July 16

Well, we had one appointment during this trip—king salmon fishing. We went fishing, the fishing day starts at 6 am and Jeff our guide took us out on the Kenai River. There we were greeted by lots of boats, all trying to get king salmon. This year had rated as the slowest spawning on record for kings, so there was a lot of hoping going on!

John had a couple bites and then reeled in this one

He was hoping for something larger than about 15 pounds (guide’s estimate of the weight) so he releases it.

That’s it folks, I didn’t even have a bite on my line all day and very few people caught fish that we saw. It was fun and I has so pleased that the sun finally came out about noon as we were getting off the water.

Fun tidbit from the Peninsula Clarion, the Soldotna-Kenai newspaper, yesterday’s question of the day:
“If a moose strolls through your yard and the dogs don’t start barking does that mean…six more weeks of sunny summer weather OR winter’s coming early this year.” We’ll miss the result of the public polling.

Today we are heading north, two days ahead of the schedule, but there are things we didn’t get to see on the way south that we want to catch on the way home. We’ll be camping at state parks and national forest camps and so will not have any internet service. Cell phones will work while we are in Alaska, but when we hit the Yukon Territory they cease operation.

Miles to date-8847.