Fishing Bear

This evening, before we shared dinner with Rob & Sue we drove over to the other side of the Sound, closeby the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal and we were fortunate enough to see a black bear come down and fish for salmon in a pond beside the road. This evening we saw a couple of seals, an otter, an eagle, and the black bear (Ursus Americanus, as opposed to the grizzly or brown bear Ursus Arctus). And as long as I'm talking naughty, let me say that I did not approve of the change from the species of browns: Ursus Arctus, Ursus Toklatii (the Toklat blonde grizzly of Mt McKinley Park, and Ursus Horriblus (the incredibly large grizzly on Kodiak Island)... lumping all those lovely names into just one genus & specie of Brown Bear, Ursus Arctus. But oh well, since they didn't ask me...

We will travel with Rob & Sue back north on the Richardson Highway tomorrow to the junction with the Glenellen Highway, where they will turn southwest and return toward Anchorage and we will continue in a northeasterly direction toward Tok.

Hopefully the weather will lift and we will have better travel sights along the highway!

Valdez was charming, and Garth really enjoyed his trip to the museum with Rob. Sue bailed on yet another museum and chose to do that wonderful female activity... shopping.

We are not sure when we will reconnect with Jan & Walt, but since there are limited road possibilities (there is only one road, not to put too fine a point on it!) we are waiting to hear from them about their repairs and expected date for leaving Anchorage area. One suggestion was that they drive down to Valdez and take the Maritime Ferry over to Haines and save themselves 600 miles driving. We are scheduled to board the Ferry at Haines on Sept. 2nd so we don't have a lot of options available. I'll keep you posted on this exciting (read: expensive!) challenge to their travel plans.

The picture of the glacier was one I thought particularly nice with the evening sun striking the glacier through the clouds. Taken from across the Sound, I believe it's Valdez Glacier, but it might be any one of 3 glaciers hanging over the area!

Dinner was delightful and for dessert we had a second round of slices from the Raspberry-Rhubarb pie I made yesterday afternoon. We picked the rhubarb at the Matanuska Borough Park and the raspberries from a site along the Glenellen Highway where they grow wild beside the road. Fresh-picked made the pie especially nice we all thought!

Down the Richardson to Valdez

We traveled today down the Richardson Highway to Valdez. This relocated city was the epicenter of the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964. At 9.2 the city was pretty much destroyed and the US Army Corps of Engineers said the land was unstable so 52 buildings were relocated. The ones unable to be moved, owing to the extent of damage, were burned clear the land. More than half of the city slid into the ocean during the quake. The new city is a bustling community, with tourism, fishing, and the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal providing income.
The photos are of Worthington Glacier and Keystone Canyon. Both are on the road down to Valdez. You can actually walk right up to the glacier, but it's not recommended as the face is unstable, of course! Keystone Canyon was the site of a gun fight, written about in the book by Max Brand titled The Iron Trail. The gun-fight came about when several railroad companies were trying to build a line up through the canyon to the copper mining region (called Copper Center now).
So many of the mountains, rivers, and lakes were named by various expeditions of the US Army. A promising young lieutenant, named William Mitchell, who built a road up Keystone Canyon, really pushed for Alaska to be a state, recognizing it's military importance. He said, "Whoever controls Alaska, controls the North America." He is more commonly known as Billy Mitchell and is the father of the US Air Force. He was posthumously awarded a non-combat Medal of Honor.
There is a Mt. Mitchell on the Richardson Highway, named after him.
We walked within a few hundred yards of the face of Worthington Glacier, pictured above. There is a small lake and a quarter mile of glacial moraine now where the glacier had been in '65 when we were here before.
In a few minutes we will leave with Rob & Sue and go over to the other side of the bay where there is a bear that comes every evening to fish for salmon. And there are bald eagles there, too, who eat the parts the bear leaves behind. It will be neat if we can see them too. We took Rob & Sue to see the grizzly bears hang out and fish on the Kenai but only one came that evening so we are hopeful that we will see more bears today.
Our next stop will be Haines where we will board the rig onto the Alaska Maritime system and begin our journey down the Inside Passage. I'll try to find internet access and send along more pictures!

Glaciers at Katchemak Bay

These pictures are from our week down io Homer on the Kenai Penn. The glaciers pour into Katchemak Bay across from us. We were camped out on the Spit at a city camp ground. It was incredible.

Garth's brother Rob and his wife Sue have joined us for 10 days. They are traveling in a rented RV and joined us while we were on Turnagain Arm at Portage Valley. The day we took Mary Kasenberg to the airport after her week with us, they drove in from a week up around Mt. McKinley.

We've come north today, stopping at the Russian Orthodox Church, the oldest building on the Penninsula, built by the Russians before Steward bought Alaska from the Russians for 7.2 mil. What a deal he got! A retired priest was there to meet us and tell us about the community of Kenai, a town of 5000 here on the Kenai Penn.

Tomorrow we leave the Kenai and return through Anchorage to the Palmer-Wasilla area. We will overnight in the same Borough Park (Alaska doesn't have counties, they have boroughs, instead) we stayed in when I went salmon fishing. Then we will leave and take a 2-day trip to drive to Valdez, traveling along the Richardson Highway, which is very scenic, we remember from '65.

Rob and Sue will leave us there and return to Anchorage to catch a cruise back down to Seattle and we will hook up again with Jan & Walt (who are traveling slower than we).

Tonight we will drive 7 miles away and see if the grizzly bears are still coming to the bank to fish for salmon. Rob & Sue would love to see them, so we have high hopes!

Fishing with the Grizzlies

Two nights ago, from 7-9 pm, along the Kenai River, we sat on the bank and watched as, across the river, grizzlies came and fished for salmon! They are magnificent animals, graceful and sleek as they walk. They seem to be lumbering along and then you realize that they've covered a lot of territory in such a short time; that's when you change your thought about how they move! First came a mother and what appeared to be 3 yearlings, and she feasted on salmon, the kidlets eating what she dropped. Then they wandered off and the 'big boys' showed up! These were individual animals, as many as 3 at a time, fishing in the shallows on the other side of the Kenai River.
We've changed location now, and have driven to the port city of Seward (named after the US Senator who engineered the purchase of Alaska from Russia... remember "Seward's Folly" from your history classes?) It sits on a deep inlet called Resurrection Bay, down on the south-east coast of the Kenai. We went yesterday to Exit Glacier and Garth hiked up the 3 mile, steep path to the edge of the glacier. I will post a picture of that, too!
There are many bald eagles here. Yesterday they were flying directly overhead as we walked along Main Street, Seward. Huge, imposing birds, with piercing stare and sharp talons...they come for the salmon fishing, too.
Tomorrow, or the day after, we'll return to the Portage Valley, to a US Forest Service campground named Williwaw where we will camp for 5 days. It's very central to the side trips we wish to take with Mary Kasenberg, and when she has to leave us, it's only 75 min. to Anchorage.

Kenai Lakes

Here is a lovely photo of one of the local lakes. Just thought you might like to see what the scenery looks like around here! Time for me to go start dinner prep. It's Jan's "Cook's Night Out" and I'm making dinner for everyone; I slow-cooked pulled pork yesterday and will serve BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, salad, and pineapple upside down cake. Dinner anyone? I sure am enjoying cooking in the RV. Had to buy a cookie sheet a couple of weeks ago so I could make chocolate chip cookies night before last. I needed to find a smaller size that would fit into the oven in the rig. That oven makes pretty good cookies!

Down the Rabbit Hole!

AS you can see, we've been exploring on the Kenai Penninsula! We discovered a gravel road which goes south into the wilderness. THEN we stumbled across this track leading down (the operative word, being DOWN!) toward what we thought was Sterling Lake. Since Walt's truck has 4-wheel drive, and he was in the lead, he got to go down and see what was at the end of the track. He popped right back up saying that there was a ratty trailer and a mean-looking pit bull. We found someone's favorite fish camp aparently!
The road continued for 11 miles and passed many lakes, most with a few fishermen and the occasional RV parked on an open spot lakeside. It's a whole different life here.
Today is a rest day with Garth washing the truck and I baked a pineapple upside down cake for dessert tonight.
Tomorrow we will drive 2 hrs. back to Anchorage and pick up our friend Mary K who will be traveling with us for a week. We've lots of fun things planned for her, starting off with a 3-hr float trip on the Kenai River. Garth will most likely pass on that, suffering from mal de mer, as he does. He may do something really exciting and wash the RV!
We DID see our first bear fishing for salmon a mile from our camp! He was on a riffle and the local fishermen were giving him plenty of room! It was so funny to see 20 men fishing the river not 100 yards from the bear who was doing the same thing!

Kenai Lake

Hello friends & family! We've moved down onto the Kenai Penninsula yesterday & today we took a short drive (15 mi.) to Kenai Lake. It was a gravel road and really wild, uninhabited country! We took a picnic lunch and enjoyed it beside the lake. It had been rain, rain, and more rain in the Portage Glacier Valley, but clearing now and today is beautiful with blue sky & small puffy clouds, and temps in the high 70's.
We're staying 3 days in a Princess Line RV Park. Didn't know there was such a beast, but with our discounts it's no different in price than the local RV Park, and it has lovely ammenities, internet access included! I'm sitting in the lodge (very posh, too) with huge windows showing me the mountain across the valley and the Kenai River down below. That color, a glacial greeny-blue, is so amazing. It is the glacial silt, with interesting color refractions.There are large flower baskets along the railing, and they are filled with multi-colored blossoms; daisys, pansies, geraniums, sweet williams, etc. The lodge has huge Princess Line buses coming up each day as this is a premier fishing, animal viewing, and sightseeing area in Alaska.
While we stayed in Eagle River (just north of Anchorage) we were able to visit the local Grace Brethren Church. The former pastor, Mr. John Gillis, was my pastor when I was growing up in Sunset Beach. His daughter married a local man and is still attending there. I used to babysit her. It was amazing that she remembered me! We missed Mr. & Mrs. Gillis as they were up here last month. Kelly will give her father the news that Garth & I were there in the church he pastored for so many years until his retirement.
We stopped to bird watch at Potter's Marsh, south of Anchorage, along the Turnagin Arm (think the big inlet that was so close to the 1964 earthquake and sank 6-8 feet, flooding two villiages, and causing them to need to be relocated). At the birding area we saw a red-necked grebe (a first for me!) and 3 bald eagles!
The salmon are running and every creek has signs of them spawning. I'm still waiting to see the bears coming down to feed on the salmon! I remember that from the trips in '63 and '65.
Our friend Mary Kasenberg arrives on Monday and we've plans for a raft trip along with a half-day salmon fishing expedition!
Garth has enjoyed the home-cooked dinners every night but I think I'm going to ask to be taken to dinner at the lodge tomorrow night. The cook needs a night off!

This massive glacier is the Matanuska Glacier. We went to see it a couple of days ago, before we moved the rigs down to Eagle River State Park, close to Anchorage.
Today we packed a picnic lunch and drove along the Seward Highway through Anchorage and down along Turnagain Arm. We remembered this road for the incredible devastation caused by the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964. Today it's lovely and the wreckage of homes and businesses is long removed. We will go back there to see the tidal bore later in the month, when the tide surges in, sometimes as high as six feet! We decided to eat our lunch at the Potter's Marsh Viewpoint. The marsh, created when the railroad constructed a huge long causeway in 1917, is home to many kinds of birds and animals. We walked out to the end of the boardwalk and sat at the viewing station, watching a red-necked grebe and chicks. Garth spotted a bald eagle and then we added 2 more! Turns out the immature one had just left its nest today and was sitting on a branch below the parents. There were kingfishers there also... lovely bird, and so brightly colored. The grebe I was able to add to my Life List in the front of my Peterson's Field Guide to Western Birds.
In the evenings we've been playing cribbage on the lovely board I purchased in Tok when we entered Alaska. Garth has had the devil's own luck with winnings and I'm trailing sadly in the overall count, but I did squeek out a win last night!
Tomorrow, after we go to church, we will move the rigs 40 miles of south of Anchorage to Bird Point State Park. Jan & Walt have driven down there this afternoon, both as a scenic drive and to check it out for us. Mother is with us for just over a week and then will return to Jan & Walt's rig in time for our friend Mary Kasenberg to join us.
We're off to go make sure we know where the church is... a recon mission, to be sure!