Hope

Thursday, July 22.  We woke up to raindrops again this morning, but it finally cleared off a little.  We got some bad news from back home in Indiana, the grandson of one of my dearest friends died, and we were very sad to hear that.  My friend Barbara, who is one of my very best, lifelong, most wonderful friends and I've know her since first grade (I know she is reading this) tracked me down again with this news, and I really appreciate how she keeps me informed.  However, I wish she would relay some good news to me when I'm traveling!  Our hearts go out to Mike and Donna in the loss of their grandson.

We changed campgrounds to one in the national forest called Porcupine Campground (we never saw any porcupines, though.)  Collins thought Dave's Dodge could no longer do the job, so he is backing up his Saturn Vue to hook up the Johnsons' Silver Streak so we can move.

It was good to have the Brundiges back.  I think.  Here's out campsite in the woods.  Lots of mosquitos, but we have a view of the Cook Inlet behind us.

Anyhow, we got moved and then Joe took us "old women" out to the creek to go gold panning. In yesterday's travels, we met a woman named Dovie at a gold panning/gift shop/tackle shop who had staked a claim in the Coeur d'Alene Campground here, and she gave us permission to pan on her claim.  So I have a slip of paper with permission for the "Froeschke party" to pan.  It was a beautiful drive back to this campground (it was for tent camping, so we didn't move to this one), and we found a place to get in the water.

It was fun panning, and we thought we found some gold dust, and maybe a couple very small flecks of gold, but we finally gave up and headed back.  The road back to this campground had beautiful views of the tundra-covered mountains.

On our drive back, we had a nice view of the Cook Inlet

While we were off goldpanning, Collins had gone fishing, and he brought back two salmon (pinks) for dinner.  David gave him a lesson in fileting fish, but he needs more practice!  Marilyn cooked up a fine dinner for all of us (spare ribs and all the salmon you could eat).

Seward

Tuesday-Wednesday, July 20-21.  Our first adventure this morning was a trip to Seward's "Alaska Sealife Center," Alaska's only public aquarium and ocean wildlife rescue center.  This center was built through funding from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Settlement.  There was an awesome, 2000-lb stellar seal entertaining us, and various exhibits of other marine life.

There was also live video from an island 35 miles away of harbor seals basking in the sun.

When we left this Center, we ate lunch (halibut again) and Joe and David decided to get haircuts, so Mazie and I went off to hit the gift shops.

There was a huge waterfall just past the Center, pouring water into the bay, right behind the Sealife Center.  We had passed this yesterday afternoon when we toured the end of the Bay in the Lowell Point area, but I had forgotten the camera.  The Lowell Point area had signs posted as a Tsumani Evacuation Route, so David didn't want to go back into that dangerous territory again.

Then we drove around to the back side of the bay to see what trouble we could get into.  Joe likes to go on those roads that say "authorized personnel only."  He always thinks he is "authorized."  But Collins says, "you can buy those signs anywhere."  Anyhow, we found a boat repair area and some huge boats in drydock.  There was a "life" that moved these boats around on ground, and we watched them load a barge, which was very interesting.

Then we went out to Exit Glacier, which we had been able to actually walk on in 1998.  It has receded quite a bit since then and is no longer accessible to the public.  It was a mile hike each way, but with some rest stops along the way we made it.

It's pretty awesome to see the huge crevices and the beautiful blue colors.

Here is a sign showing where it was in 1998, so you can see how far it has receded.  This is happening with all the glaciers, which brings up the issue of global warming.

Finally, we reached our destination.

The walk back was a little easier, but it was still a mile.  Here's Joe resting against another "Brenda rock."

As we drove back into Seward, it was time for the charter boats to be coming back in, so we went down to the harbor and watched the guides cleaning the day's catch.

Someone got really lucky and landed a 160-lb halibut.  Bet he was exhausted when he got that one in the boat.

We had oceanside camping again, with just one row of vehicles in front of us.  There was a cruise ship in the harbor the next morning, so we thought it was probably time to leave.

 Mazie has seen on the morning news that there was a Coast Guard research vessel stopping in Seward today on its way to the Arctic Ocean for a 3-year research project on global warming, and we got to watch it come into the harbor. 

On my shopping trip, I picked up three new animals to add to our traveling zoo.  Our dash is getting pretty full.

Finally, we gassed up and hit the road for Hope, population 147.  We met up with the Brundiges here and it seemed like it had been forever since we were all together.  After we got set up and visited for a while, the girls went for a drive to check out the gold panning options.  When we got by the creek, we saw lots of people fishing so we called the guys to  let them know, then we drove back to a gold panning shop.  Well, Joe and Collins drove down to the creek looking for us, so Collins could fish, but we had his fishing pole and boots in the car we were in, so they had to call us and get us back down there.  Finally, Collins got his stuff together and walked out on the bank of Resurrection Creek to fish.  Although several people around him were catching some silvers and pinks, he didn't have any luck (and we forgot the camera).  But he went back the next day and caught 2, which Marilyn cooked up for dinner for all of us.

I forgot one of the tidbits of our time in Denali.  We went in to a restaurant for lunch, and Dave got carded when he ordered a beer.  That made his day, maybe his whole trip!  Of course, when they carded Joe as well, it took a little wind out of his sails.

Skilak Loop Road

Sunday, July 18.  Dave and Mazie headed back to Kenai this morning to get their furnace fixed, so Joe and I headed up the road to the Skilak Lake area on the Skilak Loop Road.  I think we drove 18 miles for this change of scenery, but this park happened to be a national one, in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, so we got to camp for $5.  The campground was nice, with paved roads, but all the sites were pretty short, built 30 years ago when RVs were much shorter.  Anyhow, Joe got us scrunched in a great spot with a view of the beautiful, emerald-colored Skilak Lake, which is huge, larger than Roosevelt Lake in Arizona.  The Kenai Rivers runs through this lake, which is where it gets its color, and it has all 5 specie of Alaska salmon in it, plus rainbow trout and Dolly Varden.  We didn't fish, but we thought about it.  But it was rainy most of the time, so we really had a nice, quiet afternoon with a great view. We were barely off the road, and one tire of the Explorer was on the grass, which is a violation of the rules, but we decided to risk it for one night.

This area is prime bear habitat so we kept on the alert, but we never saw a bear here.  There was a bird rookery (island) out just a little ways, and we could hear the seagulls all the time.  We spotted an eagle up on the mountainside, and a couple of loons (we think) swimming by.

It finally stopped raining about 6:00 p.m., so we took a walk.  There was a family fishing off the boat ramp (one little girl kept running in the water, Yikes, that had to be cold).  Then a boat came in so we watched them unload.

We walked on through the trails.  Joe thought I was pretty well camoflaged in my lime green rain jacket, which I am getting a lot of use out of.

All the Alaska boat ramps have life jackets available for kids.  We remembered this from our last visit here, and think its a great idea.  Most of the rivers in Alaska really roar, so its good that there are always life vests available.

Here's a picture of this lake, showing the Kenai River coming in and going out of it.

After dinner, we drove the rest of the loop road in the car (looking for bears).  We saw some great views of the lake and the surrounding mountains, which still have streaks of snow on them.

This one area was the regrowth from a 1991 forest fire.  We assume the red flowers are fireweed.

Monday morning we broke camp and headed to Seward.  On the way out on the loop road, we came upon a culvert, and from my seat in the RV I could see the salmon swimming up Hidden Creek.  Of course, we had to stop and take a few pictures.  There were probably 60 staging right before the culvert, and we could see others behind them.  They were also on the other side of the culvert.

Of even greater interest, though, were the dead salmon lying on the bank.  Obviously, the bears had been here during the night or early morning.  They just ate the heads and left the rest, which I believe means that they are pretty full.  But these salmon would have been easy pickings for the bear because they were so thickly staged. We saw almost a dozen dead salmon carcasses.  We were surprised there were no birds or other animals eating the left-overs, but we didn't see any.

After the salmon went through the culvert, that had to find their way through a brush pile, so we watched that for a while.  But they were able to find a deep spot through the limbs.  Some of them had to look it over a couple times before they made the dash through there.  You can see how shallow this creek is.  We could see the salmon coming because they had to splash through some places, and their backs were actually out of the water.

Finally, we left there and met up with Dave and Mazie for pie in Cooper Landing. But as we were driving past the Kenai River back on the Sterling Highway, we saw some people fishing on the bank, and a BEAR on the other side of the bank.  There was not a pull-off available, so we didn't get to see the bear for very long, but it was a big old grizzly. Dave had his furnace replaced so they should be in good shape again for the rest of the trip.

We headed on down to Seward and found a camping spot at the Waterfront Park Municipal Campground.  We have a great view of the bay here where the boats come past us.  A sea otter spent some time right in front of our area so we got to watch him floating around for a long time.

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.