going out to dinner! Breakfast at one place was advertising their special of 2 eggs, bacon & toast at 6.95 and a Chinese restaurant lunch buffet was $12.00 per person. The price of gas is going up as we move further south on the Kenai Peninsula. We are now paying $3.65 per gallon.

One thing I’m glad about are the lack of mosquitoes. I think because it stays so cool they aren’t a problem. We heard horror stories before we got here about the size and density of them, but it hasn’t been a problem yet.

Gary is fishing the Kenai again tonight. We’ve seen multiple guys from the campground coming up with their buckets full of fish. Hopefully he’ll get in to one. Right outside our door is a wooden staircase that brings you to a boardwalk that banks the Kenai river. People either fish directly from the boardwalk or they step into the water with their waders on and fish just off the boardwalk. At one end of the walkway is a fish cleaning station. They have tables that have hoses attached to them so you can filet the fish, clean up after yourself and then throw the rest to the gulls who wait patiently for their portion. They really cater to the fishermen up here.