Soldotna-Kenai

Wednesday-Thursday, July 7-8.  An ex-co-worker of mine, Wendy from the law firm, has a brother who lives in Kenai.  I had contacted him before we left Arizona, and I sent him an e-mail last weekend.  He asked me to call him over the weekend, so when we talked, he offered to take us halibut fishing this weekend, in Homer or Seward, weather permitting.  So we left Wasilla and headed to his stomping grounds.  We just heard on the tv that Willow had a 5.3 earthquake last night, which is only about 20-30 miles north of Wasilla, so we got out of there just in time!

We are actually staying in Soldotna for the next few days, 10 miles from Kenai where he lives.  The drive through Anchorage was interesting -- it has grown a lot since our last visit.  Once we made it down to the Turnigan Arm, the scenery once again was breathtaking.  This is one of the prettiest drives in Alaska, I think.  We stopped at a rest stop and had a view of mountains, with snow striping them still. 

Then we turned onto the Sterling Highway and came through the beautiful Kenai River area.  It is sort of emerald colored, and is very pretty.

We finally found a campground in Soldotna, after several phone calls.  The second run of the reds, I believe, is about to start, so this area is really busy.  Thursday, we took a drive through the town of Kenai and on to the end of the Kenai Spur Road.  Mazie and I decided we needed to dip our toes again, this time in the Cook Inlet, which is the Pacific Ocean.

We are always on the lookout for wildlife, and we got to see a moose and her calf across a little lake.

Alaska is just full of pretty lakes, creeks and rivers. Of course, we think every one of them should have a moose in it!

I thought this tree was pretty awesome.  There were several around this lake that seemed to grow together.

We stopped at a picnic area with a great view of the Cook Inlet.  From here, we could see some boats and some oil platforms out in the water.

We crossed a bridge where some people were standing with their macho cameras out.  They said we had just missed a mama moose and calf in the water there.  We took the next side road to see if we could still see them, and came upon this really pretty river (Swanson River).  To me, it looks like it would be a good jigsaw puzzle picture.

Then we stopped at Bishop Creek, which feeds directly into the Cook Inlet.  We got to see some fish (red salmon, we think) working their way upstream in the water that was often only about 6-8 inches deep in places.  We could see them coming, one by one, by the splashes in the stream.  We got to watch some of them as they rested in one spot for a while, before heading further upstream against a pretty good current.

Here is one place they have to work a little harder, but they seemed to find a deep spot and swam right on through.

We headed on back to Kenai for a late lunch (we were all starving) and found another moose and calf.  This may have been the same one we saw earlier, but it was on the other side of the road, so we don't know if it was or not.  The mama looked a little gray around her head, so we don't know if that means she is older or not.

You notice we still are wearing jackets and raincoats most of the time.  We are keeping our fingers that Saturday cooperates and we get to go fishing for halibut.