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.

July 7th

THE DETAILS:

THE WEATHER: It has been pretty steady other than we have seen the sun more often these days. Cool, cloudy, rainy in the morning and then sun in the afternoon.

THE DISTANCE: We left Cooper’s Landing today at 10:00 and arrived in Soldatna,the River Terrace RV Park, around 8 pm. Read on....


Well, the last few days have been restful, to say the least. We spent 2 days on the Kenai River hoping for a run of salmon but have seen nothing. The woman at the office said it’s been the worst year in 26 years. We enjoyed our stay by the river with an almost empty campground. We would fish a little, walk a little but mostly just read and Gary tied a bunch of flies. It is interesting how everything looks like a ghost town, there is no one in the restaurants or fishing shops. but I know, if word got out that the salmon were in the river, this place would come alive like New York…. The city that never sleeps! The second run of salmon typically come in around July 20th and later. So we have a few weeks to wait it out. We’ll see.

Okay, that was written on July 6th and it's now July 7th.... what a difference a day makes. Thanks for those of you who prayed for fish! Does God really care about our unimportant details of life? I guess so, because the salmon are in the river. Well, at least in the Moose River in Sterling. We were on our way from Cooper's Landing to Soldatna and happened to go into an auto parts store for some fuses and a guy approached us. "Where in NH are you from?" (We get that a lot). Come to find out, he's from NH... in the winter months! Go figure, have you ever heard of wintering in New Hampshire!! So he knew all the hot spots and told us where to go. The Moose River turned out to be a river popping like popcorn. These large fish were jumping out of the water, twisting and turning and running up river. Brad, the guy from NH, told us this was just the beginning of the BIG run of salmon. So we spent the next 6 hours fishing there.... well, to be completely honest... GARY spent 6 hours fishing. I spent a total of maybe 2 hours in the water and the rest watching him and others along the shore fish. There was a guy who was absolutely histarical to watch. His name was Curly and every time he would snag a fish his father, with a very western drawl, would say stuff like, "there ya' go again Curly, reel him in here, don't loose him now.." and he would go on and on until Curly brought in fish after fish after fish. 25 total. He was like watching a riverside rodeo show. To his credit, he didn't keep any except for the last one because they were all foul hooked. Other's on the river, however, were not so ethical and kept every illegal fish they caught. There was an old gentleman to my left that caught a huge rainbow which he couldn't keep because it was over 18 inches long and a dolly varden that was beautiful but he decided to let go. There was a young teenage girl that was a an absolute pro at yanking in the fish, and hid every one of them in the bushes before the fish & game came by.

Gary got into 2 of them but lost both before landing them. I never even got a hit but couldn't really cast far enough to get into deep water. Brad eventually came down to the river and let me reel in his fish that was foul hooked. What a blast! They are so big and so strong that my arms actually hurt after landing him. I don't know how Curly brought in 25 in 6 hours! Ridiculous.

Problem #4. On our way out of the Moose River we headed south on Rte. 1 and the engine died about a mile away. Gary got it got it going but before we could get 10 miles to the RV camp, it happened 2 more times. He's not sure what it could be, and will be looking into it tomorrow. Our campground is right on the Kenai River and the Reds are beginning to move up stream through here also. Should be interesting. There is actually a Safeway here, so I'll stock up on some food items.

Heather: Seems familiar, Youth Group at the Bishops! Either at our house or on our blog! Love it!

Geoff: I'll work on remedying that situation. It's hard to get pictures of both of us unless there are people around. I guess the profile picture will have to do.

Dan: high of 70 today, dry, cool.... yes, I'm enjoying it.

July 5th

Tomorrow we will be moving to Cooper's Landing about 30 miles south. The campground, Kenai Riverside, does not have internet and because it is on the Kenai River we're not sure how long we might stay. I'll continue to write the blog but may not be able to post them until a later date. Until then.... pray for fish!!

July 4th

Happy Birthday America!!

THE DETAILS:

THE WEATHER: ditto

THE DISTANCE: We left Bird around 10:30 and arrived in Hope at 12:30. We’re staying at Alaska Dacha RV Park.


We woke up to rain &cool temperatures again this morning. It’s so weird to hear that at home the weather is hot and humid when we are in long sleeve shirts and coats!

The road to Hope has been absolutely stunning. The rain stopped before we left but there were lingering clouds and wind. The mountains to the left slope down to meet the road and to our right is Turnagain Arm which is the ocean inlet. There are bore tides (I’ll let Dan explain what that is) that come through this narrow inlet and if your lucky you might see some beluga whales. We have not been that lucky but have seen many eagles along the sand banks. Not close enough to take a picture of unfortunately. It seems like everything is waiting for that elusive salmon run. Even Bruno had a little run in with an Eagle... he's okay though. He freed himself.

There are warnings everywhere about the sand becoming like quick sand if you walk out on it and the fast rising water when high tide is moving in. Gary & Matt actually saw a seal out in the water up in Anchorage when they went fishing Friday night.

Gary fished Resurrection River (appropriate for it being Sunday) which is known for its salmon run and got, well, you guessed it! NOTHIN'! There were other fishermen on the river but nothing was caught. We spotted a moose on our fishing travels though!

So I'm hoping to post a picture of Jack Kimm on Thursday’s post (July 1st) but my camera was again acting up. Every time he would pose for a shot it wouldn’t come out, but this blurry one did. I’ll work on getting a better picture when we return the gun.

I posted the picture of the reindeer dogs because I think it’s so funny to see it everywhere. Gary & I had eggs and reindeer sausage when we went out for breakfast the other day. It’s actually very good, lean and tasty. Reindeer is actually caribou.

July 3rd

THE DETAILS:

THE WEATHER: Rainy, cloudy, cool, high of 68

THE DISTANCE: 30 miles to Bird… had to do it!


Well, we left the Anchorage campground with the best intentions of spending the day downtown with all the Fourth of July festivities. That didn’t quite work out as we planned.

Problem #3: Gary dropped me off at the office so I could post a couple of pictures before we left and when I returned a few minutes later the RV wouldn’t start. He worked on it for 30 minutes and nothing obvious was the problem. He thought he had flooded the engine but an hour later it still wasn’t starting. A man with a southern drawl helped us tow it around to the other side of the building where Gary could work on it out of the way of traffic going in and out of the RV park. That’s where we sat for the next 3 ½ hours. Finally, after pulling the engine apart he discovered a stuck choke. When he realized that was the problem it was an easy fix and we were on our way.

We did go down town for a short time and took some pictures… one is just for you Zoe!! But they were closing up shop so we didn’t stay long. We got on our way down south and stopped at Bird on the Seward Highway. It does not have internet, it does not have water hook up, their electric is by plugging into an extension cord and it’s right on the highway…. But it’s cheap!

The Seward Highway is absolutely gorgeous. I hope the pictures can capture its beauty.