Moose River

Saturday, July 18.  We spent two nights at this Moose River RV park, where the Moose River joins the Kenai River.  We took a drive today on the Swanson River road, and stopped at some nice lakes.  This first one was named Weed Lake, and it looked like a perfect spot for moose but we didn't see any. 

Many of the lakes were a short hike but a couple had a campground right on the shore.  The second one was Rainbow Lake, and we spotted a loon (we think) in the water here. 

The road ended at the Swanson River Landing,.  This river is a popular area for canoers, and this area is the terminas for the Swanson River canoe route.
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On our way back there was a bird in the road, which we think is a female ptarmigan ( female willow grouse).

We came back to camp for lunch, then headed out again to a carvings shop we had seen on the highway.  Unbeknownst to us, they were having a "sawfest" and there were lots of people there, there were carving areas set up, a gold panning area, a carousel.  They had some kind of contest on the carvings.  Here are some of our favorites.  This first one has fish as the bottom, but they may not show up unless you enlarge the photo.

I found a new friend here.

The carousel was pretty neat.  Instead of horses, you rode on sea otters, moose, bear, caribou.  Kaylee, you would have liked it.

We watched the gold panning for a while but we didn't try our luck at that.  Then we took another drive, back to some state campgrounds.  We saw one guy catch a red salmon, and other people fishing in the Kenai.  That river really runs fast, so we didn't get too close.

David had set up an appointment to have the repair guy drive out to our campground and work on his furnace again, but the repair guy had truck trouble and never made it out.  So David and Mazie are headed back to his shop in Kenai on Sunday, and Joe and I are going to move down the road 30 miles to the Cooper Landing area and see if we can find a spot in a state park campground.  This area is really busy right now since the reds are running, and a lot of the campgrounds were full today, so we may not find a spot.  Hopefully, David will get his furnace work done and be able to meet back up with us Sunday afternoon.