July 14

We spent a quiet morning in camp and then headed over to watch people dip net fish on the Kenai River. If you are an Alaskan resident you can “dip net” fish for short period of time in July. It’s quite interesting seeing people with huge nets standing in the water or from a boat dipping these nets into the river. The limit for salmon is big—like 30 fish a day via the dip net. When we fish for salmon on Friday the limit for us is one. The lady holding the net to the buttress of the bridge didn’t pull in any that we saw.

Then we headed down to the community of Homer, end point of the road going south right along the Cook Inlet. In this image you can see the “split” of land away from the mainland.

John got this good image of the harbor.

While walking we found the Salty Dawg Saloon and after looking in decided to have a home brewed beer. Every surface in the building is covered in dollar bills.

They have constructed this Seafarer’s Memorial that John captured.

After a great dinner—fresh peel and eat red strip shrimp from Prince Williams Sound, oysters on the half shell, salmon and clams and prime rib (guess who chose that!) we drove north. John saw a lynx cross the road about five miles outside Homer.

Linda caught the biggest fish of the day!

John landed six halibut, released four and I landed two and stopped fishing, two is the daily limit. It rained all day long, although the seas were relatively quiet.  Had a great time with four other people on the charter.  Here are some of the day's images.

John landed the first fish of the day.

Landing a 45 pound halibut is hard work and the manufacture of rain coats always makes the hoods way too big, or I have a very small head!

Even after 6 hours on the boat, John was a happy camper.  We are getting ready to head back to land.

John with the entire day's catch.

With our four fish.

The guide and his sister filleted all the fish and then we took our 47 pounds to the processing plant for packaging and freezing, then it will be air freighted to us.

This was our boat for the day.  The guide Mark actually built the boat and with his family owns the operation.  We had halibut for dinner tonight and it was yummy!  Bro John says "damn good."

July 8 – 11

Thursday morning we left Palmer and drove down the Steward Highway to a National Forest Camp Ground called Trail River. It is located right on the Kenai Lake, nestled in the surrounding mountains which are snow topped and beautiful. We parked the trailer about 20 feet from the water’s edge. The lake, because it is snow feed is a brilliant turquoise color and there are several streams which fill it with water and fish. Just had to walk 20 feet to see this:

John snagged a nice rainbow trout on Saturday morning, which he released.

On Friday we took the 8 ½ hour Kenai Fjords National Park Cruise out of Seward. It was a beautiful, cool morning going out into Resurrection Bay we could see Mount Marathon where they have an annual July 4 race. Hundreds of runners divided into Youth, Men and Women categories run up that trail and back again… look closely. It’s steep 1.75 miles with a gain of 2800 feet. We followed the race in the newspaper up in Palmer. The men do the race in 43 minutes, women in about 53. The same woman has won for seven years in a row and announced her retirement…I would guess she had tired legs.

Out in the bay we saw harbor seals, humpback whales, (which John caught blowing), sea lions, puffins, and lots of other animals—even the salmon put on a show jumping out of the water.

This is an image of Bear Glacier, one of many which are part of the Harding Ice Field. This glacier is now actually three joined together due to the melting of the ice. You can see the black lines which separate them. In the lower left hand corner there are some ice bergs which have broken away and sit in a lake which has formed.

We left the bay and traveled in the Gulf of Alaska to see the Holgate Glacier. Check out the size of it and the sail boat John captured. He also caught the calving, ice falling off the glacier in the lower left. The ice breaks off and just floats in the gulf until it melts. John wanted to hum the theme from Titanic!

Great day, cold and I worked hard as evidence below

On Saturday it was cool and rainy so we just took a trip up to Cooper’s Landing and from there followed Quartz Creek Road. In many locations where there are boat docks, there are kids life jackets available for people to borrow. As PDF Otter says “kids don’t float!

We are at the Diamond M Ranch RV Park until the 19th when we'll head north back to the "Top of the World Road" through Chicken, Alaska and into Dawson City, Yukon Territory.  Tomorrow we have charter to go halibut fishing at 10 am and on Friday we go salmon fishing at 5 am.  More later.

July 7, 2010

Yesterday we visited Anchorage and spent time at the Alaska Native Heritage Center which is designed to celebrate the eleven distinct cultures within this huge state. They have films, carvers carving four totem poles which will be installed in the Clan House in August, dancers, and exhibits of native arts and crafts including making mukluks, jewelry and an art museum. Along the path they had cotton trees. Many New Mexicans complain about the cottonwoods along the Bosque, they are nothing compared to this:

John particularly liked this saying outside the Community House in the Inupiaq & St. Lawrence Island Yupik Nation.

Some dancing

Fascinating facts to me:

• Most of the living space in the far north is subterranean with long “s” shaped entrances to the structures so that the adult bears would not enter. However, the cubs will take the time, due to their curiosity, to wonder down the “s” entrance. If they enter, they are clubbed to death because if they are released, the mother picks up the scent and will ignore them.

• When an animal is killed, they use everything because of the belief that they have captured the soul of something. For example, they make rain boots out of the skin of the salmon fish and the intestines of a seal were used as the panes of this window which was acquired for the permanent exhibit. The title is “Six Panel Gut Window” and it is made from: seal intestine, antique window frame, paint, waxed embroidery floss, permanent ink. Beautiful!

We also saw examples of intestines being used for raincoats and to cover roof holes, like a skylight. The lining of the liver is used for making drums!
John then took me to the seaport airport at the Ted Stevens International Airport. Remember him, he was the Alaska senator who was charged with using funds to remodel his home and then found innocent? We stood on the shore and watched planes land and take off.

Today we followed the Knik River on the Old Glenn Highway and found this moose. She was without a calf, just eating away in this slough.

We are leaving here tomorrow and will go down into Moose Pass hopefully finding a camping spot in the Alaska National Forest, so there will be no internet. On Friday we are cruising the Kenai Fjords for 8 hours-I’m looking forward to some photo opts with wildlife and the glaciers and John is looking forward to the salmon and prime rib dinner.

We’ll be posting again when we reach Soldotna on Monday.

July 4 and we’re on the Matanuska Glacier

Mile marker 102 of the Glen Highway captured our interest today—just needed to get out of the little Mat-Su Valley and get out of the rain - see some sunshine and blue sky. This little jaunt did just that!

Let’s catch up on the 2nd and 3rd first though. It rained off and on for 48 hours and was on the chilly side. We drove out so John could fish on the last day of king salmon on the Little Su River, but the only interesting thing we saw was the Alaska Department of Corrections fence. Just laughed then yesterday we went back into the same area only towards the southwest and came upon a huge construction site—the new Alaska prison. They currently send most prisoners to Colorado, but decided to keep them at home in the future

Also visited the Iditarod World Headquarters in Willow. They had a man with a team of 8 dogs hooked to a wagon and he was giving rides, but we didn’t bite. The film presented was informative with some beautiful scenery. Can you imagine standing on the back of this sled, filled with all your gear for 1049 miles from Anchorage (ceremony only) and then again the actual start for your timed run in Willow and end up in Nome. Days of going over 100 miles with your team of dogs; this year it took the winner 11 days to complete the race. It’s an expensive, beautiful sport, but man on man not for the faint of heart.

Today we drove 60 miles northeast to the only glacier you can get to in Alaska via automobile, the Matanuska Glacier which is 24 miles long and 4 miles wide at the terminus which exists on a valley floor. We walked to the end of the trail and as you can see from the images below it was beautiful, but dirty. The first two images John took with his new camera and the part that looks like regular ground is actually dirt and stone over the top of the ice.

In this image you can see the melted waters running into the Matanuska River.

John walked out on the glacier further than I did and I caught him coming back – can you believe how well he is walking?

July 1

We started the day by moving camp south to the Mat-Su Valley area, specifically to the Homestead RV Park in Palmer.  This area includes the villages of Wasilla (made famous by John McCain), Houston, Willow, Knik as well as multiple mountain ranges (3700 feet max.) and streams.  We will stay here for a week.

Yesterday, after getting set up, we drove the Hatcher Pass which was famous for mining in the 1920s - 1950s, although there are still some smaller operations.  The glacier valley is popular for trails/hiking in the summer and snow activities all winter.  We spent a few hours at the Independence Mine State Historical Park.  This mine was the second richest in Alaska and was know for the silver buildings with red trim.  There was a complete city--bunkhouses, an apartment building, school, engineering offices, general store, mill and assay office.  There is a 1/2 mile hike up to the rail yard where the ore cars would come out of the mines - it was an area where you could spend all day trying to get images! This one I took from the top of the trail and it shows some of the building along with the deteriorated wooden mining structures.

The second bunkhouse fire escape.  This one was about half the size of the other bunkhouse.

When we were in the arctic, we learned about the Palsas--permafrost cases the earth to thaw and freeze then refreeze, which results in "bumpy" soil.  It is sponge like and has the definite order of damp dirt.  On the pass, since it is a glacier valley a lot of the land had these palsas as evidence below.  That is snow on July 1 which hasn't melted.  Many locations high and low altitude still have snow.

The Alaska Department of Game and Fish closed the King Salmon season after midnight tonight for this area,  so John is going fishing after the Ford dealer changes the oil in his truck.  We have fishing carters for the 13th (halibut) and the 16th (salmon) so he's not too concerned about this closure.

Found out the fireworks display starts at 11:59 pm on the 4th.  Go figure, these two seniors won't be going to that event!

June 30

We ended our first month of travel on a high! Spent most of the day traveling on the Petersville Road to an old mining camp and an Alaskan Mining Recreational Area – 64 miles about 6 hours. On the way a miner stopped to talk to us about the area and to warn us about bears. He fulfilled my image of a miner—huge salt and pepper beard, sparkling eyes, lives in the wilderness for spring, summer and fall and spends winters in Indiana.

In the 1920s Chinese workers mined at the Petersville mine while the boss lived up on the hill and could “spy” on them as evidence in the photo below. There are still individuals who have mining claims out here and we saw several who lived in pretty run down camps.

During the winters, they used this old snow cat. On the inside there is a stencil “10 mph max”.

On the way back to camp, we stopped at the tourist town of Talkeetna. It was charming! Flowers and moose racks everywhere, shops full of art, trinkets, food and booze. Had dinner at The Mountain Top Pizza Pie. Our server suggested the Gyro Pizza and it was so good-got to combine pizza and salad all in one. Because it would have been soggy (with the lettuce and tomatoes on top) to have as leftover breakfast this morning, we just sat and had another brew and finished it!

The village is looking for volunteer firefighters, but you need to be able to drive this old jeep!

30 days, 6998 miles. Having a great time. We’ll move south towards Palmer this morning for the Fourth of July weekend. My only question is how do you have fireworks when it doesn’t get dark?